Over the last couple of months, a series of events in Western Maine has provided strong evidence that this state’s structure of government is often not only inefficient, but illogical. Fortunately, as has been well documented in our history, times of adversity and challenge also bring forth new opportunities.

While we could likely select any region of Maine and paint a similar picture, the towns of Jay and Livermore Falls have been through such a unique period it is worth highlighting and asking some important questions.

Jay and Livermore Falls are two separate towns and call two different counties home. And while their downtowns flow seamlessly from one to the other, and a once major, now idle, paper mill straddles the town line, the mil rates for property taxes are day and night, thanks predominantly to Verso’s Androscoggin Mill buoying Jay’s tax base.

Those political boundaries were set over a century ago and were related more to the land holdings of private investors and industrialists and struggles to cross the river by ferry to access town services.

The economic and community boundaries, however, have evolved significantly as rail and road networks and the growth in technology have redrawn the landscape. And while communities can evolve and economies often must, how do political boundaries evolve?

In Maine, unfortunately, they don’t.

Some call it Maine’s famed “local control” that has kept around 500 municipalities of some kind in the state. Many describe the lack of local government reform through the lens of high school football. Towns like Jay and Livermore Falls, Lewiston and Auburn or Old Town and Orono won’t work together in a meaningful way, because someone lost a high school football game and remains bitter about it.

Of course, most elected and appointed officials in those communities and others probably never played football or can’t remember the scores of the games if they did, but the populace remains entrenched against working with their rival town.

But in Jay and Livermore Falls, it appears new movements toward cooperation could help set a future direction.

Under school consolidation, districts were to come together with other districts. Through that effort, a proposal was put forth in Jay and Livermore/Livermore Falls that voters rejected. Yet, in recent months, the towns have come back to the table. New talks are underway, that have been expanded to include Fayette and Winthrop, and hanging over their head are fines that could total $400,000 for not consolidating.

Previous efforts to consolidate dispatching services between Livermore Falls and Androscoggin County had been rejected by voters, but at last month’s special town meeting voters, by a very narrow margin, moved to make that consolidation happen.

A partnership to expand the Livermore Falls summer recreation program to include residents from the town of Jay is moving towards adoption. As written, Jay would make an investment in the program sufficient that both Jay and Livermore Falls youth could attend at the same rate.

Rather than propose sharing services as a means to save immediate dollars, the towns noted that this partnership would allow for a better and expanded program at the same cost. Bringing towns under a bigger, but still local umbrella, provides an economy of scale that benefits residents and businesses.

Those are small steps, but could build momentum around providing higher quality services for the region, and not just along town boundaries.

In the mid-20th century, when International Paper decided their mill site along the Androscoggin was no longer sufficient, they narrowed the options for a new mill to two locations; Livermore Falls and Jay. The location in Jay was selected and set the courseof history in a very different direction.

The economy that led to that mill’s construction has changed and left
its shell behind, yet the government created in the 19th century
remains the same.