In response to Carl Sheline’s recent op-ed (Thursday, July 27), I note that a familiar refrain of the pro-merger fans revolves around the “negativity” of the “opposition” toward approving the Consolidation Agreement, which if approved on Nov. 7, will seal the deal and merge the city of Auburn into the city of Lewiston.
It is a “yes” or “no” vote. A citizen can be on the “yes” side, and be deemed a good person and supportive. If a citizen is on the “no” side, she or he is labeled as “biased,” laced with negativity, unable to understand “facts” and/or suffering with outdated stereotypes in Mr. Sheline’s indictment of them.
As Mr. Sheline leads his group, One LA, the political arm of the Joint Charter Commission, he is badly misreading public sentiment against the proposed Consolidation Agreement, better known as the merger.
When the voters cast their ballot this fall, there are going to be dozens of reasons why they are going to vote “no.” Some will have read every page of the Consolidation Agreement and have seen it for what it is. They want no part of it. Others will object to a small group of pro-merger types, riding on the backs of hundreds of thousands of dollars, trying to dictate that they no longer live in Auburn, or Lewiston, but now have a new address.
How brazen it is for people they don’t even know to tell them they now live in a new city.
Others are not interested in “joining forces” and “uniting” with folks across the river. They are simply comfortable with their lives in Auburn or Lewiston and would rather remain as is. There is no reason why these voters have to explain their reasons for voting “no” to Mr. Sheline, as “uninformed” as Mr. Sheline and friends claim them to be. And they certainly do not deserve to be insulted as “backward thinking” and “stuck in the past.”
“No” voters don’t believe that the fairy tale of post-merger will ever come true. They don’t believe the cost savings. They don’t believe we’ll become a powerhouse in Augusta. And they don’t believe the rosy economic growth that will materialize because we now are a merged city of 60,000 people. They know as much, at this point, as anyone on the pro-merger group and will remain unconvinced.
The attitude of the Joint Charter Commission reminds one of a French princess, when told the peasants in the field had run out of bread, said “Then let them eat cake.”
Many in Auburn, and probably more in Lewiston, have lived around here long enough to know that there is no “cake” unless they work for it, individually.
Hope is not a strategy.
Bob Stone, Ward 2 councilor, Auburn
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