Tax cap foes brush off hecklers at rally

PORTLAND – Shouting at times to be heard over hecklers, members of a new coalition opposed to a proposed 1 percent property tax cap warned Wednesday of fire station closings and teacher layoffs if voters approve the statewide ballot question on Nov. 2

About 100 members and supporters of Citizens United to Protect Our Public Safety, Schools and Communities rallied at the Eastern Promenade to denounce the tax cap they said would endanger the future of public education.

Drawing from more than 30 organizations – including the Maine Education Association, the Professional Firefighters of Maine, and the Maine Peoples Alliance – the tax cap adversaries sometimes struggled to remain focused as about a dozen of the measure’s proponents offered belligerent suggestions from the sidelines.

For a moment, the repartee seemed on the verge of crossing the line when Les LaFond, state president of the Maine chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons, described the 1 percent tax cap as “too extreme” and incapable of holding down the tax burden.

“We urge our members and other voters to vote ‘no’ – to vote against the [tax cap] initiative,” LaFond said.

The AARP representative was nearly drowned out by one cap proponent who repeatedly shouted, “Shame, shame, shame. Old people are losing their homes.”

But LaFond persisted, “Do not believe you can vote for the dangerous [cap] initiative without hurting police, fire and emergency medical services.”

“Dangerous to who?” the cap proponents jeered.

Dennis Bailey, a Portland public relations consultant hired by the cap foes, chided the cap supporters for hijacking the rally.

“I just want to thank our friends for showing up here today, let’s give them a big hand,” Bailey said. “They have proven one thing: They obviously can’t organize their own rally and now they want to do tax policy. That makes sense.”

Steve Scharf, one of the cap proponents from Portland, argued that advocates of the measure have no choice but to maintain a presence at rallies staged by tax cap foes – if for no other reason than to set the record straight.

“The message being presented by the anti-tax cap people is one of fear and that government must do all that it can do,” Scharf said. “Our attitude is that government should only do what it absolutely has to do.”

Representing the Maine Chiefs of Police Association, Skowhegan Police Chief Butch Asselin said the tax cap, championed by Topsham tax activist Carol Palesky, may have been “well-intentioned, but good intentions don’t always make good law.”

“Most police departments in this state are already stretched thin with new threats and dangers to our safety and security,” he said. “If people think they can vote for this drastic proposal without affecting public safety, they need to think again.”

When John Cannon of the Professional Firefighters of Maine warned that municipalities would be “closing firehouses” across the state if the tax cap passed, someone in the small opposing group responded with an expletive, followed by someone else yelling, “Keep your hand out of my wallet.”

Wes Bonney, retired CEO of Peoples Heritage Financial Group and chairman of the anti-cap political action committee, warned that if the initiative is approved, the school budget in Bangor would be cut by nearly 24 percent.

In Presque Isle, the cap would trigger a projected decrease of nearly 38 percent in tax revenues, creating a shortfall of nearly $6 million at current municipal and educational spending levels.

Bonney said Palesky and advocates of the cap such as the Maine Taxpayers Action Network were “strangely silent” in offering explanations to taxpayers on which municipal services would be cut if local tax rates were capped at 1 percent of a property’s value based on 1996-1997 assessments as stipulated by the ballot question.

“To advocate a law that mandates cuts of more than a half-billion dollars in revenues statewide but offers not a single solution for paying for these drastic cuts is irresponsible,” Bonney said.

Phil Harriman of the Tax Cap YES! political action committee said the real irresponsibility in the campaign fell on the shoulders of the members of Bonney’s group, whom he described as “comprised of elite special interests and taxpayer-funded organizations that benefit financially from the suffering of Maine’s taxpayers.”

“Most of the members of this anti-taxpayer coalition are taxpayer-funded groups that do not want any limits placed on the amount of money they can tax and spend, so it is not surprising they have joined forces to oppose the 1 percent property tax cap,” Harriman said in a prepared statement.

“The ‘we know better’ attitude of these big spenders deciding what they want to spend and then sending the bill to the worn-out and worn-down taxpayers without regard for taxpayers’ ability to pay is the very reason Maine people need the 1 percent property tax cap,” Harriman’s statement continued. “Government leaders and politicians need to learn to live within the means of the taxpayers who fund them.”