To the Editor:
To the Paris Board of Selectmen:
Thank you for giving the Paris Taxpayer Coalition the opportunity to provide a voice for our community members who were not heard in relation to the passage of a resolution rejecting a state mandate. I represent many of Paris residents who include retired military, single parents, family people, single people, gun owners, people from here, people who moved here, retired police, business owners, organizational directors and more.
First, we want to thank each of you for your service and commitment to the town we all love and call home. We recognize the tremendous amount of time, energy and commitment that has led to many community achievements like holding the line on our taxes, aggressively caring for winter roads, founding the wonderful new River Park, the abundant cemeteries, trails, parks and ball fields that are beautifully kept.
We also thank you for your quick response to the pandemic which has allowed our town to continue functioning and for many other achievements. We truly appreciate your work and commitment that supports our community.
We are here today to address the passage of the “Beacon for Sovereignty resolution.” We object to and disapprove of any measure passed by the select board without any due diligence and with apparent conflict of interest as described in section 2605.6 of the Maine Municipal Officers handbook.
We adamantly assert that your action on this specific resolution:
• was not transparent to voters and taxpayers;
• disenfranchised your constituents;
• set the town up for exponential financial liability;
• broke trust with many in your constituency;
• disregarded the negative impact on our small businesses, and;
• exploited the identities of people with disabilities.
The discussion and vote too took less than four minutes despite that no representative from the submitting organization was present to clarify questions and concerns. The board openly took a political position for all Paris taxpayers and voters during discussion of the resolution on February 22, 2021 by verbalizing that the board “stand(s) for” everything “that this group stands for” when approving the “Beacon for Sovereignty resolution” calling for 19 FY 20/21 to be nullified based on its violation of the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
We know the town has been notified that it will be sued in the event a family member is sickened or dies with COVID as a result of deliberate noncompliance with the state pandemic mandate as a result of this resolution. Would local businesses exclusively shoulder that liability or would liability defer to the town?
We know there is a social media effort to boycott the business of our friends and family in Paris. Did you consider that your action would create a negative perception of our community that could lead to negative economic fallout?
We do not agree that the ADA supports the contention and believe the identities of people with disabilities are being exploited to cover what has become known as a political action, as we now know the resolution was crafted by the state representative from Winter Harbor and not the submitter of the resolution.
The most active and longest-lived disability advocacy organizations staffed by extremely dedicated, under-paid and over-worked staff also disagree with this resolution on the basis of the ADA contention and in conjunction to the critical needs of the other 25.7% of Mainers with profound disabilities suffering needlessly as a result of the pandemic.
I will [cite] two excerpts from statements from Disability Rights Maine and the Disability Voters of Maine. The full statements are in the packages I presented. First, however, please allow me to speak as a parent of a child with profound disability.
When my son was born with Down syndrome 10 years ago, my ability to work a regular job ended. With upwards of 40 or 50 doctors, specialist and service appointments a year in addition to sicknesses and snow days, it’s impossible to hold a job with a regular schedule. His profound disabilities have prevented us from accessing locations, services and programs that non-disabled people can access on a regular basis.
“Reasonable accommodations” are the only option for us in most cases as a result of my child’s disabilities. As common with most children with severe cognitive disability, Colby has no friends so he has no social life. I also have no social life as a single parent of a child with profound needs, running two businesses, and supporting full-time remote learning of 32 classes a week because he is not eligible to attend in-person learning not being able to tolerate wearing a mask. Further, as the single parent caregiver unable to work a regular schedule job, we live under the poverty line financially.
Make no mistake, we have been suffering in pandemic conditions from the moment Colby was born. Our story is no different than thousands of Mainers with disabilities suffering needlessly and regulated daily to “reasonable accommodation.”
Your deep concern for my son, all these years, and for all people with disabilities who are regularly denied from public places, denied services for which they are approved, die on waiting lists etc. has been absent until this highly-polarized political issue of mask or no mask erupted. People who are true advocates for the disabled do not pick and choose the issues they believe are important to people with disabilities. They represent the entirety of the population.
There is a right way to advance amendments to the ADA. It takes community investment across a broad representation of community members. Alienating, disenfranchising and exploiting parts of a population is not the right way.
I ask you to join me and the thousands of dedicated and committed disability advocates across the state, to push for amendment of the ADA to encompass additional protections and rights for people with disabilities during pandemic conditions. Let’s form a community coalition to address these needs and as a community pressure our representative to take this measure to congress to change the ADA. If it is one thing we can all agree on, the pandemic has illuminated how people with disabilities have suffered and died at a much higher rate than any other population in this nation during this pandemic.
Excerpt from Erin Rowan, ’94 OHHS graduate and founder of Disability Voters of Maine:
“In spite of collaborating with disability organizations and advocates in Maine and across the country, we haven’t encountered any credible efforts to use disability status to oppose face coverings. We’ve seen just the opposite, in fact. Informed families like mine understand that the Americans with Disabilities Act doesn’t exist to grant us special privileges to violate the safety of others in our communities, but – through reasonable accommodations – to remedy widespread barriers to accessing the same privileges enjoyed by everyone else….
….Even worse than that, the resolution uses people with disabilities as cover to further a politically motivated anti-mask agenda that will (and already has) hurt far more disabled Mainers than it helps. It’s “disability as a shield” at it’s finest, and it’s as insulting and dishonest as it is life-threatening……In the meantime, if the Paris Select Board truly wants to help people in their community with disabilities by adhering to ADA mandates, I’d encourage them to tear up the resolution and turn their attention to their sidewalks, parking lot, public bathrooms, business entrances, restaurant accessibility, website design, and the way in which students with disabilities are routinely segregated in their schools”
Excerpt from a statement from Kim Moody, Executive director of Disability Rights Maine:
“Disability advocates recognize that there truly are some people who cannot don a mask, and encourage those individuals to ask for a reasonable accommodation in order to obtain goods and services. The ADA is a vital tenant of justice in America, essential to the protection against discrimination and the provision of equal opportunities for Americans with disabilities. The ADA should not be wielded as a tool for politically motivated individuals to subvert mask requirements that are necessary to prevent sickness and death among those around them.”
In summation, this unilateral action of the board on a controversial subject without full representation of the constituency is an example of the of government overreach that is protested by the presenter of the resolution. We agree on government over-reach. How can we seek a common ground?
We agree that people with disabilities have suffered far more than any other population during this pandemic and the ADA should be amended to include exemptions and rights that can directly address the mask issue under new pandemic statutes. Again, we have common ground. We do not have to remain divided when we agree on so much. It is a choice. Let’s find that common ground together and find a way to move ahead with our collective resolve without excluding anyone.
With all this said, the Paris Taxpayer Coalition has three yes or no questions we would like answered, and two requests we ask to be addressed tonight:
Yes or no questions:
1.Did the board collectively or individually conduct a liability assessment and/or consult with the town attorney prior to considering the “Beacon of Sovereignty resolution”? Yes/No
2. Did you engage the stakeholders in the disabled community such as the Vet’s home, Progress Center, TriCounty Mental Health, or the DHHS, or within the community at large such as Paris Elementary, the school board, police department or any public health officials in the process of considering this resolution? Yes/No
3. Did the board and/or individual selectmen consider the appearance of conflict of interest or other ethics violations before agreeing to consider a vote in favor of the resolution presented by an organization widely known for radical behavior and the potential negative impact on small business and the local economy? Yes/No
Requests:
1.Section 7 of Board by Laws allows the board to reconsider any decision within 30 days. The Paris Taxpayer Coalition formally requests the Paris board of selectmen to recall their decision on the “Beacon for Sovereignty resolution,” and bring the matter to a special town meeting where all voters in the town of Paris can be represented.
2. In recognition that the communication about town business is to be outward toward the constituents and taxpayers and not the other way around regarding town business, we formally request that future agendas clearly list the actual business items with descriptive titles to enable transparency to all town business.
We thank you for you careful consideration of our valid and reasonable requests that will allow all our community members to be represented. We hope you will restore the trust of your entire constituency.
Aranka Matolcsy
Lisa Keisman
Heather Daggett
Katey Branch
Beth and Bill Miller
Holly Brown
Josh Woodburn
Calvin Woodworth
Pam Woodworth
Leisha Petrovich
Rosemary Lasso
Erica Woodburn
Kerry Reed
Johnathan Wilco
Janet Jamison
Jon Tompson
Mike Newsom
Mary Grant Chouinard
Wendy Austin
Cindy Brady Mingle
Eli Merrill
Ellen Blier Burnham
Paris
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