If I am ever tempted to claim that I am involved in the local community, I stop myself and remember others whose work puts me to shame.
Consider Melody, from whom I recently heard. I know her personally, but I didn’t know just how much she was using her spare time to work in the area.
Melody volunteers time on the board of a Maine nonprofit, in addition to participating in a group that works with people with disabilities. In recent years, she’s also volunteered in local schools and worked with autistic youth in Lewiston.
Then I heard from someone else who is just as involved in the community. Meghan has worked with others to try to rebuild downtown housing destroyed during recent fires, and she has helped fight for a minimum wage increase, and in support of an organization providing legal assistance to the poor in the community.
Then there is Matt. For more than three years, he has volunteered at Blake Street Towers, organizing programming for residents, and he has also served as one of the mentors of a local youth group.
Finally, there is Kristen. She has worked as an EMT, and has taught EMT classes. Additionally, she informs me she has been involved in efforts to rehabilitate Bates Mill No. 5. What’s more, she is on a wilderness rescue team.
These four young people are examples of one asset that is critical to any future success that Lewiston-Auburn enjoys: investment by talented young people.
Obviously, the talents of people of all ages are necessary for Lewiston-Auburn to achieve success and avoid stagnation. But getting bright young people to bring fresh ideas and energy, and convincing some of them to put down roots here, will be essential for long-term growth.
One thing that is noteworthy about Melody, Meghan, Matt and Kristen is that they are Bates College students. And they are not alone.
According to Darby Ray, director of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, hundreds of Bates students have been engaged in the community this fall.
Many have volunteered with local organizations and others have worked on community research projects, engaging with area organizations, such as schools or nonprofits, to help them find ways to better accomplish their objectives.
Many students volunteer on their own. Others are encouraged by faculty or by peers. Indeed, every student club or varsity athletic team has a community liaison — a student leader responsible for encouraging members to engage constructively with the local community.
By such engagement, these students demonstrate that they do not want to stand apart from Lewiston-Auburn. They want to join in the heavy lifting already underway to make L-A an even more vibrant community.
As Lewiston, and L-A more generally, strives to meet the significant challenges it faces, and also to make the most of real opportunities, all hands are needed on deck, including talented young people. And in this community, that pool of talented young people includes Bates College students.
As many people recognize, it is in L-A’s best interest to welcome their contributions and engagement. By doing so, we will even entice some to follow the lead of Bates grad and former Lewiston City Councilor Craig Saddlemire (and others) and stay here after graduation.
Instead of asking how they can invite more contribution from such students, four area residents are attempting to politically marginalize Bates students.
As reported in the Sun Journal on Nov. 24, Luke Jensen, Patti Gagne, and Brian and Jennifer Wood are petitioning to move municipal elections from November to June, shortly after the Bates graduation.
Gagne has defended the effort as a way to make it easier for part-time “snowbird” residents to vote in local elections, but it is doubtful that is the real motivation. Despite residing out of state during cold months, those part-time residents can already vote in November via absentee ballot.
Jensen is more candid than Gagne when he admits, “It would be wrong to say that Bates students voting was not a motivating factor in this petition.” This petition effort is nothing more than an effort to suppress the student vote.
Maine state law clearly allows students to establish a voting residence in the city or town where they attend college. To be sure, I would advise all who do to be aware that if they register to vote in Maine and they also drive, then within 30 days of registering they must obtain a Maine driver’s license and, if they own vehicles, those vehicles must then be registered in Maine. But there is no prohibition on college students who are “from away” voting in local elections.
Notably, Jensen, Gagne, and Brian Wood have all recently lost in local elections. Moreover, Jensen and Gagne have both lost significantly in the wards in which Bates students are eligible to vote.
Apparently, they have been unable or unwilling to build coalitions that include Bates students, so they now seek to make it more difficult for them to vote. This is not a plan for engagement, it is a scheme for exclusion. Shame on them for proposing it.
Even though the students I named, and their hundreds of Bates peers, are with us in the local community, working to build a stronger L-A, even though they are subject to local ordinances and affected by the decisions of local government, and even though their voting in local elections is entirely legal, Jensen, Gagne and the Woods seek to deny them voice in local elections.
I hope cooler heads prevail among their friends and they persuade them to withdraw this petition effort.
But if they do try to enlist other local residents in this campaign of voter suppression, I will take some encouragement from what I have seen in letters to the editor thus far. It appears that many, and I hope the overwhelming majority, of local residents recognize that this is a campaign of spite and sour grapes.
I hope that when and if the petitioners come, the typical response will be “No.” All of us — you, me and the Bates students who are also our fellow residents — have too much work to do in creating a successful community together. We have no time for this nonsense petition.
Michael Sargent of Auburn is a social psychologist on the faculty at Bates College.
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