A proposal by a Knox County Democrat legislator for a “regional living wage” – supposedly to help people afford housing – has died.
Rep. Valli Geiger of Rockland, whose bill was killed last week, claimed her measure would help low-income earners a chance to get into the housing market.
“When more than 75 percent of Maine’s people are unable to afford to rent or buy a home, we have a structural issue,” Geiger told a legislative committee earlier this year.
Had her bill succeeded, it would have split Maine into three sectors for wage rates: the Portland area, the coastal area, and the northern realms of the state. The minimum wage in each would be pinned to that region’s cost of living. Take a wild guess which of those three would get the short end of the stick.
Unconvinced of how her proposal would make less better for anyone other than urban and coastal elites, her fellow legislators put the bill in the dead file.
[RELATED: Maine Looks to Replace Statewide Minimum Wage with Regionally Based Living Wage]
Geiger – a member of the legislative housing caucus – has been claiming it’s her mission to make it easier to get housing for the needy.
But in recent years Geiger fought a plan in her own city specifically designed to help people less fortunate than her to have a roof over their heads.
Not even a house, mind you. Just a room to call their own.
The “re-entry” home for ex-prisoners triggered a neighborhood backlash so vitriolic it effectively resulted in the ouster of the top long-serving code enforcement officer in Rockland.
Geiger blamed code chief John Root for allowing the home to move forward, claiming that by approving it without first going to the planning board he “got it wrong.”
In fact, the local zoning board ruled that Root had indeed correctly interpreted the housing ordinance.
But for Root the validation came too late.
He resigned under fire in 2019 after decades of service to the midcoast city.
Geiger was suddenly among city officials trying to sing Root’s praises at his 2020 retirement ceremony.
It was a scene reminiscent of the 1978 tragedy when then San Francisco city councilor Dianne Feinstein raced to the scene of slain mayoral candidate Harvey Milk who, in life, detested her, so she could smear herself in his blood and appear to be the martyr’s ally before the television cameras.
“You are sort of where the rubber hits the road for a lot of people, “then-city councilor Geiger, originally from Champaign, Illinois, told him.
“A lot of emotions get involved,” Geiger presciently added. “But it is my experience that you have always worked so hard to do what is right.”
“Worked so hard to do what is right,” for those keeping score, is shades afar from doing what is right…
Root had a long history of serving Rockland, having first been hired as assistant code officer in 1995 and then appointed code officer in 2000. He had also been on the Planning Board from 1991 to 1993.
Root had received widespread praise numerous times for his work.
Geiger and Root previously had been, by all accounts, on the same page when she and her husband, mushroom aficionado Greg Marley, were planning to go solar at 1 Green Way.
Geiger, in fact, had first been “drawn into politics pursuing the construction of their house,” according to the Pen Bay Pilot.
“She had no political inclination before marching into the code-enforcement office with her forward-thinking home design,” the paper reported.
It was during that time that Root told Geiger, “You should get on the comprehensive planning commission. We need people like you.”
Geiger lately has been touting the need for wage hikes – which she says people need to afford housing.
Yet when Root actually made it easier to develop housing for people in need, she sandbagged him.
Liberals love the buzz words “affordable housing” until the label attaches to former inmates.
The obvious discrimination frustrates those advocating housing for all people – not just those who have led ‘blameless’ lives.
“The lack of affordable housing leaves ex-offenders competing for the same limited resources with others who have no criminal history,” says Patricia McKernan, social worker with Volunteers of America.
When Geiger suddenly found herself facing the politically unpopular idea of housing ex-prisoners, what did she do? Ran for cover.
Valli Geiger the “housing advocate” defaulted to the NIMBY neighbors, not to the homeless.
Curiously, a shortage of housing is not a problem for Geiger and her family. She owns not just one house, but two, in Rockland.
Geiger paid $85,000 for her first Rockland property 25 years ago, five years after moving here. The city currently assesses it at $175,400, which includes $28,000 in deductions for Maine’s homestead exemption and renewable energy AKA solar-panel cash credits, according to assessor’s records.
The original address for the property was 190 Broadway but several years ago Geiger asked the city to re-address the house and call it 1 Green Way, its current designation.
Geiger also then bought the house next door at 186 Broadway, in 2015, for $60,000, and which is now powered and heated by the photovoltaic panels on the main house.
Speaking of power, Geiger’s family is well-connected to Maine’s Democrat State Committee. Her son is chairman of Knox County Democrats, her husband is vice chairman, and the son is a former paid finance-and-compliance director of the state party.
As the term limit approaches for current Knox County State Senator Pinny Beebe-Center approaches next year, political insiders predict Geiger will employ the same sharp elbows she used on Root to edge Rep. Vicki Doudera (D-Camden), who is also thought to be eyeing seat upper chamber seat, out of the nomination.
If so, the army of solar lobbyists in Augusta may be in the awkward position of having to sit back and watch two of their star legislators duke it out.
[RELATED: New Green Grift Plan from Maine Dems Reveals Truth About Mills Admin’s No-Bid Contract Scandal]
For now, Geiger — who closed out the last work session of the legislature’s Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee on Thursday by chiding Republicans who didn’t sign on to a proposed fix of the disastrous Net Energy Billing program that saddles the costs of solar on those who can’t afford the same kind of solar investments she enjoys at home and bemoaning her view that an amendment didn’t go far enough to advance solar — will likely play nice with fellow Democrat Doudera.
After all, they are comrades in arms fighting for the green agenda. But…
“When the hurlyburly’s done/And the battle’s lost or won/That will be the ere of sun.”
