Common sense and being forward thinking are two skills true dyed in the wool Mainers possess in great supply.
Small Maine towns survive if resistance to change is removed, if creative brainstorming is done. To figure out what do we do now? Way way before arriving at that all important crossroad that makes it do or die important.
Resistance to change happens for a lot of reasons.
You might have liked it just fine the way it was. Or the issue(s) at hand are large and many in number. So where to begin and how will it upset the rest of the apple cart has to be considered. Like the ticking bomb, you holding the wire cutters and with sweat on your lip and brow, hoping you pick the right colored wire to snip snip in just in time. With barely seconds to spare.
The stakes are high because the room for error in the direction you head to work around the problems to arrive at solutions is small.
When you know hard decisions are needed but delayed, population starts to drop off. Folks that don’t want to leave do anyway. Because inefficiency and delay of implementing new policies that control the spending in a small Maine rural towns is disasterous.
High property taxes in small Maine towns, hikes in user fees and service permits signal something is not being correct quick enough in the belt tightening. When you see one by one small Maine towns and plantations lined up to wave the white flag.
To deorganize and step into the boat being lowered into the water from a sinking local community ship. That opts out to go all in with centralized services from one of the sixteen Maine counties. To lose their local identity because not enough volume of people, too low a population, and too higher a tax burden. The bilge pumps can not keep that local boat afloat.
Local control is something small Maine towns are finding harder and harder to hang onto despite the fierce pride, the colors of the sport’s teams worn proudly at state contests on the way to the top. Reaching for the gold ball.
So when you see the loss of population going down, the cost of living in a small Maine town spiking upward, why so slow to rein in the spending?
Rather than hiking the mill rate to dangerous levels like watching the pressure readings on a steam locomotive engine with a dial needle dancing in the red. Drastic times do call for decisive measures to control the skid.
What adds to the frustration is true Mainers that know the rules of survival don’t run their own households that way. They adjust the spending and live below their means to prepare for those sharp curves, crater sized potholes in the road ahead.
Like pushing the heavy car that is out of gas to who knows where. Getting out, bailing and hitch hiking and looking for the best trail out of the situation can make it every dog for himself. Centralized services, removal the layers of duplications in spending and letting go of the way we always used to run the show in a small Maine town. With a spirit of we’ll be better off on the other side and around to rise and shine.
Like pruning a tree of life sucking dead limbs, what remains can thrive and prospers in new healthy ways. If.
Letting go of personality conflicts, using the wisdom of what happened in history when similar scenarios found their way into small Maine town life.
To arrive at this is the best course of action now for the good of the community, everyone in the small burg.
The Mainer who prides himself or herself on being independent will find new ways to work collectively because there is no other option. Just no room for slow, stalled or just not moving in the best course available correction. To keep as much of the distinct, the original flavor of a small Maine town. While preserving, at the same time streamlining and preparing for the future to assure survival of a small Maine town.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com | MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730