Arts school organizers to tout bill > Legislation would prevent arts school name similar to Bangor corporation

BANGOR — Since last March, the Maine School for the Arts has existed as a nonprofit corporation, with plans for locating in Bangor. On Wednesday, organizers will attend a session of the Legislative Council in Augusta to promote a bill that would prevent a Portland-based magnet school for the arts from using a “deceptively similar” name.

State Rep. Lisa Lumbra, R-Bangor, is the author of the bill that will seek recognition for the Bangor-based school and prevent the Legislature from using too similar a name if it goes forward with a state-funded arts school.

Last month, the Task Force on the Maine High School of the Visual and Performing Arts issued its report to the Legislature. The Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs is expected to review the report in the coming session.

The task force for a statewide arts school was created back when the Legislature approved the Maine School for Science and Mathematics in Limestone. The latter school opened last fall after ups and downs in its funding process.

The same bill which created the Limestone school outlined the two-year arts school, designating its location as Portland and ensuring that the task force comprised mostly representatives of organizations in southern Maine. Although it would be a statewide school, only one person on the task force is from the northern half of the state.

Daryl Rhodes, co-founder of the Northern Conservatory of Music, which is planning the Maine School for the Arts in Bangor, worked with Lumbra and state Sen. Sean Faircloth, D-Bangor, on a bill to add other representation to the task force. But a straw poll of the education committee split along geographic lines, so the bill went nowhere.

The Maine School for the Arts is in the planning stages, with the conservatory having received tentative developer status from the Bangor City Council.

The agreement calls for the conservatory to receive a portion of the proceeds when the city sells the rear portion of the former Freese’s building on Main Street to Realty Resources Chartered for the construction of 34 units of senior citizen housing.

The conservatory would put the Maine School for the Arts, a four-year high school which Rhodes describes as a private-public partnership, in the front part of the building. The school also would offer classes in music, art and the performing arts to people of all ages.

Rhodes filed an amendment with the Secretary of State on Dec. 8 so that the school would be known also as the Maine High School for the Arts.

The task force’s report was issued Dec. 13.