Maintaining Local Control

If you have been reading the newspapers or watching the TV news, you are aware that the Governor wants to withhold the 3rd and 4th payments to the municipalities for the motor vehicle tax collections. Although the motor vehicle tax is collected by the cities and towns, not too many years ago an agreement was made that the funds would go to the state which would then return the funds to the cities and towns on a quarterly basis. (Doesn’t make much sense. Does anyone remember the reason this was done?)

Well, now the Governor proposes to keep the motor vehicle tax that we send upstate to help fill the hole in his state budget. The cities and towns don’t think that this makes much sense either, so they are preparing to sue the Governor to get the promised funds released. Good luck!

The point here is that there doesn’t seem to be much concern by our elected state officials about the way state action impacts the cities and towns, and this should be a real concern for those of us on the island who have been watching the machinations upstate. One of the biggest concerns down here is that the state will try to help us solve our problems by imposing resolutions against our collective will. (After all, they seem to have found a way to keep the money that they promised to return to us.)

In fact, our greatest vulnerability is the resistance to the combination of municipal services and school regionalization. Common sense tells us – and the powers that be upstate - that there is money to be saved by combining at least some of the municipal and school functions instead of conducting 3 individual and separate management systems. The threat of saving us from ourselves should not be minimized.

We are unique within the state because our 3 communities create a natural geographical unity.

Sooner or later, someone upstate is going to suggest that the way to force our island communities to be more fiscally efficient is to mandate that we combine our services. At that point, local control may in many ways become history.

Up to now, our 3 communities have been sitting back and refusing to openly engage in the discussion. Yes, there have been tentative efforts by some of our city, town, and school administrators to explore the possible combination of efforts. But now is the time for the elected officials to set a tone for future action.

Until the city and town councils demonstrate at least a modicum of official support for some combination and/or regionalization of services or functions, the state will regard us as recalcitrant and in need of a push.

If we wish to maintain local control of the process, we need to act now to at least explore the possibilities before us. Such an exploration would not necessarily result in a commitment to action, but it would demonstrate a sincere effort to provide the information to make educated decisions about our future – decisions that should be made by those of us who live here, on the island, not by those in the big city.