To the editor:
Two sections of the Caribou City Charter are unconstitutional. The limit on what its residents can petition for and one (1) of the restrictions on who can run for City Council both should never have been allowed into the charter.
The Constitutions of the United States and the State of Maine clearly state that resident citizens have the inalienable right, lawful right, to petition their governments on any issue they deem necessary.
The Caribou City Charter clearly states that the residents of Caribou cannot petition its government on matters that pertain to the budget, capital program, levy of taxes, and appropriation of money or employees salaries. Attempts to interfere with city officials on any of these issues by the general public is met with the same resistance that is implied in the Charter on petitions.
This provision in the Caribou City Charter is not only unlawful it has led to the overvaluation of property and the excessive taxes Caribou residents must pay. It gives the city council tyrannical power to do what it desires. The City Council says they are only doing the will of the majority.
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, you might recognize the face of one on U.S. currency, the other is called the “Father of the Constitution”, wrote in the Federalist Papers about the tyranny of the majority and fought hard to ensure that limits on these powers were placed in the Constitution.
The Caribou City Charter and its authors have undone what the founders of our nation and the Constitution they inscribed had done to ensure that this nation and its government would be a Government of the people and for its entire people, not the majority of the people.
The Caribou City Charter also states that if one is in arrears on their taxes they cannot serve on the City Council. Someone in Caribou who might owe back taxes to the city can run for the State Legislature, the Governor of the State of Maine, even run for the Presidency of the United States but they cannot run for the Caribou City Council. The U.S. Constitution and the Maine Constitution says they can but the Caribou City Charter says they cannot.
How far some people will go to unseat or keep from electing a popular representative is not a new thing in Maine. Caribou not too long in the past used to have a Poll Tax to deter the less financially endowed from voting. This new provision in the Caribou City Charter is no more than an extension of that policy. Both are unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Poll Tax was unconstitutional and someday, someone will challenge the restriction on elective officials on back taxes or length of time served, they too will be judged unconstitutional as well.
Maynard St. Peter
Caribou
