Greetings, Scarborough friends and neighbors,

Somehow, the phrase “dodging a bullet” doesn’t seem quite adequate to describe the natural gas leak that shut down Route 1 in both directions on Friday morning.  When a Fire Department official noted that they could hear the leak “like a jet engine,” one gets the idea that this wasn’t a trivial matter.  One hesitates to imagine the magnitude of an explosion or fireball that might have occurred.  Suffice it to say that it could have put quite a dent in our oh-so-groovy Downtown TIF District.

Did you notice that none of the reporting of the incident identified the contractor or project involved in the incident?  A careless contractor punctures a 6-inch gas main that could have left a crater as big as the site for a new elementary school (25 acres), but the Town protected them from any adverse media impact.  Oh, well, mistakes do happen.  It’s just another one of the many ways the Town demonstrates how “development friendly” we are.  (Had enough of that attitude yet?)

Meanwhile, the much-maligned Comfort Inn gets hammered again — merely because the contractor screwed up in front of the property.  Let’s face it, this wasn’t the Comfort Inn’s project that went bad.

And we should probably be glad that the Town didn’t go into its usual spin mode. Can’t you see them issuing a press release thanking the contractor for causing the potentially catastrophic incident, thereby allowing us to test our emergency response capability. The Town’s ability to put a happy face on potential disaster is unmatched.

What school referendum???

You will be forgiven, esteemed reader, if you do not realize that we will be voting on the FY 2024 school budget proposal on June 27.  Most local communities already voted on their school budgets on June 13.  Our vote was delayed, apparently, because our annual audit for the prior year had not been completed.  (Why it took until May 31, 2023 to complete the audit for the year that ended on June 30, 2022 is a story for another time.)

Also, there seems to have been very little publicity about the school budget vote by the Town and School Department.  It’s almost as if they don’t want folks to vote.  Please don’t fall into that trap!  Whether you vote yes or no is less important than that you vote!  So please vote at the High School on Tuesday, June 27.

There are also still three early voting days left at Town Hall – Tuesday, June 20 through Thursday, June 22.  Hours are from 7am until 5pm.

Great masses of information about both the school and municipal budgets are available on their respective websites.  A quick, concise review of the proposed budgets prepared by our friends at SMARTaxes/Concerned Taxpayers of Scarborough may be found at this link.

And if you’d like to join the mailing list for their wonderfully informative newsletter, just send a quick email to info@smartaxes.com.  They’ll be happy to help keep you informed!

You may also want to check out two letters to the editor in the most recent issue of the Scarborough Leader linked here.

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That’s all for now folks.  It’s going to be a busy summer as the Town tries to finalize a proposal for a new $150 million elementary school which will go to the voters on November 7.  At the moment, they’re negotiating with The Downs to purchase the land for the new school.  Wait until the details for that transaction become public!

Happy trails until we meet again!  In the meantime, enjoy all the best that Scarborough has to offer today.  We don’t know how long it will last…

Be neighborly,

TT Hannah

(nom de blog of Steve Hanly, who accepts full responsibility for the above content)