AUGUSTA, Maine — A proposal to overhaul the agency that regulates development in the nearly 10 million-acre region of Maine known as the Unorganized Territory is heading for votes by the full Legislature.
A vote Thursday by the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee to send the bill to the House and Senate comes after nearly a year of deliberation, study and negotiation that was prompted by a bill to abolish the Land Use Regulation Commission.
The bill emerged with support of the committee’s majority and would put eight representatives of counties with the largest portions of Unorganized Territory on the commission’s board. It seeks to allow counties seize responsibility for their own land use issues from the commission, but not until 2017.
The final form of the bill was developed by lawmakers after a nonpartisan, 12-member panel of landowners, local government officials, tourism representatives, environmentalists and land use experts met several times last year and developed recommendations to overhaul LURC.
“We agreed with the broad strokes of this proposal, but there were some areas that a few of us thought needed to be changed,” said Rep. Russell Black, R-Wilton, a member of the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee. The bill is now going to the House and Senate resulted.
Because it received divided support on the committee, with a Republican majority of eight members supporting it and at least three Democrats opposing it, the measure is expected to generate debate. Environmental groups have questioned giving development oversight to county officials, saying they lack statewide perspective to properly manage development.
The Unorganized Territory encompasses roughly half of the state’s land where there are no organized, incorporated municipal governments.
Send the environazis packing.
ABOLISH LURC !
DO NOW !
I really don’t care who regulates UT’s but i certainly would like to see evaluations and taxes for those areas increased to reflect what us poor B******’s in and organized area get hit with. The biggest inequity is water front property.
You are a brilliant person, you don’t like your taxes, so increase taxes of others. What a brilliant idea you have, you must be so proud of yourself.
There are almost no services to pay for in the UT, which is why taxes are lower. Taxes on water front property are still higher than elsewhere because the assessed values are higher, even though this has nothing to do with the cost of services. Landowners are still being discriminated against so ‘mustsuitup’ can be happy in his seething resentment.
Please enlighten me as to what public paid for services I receive that a person in an UT doesn’t get. The mil rate and valuations on property is way under valued Actually about half what they would be in an organized area. I believe most citizens south of Greenville or Millinocket couldn’t tell you what a UT is and therefore could care less. Living in a UT is the best deal going in Maine. I want you to just pay your fair share.
There is no such thing as a duty to pay what you demand as a “fair share” in your seething resentment of people who have what you don’t. Dragging people down is not “fair”.
Property valuations are less in the UT because the market value of the property is less.
Mil rates are not “undervalued”. The mil rate is a ratio. Do you know what that means? It is the ratio of the total expense to the total property valuation. No one is “undervaluing” simple arithmetic. The mil rate is the uniform ratio used to allocate taxes for expenses in accordance with the market value of each parcel of property.
The taxes are less because the services are far less, which combination most people are quite happy with. There is no “fair share” demanding more. Your resentment and demands to force people you have nothing to do with pay more are irrelevant. You have no claim on the assets owned by people in the UT to be redistributed to you.
Now that you have had your rant how about answering my question. What services do i receive living in an organized area that you don’t receive living in a UT. Moving to a UT like i said is one of the well hidden secrets that is very,very beneficial to ones pocketbook.
You made several ridiculous assertions aside from an ignorant rhetorical question. Your “well hidden secret” is conspiratorial. Everyone knows that property taxes are less in the rural UT and that there are far fewer ‘services’, much of which aren’t missed. It isn’t tax evasion and there isn’t anything wrong with something “beneficial to one’s pocketbook” that you so resent.
Instead of hissing resentment over people you want to be taxed more and dragged down, go try to live deep into the UT and see what the
difference is, from no town office, to no local government at all, to
taking your own trash to a distant landfill, to travel to a school not
nearby with few roads, to a completely different economy with few jobs
— and much more that few miss. Overall, people in the UT like what
they have and are tired of being dictated to by power-seekers.
The lower property taxes are a result of the lower expenses over a sparse rural population. It isn’t a conspiracy and it isn’t magic, taxes are computed from the expenses, some by county and some across the whole UT. The explanation you didn’t follow is not a “rant”. Read the annual report for the UT. It takes nothing from you and the people in the UT owe you nothing of what you imagine is a “fair share” that you don’t define in any terms other than your personal resentment and desire to make other people worse off, all reduced to a lowest common denominator of misery. Imposing more punitive taxes on people you have nothing to do with in order to drag them down in anger and envy is not going to improve your condition.
How far are you from the asylum?
You have had nothing to say but expression of your own hatred and insult. You apparently still do not understand why taxes are properly lower in the UT and don’t care, your only interest on this matter is to raise taxes on others out of envy and resentment that does nothing to help yourself.
It saddens me that they are trying to fix something that wasn’t broke. LURC was a premier State agency that provided for a fair, reasonable and open process for development in the unorganized territories. To have the same fair and open process would require 16 county commisioners and not 10 as proposed.
LURC is more than broken, it is intentionally oppressive on behalf of the viros’ desires. Normal people have opposed that for decades, recognizing that it is not fair, reasonable or open to be controlled by unaccountable centralized bureaucracy acting on behalf of an alien ideology.
Sir, after reading your comment, I get the feeling you are one of two things – an uninformed person or a liar. I attended LURC hearing around the State for several years on a regular basis. The LURC Commissioners who were appointed by the several Governors and made the decisions were the most balanced group of people I have ever seen in State government. The staff people who did the ground work were hard working and honest administrators of existing rules and regulations and did not make decisions. The members of the public who spoke or submitted testimony for or against a proposal were from many different perspectives. To label LURC as a “viro” group is as far from the truth as you can get. LURC was all about orderly development in the unorganized territories and provided an equal voice for those from Kittery to Fort Kent.
Stop calling other people “liars” as a diversion from your inability to defend your own radical left viro politics. The complaints are coming from the people being ruled by your centralized bureaucracy taking private property rights from the owners of land you want to control. Everyone knows that the viros want to make that even worse than it is now. Calling that “balanced” is empty propaganda. When you steal from people but don’t get as much as you want that doesn’t make it “balanced”.
If we were to Google “Agenda 21”, we would see Bill’s play book.
You transposed the numbers, it’s “Agenda 12”: 12th century authoritarian medievalism.