Members of the Portland City Council expressed their frustration during a Tuesday committee meeting toward Maine lawmakers who do not want to use taxpayer funds on the city’s outsized expenditures toward homeless shelters and welfare programs.
The comments were made during the City Council’s Legislative and Nominating Committee meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 27, made up of Portland Mayor Mark Dion and City Councilors Pious Ali and Kate Sykes.
The Legislative and Nominating Committee is responsible for making decisions regarding state and federal legislation for which the city wishes to support or oppose.
Tuesday’s meeting was centered around Gov. Janet Mills’ proposed supplemental budget package, and the city’s support for a $5 million climate change grant, as well as a $16 million earmark for the Maine State Housing Authority’s (MaineHousing) Emergency Housing Relief Fund.
MaineHousing recently granted the City of Portland $364,000 to help the city continue its migrant Resettlement Program — which has provided services for an estimated 4,200 migrants since January 2020 — for an additional 12 months.
[RELATED: Portland City Council Approves Contract for $4.59 Million 180-Bed Shelter for Asylum Seekers…]
Still, during the Tuesday meeting, the city officials and staff bemoaned what they described as the rest of the Maine’s reluctance to support the allocation of taxpayer funds toward the city’s altruistic efforts.
The topic was brought up by Councilor Kate Sykes, who was elected to represent District 5 last November.
Sykes is the former co-chair of the Maine Democratic Socialists of America (Maine DSA), and was a key organizer behind Portland’s DSA-led minimum wage and “green building code” mandate ballot initiatives in 2020, according to a recent interview published by the Maine DSA’s Pine and Roses outlet.
“I feel like there’s a lot of opposition outside of Portland to Portland getting assistance for doing the work of all the people that are opposing us,” Sykes said Tuesday.
Sykes expressed her desire for a “power analysis” of Augusta lawmakers, in order to show “which particular districts and which votes we need to sway in order to convince people that we need what we need.”
[RELATED: Portland City Council Approves Emergency Declaration for 50-Bed Expansion to Homeless Shelter…]
The former DSA head proposed bringing the uncooperative state lawmakers — whom she said “seem to be less interested in helping us do what we’re doing” — on a tour of all Portland facilities to show that they are doing a “great job” in addressing the homelessness and opioid crises.
“That could go a long way to swaying those votes and helping us more broadly,” Sykes said.
Kate Knox, who is a Bernstein Shur lobbyist with a resume boasting her assistance with Maine passing ranked-choice voting and the legalization of same-sex marriage, offered a sympathetic but pessimistic response to Sykes.
Knox said she was “hesitating” regarding Syke’s proposal of a legislator tour of Portland, due to a “deep seated, longstanding issue for Portland that goes way beyond the shelters and [General Assistance].”
“It is just a narrative that we have fought for 25 years about Portland’s role in Maine’s economy, and Portland’s role in the state,” Knox explained.
“People see us as different, and as taking an undue amount of resources away from other people,” she said.
Knox later offered a caricature of the arguments proffered by those who express opposition to allocating additional resources to Portland, to show the “illogicalness” of the position.
“I acknowledge the illogicalness of this statement even as I make it, which is, these are all self-created problems: You don’t have to take asylum seekers, you don’t have to build a service center, you don’t have to worry about housing, like, these are things that you’re choosing to engage on, and as such, it’s your responsibility,” she said.
Few at the meeting acknowledged Portland’s unique roll in inviting jobless, homeless migrants to come to Maine in the first place, thereby creating the very problems they’re now seeking to reconcile.
Portland Mayor Mark Dion expressed a similarly pessimistic outlook regarding the “rift” between rural Maine and Portland.
“They just see us as a city-state, and they’re very unwilling to spend their money on any issue that they feel is for a problem that we created,” Dion said.
“Those are some of the challenges, Councilor Sykes, in Augusta,” he said later in the meeting. “That [State House] dome is like a cone of silence — once you go in there, they don’t really hear anything going on outside of the cone.”
[RELATED: Taxpayers Have Spent More Than $114 Million on Portland Homeless Shelters Since 2019…]
The mayor pointed to the analogous state-city relationships in New York City and Boston, saying “the rest of the state [is] not particularly amenable to solving [the cities’] problems. So, it’s a pattern.”
Councilor At-Large Pious Ali also offered his take on the situation, saying “It doesn’t matter what we do, they will still see Portland as Portland.”
[RELATED: Maine City Exploring Universal Basic Income Program, $20/Hour Minimum Wage…]
When, towards the end of the Tuesday meeting, Councilor Sykes suggested that Portland explore gaining the authority to establish its own gun control ordinances — because as she said, “Portland is different from rural areas,” and “We don’t need guns in cities” — Mayor Dion quickly rebutted her.
“That kind of consideration is exactly what creates the chasm between us and rural Maine, because it sets us apart on what they see as a principal issue of their sense of gun safety and gun ownership,” said Dion, who has previously served terms as a Democrat in both the Maine Senate and House.
“It sets us apart, and in a contradictory position with them, so it just reinforces their idea: ‘Go ahead and do it Portland, have a great day, don’t ask me for anything’ — that’s the dynamic up there,” Dion added.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="26087 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=26087">9 Comments
State tax dollars absolutely should NOT be used to fund these shelters and other homeless services. Unfortunately the Portland City Council hasn’t learned the fact that providing more services attracts more homeless people to the area as San Francisco and other major cities have proven.
I resent every single penny of my tax dollars that might go to pay for this sort of garbage in the commie stronghold of Portland. Let those lefty fools pay for their political failures with the tax money from their own citizens who were stupid enough to elect them in the first place. I don’t give a rat’s hind end about anything that happens in that wretched hole these days.
Eliminate the costs of housing, feeding, providing medical care, and educating illegal immigrants and you might be able to help Mainers facing hard times!
Sadly, here in Maine, where inmates have taken over the asylum, insanity reigns supreme!
Hard to find a larger hate group in Maine than the DSA, the Nazis were the NSA, history repeats itself.
Let them wallow in their own filth. They created the problem, let them deal with it-ON THEIR OWN. They should not be given one red cent of OUR money. You want to create a commie hell hole then go for it. You pay for it. Period!
The people of Portland voted for these people. You get what you vote for. Smarten up and vote in people who have your best interest at heart because these people sure don’t.
The best solution is for Portland to raise property taxes, then they can have all the funds they need and then some. No sense in the rest of the state paying for what the majority of voters in Portland voted for.
Communists such as Kate Sykes should be banned from any kind of politics and have their citizenship stripped. We can’t coexist with people like Kate Sykes.
Pet programs are easily funded with other people’s money. So Portand has been inviting asylum seekers for years…and they got thousands of them. Wow, shockingly they require housing, food, medical care, education, clothing, transportation and more. So you tax the hell out of your local residents, and when you run out of that money, you look for other people’s wallets. AND in the same breath you want to limit the gun rights of the very citizens who are footing the tab for your already bad decisions. How long before you advocate to take away those gun rights from the rest of the state? Bad decision after bad decision, clean up your own house Portland.