SALEM TOWNSHIP — The SAD 58 Board of Directors will meet Oct. 25 to discuss the challenges of communicating information about rising taxes and declining student enrollment to the public.

The meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. at the Kingfield Elementary School.

For more than a year, the board has been deliberating how to modify, keep or eliminate the district’s arrangement of four elementary schools and one high school. At Thursday’s meeting, directors voiced frustration that input from the public hasn’t been what they hoped for.

“Do you think they understand that we were trying to get ideas?” Avon board member Ellen James asked. “It doesn’t seem like they thought that was what the whole meeting was about.”

But director Mike Pond of Strong offered a different view of the meeting’s results. He said the board needed to present options for the public, so they had some idea of what the district needed to do.

“Don’t you think we have to give them ideas?” Pond asked. “You’re asking them to solve the whole dilemma that we’re in. You want something from them, but we’re not giving them anything to even think about.”

Pond said directors should lay out several plans, but so far, they haven’t even worked out among themselves what those options should be.

“We’ve just spent $30,000 on what to do with these buildings,” Pond said, “and we haven’t talked about it, even among ourselves. If you don’t go in with some facts and figures, how do you expect them to?”

District board meetings traditionally start with an opportunity for the audience to ask questions and make comments. The board’s business meeting can include the public comment at the discretion of the chairman. After listening to a half hour of discussion about drawing more public input, Phillips resident Lauri Sibulkin raised his hand from the audience.

“I’m not going to take public comment right now, because the time for that has passed, and it interrupts the flow of the meeting,” Chairwoman Judith Dill told Sibulkin.

Sibulkin sat silent for a few moments longer as the board continued discussing the possibilities to connect with the community. He then walked to the directors’ table and pointed at Dill.

“I have a public comment to make,” Sibulkin said. “You are asking for some kind of participation and input and assistance in a tremendously difficult thing, and then you told me, ‘No public comment?’”

“How are we supposed to give comments in response to good ideas we want to support and a couple of very directly related things you’re talking about this instant, and not tomorrow or next week?” Sibulkin asked.

“If you don’t want our input, don’t be surprised if there aren’t too many people here,” he said. “That was the most unfriendly comment I’ve ever seen. I’m not some student, I’m a taxpayer.”

Sibulkin then left the meeting in protest, and the board resumed its discussion.

“Perhaps we can figure out some way to show the changes, because each town is different, and each school in each town is different,” Dill said.

“In the end, if I don’t know what the solution is, but I think we’re a long way from finding it, and we’ve got to keep the conversation going,” Superintendent Quenten Clark said.

Eustis director Sue Fotter said one of her retired constituents on a fixed income supported the tough decisions the board might make, even though they could impose an extra financial burden.

Fotter said the resident told her, “’My taxes will go up every year, and I’ll continue to pay them. I’m trusting you, because I want to keep my kids and my grandkids in my town.’”

Phillps director Mary Jane Thorndike said her constituents did not all share such a sanguine outlook.

“That’s great, but that’s not the sentiment I’m getting,” Thorndike said. “They say, ‘I can buy my medication or my food or my fuel oil on my fixed income.’”

The board did not take any action on the issue but did set another public forum for Oct. 25 to further discuss the future of the school system. The meeting will start with a tour of the Kingfield school at 6 p.m.

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