[Local-Maine-Schools] Common Cause

[Brian Hubbell]

Common cause in the face of adversity often brings forward the best
from communities and, for proof, one need look no further than the
response from Mount Desert Island to the Governor's proposal to
dissolve local authority over our communities' schools.

Following the responding outcry voiced at January's public meeting at
the MDI High School, an astute observer remarked that the Governor had
done more to draw together the towns and citizens of Mount Desert
Island than anyone since Admiral Yamamoto.

Indeed, in the following weeks and months, as individuals weighed
among themselves what it was that was most important to them about our
schools, groups of all stripes set aside their differences in order to
express a coherent voice about just what it is that makes the fabric
of community here valuable and worth fighting for.

As a direct consequence, the citizens of MDI were able to exert
substantial influence on the final legislation which, after months of
arduous negotiation and revision, finally passed the legislature last
week in a form that both greatly preserves the necessary operations of
our schools and allows our citizens to determine their own structure
of school governance.

You all should be proud of this, as it represents the very best
dynamics of local representative democracy in Maine.  And for this, we
all owe a debt of gratitude to our elected representatives who, when
the time came, also stood unified on your behalf against substantial
political pressure from above.

We were indeed fortunate to be represented by Senator Dennis Damon
who, right up through the last late-night moments, stood willing to
sacrifice any greater political ambitions by providing the critical
senate vote against the state budget if our local needs weren't
satisfied through amendment.

We were fortunate to be diligently hosted several times at the State
House by Representative Ted Koffman who frequently sat in and
carefully made sure that concerned citizens from MDI were able to meet
with the right administrators and policy makers at the critical times.

And, not least, we are fortunate to be represented by House Majority
Leader Hannah Pingree who stood up for us, in the face of a unanimous
budget report from the powerful Appropriations committee and pressure
from her own party's leadership in the Senate, and managed the
critical consensus necessary for the final amendment that not only
protected our schools but also received the two-thirds vote needed for
final approval.

Each of our representatives played a critical part in this. Their
work, their steady communication with us throughout the process, and
the final result all are proof of the respect that they bear for you,
the citizens of Mount Desert Island.

With the new legislation passed, a different kind of hard work now
lies ahead of us for our schools.  But we all should be reinvigorated
by the evidence that participatory democracy and community remain very
much intact on MDI.

Brian Hubbell, Bar Harbor
Gail Marshall, Mount Desert
Paul Murphy, Bar Harbor
Dick Atlee, Southwest Harbor
John March, Mount Desert
Rob Liebow, Mount Desert
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