Auditorium bond trimmed to $10 million Cut in borrowing requests sought

AUGUSTA – The Legislature’s Appropriations Committee on Tuesday kept alive – but reduced – a multimillion-dollar bond proposal that would help fund a replacement for Bangor’s aging auditorium.

Sensing defeat in the powerful committee, the bond’s supporters Tuesday evening were quick to lower the request from $15 million to $10 million, or one-third of the projected $30 million cost for the new auditorium and civic center.

Rep. Richard Rosen, R-Bucksport, told his fellow committee members that despite its troubled past, the bond was worthy of further consideration in the waning days of the Legislature.

“This is clearly a situation of economic development with regional value,” Rosen said, even though the bill had a rocky start in the House where even members of the city’s delegation argued over the bond’s merits. “The regional delegation is a family. It’s been a little dysfunctional lately, but it’s still a family.”

Rep. Joseph Perry, D-Bangor, was the only member of the city’s delegation to testify in favor of the bond, which many in Augusta still believe has little, if any, chance of making it to the November ballot.

“On the state level it’s a wise investment,” Perry said of the auditorium project, which he said would generate substantial sales tax revenue for the state. “It will serve the entire region.”

Perry told the committee that if the $10 million bond succeeded at the polls, the city would look to secure the remaining $20 million in private and regional funds rather than close the facility in two years as planned.

Despite the stay granted Tuesday, the fate of the bond – which was resurrected late last week after a resounding defeat in the House – is anything but certain.

Even if the Appropriations Committee were to include the stand-alone project in its bond package, initial votes in both the House and Senate suggest marginal support at best for the legislation sponsored by Rep. Brian Duprey, R-Hampden.

“I haven’t seen a two-thirds type support there,” said committee chairman Rep. Randall Berry, D-Livermore, referring to close procedural votes in both houses to even send the bond to the Appropriations Committee. “I don’t see that changing by reducing the amount.”

The perceived lack of support could eventually lead to the bond’s demise in appropriations, which, with time running out in the session, is intent on honing bond requests from more than $200 million to about $100 million. The session is expected to end next week.

The week at the State House has been an up and down one – but mostly down – for city officials looking to secure some state money for a new auditorium.

On Monday, the Taxation Committee killed the city-backed plan for a local option sales tax, which would have allowed a municipality – with voter approval at local referendum – to impose up to a 1 percent sales tax to fund a specific project, in this case the Bangor Auditorium.

Perry, the sponsor of the local tax option, asked that the committee defeat the bill to avoid its almost certain death in the House.