HAMPDEN, Maine — For the second time this year, Town Manager Susan Lessard called for an end to the political antics that have been making the community look less than stellar.
This time, the issue was negative campaign robocalls that Mayor Carol Duprey paid for in which two town councilors, Ivan McPike and Jean Lawlis, who are up for re-election on Nov. 4, were blamed for a 10 percent hike in Hampden’s property taxes over the past two years. Duprey justified the calls in an email last week and during a council meeting on Monday by saying that she made them in her capacity as a private citizen and not as the town’s mayor.
While taxes did go up, the increase had little to do with any vote of town councilors but rather increases in Hampden’s share of the RSU 22 budget and the county tax and losses in state revenue sharing, Lessard said during a council meeting on Monday night, noting that this year’s municipal operating budget is actually lower than it was in 2008-09.
Also adding to the problem is that the taxes generated from new construction aren’t enough to offset the increased costs and reduced revenue.
Lessard said town officials have been upfront about why the town’s property tax rate increased and where the town’s tax dollars go, through public budget deliberations, posts to the town’s website and through the town’s newsletter, Hampden Highlights, which is mailed out to every postal address in town.
“What is most unfortunate here is that we sit here at odds and the fact of the matter is we’re all on this ship together,” Lessard said after a recap of what’s occurred with Hampden’s annual budget for the last several years. “There’s not several boats running around here. The fact of the matter is, whether you agree with every spending priority that the town has or you agree with every spending priority that the school has, we all live in the same place.
“And destroying each other in the process is really not going to be helpful here,” she said. “There is room for every voice on this dais and every voice should be represented. I do not want to work for a group of people with heads that bob like a toy poodle in the back of a ‘57 Chevy because we’re going to make terrible decisions that way.
“I know this is more than you asked for and I’m sorry, but we’re eating our own here,” she said. “This is not productive. We fill a room with people who can’t wait to say something about somebody else. That’s not where we want to be. I don’t think anyone in this room wants us to be that. So the only way we can change it is to stop it.
“I know that sounds stupid but we just need to stop it,” Lessard said. “There’s not enough money. What kind of choices are going to have to be made at all levels, in government, in the school [system]? We just need to stop it, we’re better than this. This is a great community. … Opinions are just different. They’re not bad. People have different opinions. They’re not good opinion, bad opinion — they’re different.”
Cynthia Mitchell, a 25-year resident, was among those who want to see the infighting end.
“I would like to say that I’m now at the point when I go to work every day, people wonder why I live in Hampden. People do not want to move here because this Town Council is now making us a laughingstock,” she said. “At some point, people want to live somewhere where they can trust that the leaders of the community believe in their children, believe in their community. What they’re seeing in the press are people who seem to have some agenda that they personally have.
“What I would like to entreat you to do is remember that you are part of a community,” she said. “You lead a community. People want to come here and educate their children and be part of the larger community. You’re going to start losing those people. It doesn’t matter how good the school district is if they don’t believe in the place that they’ve come to live.
The robocalls, which were made last week during a forum for council candidates, irritated some residents and touched off the latest in a series of disputes among council members and drew roughly 50 people to Monday night’s council meeting.