LEWISTON, Maine — Lewiston taxpayers are expected to rally outside City Hall tonight as anger over the city’s first property revaluation in nearly four decades collides with a proposed $128 million school budget, rising public safety concerns, and growing frustration with City Hall leadership.
The rally is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. at Lewiston City Hall, ahead of tonight’s City Council meeting.
For many residents, the issue is larger than a tax bill. It is about whether working families, seniors, and longtime homeowners can afford to remain in a city where residents say they are already dealing with crime, shootings, litter, discarded needles, open drug activity, and reported prostitution and drug dealing near Kennedy Park.
The revaluation is Lewiston’s first in 38 years, and the rollout has sparked fear and anger from homeowners who say they are being asked to pay more while city leaders have failed to deliver basic public order.
City Councilor Bret Martel told The Maine Wire that residents are right to be furious.
“People are pissed, rightfully so, the city council dropped the ball repeatedly, for the last three budgets knowing the revaluation was approved, supposedly planned for, and scheduled to roll out this year,” Martel said. “Their solution, do the same thing that got us into this mess, tap our savings, and kick the can down the road.”
Martel said the city’s core problem is not the revaluation itself, but years of spending decisions that left taxpayers exposed when the long-delayed reassessment finally hit.
“This city spends money like a drunken sailor and keeps going back to the same people’s pockets to finance it, and people are fed up,” Martel said. “The spending is the real problem; it always has been. Until something significant changes, it will continue to be the case.”
Tonight, councilors are also expected to decide whether the proposed school budget is ready to go before voters.
That budget is approximately $128 million and comes as Lewiston schools face a major bus driver shortage. The proposal also includes nearly two dozen job cuts, raising further questions about how taxpayers can be asked to shoulder more spending while basic services remain under strain.
The tax fight comes as Lewiston is again grappling with violence in the streets.
Last week, four shootings were reported in the city on Thursday alone, reviving fears that Lewiston’s public safety problems are worsening at the same time taxpayers are being asked to pay more.
Mayor Carl Sheline and City Councilor Scott Harriman had an opportunity to comment on the shootings that day on Maine Wire TV but did not do so.
U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner (D) and current Secretary of State and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Shenna Bellows (D) also chose not to comment on the shootings.
For voters, that silence may be a red flag.
Lewiston residents are being asked to absorb higher property valuations, consider a massive school budget, and live with the reality of gunfire, drug activity, needles, trash, and disorder in their neighborhoods. When elected officials and candidates seeking higher office decline to speak directly about those conditions, residents are left to wonder whether the people asking for power are willing to confront the problems they may soon be responsible for addressing.
For residents watching their tax bills rise while their neighborhoods struggle with drugs, violence, trash, needles, and disorder, the silence from elected officials is likely to raise a simple question: who at City Hall, or in Augusta, is taking responsibility?
Martel said he has repeatedly raised concerns over spending and accountability during recent public meetings and workshops, only to hear from the mayor that officials were “not here to assign blame.”
Martel pushed back sharply.
“Well, who the hell should be to blame?” Martel said. “How about some accountability or responsibility for decisions made consciously and repeatedly driving us into this mess.”
That question is likely to hang over tonight’s meeting.
The city’s leaders now face residents who believe they are being forced to fund a government that spends heavily, relies on taxpayers to close the gap, and fails to confront the quality-of-life problems unfolding in plain view.
For Lewiston homeowners, tonight’s rally is not just about a revaluation. It is about whether City Hall understands the growing anger of residents who feel squeezed financially, ignored politically, and abandoned in a city they say has become harder to afford and harder to live in.
