The truth of how Bar Harbor school compares with other Maine projects

Other news: SWH voices concern over hazardous waste plan; Mount Desert short-term rental proposal under fire; giant Belfast Bay aquafarm faces new lawsuit

BAR HARBOR, March 25, 2022 - Selective use of facts has poisoned the debate over the new $58 million Conners Emerson School, as voters must decide in June whether to borrow the money which, according to interim town manager Sarah Gilbert, will spike property taxes by 21.5 percent starting in July 2024.

Tuesday night in the Town Council chambers, member Matt Hochman offered some personal research supporting his view that the cost of the proposed new Conners Emerson School was “within the ballpark” of similar projects elsewhere in Maine. You may watch him starting at 1:30 hour into the meeting.

Specifically, Hochman mentioned a middle school in Cape Elizabeth for $51.8 million and a school in North Falmouth/Cumberland for $73.9 million.

What Hochman didn’t mention was that both were soundly rejected by voters in each town last November.

In August 2022, the Portland Press Herald published a commentary calling the Cape Elizabeth schools proposal “economically irresponsible” with words eerily familiar to Bar Harbor residents.

“Such a large property tax increase will make Cape even more unaffordable for young homeowners with families, as well as the elderly on fixed incomes. Do we really want to exclude young families, working-class families and longtime senior residents? Do we want to become a community solely made up of high-income and wealthy people?”

Hochman also did not mention that the middle school was part of a three-school proposal in Cape Elizabeth which included an elementary school for 553 students, or 212 more than in Bar Harbor, for only $40 million. The two are about the same size - 96,842 square feet for Cape Elizabeth versus Bar Harbor’s at 92,365.

Hochman also did not mention the middle school in Cape Elizabeth he cited has about 200 more students than Conners Emerson.

Hochman cherry picked only the information he needed to support his argument. How was that helpful to citizens trying to decide whether to support the project? He did not reply to several questions posed by email.

The vote to reject the $116 million, three-school proposal in Cape Elizabeth was overwhelming, 3,817 to 2,337, as was the vote in Cumberland and North Yarmouth, with 4,443 votes against, or 55 percent, and 3,596 in support.

Hochman also did not mention that the Cumberland/North Yarmouth proposal was for a school of 732 students, more than twice the size of Bar Harbor.

One school which did get approved by voters last November was District 49 serving four towns northeast of Waterville. It is being built for 574 elementary students at a cost of $45.6 million. Wasn’t Hochman curious how one school with 233 more students could be built for $12.4 million less than Bar Harbor’s proposal?

He mentioned briefly a school in “Sumner” (it’s actually in Sullivan) which was completed last fall for $35 million serving 500 kids, but that’s not a good comp because construction cost has escalated since that project started in 2019.

Even though it went down in defeat, the Cape Elizabeth proposal was detailed and informative. Here is a copy of an earlier version for $126 million before it was cut to $116 million. Page 20 has some useful comps for cost per square foot hovering round $500.

Meanwhile the Bar Harbor proposal posted on the school website is opaque and unhelpful. It doesn’t even have basic information like cost per square foot or how it compared with state “per-student guidelines.” (I divided $58 million by 92,365 and came up with $644.)

Opacity has become the coin of the realm for the band of representatives consisting of the superintendent, principal, school board chair and various members.

“What are you going to do if the bond doesn’t pass?” Council member Joe Minutolo asked Tuesday, to which the speakers fumbled replies and ultimately dodged the question.

Minutolo said he’s asked for a “Plan B” three times without getting a response.

“Maybe they're worried that people will think that a Plan B is a better option than building a new school.”

The group has also played down the islandwide school reorganization under discussion which would pool resources for infrastructure and staffing. Minutolo and others have asked whether the town would be better off waiting for that reorganization to play out.

Lilea Simis, school board chair, has never returned any of my calls seeking clarity on her public assertions that Bar Harbor is somehow short-changing its students. She owns the Town Hill Market, which refused to take my message for a call-back Friday.

The QSJ reported in January that Conners Emerson was ranked the No. 1 school in Maine by virtually every ranking service for FY2021 and its spending per pupil well exceeds the state average, despite the woeful physical condition of the schools.

If approved, paying for the school bond starting in FY2025 will make the 11.1 percent property tax increase in FY24 look like petty cash.

The major driver of the 11.1 percent FY24 increase - inflation - is still a significant factor, even though it has been sliced by one third since last summer. The CPI came in at a hefty 6 percent in February.

All eyes will be on the price index in the fall when municipal wages by contract are set for the following year. This year it was 6 percent for most employees and 8.7 percent for departments heads who use the Social Security index.

Some residents still have not fully processed the revaluation a year ago which Hochman said increased his assessment by 86 percent.

In addition to the 21.5-percent tax increase for the school starting July 2024 and a likely 5- to 10-percent increase for the municipal budget the same year, an 18-percent rate increase for the $43 million approved at town meeting last year to upgrade water and sewer is starting to kick in.

How to calculate all this in human terms?

According to the federal government’s inflation calculator, a household with an annual income of $120,000 in February 2022 saw $7,243 in increased cost of living in the year ending this February.

The $120,000 threshold was invoked by member Erin Cough in a Town Council meeting last year during which Cough warned that the town was dangerously close in losing families at that income level.

At the median-valued home of $405,000, the tax increase for FY24 would be $360, according to Gilbert. It could easily exceed $1,000 in two years.

Is that enough to push a family out of affordability in Bar Harbor, as was feared in Cape Elizabeth?

A family moving away leaves a waterfall of other consequences - none of it beneficial. What’s the likelihood of another year-round family replacing the household? What’s the impact on school enrollment? Would the home become fodder for seasonal workers and leaving neighborhoods darker in winter? What new business would invest in Bar Harbor under such hyper conditions?

Minutolo said this week there is a reckoning coming and that the tourism industry, which has enjoyed two straight record seasons, must begin to pay its fair share. The town has been “living off the backs of homeowners.”

Minutolo has said repeatedly he favors some kind of a local lodging tax to defray the town’s expenses of supporting hotels and restaurants with their abundant use of police and infrastructure such as water and sewer.

“I think it's the only pathway out,” he said. Local lodging taxes are forbidden under Maine law, but Minutolo said the council must look at all options.

On Feb. 4, I wrote about Bar Harbor’s extraordinary cost of trash removal and yet homeowners pay the same amount as a restaurant serving hundreds of meals a night.

https://theqsjournal.substack.com/p/shock-and-awe-from-bar-harbors-budget

On Tuesday night just before it approved sending the 11.1 percent increase to voters at town meeting, council members were still squabbling over exactly what it was that it was approving. It could not agree on what it approved for the planning department. Member Gary Friedmann challenged Cough’s characterization that fire fighters were going without pay increases.

Then came this pronouncement from council chair Val Peacock:

“While I'm not excited about having a tax increase, I am proud of what is represented by the work of this budget in terms of what we're putting out there and what we're trying to accomplish and how we're trying to resource that and take care of the people that do the work in this town the right way.”

“The coolest part of this is how it all goes to town meeting and the town votes.”

Before her bizarre coda, Friedmann said, “I don’t think taxpayers can sustain multiple-year 10 percent increases like this.”

“Something’s gotta give. We just can’t keep going back to the well like this every year.”

Council candidates in waiting; who can step up?

By Friday afternoon, seven residents returned “papers” with enough signatures to be placed on the ballot for the Town Council elections in June: Charles Sidman, Nathan Young, Gary “Bo” Jennings, Brooke Blomquist, Kyle Shank and Maya Caines.

Only two - Sidman and Young - can be said to be totally free of the influence and pressures of the like on current council members.

More on that in future posts.

SWH select board seeks to rejoin disposal district, worries about ‘hazardous waste’ facility

SOUTHWEST HARBOR - The select board voted 4-1 Tuesday to add $3,000 to next year’s budget so it may begin the process of rejoining the Acadia Disposal District and in doing so have a voice on a proposal to make the town’s transfer station on Long Pond Road the region’s repository for household hazardous waste.

Sean Sullivan, member of the Solid Waste Reduction Task Force, said the idea of SWH being the designated site for such a use is “unsettling.”

Select member Jim Vallette, president of a consulting company which specializes in materials research, said he’s come across data which shows a worrisome number of such facilities encountering problems.

Tony Smith, chair of the district, said it’s premature to judge its future. He is in a the final stages of securing a $350,000 federal grant to enable such a facility. And even then it will have to be designed to satisfy all concerns.

The island now has annual “hazardous waste” days where homeowners and businesses may bring their used oils, chemicals and other such waste to be collected by private companies which dispose of such matters at a contracted price. A facility on the island would make that a more regular activity.

Acadia Disposal District consists of Mount Desert, Tremont, Cranberry Isles, Frenchboro and Trenton. SWH would be the largest member if it chooses to rejoin.

With the Municipal Review Committee in great uncertainty about its future, the select board decided it would be wise to rejoin ADD to chart a future with the MRC, the 155-town regional waste-to-energy plant in Hampden, in disarray. Select chair Carolyn Ball voted against the $3,000 expenditure.

Mount Desert select board faces backlash on short-term rental registration

MOUNT DESERT - Select member Geoff Wood confirmed Friday that the board will review the contentious short-term rental registration at its next meeting in early April. On Monday night the board voted 3-2 to send the proposal to the town meeting in May for consideration.

But Wood acknowledged that there are many unanswered questions about its purpose.

The proposal presented by consultant Noel Musson has ignited a fury of protests from multiple fronts for its sloppiness, lack of details and unclear direction.

Town Clerk Claire Woolfolk asked the select board Monday night for details of its implementation and was told by select chair John Macauley, “We don’t know yet.”

That was followed up by select member Wendy Littlefield who said, “That’s why we shouldn’t put it on the warrant.”

Littlefield was one of two votes against the proposal. The issue has disrupted the usual harmony of the select board. As it stands, the proposal will be decided at the town meeting May 2.

Will this be the final blow to Nordic Aquafarms in Belfast?

BELFAST - The citizens activists here may have dealt the final coup de grace to the land-based industrial fish farm formerly known as Nordic Aquafarms and in doing so exposed the unsavory actions of the local pols. (Bar Harbor, take note)

Fresh off their spectacular victory at the state Supreme Court, The Friends of Harriet L. Hartley (HLH) filed a new suit this week in Waldo County Superior Court against Nordic Aquafarms, Inc. and the City of Belfast, and, for the first time, challenging the legal transfer of actual site of the proposed facility.

Previously the plaintiffs won on grounds that the fish farm illegally would pump water in pipes laid on land over which it did not have easement rights.

The new suit attacks a March 2022 “Deed of Vacation” that Belfast recorded, attempting to wipe out building restrictions on part of the land Nordic bought from the Belfast Water District (BWD).

“The deed appears to be 35 years too late because Belfast conveyed the parcel of land to BWD in 1987. We also contend that the ‘after-the-fact’ Deed of Vacation is null and void because it violates the terms of a 50-year-old transfer from the State to the City as well as the 35-year-old transfer from the City to BWD. The City can’t re-write history.”

In a press release, the Friends stated,

“Tucked inside the 80+ acre site for Nordic’s facility is a 12.5-acre parcel deeded from the State to the City of Belfast in 1973 with a restriction that the land must remain in ‘…natural condition…’ for the purpose of protecting the watershed around the Lower Reservoir. Under the terms of that conveyance, the restrictions include a prohibition against building on the parcel and run with the land.

'“In March 1987 Belfast used a ‘quit claim deed’ to pass the parcel to the Belfast Water District (BWD), stating in that deed that the land was subject to the conditions and restrictions in the 1973 State-to-City deed.

“To confirm the strategic location of the 12.5-acre plot within Nordic’s overall facility plan, our filing contains a Maine DOT survey that researcher Paul Bernacki obtained earlier this month.

“It is clear from this survey that the land on which Nordic has proposed to place its fish factory buildings includes the 12.5 acres that are burdened by the conditions and restrictions…in the 1973 deed from the State of Maine.”

The Friends of Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area is a local, citizen-action organization formed to protect intertidal areas around Belfast Bay. 

HLH formed in the fall of 2019 with a mission to protect the conservation area established by Judith Grace and Jeffrey Mabee, creators and owner of the area and the associated shoreline property.

Frenchman Bay group pulls LD 487

BAR HARBOR - Another group, Friends of Frenchman Bay, did not have such a good week. After getting mauled by lobbyists and state agencies at a hearing in Augusta March 18, it withdrew Bill 487 this week to create regional planning agencies for towns abutting coastal waters.

A member said the organization will regroup and continue to seek ways to protect Frenchman Bay from industrial aquaculture.