Cliff Island resident Leo Carter said he first thought about secession when he saw on television that his island was not considering the idea.
A supporter of secession on Peaks Island was being interviewed by a local television station. He said Peaks had approached Cliff about the two islands — both now part of the city of Portland — joining together to secede. Cliff was not interested, the Peaks Island resident said.
“When I started asking around, I found there was a huge interest in it,” said Carter, who is a columnist for the Casco Bay newspaper, Island Times.
So Carter organized a meeting in early July. After that first small meeting, the entire island was invited to join the discussion about whether Cliff Island could become its own town.
Cliff is the third island in Casco Bay to look into leaving Portland. Chebeague Island votes on Nov. 8 about whether it will seek independence from Cumberland. And the Peaks Island Independence Committee is close to collecting the 532 signatures needed to ask for a hearing to talk about secession with Portland’s City Council.
“We decided very quickly to make this an open discussion with the island,” said Cliff Island resident Cheryl Crowley. “That’s really where we are at — a question and information-gathering process so we can think about this,” she said.
The ad hoc committee has met weekly since July to consider secession and all meetings are open to the public, said Crowley. The Cliff Island Association approved $2,000 to be used to study secession, according to Carter. On Aug. 16, four leaders of Long Island’s town government came to Cliff to talk about self-government. The ad hoc committee plans to have a report on the pros and cons of secession by November.
On Cliff secession talk was triggered by Portland’s latest property revaluation, the first since 1991. Property on Cliff Island increased an average of 150 percent; an increase so dramatic that even with a lower mill rate, property taxes on the island have skyrocketed. The Portland City Council did vote to implement the new values over a two-year period.
Taxes on David and Cheryl Crowley’s house will have doubled when the full values are in place. The Crowleys have three children, ages 2, 5 and 8. The increase is a burden and Cheryl Crowley worries about its impact on others on the island who have young children.
Rising taxes threaten year-round residents, says Roger Berle, an islander who represents Cliff in the Maine Islands Coalition. “A great many of us on Cliff Island believe that taxes are going to drive the winter community off the island,” Berle said. “It will become a summer colony if we don’t change the tax situation. We really have to take matters into our own hands.” Cliff’s year-round population is between 60 and 70 residents.
Berle said his reasons for secession are not about problems with the city. “We’ve been getting great services, ever since Long Island seceded,” Berle said. “Some of us would gladly trade all the services we get for no taxes, but that’s not going to happen.”
But for Cheryl Crowley, rising property taxes are not the only reason to examine secession. She believes island residents can better resolve problems if Cliff is independent. “It’s being able to make decisions and resolve issues within our community,” she said. Cliff Island is so far away from Portland, and so different from the city, that it makes it difficult to take care of island issues.
Carter also talks about the tremendous difference between Cliff Island, with its dirt roads and rural life, and Portland, the biggest city in the state. “We have a totally different character from the city, and we’re geographically isolated from them.”
Tom Fortier, the city’s island/neighborhood administrator, does not believe that Cliff Island is so entirely different from Portland. “I believe every community is in itself unique,” he said. “Munjoy Hill is unique compared to Stroudwater. Peaks Island is unique in its own way as compared to Cliff. It’s a little pessimistic to say that we’re different and we don’t have anything in common.”
The city is aware of the ways in which Cliff Island is unique, and works to maintain its rural character. “For the city, it’s a constant balance to maintain island character and provide city services, Cliff being the most rural of our communities,” said Fortier.
In fiscal year 2005, the city collected $433,000 in property taxes. In fiscal year 2006, that number will rise to $594,000, Fortier said. The city recently purchased a fire truck for Cliff, at a cost of $175,000. A project to build a new barge landing on Cliff is underway, at a cost of $700,000, Fortier said.
Denny Gallaudet, a Cliff Island summer resident who is superintendent of the Richmond School District, prepared a financial forecast for a possible town of Cliff Island, based on studying the budgets of other Maine islands that are their own towns. He projected annual revenues of $437,000, based on a total value for Cliff of $43,573,000 and a mill rate of $7.80 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. (Portland’s current mill rate is $20.13 per $1,000). According to his forecast, that figure would take care of paying for education, public safety, fire and rescue, public works, debt service, recreation, insurance, county tax and administrative costs on Cliff Island for fiscal 2005.
Gallaudet said Cliff is being harmed by the incredible appreciation of Maine coast real estate and a problem with inequalities in the state tax structure. He is interested in exploring secession because “it seems like one of the few things we can do in order to get control over our own tax structure.”