Secession Committee claiming 90 percent signature success rate

    CARIBOU, Maine — With 80 percent of Caribou possibly seceding in the next year or two, it would seem nowadays that most roads lead to Lyndon, if they’re not already in the territory. Caribou Secession Committee Spokesperson Paul Camping drove out to one of those roads on Friday night.
Exiting the downtown Caribou area, Camping drove past a small flock of roosting starlings and a few apple trees until he crossed that invisible line where Caribou ends and Lyndon begins.
An hour later, dusk had arrived and Camping concluded his sixth stop of the night; three homesteads and five individuals had signed the petition, knocks went unanswered at two other domiciles, and a registered voter at another home did not sign the petition.
“Most people want to sign,” Camping explained between houses. “You get very few who don’t. Our supporter rate is about 90 percent on average. They’ve heard about us, they’re expecting us, and they’re ready to sign,” he added. In order to move forward with the secession process, members of the Caribou Secession Committee need to obtain half of the registered voters’ signatures on a petition that will automatically mandate a public hearing with the Caribou City Council. After the public hearing, the secession movement would head to Augusta for legislative approval and if it were obtained, the matter would then return to Lyndon voters.
Some Lyndon voters were, indeed, very ready to sign. One gentleman didn’t even wait for Camping to exit his SUV — he walked right up and signed it through Camping’s open window.
One voter — who had no problem sharing that his name was Ralph — had previously attended a meeting of the Caribou Secession Committee and wasn’t shy about sharing his opinions.
“They keep telling us to tighten our belts — they ought to tighten theirs,” Ralph said. “The school budget is way overboard, the police department is way overboard, parks and recreation is ridiculous — there’s no need for taxes being this high.”
Conversing on the subject while the sun set, Camping described how the Caribou Secession Committee studied the numbers; the group knows what tax revenue can be generated with a lower rate, and Camping said they’re ready to afford the same services for less money.
“You know what would be real nice?” Ralph asked, referring to the city government. “If they would sit down and say, “Look, we want to get these taxes down and we’ll all work together.’ But they don’t want to work with us people — they don’t even care about us people,” he added. “If they did, it would have never got to this.”
Ralph shared with Camping that he’d heard the city was looking to hire two more cops, and Camping shared with Ralph that the city is looking at getting estimates for building a pool in the Caribou Wellness and Recreation Center; the two scoffed at the idea.
“Well you know what cracks me up, they put this big thing on, Caribou loves kids. Then they want to charge them to use the pool,” Ralph said. “they can’t love kids too much, can they?”
Ralph and Camping agreed on many similar points, but Camping didn’t have a similar result with another proposed Lyndon resident, who asked to remain anonymous.
In fact, they only thing they agreed on after the 15-minute conversation was that it was a pleasure to have met each other.
Initially, the two exchanged pleasantries and small talk before Camping presented a tax map for reference.
He pointed out where his property was, where the voter’s property was, and “This whole area here is going to be the town of Lyndon, if we’re successful,” he said over the quiet chirping of late summer insects. “Caribou will not be the taxing jurisdiction anymore, the town of Lyndon would. We’re proposing a target mil rate of 15.9, which is 28 percent less than Caribou’s current mil rate of 22.3,” Camping added.
The voter had questions about education and access to services like the recreation department, and Camping did his best to answer.
“Schools are not owned by Caribou. They’re owned by RSU 39. So your children go to school in RSU 39, that’s not going to change,” Camping said, “because Caribou is a member of RSU 39, any children currently going to that school district will continue to go. Same buses, same schedules, same teachers, same buildings. Nothing changes at the school. And then police, fire and ambulance, they will be taken care of and there’s a number of ways …”
The voter interjected to show that she understood the school facet of the secession, and Camping continued.
“When you pay your taxes, you won’t pay them to Caribou anymore,” he explained. “You pay them to the new town of Lyndon, but at a 28 percent savings. The town of Lyndon will also provide highway maintenance, plowing and so forth.”
As Camping and the voter discussed, Lyndon would not have a recreation department. Or a library.
“But I’m sure that for a very modest fee, residents of Lyndon will be able to participate in Caribou and their recreation program,” Camping offered, mentioning that the Secession Committee has found that, generally, people who live out in the country don’t have children participating in the recreation programs.
“I’m not saying that it’s 100 percent, but that’s the thing that we found: the farther you get away from downtown and the more rural the countryside is, the less people identify with the city,” he explained.
The voter disagreed, vocalizing about being born and raised in Caribou.
“How long have you lived here?” the voter asked Camping.
“Eight years,” he replied.
“I find this a very strange concept,” the voter admitted. “I know that people are signing the petition, but I just find it a very bizarre … I just don’t see how it’s going to help the town in the end, or anyone else, other than the fact that it’s going to lower taxes — which the high tax rate I feel is because the town has been in such a scrape from before because everyone is always grinding out some sort of personal or group or business agenda … because there’s no business base in town because no one would let it come into town,” the voter said, trailing off into a sad, wry chuckle.
“Because the taxes are high,” Camping offered.
The voter disagreed again, stating that the taxes are no higher in Caribou than they are in Presque Isle or Fort Fairfield.
“I’m not going to sign it,” the voter said. “That’s my own personal opinion. I think it’s very divisive in the town, and I’m not necessarily in favor of it.”
Camping then suggested that he would expect to see the voter running for city council, to which the voter declined, listed resume points and volunteer projects.
The voter may not be running for council, but if the secession petition doesn’t go through, Ralph might run.
“If we don’t get this through, I might run for town council,” he said. “But you need more than one person to make a change.”
Ralph and Camping discussed that you need to have at least four like-minded people to get anything done. Ralph asked Camping how many council seats were open, and Camping responded, “four.”
“If you could get four in there. But not with the way they do it. They more or less even control the votes,” Ralph said. “Even if we don’t get what we want, at least they’ll know now that people aren’t going to sit back and take it. They’re going to start stepping up and taking action.”
Additional information about the Caribou Secession Committee can be found on their Facebook page or by calling the Hotline at 498-6120 or 492-7291.