Rockport joins fight to repeal consolidation

ROCKPORT – The Select Board signed a resolution Tuesday to became part of a statewide petition drive to repeal Maine’s school consolidation law.

Selectman Robert Duke, who serves as municipal representative to the area schools’ reorganization planning committee, told his board of the effort to gather the signatures to place a question on the ballot to repeal the school consolidation law.

Hope resident Kathryn Baxter, coordinator of the Knox County repeal effort, assisted Duke in the presentation.

Four Select Board members voted for the resolution, and Duke abstained, he said, because of his membership on the RPC.

“They voted for the resolution because they are dissatisfied with budget accountability under the new law and the loss of $900,000 in transition funding,” he said of the LD 1 funding formula.

Melissa Packard, director of elections for the secretary of state, said the petitioners would have to gather 55,087 signatures, or 10 percent of the governor’s vote in the 2006 election.

“Any petition group that wants to get on the 2008 ballot would have to submit their petitions by January 28, 2008,” she said.

Baxter said Wednesday that her group in the five-town area got more than 830 signatures at the polls on Nov. 6, and that the count so far statewide is up over 12,000 signatures.

“We’re almost a third of the way there, in just three weeks,” Baxter said.

Rockport’s Select Board is the third selectmen’s panel in the five-town school district to join the petition drive. It joins Appleton and Hope in the petition drive.

Other local entities signing on comprise school committees from Appleton, Hope and Lincolnville, the Five-Town Community School District and SAD 28.

The board also approved the 2007-08 wastewater budget and new rates, including a 5 percent hike because of a change in the fiscal year and seasonal use.

The new rates of $51 per quarter for debt service and $8.38 per cubic foot use fee will go into effect in the next billing cycle in January, said Duke.

“The impact for the average user will be about $20 [more] a quarter,” he said.

The board also voted for the town to do its banking with TD Banknorth.

The finance director had asked that the town seek banking bids for a three-year period, and six institutions replied.