Editor:

Disillusionment with government in general and concern that some among our city hall neighbors have yet to come to grips with the reality of the times, many South Portland natives are understandably restless. There is a growing rumble on the street that the city’s uncompromising excesses are real and, at least in one case, seen as an act of unabashed and unbridled folly.

  The big sucking sound they hear is their way of life being slowly pulled down the drain.  The price of gas, groceries, taxes, college tuitions – and the list goes on – is threatening the few hard-earned comforts they still have left and wish to retain. There is fear that the very essence of our way of life is under attack.  A common thread in this exercise in communal negativity is a rumor that has a small coalition of like-minded, hard-headed proponents of a several million dollar armory make-over, facing off with a potential tidal wave of angry resistance. 

The word is, for now, that said proponents have borrowed a page from Dick Cheny’s playbook: “shut up, hunker down and change the subject,” while quietly scouring every city hall crevice for hidden treasure to help fund this irrational folly.   Apparently, the $85 million high school project that lured angry voters out of the woodwork in record-breaking numbers to thoroughly trounce that effort by a three-to-one margin – must have escaped their attention. More recently, they suffered a face-to-face taxpayer pummeling over their upcoming $83.3 million budget,  $1.7 million over the current budget that would increase the tax rate to 4.18 percent, with a $14.25 per $1,000 of valuation. Some $40 million of that amount is destined for school spending. 

And while the proposed armory project might not entail such expense, to pursue it at all, misses the point. That being, all city funds, federal, state or taxpayer, belong to the citizens of this community. And, regardless that the citizenry has delegated its power through its elected officials to prudently dispense it as necessitated; in times of financial stress or a divided electorate, the council, in its wisdom has, heretofore, referred the matter back to the taxpayers for a referendum vote – as it did with the recent high school upgrade issue, and is mandated with the final upcoming annual city budget under the state’s school consolidation law.  When, and if, any decision is arrived at to move forward with an armory project – that many feel is seriously flawed – that project should be put before the taxpayers for an up or down vote, as well.

The authority to expend such amounts as will be needed in this current climate of bleak uncertainty, belongs not with any favored four – elected or otherwise – but with those thousands among us whose lives are impacted daily by the myriad of callous mistakes and unexpected  blunders of narcissistic “leaders” who, for years,  have driven us into the jaws of hell with the very best of intentions.  

Or, maybe not.

Robert Lord

South Portland