[Local-Maine-Schools] (Skip Greenlaw) Wednesday, March 26, 2008 (sent last night)

[Dick Atlee]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Date: 	Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:54:46 -0400
From: 	skipgreenlaw <skipg at hypernet.com>

Good evening,

Our presence in Augusta was small, but effective and forceful.  It is
always a treat to meet people with whom you communicate with by e-mail
and telephone.  There were 11 of us, and we recorded contacts with 53
legislators.  There may be some more names to add to this list.

We saw Rep Peter Edgecomb, who has worked so hard to get an opportunity
for the legislators to have a vote to
repeal the school consolidation bill.  The bill is LD 2280.  It makes
some non-controversial changes to the school consolidation law.  Peter
signed out a minority report which is the bill to repeal the school
consolidation law.  The question is how do we get legislators a chance
to vote on the minority report first.

At least two comments caught my attention today.  The first was the
admission by many legislators that there is no cost savings to
consolidation.  So the next question was obvious.  Why not repeal the
law?  Well, one legislator thought it would improve education
opportunity for students.  Some legislators thought that consolidation
was going reasonably well in their districts.  Of course, there are a
lot who will vote for repeal.  So, at least there is acknowledge-
ment there there is no cost savings to consolidation, which I think is a
substantial change in attitude.

The second comment came from some urban legislators, whose constituents
are not involved in consolidation, and who seemed quite surprised when
we told them that there are no cost savings to consolidation.  Some of
these same legislators agreed to give repeal more thought.

Eydie Pryzant from Falmouth brought with her three friends who turned
out to be great lobbyists.  They walked right down to the Senate and
walked into the Senate President's office and had a forthright
discussion with Senate President Beth Edmonds of Freeport.  They weren't
satisifed with that accomplishment so they marched down to the second
floor to see the governor.  They did not get to see him, but they left
him a note.  On our next trip to Augusta, they need to make an
appointment to meet with the governor.  Oh, would I love to be a fly on
the wall to hear this conversation!!!!!!!!!

Judy Sproule and I met with the Speaker of the House, Glenn Cummings and
House Majority leader, Hannah Pingree
(my rep.).  It was a very cordial meeting.  We asked some procedural
questions about a floor amendment to repeal the law, and I believe got a
straight-forward answer that an amendment, which was the same as the
minority report could not be done.  What I should have asked the
Speaker, and I shall I write him in an e-mail tonight is whether he
would extend a courtesy to Rep. Edgecomb to move the minority report.
Normally, he would recognize the House Chair of Education, who would
move the majority report.

Tomorrow, I shall send you a list of legislators who told us how they
would vote on the repeal issue.

Sincerely,
Skip