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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Yesterday Brian Hubbell, Gail Marshall, Dick Atlee,
Rob Liebow and I spent the day in Augusta. We met with Hannah Pingree, Ted
Koffman, Dennis Damon and Department of Education Commissioner Susan Gendron
over the course of several hours. We have worked feverishly as a group since the
consolidation language was released last week. We met with legislators in person
and by phone through the weekend. Our legislators fully understood what exactly
in the language we saw as most damaging to local
control. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>It became clear on Tuesday morning that a
compromise on this budget would be reached some time during the day. While it
was clearly our preference to have this bill voted down, in the end we were
faced with the choice of standing on principal and having a bill passed
which gutted our local control or trying to find language that salvaged that
control as well as other issues. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Many of you know that I am a vocal critic of
Commissioner Gendron. That has not changed but yesterday, on what was a
frantically paced day for everyone in Augusta, at our Legislator's
urging, The Commissioner gave generously and earnestly of her time and
attention. Amendment T which was passed in the wee hours this morning allows for
municipal school boards, budgeting for municipal schools at the municipal level,
and funding for municipal schools at the municipal level. We were assured
that we could make clear in district budget referenda that none of the
monies for municipal schools would be raised outside of the municipality, which
ought to satisfy voters from other municipalities. I won't go into all of
the smaller language changes that were made but suffice it to say in the
end the bill is, I think, the best we could hope for under the circumstances and
something, that if we are very careful about constructing the new RSU, leaves us
very much in tact.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I should be clear that we believe this
entire process has been and remains bad. It is clear that legislators are
very unhappy with The Governor about it. The time line remains crazy, the matter
remains unstudied in any meaningful way and the top down nature of it all is at
best objectionable.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I believe Hannah, Ted and Dennis stepped up in
a very big way and served us well under the most difficult
circumstances.</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=lwill@earthlink.net href="mailto:lwill@earthlink.net">Lynne
Williams</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=petejohnson@gwi.net
href="mailto:petejohnson@gwi.net">pete</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A
title=local-maine-schools@mainetalk.org
href="mailto:local-maine-schools@mainetalk.org">local-maine-schools@mainetalk.org</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, June 06, 2007 8:47
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Local-Maine-Schools] Whats
Next on School Consolidation</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>I agree. Legislative elections come up in 2008, and we
need to know where they stood - if rural legislators, in particular, exhibited
more loyalty to their leadership than to their constituents, then they need to
be defeated.
<DIV>Lynne Williams, Bar Harbor</DIV>
<DIV><BR class=khtml-block-placeholder></DIV>
<DIV><BR>
<DIV>
<DIV>On Jun 6, 2007, at 8:42 AM, pete wrote:</DIV><BR
class=Apple-interchange-newline>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Friends and neighbors and those concerned about
our schools,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>It is time to consider <STRONG>what to do
if</STRONG> the legislature fails to protect our schools by preserving local
control and fails to act on providing equitable funding for our
system.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>It will become important to record for future
action those who are responsible for the outcome and reward those who
support education in rural Maine and to hold accountable those who are
responsible for changes that will weaken local control and ultimately close
schools.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Suggest that when the vote record is available
that it be posted on this site. If no record is available we should
poll all representatives and senators to get them on record as to their
vote.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Pete Johnson</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Greenville, Maine</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Arial><SPAN
class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">"I want to stay as close to
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