Dear People of Liberty,

My name is André Blanchard and I was the organizer of the petition to withdraw Liberty from the RSU 3 School District.  I see by the results of the vote on our local ballot on Nov. 7 — 274 “No” and 123 “Yes”  — that  you were able to successfully shut down our effort to possibly save money on our property taxes even before we got started exploring the possible cost savings. 

I think this is a shame because this is the only other way that we can give our property taxpayers some relief from the high cost of being a member town of the RSU 3 school district.  I already exhausted the other possibility when I approached the RSU 3 School Board to reconsider the cost sharing agreement.  The school board flatly refused to even reconsider the cost-sharing agreement.

I am somewhat annoyed by this ballot vote result. Not because our petition was defeated, but because the three organizers of this opposition misled you to achieve this result. 

The sole purpose of our petition was to take a look at the possible cost savings to be had from withdrawing from the district and not about, as the NO campaign made it out to be, the possible closure of Walker School. 

THIS vote was the first of two votes by the Town of Liberty, before we could actually withdraw.  Had the petitioners been successful, this vote would have ONLY allowed us to form a withdrawal committee and start negotiating a withdrawal agreement.  It would in no way lead to the closure of Walker School, only the second vote would have accomplished this. 

During these negotiations, the withdrawal committee would have arrived at the exact costs of withdrawal at no cost to the town of Liberty.  Once the true costs were known, and if the costs exceeded what we are paying now to the district, then we would have stopped the withdrawal process, again at no cost to Liberty.   

So, the NO campaign’s statement on their flyer — “A vote to withdraw isn’t a vote for lower taxes (it was) - it’s a vote that might cost us even more!” — is blatantly false and misleading.  That withdrawal would “have cost us even more,” does not even make sense.  Why would we do that as a town?

Their second flyer statement — “Let’s work on a plan for better schools, instead of a plan that leaves us with nothing.” — is also misleading and plays to their dishonest idea that this vote was about closing Walker School. I wasn’t.  

As a result of this dishonest campaign, we have lost the last possibility of affecting our unfair property tax system locally. 

We are looking at a future of ever-increasing property taxes vis-a-vis our school district contribution. Last year alone, our Liberty contribution increased by $201,000; my property taxes increased by $750 as a result. 

This can, and probably already has, lead to people losing their homes due to their inability to continue to pay our high taxes in Liberty. 

I will add that RSU 3 has been trying to consolidate all or some of our outlying elementary schools into the Mount View complex for a long time now (to save money), and so Walker School may close regardless of whether or not Liberty withdrew. 

As we speak the RSU 3 school board is evaluating an engineering study that assigned a price tag to renovate every school building in the district.  They tell me that no school is off the table for possible closure. 

Andre Blanchard lives in Liberty