Charting Maine’s Future

Today’s Kennebec Journal includes an editorial that outlines some of the advantages of a statewide building code, as proposed by LD 2257 (you can read a short description of the bill in this previous post).

The editorial also deftly responds to arguments that individual towns should be allowed to opt out of enforcing the proposed statewide code. “Given that towns have code officers to enforce local building codes,” writes the Journal, “we’re hard-pressed to understand how a state mandate to enforce a state code would be a problem — either organizationally or economically — for municipalities.” GrowSmart Maine is working to oppose any amendments to the bill that would subvert enforcement of the new uniform codes.

As currently proposed, the uniform building code, with mandatory enforcement for towns with more than 2,000 residents, would actually open up all sorts of opportunities for bureaucratic streamlining and cost savings - as we might expect from a huge simplification in laws and regulations. Here’s a snippet from today’s editorial:

If town officials are worried about the cost of a code enforcement officer, the same money-saving options are available to them that have always been available for enforcement of local building codes: Share a code official with another town or use the code enforcement services of a regional agency or certified private companies. Indeed, it would likely be much easier for towns to share a code enforcement officer if the bill were passed, since that officer would not have to learn a different set of codes for each town.

You can read an archived version of today’s editorial here.

The Democrats’ proposed budget would strip the Office of Program Evaluation & Government Accountability of its funding and functionality. Unfortunately, the marginal savings from this action would also strip Maine’s state government of a valuable tool for evaluating state programs and priorities, and throw up a significant roadblock to future reform efforts in state government.

Please call the Legislature’s Democratic leadership today to speak up for OPEGA, which is vital to our efforts to modernize and streamline government in Augusta. Urge Democratic leadership to work harder to address the longer-term structural problems of state government, rather than in the annual frenzy of the State House budget process. Here are the phone numbers for the Democratic leaders:

Sen. President Beth Edmonds: 287-1500 (State House office), 865-3869 (home)
Speaker of the House Glenn Cummings: 287-1300 (State House office)
House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree: 423-2900 (State House office), 867-0966 (home)

LD 2257, An Act to Establish a Uniform Building and Energy Code, will have a public hearing today in front of the Legislature’s Business, Research, and Economic Development Committee.

The hearing follows some very favorable press: in Blethen Maine’s newspapers, State House reporter Susan Cover published an article that details the broad support that the uniform building code is enjoying, from builders, town officials, and environmental groups.

Today’s Portland Press Herald also has an editorial that endorses the uniform code and warns against watering it down by letting individual towns opt out of enforcement. Keeping standards consistent - including enforcement standards - will help developers and town governments alike to do their work, the editors argue.

LD 2257 also includes mandatory energy efficiency requirements championed by several of Maine’s environmental organizations, including the Natural Resources Council of Maine and the Maine Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council.

This Thursday at 4 pm, the Westbrook College campus of the University of New England will host its first “annual celebration of the life and ideals of business and community leader P.D. Merrill.”

This lecture will feature Chris Argyris, Ph.D., the James Bryant Conant Professor of Education and Organizational Behavior (emeritus) at the Graduate School of Business, Harvard University.

P.D. Merrill, who was the Chairman of Merrill Industries, was an extremely prominent and active leader in Maine’s business and philanthropy communities, and was also a valuable member of GrowSmart Maine’s board of directors. If you’re interested in attending this lecture, please RSVP by March 20 to Tonia Letellier:
(207) 602-2483 or tletellier@une.edu.

Read more about the event at the UNE website or use this link to download the event to your calendar:

The GrowSmart-Brookings report’s “action plan for sustainable prosperity” included over two full pages (pp. 119-121) of recommendations to reform the state’s complicated patchwork of building codes.

“Today, Maine’s lack of a uniform statewide building code seriously hinders redevelopment by injecting uncertainty into investors’ decisionmaking, consuming time, and making clear guidance from a central source impossible to obtain,” wrote the Brookings Institution.

Fortunately, tackling the state’s building codes was one of the first action items from the report that the Legislature tackled last year, and lawmakers directed the State Planning Office to draft a bill that would implement a single, statewide code of building and energy standards.

That bill is now ready to go before the legislature as LD 2257, and it fits in nicely with this spring’s agenda to support other revitalization and redevelopment legislation like the historic preservation tax credit. Here’s a link to the bill’s text.

The Legislature only has a few weeks left in session, but we’re hoping to make this bill into law before they wrap things up. As far as I can tell, the Legislature has yet to schedule a public hearing on this bill, but we’ll let you know when it will be as soon as we find out.

Stay tuned for advocacy updates on this one - we’ll be asking for our constituents’ help to shepherd this good idea safely through the State House.

Yesterday morning’s first-ever GrowSmart Maine advocacy day in the State House was quite successful. We had members representing a broad area of the state, from Presque Isle to Biddeford, and we introduced ourselves to dozens of legislators.

The three bills we’re advocating for this session - the historic preservation tax credit, the act to preserve neighborhood schools, and a statewide building code - are relatively uncontroversial and have an encouraging level of support in Augusta. We had lots of opportunities to thank legislators for championing these bills, and to raise GrowSmart’s visibility in general

GrowSmart Maine advocates in the Senate chamber, just before the session got underway.

We were also lucky enough to attend an interesting debate in the House, just prior to a vote on whether or not to amend last year’s Informed Growth Act to let individual municipalities to opt-out of the bill’s requirements. The Informed Growth Act, which passed last year, requires large retailers to pay for a regional economic impact study before they build a store that exceeds a certain threshold in square footage. Although GrowSmart Maine hasn’t taken an official position on this bill, it’s tremendously relevant to our members and our interests in economic development, sound planning, and preserving quality places.

Legislators speaking out against the amendments cited the regionwide impacts of big box stores, and argued that letting individual towns opt out of the impact study requirements would both defeat the purpose of the bill and also unnecessarily balkanize planning decisions that should be made regionally.

Ultimately, the House voted to reject the amendments, so the Informed Growth Act still stands (for now).

The GrowSmart Maine office is hard at work today making final preparations for our first-ever State House advocacy day tomorrow morning.

If you have the morning free and can make it to Augusta, please consider dropping by to say “hello” and to meet your legislators. We’ll be meeting at 9 am in the State House’s Cross Cafeteria with coffee and breakfast snacks. After a short briefing on our current legislative initiatives and some advocacy pointers, we’ll head out into the halls to introduce our advocates with their representatives and key decision makers in the legislature. We’ll wrap things up around 11:30 with lunch back in the cafeteria, where we hope to be joined by some of our lawmakers.

Our focus tomorrow is to demonstrate public support for the three community revitalization bills we’re working on this session: LD 262, the historic preservation tax credit, LD 2082, An Act to Preserve Historic Neighborhood Schools, and Resolve 46, a statewide building code.

If you have any questions, call events coordinator Jesse Baines before the close of business today at 847-9275 ext. 316. We hope to see you in the State House tomorrow!

Our advocacy director Maggie Drummond just e-mailed us with the good news that LD 262, the expansion of the historic preservation tax credit that has been a top priority for GrowSmart Maine this session, just passed out of the Taxation Committee with a unanimous “ought to pass” vote.

“I keep reminding myself it’s not over ’til it’s really over in this building,” writes Maggie from the State House, “but I’m encouraged about progress we’re making on key priorities.”

Maggie Drummond, our advocacy director, called in this afternoon with the good news that the Legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee has given LD 2062, An Act To Preserve Successful Historic Neighborhood Schools, a unanimous “ought to pass” vote.

This bill would provide some flexibility in state energy codes that currently favor new school construction instead of renovation for historic school buildings, so that the state can take more economical decisions about reusing existing school infrastructure.

Please consider contacting the following Legislators on the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee to offer thanks for their endorsement of this worthy bill:

Senator Peter B. Bowman (D-York), Chair

Senator Elizabeth H. Mitchell (D-Kennebec)

Senator Peter Mills (R-Somerset)

Representative Jacqueline R. Norton (D-Bangor), Chair

Representative Edward D. Finch (D-Fairfield)

Representative Elaine Makas (D-Lewiston)

Representative David W. Farrington (D-Gorham)

Representative Charles William Harlow (D-Portland)

Representative Patricia B. Sutherland (D-Chapman)

Representative Peter Edgecomb (R-Caribou)*

Representative Howard E. McFadden (R-Dennysville)

Representative Roberta M. Muse (R-Fryeburg)

Representative Meredith N. Strang Burgess (R-Cumberland)

Market Decisions, a Portland-based polling firm, recently released the results of a new poll on Maine’s budget problems. Judging by a sample of 400 Mainers, “eight out of ten Maine citizens oppose a temporary increase in state taxes to fill Maine’s budget gap,” the firm wrote in a press release. “The poll also showed that seven out of ten citizens support spending cuts as the solution to fixing Maine’s budget challenges.”

The poll’s results can be viewed in a detailed report on the Market Decisions website.

Today, the Governor released his own proposals to deal with the growing budget shortfall. This Portland Press Herald news update contains a summary of the cuts, which includes a $20 million reduction in state aid to local school districts, $9 million in cuts to higher education, and $27.5 million in cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services. The Governor’s proposal also includes some fee increases to generate new revenue.