This special time of year is full of wonderful traditions that bring families, friends and communities together. Perhaps our favorite local tradition is the reincarnation of Clark Griswold’s station wagon – topped with the perfect (and uprooted) tree – that can be seen cruising the streets of Scarborough during the Christmas season. Its whimsy reminds us of Clark’s unfailing optimism and basic good-heartedness as he strives to give his family a perfect Christmas despite numerous obstacles. May that spirit be with you this holiday season and throughout the coming year.

Thank you for your support of LookOutScarborough.com during the past year. After our holiday break, we look forward to continuing to provide information, analysis and informed opinions about the latest developments in Scarborough.

And, Clark, this year’s tree sure was a beaut!

Merry Christmas!

TT Hannah

If this chart doesn’t send shivers up and down your spine, you’re very likely suffering from blank-check-itis, a malady characterized by an unwillingness to ask any questions about the school budget and a complete indifference to the impact that budget has on all Scarborough taxpayers.

Suggested treatment: vote for both Liam Somers and Mike Turek, preferably by this Thursday, October 29, but no later than Tuesday, November 3. Without both of these guys on the Town Council, blank-check-itis will become an epidemic.

About the “anti-school” candidates…

Some have sought to divide the candidates into pro-school and anti-school camps to serve their political purposes.  But we are still searching for that elusive Scarborough resident who is “anti-school.”  We don’t speak for either Mike Turek or Liam Somers, but we know both are fully supportive of an outstanding school system.  Both seem to realize that the school budget has to be developed within the context of good business practices, transparency and affordability to the entire community.

We believe both will work tirelessly to eliminate the poker game mentality that currently drives the school budget process.  We believe both will support the goals of:

• providing an understandable school budget presentation for all Scarborough residents,
• exploring all avenues for increased non-tax revenues for the schools (i.e., sponsorships),
• advocating for on-going cost-efficiency efforts for municipal and school operations,
• eliminating scare-tactic budget reduction ploys (like the threat of curtailing popular activities or sports) in the budget development process.

These are not anti-school goals.  They are common sense goals that we believe a vast majority of Scarborough residents would endorse.

And one final reminder, early voting is quick and easy… but only available this Wednesday (until 6:30pm) and Thursday, October 28 & 29. 

Avoid the rush on November 3!

The Squeaky Wheel…

What a difference a few months make! Think back to August when the budget was finally being wrapped up. Do you recall the eleventh hour need to reduce the proposed municipal budget by $180,000 in order to help fund the school budget? Ultimately that resulted in more than $90,000 of reductions to the proposed police and fire department budgets. And yet now – in order to appease a handful of Higgins Beach residents (many of whom are now safely back in their year-round homes in New Jersey or Florida) – the Town can suddenly come up with $18,000 a year for increased parking meter enforcement during the 138-day summer season.

A brief summary of the background of the meter proposal is in The Current [link here].   Do we really need to spend $18,000 every year to prevent a handful of folks from parking for longer than an hour early in the morning and late in the evening? Even if we do, is this such an emergency that it can’t wait to be considered in next year’s budget with other new programs?  Is this really an urgent Town priority?

Tax Relief Band-Aid

And speaking of appeasement… There’s another questionable ordinance that certain Council members seem intent on pushing through in a hurry, namely, amendments to the Property Tax Assistance ordinance (Chapter 313-A). Essentially these amendments would change the current property tax relief program offered to taxpayers who are 62 or older. Sounds promising, doesn’t it?

Perhaps the revisions are fantastic and are just what the doctor ordered. On the other hand, so little information has been made available to the public that it’s impossible to understand the implications of the proposed changes. And – once again – from a process point of view, we don’t understand the rush to implement these changes. The proposed changes would have had the second reading and likely approval at the October 21 Council meeting, if that meeting had not been abruptly canceled. It’s only because of that cancellation that the public has a reasonable chance to ask questions about the program. (For a brief newspaper account of the program, see the article in the October 16 issue of The Leader (link here).)

We have a bunch of questions about this program and how it compares to the existing one. But the main unanswered question is “how much is the new program going to cost?” How can the Town Council approve a new program without having a reliable estimate of its cost? That doesn’t seem like a very disciplined or prudent decision-making process to us.

We also have a nagging doubt… is increasing taxes on everybody the best way to address the issue of unaffordable tax rates for one group of folks? What about the other families in town making less than $50,000? Aren’t many of them having as difficult a time making ends meet as those 62 and over? Isn’t the real solution to keep our taxes as low as possible for EVERYONE?

Our hats off to….

• Fire Chief Thurlow for being named Fire Chief of the Year. Well done to the Chief and all the members of the department!  Story link here.
• Police Chief Moulton and the entire PD for instituting Project HOPE, a program that responds to drug addiction more as a disease rather than a crime.  Story link here.
  

Five reasons to vote TODAY (and not wait until November 3):

• Hurricane/snowstorm/other severe weather event on November 3.
• Avoid this on November 4: “Oh, shoot, yesterday was election day!”
• Vote at your convenience and combine it with a trip to Hannaford or Amato’s.
• Last-minute invitation received for all-expense paid trip to Paris; leaving on November 2.
• November 3: bad head cold, car won’t start, pulled muscle in back… just one of those days.

That’s all for now, folks.  Happy Trails until we meet again.

TT Hannah

 Important note:  The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the writer.  Neither Mr. Somers nor Mr. Turek was consulted about the contents of this blog in advance.

Election day is creeping up on us. This year’s Town Council election is crucial for the future of Scarborough. And the choices we face could not be more stark. Two of the candidates – Michael Turek and William (Liam) Somers – have been strong community voices advocating for a balanced approach to the municipal and school budgets. Both are strong proponents of excellent schools for Scarborough. Both also realize that the school budget “belongs” to all of us, not just the parents of kids in the schools. And that there needs to be a balancing of school needs and taxpayer affordability.

Make no mistake – if the two candidates endorsed by the blank-check-for-the-schools faction are elected, the sky is the limit for the school budget… and for your taxes that pay for it. Be prepared for that first cut of the next school budget to fly through the Town Council, probably on a 5-2 vote.

You remember what the first cut of the school budget usually looks like – “level funding” plus “modest critical investments.”  Probably a 9 to 12% increase next year would be our prediction. Even if the municipal budget gets hammered back to no increase again next year, that could mean an overall tax rate increase in the 6 to 9% range. (Call us alarmists if you will, but time will tell. And we’ve been right before.)

Breaking News – No Social Security COLA in 2016

The official word came from Washington this past week – no cost-of-living increase for folks on Social Security in 2016. That’s after increases of just 1.7%, 1.5% and 1.7% increases in 2015, 2014 and 2013. If you rely on Social Security for most or all of your income, the persistent school budget increases must be scary indeed.  Let’s hope School Board and Town Council members take this into account when putting together next year’s budget. (And, no, we don’t think the “tax relief” program recently proposed by the Town Council is the solution. More on that in our next blog.)

The Fantasy of School Budget Cuts

We hate to beat a dead horse, but the myth of repeated deep cuts to the school budget persists. Next time you hear the myth repeated – especially by candidates for Town Council – please ask them for specifics. And then ask them to explain the following chart (which is based on Town-generated data).

If our math is correct, that’s about a 30% increase in the amount of taxpayer funding of the schools over the past five years. Do you see any evidence of “cuts”? No, you don’t because the history is of consistent increases at a rate well above the inflation rate. Do not believe the myth of school budget cuts!

School Financial Results for Fiscal 2015

The financial results for Fiscal 2015 – which ended on June 30 – are in. School officials presented the unaudited results to the School Board’s Finance Committee and the full School Board on October 1. All the School Board members appeared to be delighted with the results.

Just a couple of quick observations for now. The budget for FY 2015 included 6.7 new FTEs (full-time equivalent positions). Total expenditures were $41,395,000. That’s about $596,000 less than budgeted. At year-end, the general fund balance (i.e., accumulated unexpended amounts, aka, “the cushion”) was about $491,000. (Remember the kicking and screaming this past summer when some Council members dared to suggest trimming back the cushion a bit more so that money could stay in the taxpayers’ pockets? “An outrageous suggestion! Can’t be done!” was the cry at the time. Turns out it could have been done after all.)

But what fascinated us most about the financial report and the questions asked about it was what did not get discussed. As we have all been told numerous times now, salaries and benefits account for more than 75% of the schools’ expense budget. So wouldn’t you think there would have been some rather detailed information and/or questions about salaries and benefits? Well, there were a few nibbles around the edges, but nothing that gave any real insight into salaries and benefits.

Here’s some of the very basic information about salaries and benefits we would hope to find in the schools’ financial statements:

* What was the total salaries and benefits expense for FY 2015?
* How did that compare to the budget?
* How did it compare to the prior year and what was the percentage increase?

If you ran a $40 million plus business, wouldn’t you want to have a clear presentation of your largest expense driver? Let’s hope the newly elected School Board members are more curious about the schools’ finances. (Yes, yes, we know the financial statements are presented in the State-required format. But that doesn’t preclude presenting them in a more conventional and more meaningful format as well. Indeed, many of those neighboring school systems to whom school leadership is so fond of comparing us to do just that.)

Election note: Which two candidates are most likely to ask meaningful questions about the schools’ finances at budget time? 

Answer:

What’s on the Telly? And what’s not…

Scarborough is fortunate to have a robust public access cable television system. Scarborough Community TV (“SCTV”) broadcasts a host of public meetings and school sporting events on cable channels 2 and 3. And these meetings and events are then available on demand for citizens to watch at their convenience.

The list of recorded public meetings is impressive. Almost any Council, Board or committee meeting that’s held gets televised and recorded. The key word in that last sentence is “almost.” It turns out that one committee meeting that doesn’t get broadcast by SCTV is the School Board Finance Committee. What!  Why not? The School Board Finance Committee is where the school budget gets put together and reviewed. It’s where hard decisions get made about what’s in or out of the school budget. And yet it’s not part of the SCTV line-up. Even the Summerfest fireworks display is on SCTV. The School Board Finance Committee meetings belong on SCTV!

Election note: Which two candidates are most likely to support putting the School Board Finance Committee meetings on SCTV? 

Answer:

For a few more common-sense actions to make Town government more transparent and responsive, please check out the new Barnacles & Bilgewater column at The Current.

That’s it for now, folks.  More next week.  But please don’t wait until then to vote.           Do it today!

Until next time, happy trails!

TT Hannah

Important note:  The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the writer.  Neither Mr. Somers nor Mr. Turek was consulted about the contents of this blog in advance.

Farewell, summertime! It was a long, hot one… in more ways than one. And we have a feeling the fall is going to be interesting as well. 

It seems that Jack Frost has been delayed at a climate change conference in Davos, Switzerland this year, so the foliage is running a bit behind. But there’s lots of Scarborough news in the meantime… topics in this blog installment include:

• Higgins Beach parking update
• School Board goals, etc.
• Taxes only up 2.6%!

Higgins Beach recusal — Better late than never?

Councilor Donovan recused.

As usual, you got your money’s worth if you attended the Town Council meeting on September 16.  (Admission is free, remember.)  Councilor Donovan recused himself from the Higgins Beach parking vote as long as his property on Bayview Avenue is for sale. And unless we miss our guess, that sale will close before the next Council meeting on October 7.  But that still leaves in question the validity of the initial Council vote on the Higgins matter in which Mr. Donovan did vote.

.After hearing all the pleas and speechifying, here’s our handicapping of the likely Council action on the Bayview Avenue parking spaces at the October 7 meeting:

We reached out to ACME Parking Solutions Co. for their suggestions for a parking meter solution at Higgins Beach.  Here’s what they came up with:

Polishing up the crystal ball

As you may recall, we often look to our office cleaning lady, Mrs. Kincaid, when we need down-to-earth advice or commentary. Well, it happens that her sister, Mrs. O’Malley, is visiting from Ireland for a few weeks. And Mrs. O. is one of those very few with the gift of “second sight,” or the ability to see into the future. Not always and not in every case, but often enough to be slightly spooky. In any event, we asked Mrs. O. if she could tell us anything about the future of Higgins Beach… and we hit pay dirt. She kindly relayed the following future newspaper headlines to us:

School Board Goal-setting… the budget process begins HERE

At their September 17 meeting, the School Board did some brainstorming on topics for their November 19 retreat. (Mark it on your calendar now!) Nothing really unexpected came up… mostly some old chestnuts.

Since we at LookOutScarborough.com have never been shy about sharing our thoughts, here are four goals we would like to have the School Board set for the coming year:

1. Produce a comprehensive and understandable budget format for FY 2017. Falmouth and Cape Elizabeth’s budget formats have been suggested as good models.  (If this isn’t being worked on now, there’s very little chance that a meaningfully improved budget format will be possible for the coming year. It’s not an easy or quick task. Waiting until mid-November to get the project started will doom it for FY 2017.)

2. Adopt a budget that the citizens of Scarborough will approve at the first validation referendum.   (See “Attainable” and “Realistic” in goal-setting graphic above.)

3. Televise and video record all meetings of the School Board Finance Committee since this is where the School Budget really gets shaped.  Easy to do and extremely important for the public to understand just how the school budget is prepared.

4. Negotiate a teachers’ contract that is fair to both the teachers and the taxpayers.  The teachers’ contract, which will be renegotiated this year, probably accounts for 30% or more of total school costs.  While details of the negotiations may be confidential because of State and Federal law, the School Board should fully disclose the total cost impact of the final contract.  Not just the cost-of-living adjustment percentage, but the entire additional cost of the new contract, both in dollars and percentage increase.

We would love to see these items on the retreat agenda! (If you would, too, the School Board members may be reached at boe@scarboroughschools.org.)

And a few side notes from the  September 17 School Board meeting:

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(1) The girls’ hockey team has locked up some great ice time in a relatively nearby rink for this season. Apparently the ice shortage that was driving the new hockey arena project at break-neck speed last year has eased substantially.

(2) Those new laptops that were the subject of much controversy in the last budget haven’t arrived yet. “Next week,” probably.

(3) The subject of “revenue generation” – like sponsorships and increased revenues from athletics and activities – which have been discussed for at least two years now will apparently again be on the table. Perhaps the FY 2017 budget would be a good time to take this idea off the table and implement it!

One Guru Fits All?

Speaking of matters educational, there was an interesting article in the September 20 Bangor Daily News entitled “We should not rob our schools of our most creative teachers.”  It was written by Kathreen Harrison, a public school teacher in Maine with an interest in school reform. Here are the first couple of paragraphs:

“We are driving excellent teachers out of the profession with our insistence on measurement and standardized systems of accountability. People who became teachers because they were fascinated by the developing human mind, attracted by the chance to help children reach their potential, engaged by the challenge of fashioning learning experiences that would help children grow – these people are leaving the profession in droves.

The Marzano teacher evaluation tool, the Marshall teacher evaluation tool – many of the best teachers don’t respect these cumbersome, awkward tools and they don’t want to live their professional lives bound by them. No one would become a public school teacher in the United States today unless they were naïve enough to believe one guru could know everything (Marzano, Marshall, and the rest of the gang), and liked working in a top-down system where the focus of their job was following directives.”

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And guess which guru the Scarborough schools have hooked up with? Yup, Marzano. We can only imagine how those who have been teaching successfully for ten, twenty or more years must feel about having the “Marzano teacher evaluation tool” thrust upon them. And no wonder the new school calendar has so many professional development days replacing instructional days. It can’t be easy retooling the entire teaching staff in the ways of Marzano.

Tax Time!

That darned real estate tax bill arrived in the mail recently. Some Council members want us to celebrate that the increase was “only” 2.6%. Never mind that the inflation rate has been stuck near zero for a few years now. And that next year’s Social Security cost-of-living adjustment will be zero.

It’s also worth pointing out – again – that the increase is almost completely due to the increase in school costs. The school portion of your tax bill increased by 3.8%.  Here’s a chart that shows how components of the tax rate (or “mil rate”) changed from last year to this year:

In other words, for every 100 bucks your tax bill increased this year, $95 of it went to the schools. And we’ll say it one more time: we are not anti-education. We just want to understand why school costs are increasing at a rate that’s so much greater than almost anything else… and do they need to?  Don’t taxpayers deserve answers to those very basic questions?

Until next time, happy trails!

TT Hannah

Saint Christopher, the patron saint of surfers, at Higgins Beach. (He walked from St. Max’s so parking wasn’t an issue…)

Are we the only ones whose heads are spinning from the latest furor about public access to Higgins Beach? We don’t think so, considering the smokescreens, red herrings and hidden agendas that have been swirling around for the last few weeks. But you have come to the right place to make sense of it all! When it comes to boiling things down, getting to the nub of the matter and generally cutting to the chase, LookOutScarborough is the place to be.

And although surfers have not been the featured players in this year’s presentation of the annual Higgins Beach privatization drama, make no mistake – it is all about the surfers! For reasons we don’t completely fathom, both sides have decided to slip out of their wetsuits (discreetly, of course) and pretend it’s about something other than surfers parking on Bayview Avenue.  Unfortunately, though, all of us who visit Higgins on a regular basis will suffer the consequences of the proposed anti-surfer measures.

Swept Away in a Sea of Phony Issues

“When we’re in Maine, we surf Higgins. It’s super bitchin’!

This is going to be a short blog with essentially one purpose – to allow the informed reader to understand what is really going on amidst all the conflicting claims and noisy rhetoric.

First, remember where this all began.  Early this year, a small group of Higgins Beach property owners approached the Town’s Ordinance Committee complaining about early morning noise and public indecency issues associated with the Bayview Avenue parking spaces…

Photo credit: Flickr user Peter Dutton

Obviously the original complaints of early morning noise and public indecency could not be substantiated, so the proposed solutions didn’t make any sense. But then the nonsense really heated up. Despite the fact that there were no demonstrated problems, the search for “solutions” not only continued, but intensified in an effort to rid Bayview Avenue of surfers.  The need to do something to appease the Privatization Crowd spun out of control. 

Here are a few of the red herring solutions that have been offered up for the non-problems, as well as the relevant facts.

Again, all of these so-called solutions were supposedly to address noise and indecency issues. If you can figure out how they address those issues, please let us know.

Surfers Be Gone!

So if the “solutions” aren’t really about noise or indecency, what are they about? The obvious answer: SURFERS. Certain members of the Privatization Crowd just don’t like surfers on Bayview Avenue. It’s probably nothing personal. Maybe it’s just the wetsuits. Or the assumption that surfers are the cause of all the woes to which they as Abused Property Owners are subjected. Woes like having to watch people having fun at a beach during the summer. We’re not sure of the real root cause, but the surfer animus is definitely there.

If you don’t believe us, just Google some of the newspaper articles for “2011 Higgins Beach surfer public access.”

For further proof of the underlying motivation of the Privatization Crowd, just listen to a couple minutes of Councilor Donovan’s remarks at the September 2 Council meeting starting at 1:41:20 on the video on the Town website. Listen in particular to the edge in his voice when he says: “Get it?  You’re not supposed to park there,” clearly addressing those who engage in ocean sports and wear wetsuits (1:44:50 on the video).  It’s rather shocking to see an elected official engage in such broad stereotyping — it’s only the surfers who are abusing the parking limits.  And besides, those spaces were never intended for you.

Catch a wave!

Alas, dear friends, this is what it all boils down to – a few of our neighbors have retreated to Victorian beach etiquette standards and want the surf crowd banished from Bayview Avenue. And the rest of us are being swept along, pulled as if by a rip tide out into the stormy sea of a punitive parking restriction. All we want to do is park in peace for an hour. Is that too much to ask?

So that’s the story in a nutshell. Can anything be done? Councilor Donovan seems to be holding firm on not recusing himself from voting on this matter.  Of course, if the sale of his house closes before the vote, a major obstacle will go away.  (In a very unusual move, the Town Council decided to push the final vote on this matter out until the October 7 meeting.  Gee, will Councilor Donovan’s closing have happened by then?  What a coincidence that would be!)

In the meantime, public pressure is our only hope. Here’s a postcard to cut and paste and send to the Council. Or send them a quick email to let them know you like things just the way they are now. Reach all members of the Town Council at scarboroughtowncouncil@googlegroups.com.

CORRECTION

Finally, friends, a correction.  We do our darnedest to keep our facts straight (and our opinions sharp).  But when we mess up, we fess up.  In that spirit…

In the last blog entry about Councilor Donovan’s possible conflict of interest due to his ownership of a house adjacent to some of the parking spaces affected by the proposed ordinance, we made a reporting error in the accompanying image.  The label “$7,000 Fence” should have read “$3,500 Fence.”  We apologize for the error and provide the corrected image below:

Higgins Beach is super bitchin’!

Let’s make sure everyone can continue to enjoy it!

Until next time, buds, see you at the dawn patrol,

TT Hannah

[Second edition.  Updated 09-15-15, 12:30 pm]

The proposed new view of Higgins Beach from the end of Ocean Avenue.

Well, friends, yet another Town Council meeting creates a furor.  Why does this keep happening in Scarborough? 

As reported in the last blog entry, two proposed ordinance changes for Higgins Beach were on the agenda. One to eliminate parking in the Bayview Avenue parking spaces between 6am and 7am. The other to prohibit “changing of clothes” at the beach. Both were unnecessary and utterly nonsensical for the reasons noted in the last blog.

The Council tabled the “changing” ordinance and decided not to eliminate the first hour of parking (6am to 7am) at Bayview Avenue. BUT, in order to address the real but unstated objective, they voted 5-2 to change the current one-hour parking limit at Bayview to 30 minutes – effectively making it nearly useless for those who currently use the spaces, whether for a beach walk, a dog walk or surfing. And that, indeed, was the real objective – to get those darned surfers out of sight.

The details of the unfolding drama follow. Those who are familiar with the history of Scarborough’s governing process will note how the same dysfunctional pathologies seem to repeat year after year.

A Sudden Interest in Consistency

One hour goes to 30 minutes under new proposal. So much for that leisurely walk on the beach…

As noted above, the Town Council rejected the two ordinances that were before them, perhaps because the public outcry against them was so overwhelming and persuasive. But the privatization forces didn’t skip a beat in moving toward their real goal of limiting  access to Higgins Beach. The amendment to change the one-hour parking limit on the Bayview Avenue spaces to 30 minutes was approved by a 5-2 vote (with Councilors St. Clair and Hayes being opposed). Of course it’s not possible to do a whole lot of recreating in 30 minutes, but that was the purpose of the amendment – make it next to impossible for the folks who currently use the spaces to do what they enjoy at Higgins, whether walking, surfing, fishing or whatever.

The justification for the change was a real stretch, namely, we need to be consistent with other beachfront parking in Town. Specifically, Higgins Beach’s time limit needs to be the same as “Co-op Beach’s” 30-minute limit. Really?  For those of you who are wondering what and where Co-op Beach is, it is a modest strip of riverside sand along the parking lot by the Pine Point Fishermen’s Co-op. (At high tide it is a VERY modest strip.)

“Co-op Beach”

Now we don’t want to be beach chauvinists here, but Higgins and Co-op are not really comparable beaches. While both have sand, that’s about where the similarities end. Why the Town suddenly needs to have consistent parking limits at wildly dissimilar beaches escapes us.  Frankly, we were surprised when usually practical and fair-minded Council Chair Holbrook introduced this amendment.

More importantly, remember the origin of the complaints that gave birth to this amendment – early morning noise on Bayview Avenue. How making parking times consistent between two very dissimilar beaches is a solution to a supposed early morning noise issue requires a leap of logic we just cannot make. Indeed, if logic were among the tools at the Council’s disposal, they would have quickly rejected changing a one-hour limit to a 30-minute one. That change would potentially allow for the doubling of the number of cars coming and going from the spaces, thus creating more not less of the supposed noise.

But logic obviously doesn’t matter here. Any thinly veiled excuse will do. As long as it discourages access to the beach, it will work for the privatization crowd.

Donovan on Higgins Beach: “No one wants to bar the gate.”

There was one huge bit of news that came out of the Council meeting – according to Councilor Donovan, Higgins Beach is a private beach. Not a beach with some parts publicly owned and some parts privately owned. No, a “private beach.” This was a shocker. At the very least, it makes one wonder why the Town has invested more than a million bucks over the past few years in a parking lot, changing facility and handicapped access ramp for something we don’t even own part of. (We’re anxious to learn more details of the Town’s non-ownership of Higgins. Stay tuned.)

Perhaps even more startling than the private ownership statement was the willingness of Councilor Donovan to raise the possibility of the private owners potentially limiting public access to Higgins Beach.  (Donovan insisted that the Higgins Beach neighborhood was feeling “abused.”)  “No one wants to bar the gate,” he said at one point, certainly raising the possibility that the gate could be barred. “Barring the gate” doesn’t sound like a good thing for public access, does it?

Western Beach being “renourished” this past winter.

He also made the dubious comparison of Higgins Beach (which has a combination of public ownership and multiple private owners) to Western Beach (which has one private owner, Prouts Neck Association). He used the example of that Association decreeing their own rules for restricting dogs on Western Beach to highlight what a private owner can do. So we suppose if private owners can exclude dogs, they can exclude surfers—and others – as well.

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To see Mr. Donovan’s remarks, go to the video of the September 2 Council meeting at this link and advance the blue bar at the bottom of the frame to 1:41:20. It’s only 4-5 minutes and it’s very enlightening. Watch for the Councilor’s attitude toward surfers who are allegedly hogging the Bayview spaces. And ask yourself why the alleged hogging couldn’t be addressed with more enforcement rather than another ordinance.

We’re the first to admit that Council meetings can be less than exciting at times, but every now and then you get a real treat like this one. And you don’t have to watch the whole 2 hours – just the good stuff!

Conflict of Interest?

Speaking of Councilor Donovan, some have suggested that his ownership of a property at 8 Morning Street in Higgins Beach might create a conflict of interest with respect to voting on matters involving parking along Bayview Avenue. Indeed, 8 Morning Street happens to be directly adjacent to several of the parking spaces in question. Does one need to be a lawyer to determine that voting on a matter that involves parking spaces directly adjacent to a property you own might create at least the appearance of a conflict of interest?

We understand that the Surfrider Foundation has formally requested that Councilor Donovan recuse himself from the Higgins debate. We doubt he will, but every now and then we are surprised that things work the way they should.

Flashback to 2011

Those of you with long municipal memories will undoubtedly find many elements of this story very familiar.  Indeed, the efforts to privatize Higgins Beach have been going on for decades now.  The most recent effort occurred in 2010/2011.  Check out this story from the Current on September 21, 2011.   Deja vu all over again, isn’t it?  Same players, same themes.

What’s Next?

Stay tuned for the next exciting saga in the Higgins Beach privatization story. The Council is expected to act on the 30-minute parking limit change at its September 16 meeting. But that could change. Don’t be surprised if another amendment or two surfaces at the meeting – after public comment has been heard, of course. And who knows what may happen between now and the meeting.

As always, we strongly recommend contacting the Town Council regarding this latest bit of lunacy. Let them know that you are against any further steps to restrict public access to Higgins Beach. Ask them why a Councilor with a clear conflict of interest would be allowed to vote on changes to parking spaces next to his property. Tell them that the current ordinances affecting Higgins Beach work just fine. As always, be respectful and factual. (Looks who’s recommending being respectful!)

The email address that reaches all the Council members with one fell swoop is scarboroughtowncouncil@googlegroups.com. Thank you! If we don’t speak up, we deserve it…

Media Analysis: The Leader Clams Up

.If you saw or read any local news these last couple of weeks, you know that the Higgins Beach controversy was front and center. Unless, that is, you depend on the Scarborough Leader for your dose of local news.

Here’s how various local and regional media outlets covered the ongoing drama at Higgins:

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This was too big a story for the Leader to have overlooked somehow. Which leads to the obvious question: who was responsible for the news blackout of the Higgins story? And what other news is being withheld or “shaped” to someone’s liking? Inquiring minds want to know. [Disclosure: Your editor is an occasional contributor to The Current.]

In Memoriam – Judy Shirk

With great sadness we note the passing of Judy Shirk, a life-long Pine Point resident. Judy was passionate about her community and very active in making it a better place. She was one of the founders of Pine Point’s 4th of July Parade. She may not have realized her example provided a role model and inspiration for others to work for a better community.  Her presence at Pine Point will be greatly missed. There is an effort underway to memorialize Judy’s legacy at Pine Point.  Please contact Bob Rovner at pgrmar1@aol.com for more information.

Happy trails to you until we meet again,

TT Hannah

Important Disclosure: The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author.  Love them or hate them, but please do not associate them with or attribute them to any other person(s) or group.

Let the healing begin!

It has been a long six months of school budget discussions and disagreements. Time to put aside those differences and move on. Let the healing begin!

As you will recall in our last thrilling episode, the Town Council had voted unanimously on July 15 to restore $180,000 to the school budget in order to avoid the draconian (and unnecessary) cuts to clubs, activities and sports – all in the name of compromise. But it seems that a bit more compromise was needed, so at their July 22 meeting, the Council added another $70,000 back to the school budget. Phew! This compromise stuff isn’t any fun.

So the upshot of it all – when all the compromising was done – was a school budget that will require an increase in 5.1% of taxpayer funding in FY 2016. Most of the reduction from the proposed 6.8% increase that was overwhelmingly rejected in Referendum #2 was attributable to those evil forces in Augusta restoring $885,000 of State education aid to the Town.

The Council also mandated a further $180,000 reduction to the municipal budget on a “pain sharing” basis. That means the municipal budget will be requiring slightly less taxpayer funding than last year.  The schools require a 5% increase in taxpayer funding, so we take some of it out of the municipal hide.  Go figure. The Town prepares a responsible budget only to have it cut because of the schools.  It can only be a matter of time until we’ll see cut backs in police and fire protection so that the schools can continue spending at the rate to which they have become accustomed.

Oops… we just lost the Kumbaya vibe. And we were trying so hard. Let’s try to get it back.

 Loosing the dogs of war

Here’s what our friends at the (non-secret) Save Scarborough Schools group had to say right after the Council’s vote:

Of course, it’s hard to be all nicey-nice and cooperative when the blank-check-for-the-schools brigade has declared war. Nice talk! And to think your humble blogger has been accused of inflammatory rhetoric.

If you watched the blank checkers moaning to the Town Council, you no doubt picked up on one of their talking points – “We are not going away.” Well, you know what, those who are looking for a reasonable balance between excellent schools and taxpayer affordability will be around for the long haul, too. But “war” sets such an uncooperative tone, don’t you think?

Vote August 4… or sooner!

By now, you know the voting drill… the easiest and most convenient days will be Wednesday and Thursday, July 29 and 30. After that, you need a “special circumstance” to vote early. Here’s the chart:

The school budget referendum is, unfortunately, one of those very rare opportunities Scarborough voters have to directly influence spending.  The outcome of this vote has a direct impact on your tax bill.  In view of the outlook for future school funding demands, voting in every school budget referendum is an excellent habit to get into.
One very important note – Do not write anything on the ballot! Just mark the oval and hand it in. It will be tempting to add an editorial comment on it, especially since the too high/too low question will not be on the ballot this time. BUT DON’T DO IT!!! If you write anything on the ballot, it will be a spoiled ballot and not counted. (If you still have an urge to make a comment, send it to us here at LookOutScarborough.com. We’ll read it and send you a sympathetic response. Just don’t spoil your ballot.)

Coming soon…

Ripped from the tabloids!    Higgins Beach gone wild!!!

Wait until you hear about the SHOCKING BEHAVIOR and see the SCANDALOUS PIX of what’s going on at Higgins Beach. You won’t believe it! Refined gentlewomen will faint and old sailors will blush. How can this be happening right here in Scarborough!? All the details next time.

 On Vacation

As July burns into August and our favorite haunts are overrun with rusticators, one’s thoughts naturally turn to taking it easy after a grueling budget season. If anybody is looking for us in the next couple of weeks, please let them know we plan to be drifting languidly down the Mississippi, stopping only when necessary to replenish our supply of peanuts, chips and beer. Of course, if there’s another referendum or any big resignation news, we’ll go ashore long enough to put out an emergency blog post.

 Thanks for all your support over the past several months. That’s made it all worthwhile.

Until next time, be neighborly and happy trails!

Budget Battle Lines Drawn Over… Cushions!?

By now, loyal reader, you know never to be surprised by the latest developments on the school budget front. But even with that preparation for the unexpected, we need to warn you – the newest development will take your breath away, make your head spin and/or boggle your mind. In a nutshell, it appears that the blank-check-for-the-schools brigade is about to launch a full-fledged attack to add back $320,000 of cushions to the budget. That’s right, they are poised to insist that the Town Council… and the voters… restore to the budget $320,000 of funds that school officials admitted would not harm academic programs if eliminated. (In more polite budget terms, this $320,000 might be referred to as “contingency funds;” in less polite terms, it might be referred to as “fluff.”)

However you care to characterize the $320,000, one thing is clear – the elimination of it from the school budget will not impact academic programs. How can we be so sure of that? Well, for $250,000 of that amount, we direct you to Superintendent Entwistle’s June 22, 2015 “Budget Update” (link here) in which he describes “$200,000 of these reductions, however, would depend upon a fundamental shift in established budgeting practice related to planning for a small amount of fund surplus to accrue during the budget year (to serve as a cushion for any unanticipated expense(s).” [Emphasis added.] He continued: “Another $50,000 was identified as potential savings to be generated by a shared-services agreement with Cape Elizabeth for our new Director of School Nutrition.” Sounds like a good shift in budgeting practice to us. Perhaps there are even more cushions to be found.

Even more directly, School Board Finance Chair Caiazzo said in a public statement at the June 24, 2015 Town Council meeting:

“But it is when we attempt to move beyond this point [$320,000] to close the remaining $180,000 gap that we lose our ability to preserve current programs and services.”

The $320,000 reduction now reflected in the school budget will not harm current programs and services. It is a cushion. We should not be adding cushions to the budget! (For those of you who are interested in Chair Caiazzo’s remarks, please go to the 8 minute, 30 second mark in the video available on the Town website at this link.)

 Where are we now?

So what happened at the July 15 Town Council meeting? As is often the case, it can be very difficult to follow the amendment process, especially if you don’t have a copy of the materials distributed to the Council members during the meeting. Here is a quick summary of the changes to the school and municipal budgets approved at the most recent meeting. (Note that these are the changes from the version of the budget rejected on July 7.)

• Added back $180,000 to the school budget (which the School Board had determined – incorrectly, we believe – could only be saved by cutting after-school activities and sports).
• Directed the Town Manager to cut $180,000 more from the municipal budget, apparently in a share-the-pain gesture.
• Added $885,000 to school revenue to reflect the final amount of GPA (“General Purpose Aid”) to be received by the Town from those villains in Augusta. Scarborough’s final GPA amount, after all the budget wrangling in Augusta, was $4,645,000 – a reduction of $133,000 from last year.
• Added $200,000 to municipal revenue budget to reflect additional excise taxes expected to be received by the Town. (This is simply a refinement of a budget estimate.)

Here’s a quick chart that summarizes the amount of taxes to be raised:

As you will note, taxpayer funding of the schools is now down to a mere increase of 4.9%, largely as a result of the final GPA infusion from the State.  Municipal operations, on the other hand, are not requiring any increase in taxpayer funding over last year; i.e., a flat budget. Hmmm.  Please draw your own conclusions.

An important cautionary note: At the July 15 meeting, the Council approved only the “first reading” of the proposed budget just described. At the special Council meeting to be held on July 22, the Council could very well make additional changes to the school budget we will vote on August 4. Be sure you get an update on the Council’s action before deciding how to vote on August 4! We will, of course, provide an update in our next blog posting.

Hats Off to the Town Council

It’s never easy being a member of the Town Council. We stand in awe of those who willingly take on that responsibility for a measly fifteen hundred bucks a year. That’s likely below the minimum wage when you reduce it to an hourly rate based on the number of hours they work. And never did they earn that salary more than last Wednesday evening when they were besieged by the red-shirted, blank-check brigade.

Our seven stalwart Councilors were alternately lectured, belittled, accused, hectored, browbeaten and admonished. Facts were in short supply, but that didn’t stop the lecturing.

And please remember… it was not the Town Council that cut the Key club, band, cheerleading, wrestling, etc. – while at the same time giving the budgets of school and system administration (and many other areas) a pass. That was the handiwork of the School Board. If there’s one thing that rankles us, it’s misdirected ire!

In their own words

Here is our favorite quote of the week, ripped, as it were, from the headlines:

This one cries out for a response. First of all, who accused school officials of hiding money and who called them liars and cheats and for what reasons?

Second (and dearest to our heart), Ms. Perry maintains that the School Board has answered “every question… about this budget.” Actually, one citizen is still waiting for a reply from Chair Beeley on a July 9, 2015 email to her requesting a copy of any financial analysis that was done in connection with the new sharing of a food services director with Cape Elizabeth. On April 13, the same citizen also requested a copy of the analysis of the financial impact of the custodians’/food services workers’ contract finalized in April; he has not yet received a response. Finally, the suggestion to broadcast and record School Board Finance Committee meetings has been met with a deafening silence. Not every question has been answered.

As to the accusation of inciting parents and public by cutting activities and athletics, if the shoe fits… To the apparently rhetorical question of “but what are our choices?,” we would politely refer Ms. Perry to our previous blog posting where we identified $268,000 to $375,000 of potential reductions that would not harm academic programs. These were areas that we hoped a School Board intent on looking out for the best interests of the kids would have at least required a meaningful review.

Coming attractions

Come early for a front row seat at the next Town Council meeting – Wednesday, July 22, 7pm at Town Hall. The festivities will include the all-important “second reading” of the school budget. This is where the school budget amount will be set for the August 4 vote. It will be interesting to see whether the Council holds firm on their unanimous first reading vote or decides to restore $320,000 of cushions to the school budget.

Until next time

Goodbye from Lake Wobegon. 

Be neighborly,

TT Hannah

Maker of fine cigar ashes since 1951

Well, how’s this for summer entertainment! Since we last met, the school budget has gone down to a second – and particularly ugly – defeat. The NO’s far outnumbered the YES’s: 3,584 to 496. The “Too Low’s” modestly outnumbered the “Too High’s” – 2,042 to 1,833. But to hear the blank-check-for-the-schools crowd tell it, that was a clear mandate to goose the budget back to a level the superintendent is comfortable with. Perhaps we should go back to his “Leadership Council’s” original recommendation of $40.2 million that would have increased taxpayer funding of the schools by 12%. That’s the trouble when all you see is one side of the issue – no amount is too high.

Cutting to the bone? Or removing a few cushions?

If we had a nickel for every time the word “devastating” was used to describe the proposed $500,000 reduction to the school budget, we would be able to fulfill that long-held dream of retiring to a tropical island. But, alas, it is proving impossible to turn rhetoric into an income stream.

Please take a quick peek at the following chart of just how that $500,000 reduction was going to be achieved. As you will see, the first $300,000 or so was mostly accounting gimmicks and reductions with minimal or no impact on the kids. It was only that last $180,000 – the major slashing of sports and after-school activities – that hurt. And that slashing was meant to hurt, make no mistake about it. Having unnecessarily inflicted that pain, the superintendent got the attention of the school parents and misled them into thinking the academic sky was falling. We’ve used the word before and will use it again – cynical.

For an “official,” though less informative, version of this chart, please follow this link. Our earnest hope is that a few of those who have taken the School Board bait will actually read and understand the above chart… and realize the results of the reductions are not devastation – most of them don’t even rise to the level of inconvenience.

 Into the Wayback Machine…

Sherman: “Where to today, Mr. Peabody?”
Mr. Peabody: “Today Sherman we only go back to 2011. We’ll be visiting the posh Boston suburb of Belmont, where the school budget is facing a $2.9 million shortfall. A huge community outcry has arisen over threats to make deep cuts to music, art, foreign language, social studies, and library programs. Let’s see what Belmont’s superintendent of schools, George Entwistle, has to say…”

For full article, click here.

Sherman: Wow, Mr. Peabody, that rhetoric sounds awfully familiar!
Mr. Peabody: Yes, my boy, once you learn a good scare tactic, you should never let it go.

 Our List of Budget Reductions

As faithful readers know, we here at LookOutScarborough.com are not educators. (In fact, some of our non-fans question whether we’re actually human.) Be that as it may, we contend that you don’t have to be an educator to find legitimate areas of the school budget to analyze for potential savings. We hope that at least a few of those who are blindly rallying to the School Board’s defense will join us in the future in a thoughtful review and analysis of the school budget. Come to the School Board Finance Committee meetings and pull up a chair.

In the meantime, here’s our list of some of the areas of the school budget that we believe at least deserve analysis and consideration.

Should we at LookOutScarborough.com be making these suggestions? Absolutely not, but if the superintendent refuses to take a serious and honest look at the school operations – and share it with the public – then we have no choice but to suggest relatively uninformed, but plausible, areas for review.

A Suggestion Everyone Should Love?

On July 10, we emailed School Board Chair Beeley asking her to consider streaming and recording all future School Board Finance Committee meetings. Currently the Town’s Finance Committee meetings are streamed and recorded and made available on the Town’s website. The School Board meetings are also made available in this manner. The School Board Finance committee meetings are where the infamous $500,000 reduction list was concocted. The meetings are critical to an understanding of the school budget and yet they can be held at very inconvenient times (recently one was at 9:30 am on a Monday and another at 8:00 am on a Wednesday).

Anyone who wants a thorough understanding of the school budget should be able to attend or at least review these meetings.

We have not yet received a reply from Chair Beeley to this suggestion. Let’s hope she shares our interest in having full and transparent public access to the School Board’s operation. How could one be against that?

Town Council meeting:

Wednesday, July 15, 7pm at Town Hall.

“First reading” of the proposed school budget for referendum #3.  Should be interesting to see if the blank checkers have their way with the Council.  If their public comments are any indication, expect lots of hubris and some rather bold demands.

That’s it for now, folks!  Mark August 4 on your calendar — Referendum #3. We may be going for a record here…

Be neighborly,

TT Hannah