Charting Maine's Future

Generation Y loves Maine

2009-07-08T14:25:39Z

Seen on the CoolTown Studios blog: BusinessWeek has published a ranking of the nation’s top metropolitan areas for Generation Y’ers (aged 20-29), “based on more than thirty weighted variables in five categories: the share of a population at the young and single life stage, economic strength; education levels and safety; economic growth; and local amenities.”

Among the country’s 363 defined metropolitan areas, greater Portland (which includes most of Cumberland and York counties) clocked in at number 22. The magazine calls Portland “among the top midsize cities for young singles. Portland has a low crime rate and a high percentage of creative workers.”

The ranking criteria were developed by geographer Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, and Kevin Stolarick at the Martin Prosperity Institute. Read the article and its full listings here.

Shortfall Shock: Governing Magazine

2009-07-07T18:52:17Z

Governing Magazine spoke with GrowSmart Maine a few weeks ago about the state’s budget struggles, and its outlook for the future. The article has just been published in the July 2009 issue - check it out for a good overview of the state’s financial situation.

Maine’s budget had to shrink by $500 million this year - an 8% reduction on the previous biennium’s $6.3 billion budget. But if you think we’ve got it bad, just look at California, which is struggling to deal with a $64 billion shortfall in an extremely divided state legislature.

The Los Angeles Times has created a budget-balancing “game” (I hesitate to call it that, since it forces you to make some dismal choices) that puts these problems some context. Mix and match your choices among a menu of jobs-killing tax increases and misery-inducing health and human welfare programs to come up with the missing billions.

GrowSmart on Maine Watch with Jennifer Rooks

2009-07-06T14:52:05Z

This week’s edition of MPBN’s Maine Watch hosted a discussion of what we’ve achieved in recent years and what’s next for GrowSmart Maine. Featuring founder and former President Alan Caron, Board Chair Bonita Pothier, and Interim President Maggie Drummond, the program was broadcast on Friday on MPBN radio and television.

In case you were outside enjoying the long-awaited summer weather, MPBN.net is hosting the program online for the rest of the week. Watch it here.

Maine Model Town project featured in Mainebiz

2009-06-30T14:24:31Z

The fifteenth anniversary issue of Mainebiz, for whom we write a monthly column, had a feature story about what Maine might look like in 2024, fifteen years into the future. The Standish Model Town project featured prominently as a project focused on renewing and revitalizing a small town’s village center, along with a neat illustration by Portland artist Patrick Corrigan (at right).

From the article:

Since GrowSmart was founded in 2002, it has been preoccupied with altering state policy to stem sprawl, its most visible success to date being the “Charting Maine’s Future” report it commissioned that helped launch the discussion on quality of place’s role in the Maine economy. But GrowSmart wanted to descend from its theoretical heights to prove its anti-sprawl concepts work on the ground level. In 2007, it solicited applications for a “model town” whose growth — past, present and future — it could analyze. Standish, fresh from endorsing a comp plan revision that dwelt heavily on focusing development in the downtown, was chosen. In May, Standish held the last of three public workshops on what residents think Standish Corner should look like. Residents were given handheld electronic voting devices and asked to rank proposed uses of Standish Corner. To help them visualize their options, GrowSmart created aerial and street-level mockups of Standish Corner as it could be in 20 years — they included a view if current zoning remains unchanged, with a downtown dominated by large parking lots and commercial buildings, and another if zoning was altered according to the residents’ feedback, with dense residential and commercial development and a network of narrow linking roads.

Right now, the town of Standish is working on implementing these plans into new ordinances, which would place fewer restrictions on development to allow for more traditional, village-style development (current zoning codes make such development is illegal, in Standish and in most other towns statewide). GrowSmart will continue to work with Standish to see the project through to implementation, but we’re also looking to take the lessons learned from Standish on the road to other towns and cities throughout the state.

The Maine 2024 feature also included some neat stories from some of GrowSmart’s allies: the University of Southern Maine’s Center for Entrepreneurship, and the Trust for Public Land’s regional conservation planning effort in Penobscot County.

The Wall Street Journal Calls Tax Reform A “Maine Miracle”

2009-06-24T13:29:09Z

From an opinion piece in today’s Wall Street Journal:

At last, there’s a place in America where tax cutting to promote growth and attract jobs is back in fashion. Who would have thought it would be Maine?

This month the Democratic legislature and Governor John Baldacci broke with Obamanomics and enacted a sweeping tax reform that is almost, but not quite, a flat tax. The new law junks the state’s graduated income tax structure with a top rate of 8.5% and replaces it with a simple 6.5% flat rate tax on almost everyone. Those with earnings above $250,000 will pay a surtax rate of 0.35%, for a 6.85% rate. Maine’s tax rate will fall to 20th from seventh highest among the states. To offset the lower rates and a larger family deduction, the plan cuts the state budget by some $300 million to $5.8 billion, closes tax loopholes and expands the 5% state sales tax to services that have been exempt, such as ski lift tickets.

To be clear, Maine more or less had a flat tax before tax reform, too: the 8.5% rate applied to everyone earning more than $18,250 a year, which means that it applied to most working families. And the tax reform plan was separate from the Legislature’s efforts to trim spending by $300 million.

Still, getting kudos from the WSJ demonstrates one of the big advantages of the Legislature’s tax reform effort: Maine will be regarded as a more business-friendly state, and hopefully we can look forward to new businesses and job growth as a result.

Entreverge: Celebrating Maine’s young entrepreneurs

2009-06-16T17:12:54Z

Our buddy Johann Sabbath has been working hard these past few months to plan a big celebration of entrepreneurship in southern Maine. The first-ever Entreverge awards party is happening next Thursday, June 25th, at Portland’s Port City Music Hall. “We’ll be announcing the five winning entrepreneurs from the huge pool of nominees at the party. The food, music, and crowd will be top flight and tons of fun,” writes Johann. Local bands Adam and the Waxmen and the Jason Spooner Trio will also be performing.

Entreverge is being organized by an energetic group of young leaders from the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce: the award-winning small businesses will be rewarded with a suite of donated business and consulting services, plus face time with the state’s leading business figures.

More at www.entreverge.com.

Maine has a new Communities for Maine’s Future program!

2009-06-15T16:03:56Z

In the eleventh hour of the recently-concluded legislative session, Maine’s State House approved a bond package that includes a $5 million for the newly-created “Communities for Maine’s Future” program, a major component of GrowSmart Maine’s work in Augusta this year.

Voters will now have a chance to approve a $5 million Communities for Maine’s Future fund on the June, 2010 ballot. The fund would match funds from local governments and private sources to provide major new investments toward strengthening the state’s Main Streets, downtown areas, and local economies.

The bond package passed this weekend also includes funding for other “quality places” programs like Land for Maine’s Future and the working waterfront preservation program. Several million dollars will also be allocated to research and development for renewable energy technology.

GrowSmart advocates sent hundreds of e-mails and phone calls to the State House in the past three months in support of the Communities for Maine’s Future bill. Great work, everyone!

Pitch in $10 to Keep GrowSmart Going

2009-06-03T19:21:17Z

If you subscribe to our e-mail newsletters, you probably received the distress call we sent out yesterday, which has since been reported on in the Forecaster and Mainebiz.

GrowSmart Maine is a nonprofit organization that relies exclusively on private donors and foundation grants to do our work. Those funding sources have been considerably constrained through this recession, to the point where GrowSmart Maine must now seriously consider ceasing its operations. In the past few months, we’ve cut our staffing and other spending in half, to become a more lean, efficient organization.

The good news is that we have strong prospects for funding later this summer and during the fall, but we must raise $60,000 over the next few weeks to ensure that the organization is still in place when those funds become available.

So we’re asking our supporters to pitch in a few dollars - whether it’s $10 or $1,000 - to get us through this financial emergency. If you’ve been following our work but have never made a contribution, now is your chance to make a real difference in GrowSmart’s future.

Follow this link to make a contribution.

As always, thanks for your support.

Tax Reform goes to the House tomorrow, Senate on Friday

2009-06-03T15:35:41Z

After a favorable vote in the taxation committee, the full House and Senate are expected to vote on the proposal later this week. We’re sending out this press release today to support the bill:

GrowSmart Congratulates Tax Committee On A Positive Step Towards Tax Reform

The Taxation Committee of the Maine Legislature has endorsed a tax reform proposal that embraces several important recommendations of the 2006 “Charting Maine’s Future” report, sponsored by GrowSmart Maine and the Brookings Institution.

In that report, experts from the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program advised that Maine’s state government is indeed too reliant on the income tax. They found that Maine’s top income tax rate is high relative to other states’, and because it kicks in at lower income levels, it burdens large swathes of the state’s middle class with a regressive tax structure.

The legislature’s tax reform bill, LD 1088, would implement several recommendations from the “Charting Maine’s Future” report: it would reduce the top income tax rate by two percentage points, from 8.5% to 6.5%, and it would export more taxes to tourists and visitors. As a result, GrowSmart Maine supports this year’s tax reform legislation as an important step in the right direction.

“The Legislature’s current tax reform plan would set our state government on a more sustainable course, with a more reliable tax base and a friendlier climate for businesses and workers,” says GrowSmart Maine’s President, Alan Caron. “This proposal deserves to succeed.”

If LD 1088 succeeds, Maine’s income tax rate will go from one of the nation’s highest to the middle of the pack. To compensate for the income tax reduction, more revenue would come from sales taxes, which are more stable through economic booms and busts.

The plan would also “export” more taxes by raising the meals and lodging tax rate, the car rental tax rate, and taxes on real estate sales that are worth more than $500,000. By exporting more taxes to non-residents, Maine’s overall tax burden on residents will decline by over $75 million a year - which is money that Mainers can pump back into the economy.

GrowSmart Maine brings Maine people together to envision and create a more sustainable, prosperous future for our state. Learn more at www.growsmartmaine.org

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Crunch time for “Communities for Maine’s Future”

2009-06-01T16:09:47Z

The State House has finally voted on a budget, which means that lawmakers will decide within the next few days on a final bond package to send to voters.

That gives us just a few more days to make sure that that bond package includes major investments in strengthening our local economies, Main Streets, and downtown areas with a new Communities for Maine’s Future fund.

We need your help through one last push. Make sure that the Communities for Maine’s Future bond is still fresh in lawmakers’ minds as they determine a final bond package this week. Call these toll-free numbers to leave a message for your lawmakers, and let them know how strongly you support Communities for Maine’s Future (LD 775).

House of Representatives: (800) 423-2900
Senate: (800) 423-6900

Some talking points:

LD 775, The Communities for Maine’s Future Fund, should be included in the final bond package because it will provide a needed economic stimulus for Maine downtowns, village centers and Main Streets all over the state.
Investments in downtown & village center infrastructure, through a competitive grant process, will boost short and long term economic value using an existing resource- our historic community centers.
This is virtually the only bond available this year for municipal infrastructure.
The proposal in LD 775 expands and improves an existing program to ensure that communities of all sizes can apply and compete for grant awards.
Also included is a new Revolving Fund for Endangered Historic Buildings to ensure that these critical historical resources are rehabilitated and returned to use - particularly in cases when these historic buildings are anchors for downtowns or village centers and local economies.

Thanks for all of your support! Stay tuned to this blog for updates in the coming days.