SAD 77 hearing scheduled Rules for dissolving district to be discussed

EAST MACHIAS – Deputy Education Commissioner Judith Lucarelli will discuss the procedures for dissolving a school district and forming a school union at a public hearing next week.

The hearing, at 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 12, will be at the East Machias Town Hall. It is sponsored by the East Machias selectmen and is for all residents of SAD 77.

First Selectman Bucket Davis said Wednesday that East Machias is preparing for its March town meeting and wants residents to know everything they can about dissolving the district and becoming a school union.

SAD 77 is composed of Cutler, East Machias, Machiasport and Whiting, each of which has its own elementary school.

Davis said the East Machias board invited selectmen from the other three district towns to the hearing.

Davis said East Machias selectmen have been in regular contact with Lucarelli during the past few months as they prepared for the possible withdrawal of Whiting and Machiasport from the four-town school district.

“Cutler is so rich in land and so low in enrollment that it would kill East Machias to stay in a school district with just Cutler,” he said.

Whiting and Machiasport efforts to withdraw from the district have hit a stumbling block, and on Jan. 25 East Machias and Cutler selectmen were invited to meet with the Whiting and Machiasport withdrawal committees to discuss the possibilities of a school union to replace the district.

It was during that meeting that Davis and other selectmen learned that the withdrawal efforts apparently exceeded state guidelines, Davis said.

During the meeting, Whiting Selectman Carroll Gilpatrick said the town received word the previous evening that the period for withdrawal had ended and that the town would have to begin the process again if it wanted to continue the effort.

On Jan. 31, Education Commissioner J. Duke Albanese put that in writing.

In a letter to Bob Pierce, chairman of the Whiting withdrawal committee, Albanese said that so much had changed since Whiting began the withdrawal process in December 1999 that the committee would have to have a “renewal of the commitment from the community to renew this process.”

Albanese said the withdrawal committee was formed in January 2000 and submitted a proposed withdrawal agreement to the department in March and a proposed budget in April. The commissioner said he had responded to the proposal by outlining the next steps in the process – including a detailed response to the proposal prepared by Lucarelli.

With the exception of a brief conversation with Pierce in Whiting on Aug. 1, Albanese said, that was his last contact with the committee.

“It has now been almost nine months since I have had any communication from the Whiting Withdrawal Committee,” Albanese wrote. “In that time period Superintendent LeBlanc left, Interim Superintendent Norton came and left and Superintendent Voss was hired and began work in your district.”

Albanese said so many changes have occurred and conditions are different from when Whiting began the process. Those changes and “the prolonged silence” from the committee led Albanese to think the committee had put aside plans for withdrawal, the commissioner wrote.

Albanese said many of the modifications he asked for in Whiting’s withdrawal plan were not complex and could have been addressed.

“When a withdrawal process timeline extends so long it should involve an exchange of proposals at least every three months, if not more frequently,” Albanese wrote.

Davis said Wednesday he still believes an SAD is the most efficient way for the four schools to operate, but he knows people are so upset about what has been going on in the district that they want to look at the alternatives.

“I hope people will show up and find out what a union would mean,” he said.