More local election results November 5
More town-level results are coming in. Here are some highlights:
Voters in Scarborough opted not to tax people who are bad at math.
And 2007’s school administrative consolidation plan continues to move towards reality, as a number of Maine towns voted to merge 1950s-era districts into new, more regional school departments:
- Voters in Freeport, Durham, and Pownal voted to merge their three school administrations into one [read pre-election commentary on Future Freeport];
- Schools in Saco, Old Orchard Beach, and Dayton will also share a single administration (Saco and Dayton have long run an innovative system by contracting to send high school students to the private Thornton Academy);
- Voters in the Kennebunks voted to merge their district, SAD 71, with the school district in neighboring Arundel.
- In Oxford County, voters in SADs 21, 39, and 43 decided to merge their districts into a new “Western Foothills School District,” which would be based in Rumford and include the towns of Buckfield, Hanover, Sumner, Hartford, Canton, Carthage, Dixfield, Byron, Roxbury, Mexico, and Peru.
- The communities of Mount Desert Island will share a school district with Trenton and surrounding islands Frenchboro, Swans Island, and the Cranberry Isles.
- And voters in Mechanic Falls, Minot, and Poland voted overwhelmingly to consolidate into a single district.
In other news, continued declines in state revenue led Governor Baldacci to ask state agencies for another $150 million in budget cuts.
UPDATE: The Bangor Daily News printed an article on Thursday that gives the status of all of the state’s school consolidation referenda. Voters approved 12 plans and rejected 5 (most of which were for districts in Aroostook County). Read the article for a complete list of the new school districts.