[Local-Maine-Schools] Repeal Questions on voting in November 2008

[skipgreenlaw]

Repeal Questions on voting in November 2008Hello Judie,

I'll do my best to reply to your e-mail regarding consolidtaion issues.

First of all, we do not vote for another governor until November 2010.

State law does not require that school choice be eliminated from any consolidation plan.  Although the governor and commissioner of education want to eliminate school choice, the legislature said no.  So if a consolidation plan eliminates school choice, it is a decision which the local
planning committe has recommended.

Your community is going to have to vote on whatever consolidation plan is offered by January 30, 2009 because it is the current law.  Even though we have sufficient signatures ( and we plan to file them on October 14 with the Secretary of State's office), the mere filing of the petition has no bearing on state law until: 1.  the Sec of State counts the signatures and verifies that we have sufficient signatures and reports that fact to the legislature.
2.  The legislature has an opportunity to enact the petition thereby repealing the law.  3.  If the legislature fails to enact the law, it then goes to
public referendum in November 2009.

There is a lot of discussion about voting for consolidation plans for fear that communities lose their subsidies.  I think that this would be the worst possible reason for voting for consolidation.  My suggestion is to form a group of people and start an active campaign to educate the people of your town about the facts as you and others see them.  Eydie Pryzant lives in Falmouth and is very active in doing a grassroots campaign with others in Falmouth.  Please call me at 367-2738, and I'll give you Eydie's phone
number.

For some reason, the news media for the most part has not been willing to dig into this issue and print factual information.

I am not certain whether this information has answered any of your questions.  Please call me at any time, and I'll be glad to discuss this with you further.

Sincerely,
Skip Greenlaw
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Couture, Judie 
  To: local-maine-schools at mainetalk.org 
  Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2008 8:14 AM
  Subject: [Local-Maine-Schools] Repeal Questions on voting in November 2008




  Hello, 

  I have a question on the repeal maybe someone has answers to this.  I am for the repeal, I live in Arundel Maine where we have high school choice and we tuition our middle school students to Thornton Academy in Saco (which was voted on in our community overwhelmingly in support of).  Unfortunately, our school board which is pro Kennenbunk had voted in a split vote to join with Kennebunk. It will cost our community more money to do this and probably end our contract with Thornton and eventually our school choice.  Many in our community are very upset about this and signed the petition to repeal this whole mess.  Now that they have collected enough signatures and this will probably go before the voters in November 2009, I believe also that is when we vote in a new governor? My question is my community is going to have to vote on whether to partner with Kennebunk this November? Why? If this is going to be a question to vote on in 2009?  If my community votes to join with Kennebunk- because my school board is using scare tactics by throwing the penalties at us if we don't- people feel threaten by this and probably will vote to join Kennebunk- even if all the facts are not there. Is there any way of stopping this from happening?  If communities vote to consolidate and this begins in January of 2009?  Will the referendum for the repeal stop this consolidation or slow it down, until the entire state gets to vote on it?  I am very worried that once my community votes on this in November we will be forced to merge and by the time we vote on it in November of 2009 it will be too late to make a difference. I think that information needs to get out there across the state that communities need to vote this down so that legislators can look at this again in January of 2009- voting on this should not be happening this November until the entire state can make a decision on the repeal.  Maybe I do not have all my facts right- but if someone knows more- please let me know.  Right now I am a little discouraged and bewildered by all of this.  If the news media had this information-maybe the message would get out there.

  Thank you 
  Judie Couture 



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