Town votes to pursue deorganizing

CENTERVILLE – A dozen residents – almost half of the 26 people who live here – have voted to continue the process of deorganizing their 127-year-old town.

Townspeople are pursuing deorganization because they say it is becoming impossible to find people to fill town positions, according to First Selectman Margaret Dorsey.

The unanimous vote took place Thursday night and will be followed by another vote on June 2 after a deorganization plan is prepared.

Doreen Sheive, the fiscal administrator of Maine’s organized territory, said that if residents approve the plan, the deorganization matter proceeds to the Legislature.

If the Legislature approves the plan, a final vote will be in a referendum on the November ballot, Sheive said.

If two-thirds of the November voters support deorganization and the number of total votes cast are equal to at least 50 percent of those who voted in the last gubernatorial election, the town will become an unorganized territory as of July 1, 2004, Sheive said.

Sheive and other members of the state’s deorganization commission were in Centerville on Thursday to explain what the change would mean to the dozen residents who attended the first of two public meetings on the proposal.

The timeline for voting in November is tight, Sheive said, because the Legislature hopes to adjourn by the beginning of June.

Catherine M. Carroll, director of the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission, said unorganized territories fall under LURC jurisdiction. So before any deorganization takes effect, a zoning map of the town would have to be developed.

LURC will do that, but the town needs to pay for such mapping tools as aerial surveys. In some cases, those costs can approach $20,000, Carroll said.

Robert V. Doiron, supervisor of the unorganized territory property tax division, said most towns that deorganize see their tax rates go down, but Centerville’s is already low. It looks as if the unorganized territory tax rate will be $9 per $1,000 valuation this year, he said.

Richard Moreau, director of state schools and education in the unorganized territory, said 52 percent of Maine is unorganized territory and that there are 1,200 school-age children in the unorganized territories.

Centerville has no school of its own, and the town’s four schoolchildren are already tuitioned to a neighboring elementary school and the high school that serves the area. That will stay the same, Moreau said.

Questions were raised about the tax base for the unorganized territories, which Sheive said is heavily dependent on paper companies. If that land changes hands and the new owners are tax-exempt, it would be “very scary,” Sheive said.

Dorsey said Centerville would have the same problem if it remains a town and the 19,000 acres of paper company land go to a tax-exempt organization.

Sheive is working with townspeople to develop the deorganization plan, which will be presented to residents at the next meeting, 7 p.m. Monday, June 2, at the Town Hall.