I became engaged in a discussion on the Boothbay Register, in response to a letter titled Praise For the Roundabout and Surroundings, wherein, as has become the custom, another of my comments has been blocked with the "pending" option.
I reposted the response as a stand-alone comment it is also now "pending" in my Disqus profile.
The Register recently posted some rules about polite conversations but it is quite obvious that Coulombe and his supporters make consistence use of the ad hominem argument, attacking the speaker rather than addressing points made. These posters become progressively more vicious if one continues to speak one's mind despite their obvious attempts to bully all opposition into silence. Their posts remain in full public view.
I have found the user blocking function on Disqus so that most of those who argue by such method will no longer see my posts and I will not see theirs. I do not know if the Register will take any actions to support its own policies against the ad hominem argument.
The rules also say this:
I quoted from the Boothbay Register's own publication on a discussion in their publication, linking to the original quote from their publication, to back up the facts I was claiming. I think there is something at work here other than the fact that I did not ask their permission to quote them and if that is the issue, then I think I would have been denied permission, for reasons untoward. The post to which I originally responded remains published. That post claims that the reason the people of Boothbay voted for the roundabout was that of the purported financial advantages of TIFfinancing.
I submit, here and now, that the financial advantages of TIF financing is the reason the voters approved a new TIF district in 2014, but observe that according to reporting in the Boothbay Register in Boothbay passed the new TIF district in May of 2014 , the TIF district was approved, after a previous failed attempt, because it did "not include the controversial village improvement plan, traffic roundabout or borrowing money to pay for a municipal bond"
The TIF district is greater than the Coulomb development. It also includes the industrial district. Once the TIF district is approved, TIF financing projects have to be approved separately. For instance, if there were a proposal for development in the industrial district, creating year round jobs, as opposed to seasonal jobs, that would require approval from the voters for TIF financing within the TIF district.
The configuration of the TIF district includes options for two directions in which there has been an expressed interest in developing within our local dialogue. Is Boothbay going to become a high end vacation destination, or, can Boothbay also support a year round community with a culture that lives and works on this peninsula? Given the dual purpose entailed in the creation of the TIF district, the absence of an alternative TIF financing project supporting year round employment is glaringly absent from a discussion presented as a single option choice.
The Boothbay Register also has a disclaimer stating that it cannot monitor everything and is not accountable to the reliability of information posted in the comment section. However, in order to read my comment, the Register had to read the comment to which I was responding, and calling out as revisionist history. Despite the Register's disclaimer, it is apparent that the Register chose to leave the post, I called out, published while deleting my observation that the roundabout was not sold to the public as financed by TIFS. It was sold as financed by Department of Transporation funding.
A post blocked from the conversation cannot be said to be republished or redistributed from the Site, since before being republished or redistributed, it has to be published or distributed. That does not apply to their comment policy but fair use does. The reason why I created this blog is that I felt that since the public-private government was established under the Longley administration, all voices oppositional to the public-private government have been almost absent from the media. I have created my own independent media, which is slowly, but surely, being read.
My new post once displayed with a message that there is a hold on it, waiting to be approved by the Register. A day later it is still pending, and so I have concluded that it was not published and cannot be republished. Only I could see the screenshot which said it was waiting to be approved by the Boothbay Register, it was not distributed to the general public.
I have presented the blocked comment in a more readable version below. As you can see I validated my claims with a story published in the Boothbay Register about the roundabout at the time it was being sold by the town for a public vote. At that time the financing of the roundabout was identified as DOT funding. I have recently observed a push to rewrite that history as if it had been sold to the public as TIF funding all along. One has to wonder why. Other comments blocked in the Register were about this same subject!
The return of the TIF
Knickerbocker Group, Coulombe outline benefits of Route 27 improvements, Boothbay Village proposal
‘There is no plan B’
By GINA HAMILTON
Posted: Friday, August 12, 2016
This article By Naomi Schalit, ©Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting • February 20, 2014 objects to the use of TIFs because it allows wealthy towns to report as less wealthy and therefore pay less for county services, such as jails. That is translated as the much talked about the increased revenue stream. In short, TIFS is a mechanism which contributes to the rich getting richer and the poor poorer, as has been happening in this state since the seventies when our economy became centrally managed, And that is because the purpose of the state is no longer to serve the common welfare.
Maine Law Review on Tif Financing in Maine (2018)
I reposted the response as a stand-alone comment it is also now "pending" in my Disqus profile.
The Register recently posted some rules about polite conversations but it is quite obvious that Coulombe and his supporters make consistence use of the ad hominem argument, attacking the speaker rather than addressing points made. These posters become progressively more vicious if one continues to speak one's mind despite their obvious attempts to bully all opposition into silence. Their posts remain in full public view.
I have found the user blocking function on Disqus so that most of those who argue by such method will no longer see my posts and I will not see theirs. I do not know if the Register will take any actions to support its own policies against the ad hominem argument.
The rules also say this:
Users of the Site may not reproduce, republish or redistribute material from the Site in any form without permission of Maine-OK Enterprises, Inc. and its affiliates Boothbay Register/Wiscasset Newspaper ("Provider")This may seem like an attempt by Maine-OK Enterprises to prevent anyone from quoting what is published in their media without receiving permission from them, a very gray legal area, intersecting with fair use. Fair Use is interpreted on a case by case basis and so there are rarely legal challenges to it unless it pushes the limits to the extremes. The Register can choose to block a person from commenting, a small price to pay for the preservation of journalistic freedom.
Journalists recognize that re-using copyrighted material is central to their work. Responsible aggregation is a key and perennial feature of journalism; journalists always have “advanced the story” by building upon the work of other journalists, whether through attributed quotation or unattributed reference. Of course, much common journalistic re-use of existing material does not even require fair use, since facts themselves are not copyrightable. Often, however, bare facts are not enough; the very words or images through which information is expressed may be part of the story. Thus, in practice, much journalistic re-use and follow-on work has always (if sometimes unknowingly) depended on fair us CMSI, Center for Media & Social Impact
I quoted from the Boothbay Register's own publication on a discussion in their publication, linking to the original quote from their publication, to back up the facts I was claiming. I think there is something at work here other than the fact that I did not ask their permission to quote them and if that is the issue, then I think I would have been denied permission, for reasons untoward. The post to which I originally responded remains published. That post claims that the reason the people of Boothbay voted for the roundabout was that of the purported financial advantages of TIFfinancing.
I submit, here and now, that the financial advantages of TIF financing is the reason the voters approved a new TIF district in 2014, but observe that according to reporting in the Boothbay Register in Boothbay passed the new TIF district in May of 2014 , the TIF district was approved, after a previous failed attempt, because it did "not include the controversial village improvement plan, traffic roundabout or borrowing money to pay for a municipal bond"
The TIF district is greater than the Coulomb development. It also includes the industrial district. Once the TIF district is approved, TIF financing projects have to be approved separately. For instance, if there were a proposal for development in the industrial district, creating year round jobs, as opposed to seasonal jobs, that would require approval from the voters for TIF financing within the TIF district.
The configuration of the TIF district includes options for two directions in which there has been an expressed interest in developing within our local dialogue. Is Boothbay going to become a high end vacation destination, or, can Boothbay also support a year round community with a culture that lives and works on this peninsula? Given the dual purpose entailed in the creation of the TIF district, the absence of an alternative TIF financing project supporting year round employment is glaringly absent from a discussion presented as a single option choice.
The Boothbay Register also has a disclaimer stating that it cannot monitor everything and is not accountable to the reliability of information posted in the comment section. However, in order to read my comment, the Register had to read the comment to which I was responding, and calling out as revisionist history. Despite the Register's disclaimer, it is apparent that the Register chose to leave the post, I called out, published while deleting my observation that the roundabout was not sold to the public as financed by TIFS. It was sold as financed by Department of Transporation funding.
No Pre-Screening or Editing
This is a community Site. As such, there are weblogs, member stories, comments, forums, photo galleries, and inventories of goods and services. Provider cannot and does not monitor all of the material posted or transmitted to the Site. Additionally, Provider does not control, and is not responsible for, Content made available through the Site by members.
By using the Site, you may be exposed to Content that you may find offensive, indecent, inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise objectionable. You agree that you must evaluate, and bear all risks associated with, the use of the Site and any of its Content, including but not limited to whether you should rely on said Content. Boothbay Register Comment PolicyClearly as shown in the screenshot below, my comment was pre-screened.
A post blocked from the conversation cannot be said to be republished or redistributed from the Site, since before being republished or redistributed, it has to be published or distributed. That does not apply to their comment policy but fair use does. The reason why I created this blog is that I felt that since the public-private government was established under the Longley administration, all voices oppositional to the public-private government have been almost absent from the media. I have created my own independent media, which is slowly, but surely, being read.
My new post once displayed with a message that there is a hold on it, waiting to be approved by the Register. A day later it is still pending, and so I have concluded that it was not published and cannot be republished. Only I could see the screenshot which said it was waiting to be approved by the Boothbay Register, it was not distributed to the general public.
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| https://m.boothbayregister.com/article/praise-roundabout-surroundings/105859#comment-4035419433 |
I have presented the blocked comment in a more readable version below. As you can see I validated my claims with a story published in the Boothbay Register about the roundabout at the time it was being sold by the town for a public vote. At that time the financing of the roundabout was identified as DOT funding. I have recently observed a push to rewrite that history as if it had been sold to the public as TIF funding all along. One has to wonder why. Other comments blocked in the Register were about this same subject!
The TIF is an interesting area of research. Here is a Boothbay Register article from 2014. largely advocating for a new TIFdistrict involving the country club. The article reports that Boothbay is the highest valued town in Lincoln County.My comment in response to Tim, which was blocked on disqus using the pending option. This happens frequently. My was posted in response to Tim's claim that the reason Boothbay voted for the roundabout was because of the advantages of TIF financing. I pointed out that when the roundabout was sold to the people it was sold on the basis of DOT financing which is structured so that communities with private developers go to the front of the line to get their share of public infrastructure funding beforeall others. I have noticed that now the story has changed to one in which the roundabout was planned as TIF financing all along, and this is associated with claims that Coulombe is covering the entire expense. I can only speculate from here on in that it may be that after getting the DOT financing, the town arranged TIF financing with Coulombe to cover his share or even the towns share of the DOT financing, which means that the town gets to postpone payments to the county as told by its supporters. Both of the financing rules are created by the state Legislature.Mackenzie Andersen tlm 20 hours agoPendingPlease speak for yourself as an individual and not as collective group think .The round about was funded by DOT. There was no mention of TIFS at the time. You are presenting revisionist history.Since the DOT is set up to take from the state economy and TIFS are set up to withold from the state economy- that's a double benefit for the wealthy community of Boothbay taken at the expense of the whole economy of the state.HERE is a Boothbay Register article at the time the roundabout was being sold to the public:QUOTEDOT officials estimated the roundabout’s cost between $3 million and $4 million. Funding would likely come from the state’s Business Partnership Initiative, according to State Transportation Engineer Steve Landry. The Business Partnership Initiative shares construction costs between state, municipal government and private sources.https://www.boothbayregister.com/article/roundabout-suggested-solving-boothbay-traffic-problems/67092I propose that now is the time for a new Peninsula media to take flight! It could be a linked network of blogs, which requires no financing, just the will to speak one's own voice and some basic structural organization. If interested say so, Please.
The return of the TIF
The new TIF district envelopes nearly the same land as the previously proposed TIF. The 272 acres comprises the golf course, the Boothbay Common and up the Route 27 corridor to the Industrial Park. But this TIF does not include the controversial village improvement plan, traffic roundabout or borrowing money to pay for a municipal bond.
The Route 27 traffic pattern plan presentation has been recorded by MDOT traffic consultant Mark Lenters with GHD, Inc., for public distribution and we have supplied it as an attachment here.
Knickerbocker Group, Coulombe outline benefits of Route 27 improvements, Boothbay Village proposal
‘There is no plan B’
By GINA HAMILTON
Posted: Friday, August 12, 2016
The tax increment financing (TIF) arrangement, approved by voters last year, would include the golf course area, the proposed village square, and the industrial park.
By
BILL PEARSON
Posted: Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - 8:15am
The proposed Route 27 Redevelopment Project has a $3.3 million cost. The state would pledge $1million, the maximum allowed by law. Boothbay and Coulombe would each finance $1.15 million. Boothbay would pay its share through a 20-year bond financed through tax increment finance district funds. In 2014, the town created the TIF which captures increased valuation on improvements to businesses located in the district.
So far, the country club expansion and other Coulombe properties account for all the TIF revenue, according to Bryer. In his advertisements, Coulombe has said the project won’t spend any local taxpayer funds. Roundabout opponents disagree.
.....A “Yes” vote is required for Articles 2, 3 and 4 for roundabout approval. Article 2 requests approval to pay $1.15 million in general obligation bonds to pay the town’s share of the project. Article 3 requests approval to enter into a business partnership initiative with the DOT and Coulumbe. Article 4 requests approval to include town-owned properties in the TIF district, allowing roundabout construction.
.....East Boothbay resident Marcia Soler asked during the September informational hearing why none of the three articles included the word “roundabout.”
This article By Naomi Schalit, ©Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting • February 20, 2014 objects to the use of TIFs because it allows wealthy towns to report as less wealthy and therefore pay less for county services, such as jails. That is translated as the much talked about the increased revenue stream. In short, TIFS is a mechanism which contributes to the rich getting richer and the poor poorer, as has been happening in this state since the seventies when our economy became centrally managed, And that is because the purpose of the state is no longer to serve the common welfare.
Maine Law Review on Tif Financing in Maine (2018)
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