My Comments on Livermore Annual Town Meeting‏

Livermore Annual Town Meeting 

Maine 

June 11, 2014 

Dwight Hines 

July 1, 2014

It was a sad event in some ways. Of 1753 voters, about 50 attended. That is such a low number: 50/1753 = .0213 is a tiny number. There was no food or coffee or other drinks for sale or with compliments of the town. Weather was good, all the Selectmen and town employees were there, but this was not participatory democracy or citizen engagement. It may be that the increased attendance at the biweekly selectmen meetings since the Livermore Administrative Assistant left has not impacted the voters enough so they felt it was worth their while to come and vote. Just the day before, over 400 voters came to the Livermore town office to vote for local and state candidates.  423/1753 = 12%, which is not overwhelming, but is almost ten times the town meeting attendance. I think it's important to note that at the town office election, fresh baked goods were being sold on three long tables by local Livermore lady cooks. 

Delicacies like chocolate covered potato (Nims?) and wild blueberry pie - which was delicious (walking barefoot for a mile over broken glass delicious) could easily account for the difference in turnout, with more voters not coming on election day because there was no advanced notice of the fantastic foods - the best wild blueberry pie I've eaten - so chock full of wild blueberries that it seemed physically impossible to get all those berries into a single pie. And even fewer voters coming for town meeting because they knew it would be a near sterile elementary school gym, devoid of all food and drink, and little, if any, merriment that traditionally accompanies democratic practices. 

Months ago I suggested in writing that the town provide chocolate-chip cookies and coffee at Selectmen's meetings and the only response was from Selectman Neuman, who talked harshly about how he laughed and laughed when he read that suggestion. Maybe these are mere memories of an old man now, but going to meetings, of town and selectmen, years ago, where there were foods and drinks, some free, some for 

sale, and lots of socializing and catching up on those who had fled to the deep woods 

and only came out once a year, were peak human experiences. Many of those who 

came out of the deep woods to vote and protect democracy also came out at a 

different time to donate blood to save lives in protest of a funny little war. 

There is something about sharing food, breaking bread, with other humans that is 

mystical, if not Biblical, in effect. It's impossible to continue a heated argument with 

someone over trivial budget or school issues, and all issues are trivial when compared 

to the taste of fresh baked cookies and slices of wild blueberry pie, when your entire 

being is focused on the sensations inside your mouth that are a reality that make living worthwhile, and meaningful. 

And for outsiders, fresh come to Maine as refugees, who knew of the work Maine 

fearless, tag-team missionary attorneys did in hot southern humid places of deep hate 

and rancor, and of the mysterious, nay, sacred Maine Dove that outlasted irresistible 

bureaucracies and unsurrendered Georgian angers in a National Cemetery, the Annual town meeting was better than a long cool shower on an overtoasted July evening after shoveling and hauling chicken manure so long that not even the month, much less the day, was certain because the brain liquifying temperatures limited thinking to making sure the feet went in the proper sequence for walking. 

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This annual meeting revealed differences that were part budget, part quality, part 

philosophy, and part creativity - keeping the invisible hand of the market place alive 

and robust. Other meeting parts, such as the old French farmer's concerns about the excessive idling of the town's backhoe and the concerns that buying a new backhoe would put the town into the construction business included keeping complaints open and fresh so over time and a long winter the mild irritations, misunderstandings, and unmeant slights don't rot into ugly clumps turning to fossilized structures that over the years with long winters and gorgeous springs become solid foundation ledge to keep people apart, with no one remembering what the hell were the initial reasons. Nothin' worse than long suffering, hardened reasons forgotten. It seems impossible to me, but for some people, those old skin wounds, deepened by time and darkness and lack of fresh air, can kill the taste of fresh baked wild blueberry pie. 

Initially,the meeting issues were procedural, and the moderator, Daryl, was excellent. 

He stated at the beginning that there were ladies present so no strong language, no 

spitting on the floor, no hard liquor and no spontaneous dancing would be allowed 

during the meeting, even by Republicans, if any of them dared be there. In effect, you 

listened until other persons had finished and raised your hand until called upon and 

then spoke and others had to listen. Votes were by "Aye" and "No" unless some 

fudging happened so the few sounded like the many, then there had to be a show of 

hands of "for" and "against". The moderator, bless his soul, did not tell about how if the 

hands were too many and too wavy that we would have paper ballots. Paper ballots meant the meeting could go to 2 A.M. or later in the morning because having to write words took much longer than speaking or raising hands. So, we knew right from the start that, at the absolute worst, we'd be home by regular milking times. 

My concerns were a lack of competitive bidding in the past; and being sure that 

organizations that received our tax money for doing good had objective measures of 

the quality, not just the quantify, of services they provided. The renegade Arizona V.A. 

Hospital problems, the records destroying activities of Maine HHS, the state wide 

failure of the transportation contracts to do as promised, all were driving my concerns on quality. 

Grades

End of year grades are difficult to assign because the town's old Administrator left just 

a month and half earlier to work in a nearby town, leaving some budget issues in 

confusion and leaving some voters with the belief that business was going to be as 

usual. Note also that grading of Maine in many important categories and functions by national organizations has been negative for the past few years, although the grading has been fair and accurate in granting "F" for integrity, "F" friendliness to business, "F" 

for open records and open meetings, "F" for voters' trust in State government, along 

with "F" for a weak, vulnerable judicial system of limited access that has created lacunae of opportunities for sovereigns and bullies and those with undeveloped nerves. You may not believe this but in the new courthouse in Bangor, there's no art on the walls of the courtrooms or offices or hallways. No paintings, not even of old white men, like in the Auburn Courthouse. Justice is a high art and to ignore those who practice art forms and styles is tacky, just tacky. Remember, the grades are for the past year, not the past month and a half, where there have been improvements and motions in the proper directions of effective, efficient, compassionate, and fair governance. 

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Grades = Selectmen, Registrar 

Group Grade = D 

Dion, Chair = B/C- 

Castonguay = B/C- 

Neuman = C-/F 

Chretien = C+/C 

Wakefield = Not graded because he retired so we now have total freedom to blame him for any wrongs or mistakes made over the past year 

Registrar - Renda Guild = A/C+ 

Committees/Boards 

Planning = F/F 

Appeals = F/F 

Budget = F/F 

Comments on Selected Warrant Articles 

Now, you have to remember that years ago I lived in Maine. It was so long ago that the residents knew that they were not rich and not only had to have functional procedures to protect themselves from doing something awful but used common sense in spending the hard earned dollars of the community. The selectmen never debated when and if someone could speak at the selectman's meeting because if someone wanted to speak, good, they've been hearing people speak without fear up here in the north for hundreds of years. Besides, if someone spoke to much, he or she 

would be put in charge of a study group to define the problem and to provide 

reasonable alternative solutions to the selectmen. And everyone liked to talk about how money could be better spent. That is not what happens in Livermore. You are not to question, say, Article 6, that gives the selectmen the power to appropriate money, or borrow money, if necessary. What this means is that each year the town borrows $200,000 dollars from a bank (no competitive bidding) to pay for operating expenses while waiting for people to pay their taxes. Think about that for a moment, maybe two, and you'll figure out at least one other way to run the store so you won’t need to borrow the money and pay the interest. Article 6 passed without discussion. 

Article 18, insurance, over $70,000 dollars, was not from the best priced and best qualified bidder, but we passed it without discussion. N.B. According to research, purchasing without sealed bids results in paying 15% to 35% more than if a sealed bidding process was used. 

The voters also approved money to be spent for social security, retirement, office 

equipment, Capital road improvements, road maintenance, but came to a full stop on 

Article 23, approving a bond for purchase of a backhoe. Roundly defeated after some good discussion. Then we approved Article 24, purchasing a used backhoe. Then we 

were off again, approving money for Fire Services (The Rumford Meteor has written that the Livermore Fire Department, and most of the other fire departments in Maine, have a strategy to "save the basement" on any fire they go to.), money for the transfer station, a trash compactor, ambulance services, to raise Town Charges, building maintenance, street lights, and legal fees ($5,150, no bidding allowed). Then, without taking a breath, voters approved money for tax mapping and evaluation - $16,200, no bidding because the people who have the contract "have been good for us."  I argued some, but my heart was not in it because you realize that no business could compete if they had these practices on spending money. 

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We then approved money for cemeteries ($22,850, not bid), Cemetery improvement, 

Code enforcement, plumbing inspector, planning board, general assistance, 

membership in the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments, Livermore Public 

library, recreation committee, recreation field, animal shelter, and a whole list of charities, which I spoke against. 

Each year, about ten charities ask the town for a small amount of money for the work 

that they do. Some of the charities write letters and specify how many people they help 

just in our town. What we are not told, never, is the level of quality of the services the 

charities provide. We are also not told how the people who receive the services grade the services. For the town to validate a charity, to pay for what they are doing, without 

asking for simple measures to be sure that the charity is not being run by a former 

Catholic priest, or is staffed by a clerk who knows how to cook the books when they 

only provide half or less of what our resident needs, is not cricket. Any charity that objects to questions of quality or questions of customer satisfaction is likely paying their directors salaries that would make you blush in shame. We voted on each charity and I was the only one voting against what has become motherhood and apple pie. 

We were now on the easy slide toward finishing voting on spending money, funding 

pond improvements and maintenance, debt service (bond was not likely bid), ski slope 

(they need the money and one person said that we owned 6% of it). We ended by 

voting to lease the old school for 99 years, and to accept any grants or gifts from anyone who wanted to give us money, which was unlikely since no one in town was writing grants or even asking for money. 

Let it be known that Maine people are social, they love visiting and talking and sharing food and hunting and fishing with others. When only 50 people out of 1700 show up for an annual town meeting they are telling us that something is wrong. Not just that we need a managerial audit, not another financial audit, and we need to at least try some different approaches to engaging the people in their government. They used to, you know.

I'll be contacting the ladies who cooked the goodies, including the chocolate covered potato treats and the wild blueberry pies, to see if they could create their magic at the next annual town meeting. We need folks to participate because if they don't, we aren't a democracy, are we?