The new mayor of South Portland has offered a scintillating (as in, “glittering nonsense”) proposal, one that promises to he heard beyond the near confines of his fair city. He suggests that Cumberland and like-minded counties here in the banana belt secede from the Pine Tree State – shades of Jefferson Davis and his crew of hearties!!. He neglected to offer a name for his proposed 51st state, but one or two monikers have already surfaced, e.g., Cumberville and Cascobaysetts.

One student of government offered a limerick:

There is a new pol from over the bay

Whose witless surprise was the talk of the day

His town did not fit

He wanted to quit

And form a new state: Yorkscogginolay

The mayor’s rationale was direct. He claimed what amounts to proprietary rights to the sales taxes engendered by South Portland merchants. He says that the sum of those taxes exceeds the amount of benefits bestowed on his metropolis by Augusta. He slid right over the crevasse of fiscal common sense by contending that state monies collected within his political sandbox somehow entitled him to ownership of those monies. Using this fiscal rationale, his sister community of Cape Elizabeth might be similarly motivated where income taxes are concerned. This affluent coastal enclave sends to Washington, it is certain, far more legal tender than Washington sends back.

Dr Lucius Flatley, a local shrink, suggested that the good mayor, in earlier life, might have been a train conductor. It is a profession quite similar to that of mayor. Like a mayor for his city, a conductor is responsible for the whole train, and is also responsible for collecting revenue. In the conductor’s case, a good deal of railroad money passes through his cash bag. If he grows dissatisfied with his share of revenue, it is only a short step to developing a proprietary claim as to the disposition of this money.

The mayor’s idea has taken root elsewhere. In a move inspired by the good mayor, Maine Mall merchants (the main source of the riches that evade his grasp) were said to be calling a meeting to consider seceding from his loving embrace. They want to create a new town called Cashville. A cost study by underemployed government experts at the University of Southern Maine has been suggested, hoping to “prove” that the merchants would benefit immensely by such a move. With the bonanza of sales taxes – added to the respectable amount of property taxes which currently accrue to South Portland – Cashville could hire its own Blackwater security, put a computerized fire hydrant at every building and could afford to send its kids to the nice new schools in Scarborough and Gorham.

A variant of the idea is likely to spread to Portland, which hosts, tax free, a major portion of the University of Southern Maine. On this basis, Portland officials who share his tax beliefs may hanker for free tuition for Portland residents.

Still another conceptualization will no doubt soon surface, this time in reverse: the municipality that scarfs up the excise taxes paid on the hundreds of Central Maine Power vehicles, prays for this whole issue to die quietly. They fear that if this idea catches the attention of less-favored municipalities, they may have to share their bonanza with such towns as Kennebunkport or Meddybemps.

Comment from other areas has been less than laudatory. A few observers have compared the mayor with corporate CEOs, who justify their preposterous share of corporate income in the same way as Boss Tweed, who once said, “I seen my opportunities and I took ’em!” Some have drawn an analogy with Texas, whose bumper stickers during the first oil crisis used to say, “Let the Yankee bastards freeze in the dark!” Still others airily dismiss the proposal as run-of-the-mill political desire for exposure, or everyday blather – both of which are ailments common to newly risen public servants.

But perhaps these thinkers have been small minded. Property taxes are the bane of many folks, occasioning annual invasions of polling stations by true believers begging for initiative/referendum signatures – initiatives all supporting, in one way or another, the theory: “Don’t tax me, tax that fellow under the tree.”

The good mayor may be on to something. He wants to become “that fellow under the tree” – except it is a money tree and he wants to keep the annual crop.

Rodney Quinn, who lives in Gorham, is a freelance writer and former Maine secretary of state.

The new mayor of South Portland has offered a scintillating (as in, “glittering nonsense”) proposal, one that promises to he heard beyond the near confines of his fair city. He suggests that Cumberland and like-minded counties here in the banana belt secede from the Pine Tree State – shades of Jefferson Davis and his crew of hearties!!. He neglected to offer a name for his proposed 51st state, but one or two monikers have already surfaced, e.g., Cumberville and Cascobaysetts.

One student of government offered a limerick:

There is a new pol from over the bay

Whose witless surprise was the talk of the day

His town did not fit

He wanted to quit

And form a new state: Yorkscogginolay

The mayor’s rationale was direct. He claimed what amounts to proprietary rights to the sales taxes engendered by South Portland merchants. He says that the sum of those taxes exceeds the amount of benefits bestowed on his metropolis by Augusta. He slid right over the crevasse of fiscal common sense by contending that state monies collected within his political sandbox somehow entitled him to ownership of those monies. Using this fiscal rationale, his sister community of Cape Elizabeth might be similarly motivated where income taxes are concerned. This affluent coastal enclave sends to Washington, it is certain, far more legal tender than Washington sends back.

Dr Lucius Flatley, a local shrink, suggested that the good mayor, in earlier life, might have been a train conductor. It is a profession quite similar to that of mayor. Like a mayor for his city, a conductor is responsible for the whole train, and is also responsible for collecting revenue. In the conductor’s case, a good deal of railroad money passes through his cash bag. If he grows dissatisfied with his share of revenue, it is only a short step to developing a proprietary claim as to the disposition of this money.

The mayor’s idea has taken root elsewhere. In a move inspired by the good mayor, Maine Mall merchants (the main source of the riches that evade his grasp) were said to be calling a meeting to consider seceding from his loving embrace. They want to create a new town called Cashville. A cost study by underemployed government experts at the University of Southern Maine has been suggested, hoping to “prove” that the merchants would benefit immensely by such a move. With the bonanza of sales taxes – added to the respectable amount of property taxes which currently accrue to South Portland – Cashville could hire its own Blackwater security, put a computerized fire hydrant at every building and could afford to send its kids to the nice new schools in Scarborough and Gorham.

A variant of the idea is likely to spread to Portland, which hosts, tax free, a major portion of the University of Southern Maine. On this basis, Portland officials who share his tax beliefs may hanker for free tuition for Portland residents.

Still another conceptualization will no doubt soon surface, this time in reverse: the municipality that scarfs up the excise taxes paid on the hundreds of Central Maine Power vehicles, prays for this whole issue to die quietly. They fear that if this idea catches the attention of less-favored municipalities, they may have to share their bonanza with such towns as Kennebunkport or Meddybemps.

Comment from other areas has been less than laudatory. A few observers have compared the mayor with corporate CEOs, who justify their preposterous share of corporate income in the same way as Boss Tweed, who once said, “I seen my opportunities and I took ’em!” Some have drawn an analogy with Texas, whose bumper stickers during the first oil crisis used to say, “Let the Yankee bastards freeze in the dark!” Still others airily dismiss the proposal as run-of-the-mill political desire for exposure, or everyday blather – both of which are ailments common to newly risen public servants.

But perhaps these thinkers have been small minded. Property taxes are the bane of many folks, occasioning annual invasions of polling stations by true believers begging for initiative/referendum signatures – initiatives all supporting, in one way or another, the theory: “Don’t tax me, tax that fellow under the tree.”

The good mayor may be on to something. He wants to become “that fellow under the tree” – except it is a money tree and he wants to keep the annual crop.

Rodney Quinn, who lives in Gorham, is a freelance writer and former Maine secretary of state.