Mandates and increasing pressure push part-time public servants to the brink.

Getting involved in local, small-town politics should almost be a requirement.

There are to many times that I wonder how many people in this state understand just what must happen to make a town function properly. For many of Maines smaller towns, there is nothing more than a “volunteer” board of selectmen and planning board that must meet these demands. Yes, there is some compensation, but it is so little in most towns that after it is broken down, it does not meet the minimum wage.

What is the future?

And the demands from the state and problems of sprawl and taxation are rising each year.

What is the future of the smallest of Maine’s small towns?

If smaller towns do not have at least one or two people willing to stay involved in local government for many years at a time, all continuity, experience on laws and regulations, and knowledge of deadlines is lost.

The tasks can be daunting. By assuming a selectman’s job, a person becomes liable for the safety of anyone working for the town. That includes all the human resources work of monitoring legal working age, maximum hours allowed to work and at what rate of pay, qualifications of every employee and safe work practices, to name a few.

In many of the smaller towns, you are not just the selectman. There are so many other jobs that must be filled to make a town: assessors, planning board member, schools board, code enforcement, clerk, registrar of voters, tax collector, ballot clerk, health officer, animal control, fire department, highway department, electrical inspector, plumbing inspector, and on and on.

And some of these jobs cannot be combined by state law.

Additional information

It seems that almost every year the state requires additional information on development, town budgets, human services, waste disposal, tree growth, open space and more. The state also does an audit of the town’s books each year.

Wouldn’t it save everyone’s time if one trained and qualified person from the state asked all the questions and recorded the answers during this annual visit for any town that requested it?

Let me discuss sprawl and development a little. Augusta is aware of what is happening around this state. Take a small town in this state that has a fairly new board of selectmen and planning board. These towns are prey for the developers that are looking at a fast buck. Look at any town that has large bodies of water in its boundaries and I’ll show you a town that is easy picking for a developer unless there is someone working with the town that knows the laws and regulations.

Look at what is happening in the Moosehead Region. What is to stop a similar development plan from showing up at any town office that is struggling because of an inadequate number of qualified townspeople willing to get involved?

If a town plan has not already been started when a developer files their plan, that plan will be grandfathered and the town must move forward as the present laws and regulations mandate. We must also remember that there is a good chance these townspeople will be working with professionals who already have some knowledge of what the answers should look like.

Keep your eyes open. It is already happening.

Some towns declined

Last year, our representatives in Augusta passed a bill called L.D. 1. It was supposed to reduce property taxes for everyone in the state. L.D. 1 was to appease the general public to vote down an issue on the ballot last November 2004. It worked. Along with this win for the Legislature, there were 174 towns that also won. These towns were fortunate and actually saw a decline in their property taxes. The failure of L.D. 1 did not necessarily come when 158 other towns saw no decrease but when the town fathers in 154 towns in the state realized that they actually needed to increase the taxes assessed to their communities.

Has anyone in Augusta tried to figure out why L.D. 1 has failed to reduce taxes in 312 Maine communities as promised?

Augusta is very much aware there have recently been four towns that have actually gone through the de-organization process and have succeeded. There is another town presently looking at the process, and there are more than a dozen towns showing interest. There are no statistics that show how many other small towns are watching this issue. Augusta’s solution to all this deorganizing interest was to pass a bill making it harder for a town to de-organize.

More paperwork

Who can blame these towns though.

Each year, a little more gets added to the list of paperwork that we must address. There are certain forms that the towns will get penalized for if they are not filed with the state by a certain date. This all takes time for these people that hang on to run these small towns. These part-time public servants are attempting to address all these issues in addition to their regular lives. It’s no easy job to balance the demands of work, family and local government.

There are some towns that enjoy development, but there are others trying to preserve their history and striving to keep them the way life should be, as seen in the advertisements.

What is the future for Maine’s smallest towns? Will they survive?

No one has that answer.

What is the future of Maine? My prediction for Maine: In 20 years, it will look similar to what most of Massachusetts looks like today; just as today’s Maine looks like Massachusetts did just 20 years ago.

I hope I’m wrong for our kids’ sake. I also hope that the state will take a good look at what is happening to our smallest towns and not continue to treat us like the larger towns that have full-time positions looking out for their welfare.

I do not have the answers, just some questions.

Steve Duguay is a selectman in Byron.