Rest In Peace My Dear Sister.
I have been interrupted from recording this ongoing stream of consciousness by external events, one being that I must get a Kickstarter project going to finance hiring of the equity firm that I talked about in this post. My project has been approved by The Field and it was supposed to start on May 1st, but I have been overwhelmed by other things including the local elections and the disappointing representation that will be more of the same.
After asking many times over of many different leaders the whereabouts of the new school charter for the public to read, and receiving no answer, I figured out that the leaders had sent the charter to the Legislature, which meant it should be found on Maine Bill Search, by putting “ Boothbay “ into the Title field. l soon discovered that the new school charter repeals our local school charter and does not replace it so that our school system is entirely governed by state law, raising concerns over whether this might also affect our rights to a municipal vote over the 100-million-dollar-school.
I wrote to my Legislators making it an FOAA Request since my experience has been that is the way to get a response.
I wrote this:
This is an FOAA request for information pertaining to how I can submit testimony on LD 1786, HP 1149
What is called a new school charter for Boothbay is repealing our local school charter and replacing it with state statues which is worrisome.
To know what might be in our new school charter we have to read every state educational statute and probably other acts as well. The inhabitants of the community were not given the opportunity to weigh in on the charter, before it was delivered to the Legislature. I asked many times in the public forum in the Boothbay Register where the public might find the new school charter and read it but no answer was forthcoming and so I figured it out for myself that it would be found in a State Bill Search.
I have been independently studying the state statutes for many years, concentrating on the years since 1976 when our constitutional form of government was overwritten with the public-private corporate state. You can request the Governor’s Report of 1976 from the Legislative Library and read for yourself that the report establishes a goal in the written record of “eliminating the municipal referendum on public bonds” which is provided in the Home Rule Amendment, which in 1976 was added to the Maine Constitution only seven years earlier. This is our government plotting to overthrow our State Constitution, which is not taught anywhere in the Maine public school system that I know of.
Since I have studied the Maine statutes for many years, I am aware one cannot understand the true intention of many acts without reading many other acts as the forest is concealed in the trees, so to speak.
Therefore, I am requesting written assurance from you either that there is nothing in the Maine educational statutes, or any other Maine statute that would result in the inhabitants of the Boothbay Peninsula to lose their right to vote on the proposed new school system which has been much discussed and so I should not have to explain it to you.
If there is any part of the State statutes that might deprive the inhabitants of Boothbay of the right to vote on the proposed new school, please identify those statutes.
Within the hour I received this response:
Dear Ms. Gresser,
I am forwarding a FOAA request from a constituent, Ms. Mackenzie Anderson for your review.
Respectfully,
Rep. Stover
I have something sad to report that has happened since I began this post, my sister Elise has suddenly died. I received an email from her about three hours ago with a subject that said helpHELPHEKP. I went downstairs to check on her but she had fallen and gotten her head into a strange position. At that point she was still conscious but I could only call 911 as It was very difficult to move her and I did not even know the proper way to go about it. I do not yet know the exact cause of her death and I haven’t yet absorbed it. I feel bad that I cannot tell her I am so sorry this happened to her, can’t help feeling like I failed her, and yet there is nothing to do but to keep on keeping on. It’s a very strange thing to be writing about in the middle of composing a post. This afternoon everything was usual and now she is gone. At this moment, part of me wants to cry and the other part of me says to keep on focusing on what needs to be done, just as I was doing when the day started. I am finding solace by posting her works of art in this post. She was looking for a job today. She had a variety of skills that one learns when running a complex small art business and was hoping to find a place to work where she would be able to use her skills, and had received a promising response for one particular organization. Now she is gone, in an instant.
This following was written before that tragic event and so it is easy for me to pick up on it again, I need to keep keeping on because everything that I am doing is part of a promise I made to my late father. Dad asked me to make sure that what our family built was properly stewarded into the future. It’s valuable for unique reasons that I understand but not everybody does. The fact that the assets are productivity assets is unusual. and so has to be approached differently than other types of assets.
One day my Dad told Elise to walk out the front door into the world and to not look back. This was when Dad was in his nineties and after he had the brain injury. It was not a cruel thing to say. It was an understanding thing to say. After my Dad, had his brain injury, he could say things that would come across as offensive if someone else said it but when my Dad said it was just innocent and honest. He tuned in to Elise’s need to live her own life, and he asked me to take care of his life’s work.
Elise was helping me on this mission a little, but mainly I have been pursuing it on my own. That is why I need to work with Marquee Equity, or another comparable firm, but I am liking Marquee Equity. In India there is a ceramic industry that is valued both for economic development and creativity. The Marquee team is all young Indians. India is the fastest growing economy in the world with a huge youth population. If I can’t do anything with our assets in this country then it is possible in India. I need a team and this would be a start. That was what I set out to communicate when I started this post before the terrible event of yesterday.
This post has a disjointed flow since some of it has been written before my sister’s death and now, after the tragedy I am picking that thread up again. I realize it is the best thing to do as it is discipline that I have been practicing for a while and so I can do it. Writing is to intentionally focus one’s consciousness. At times writing makes me feel down because I think about troubling issues. Now is a time to visualize positively. Generally speaking, I write because I must and it is no different now but my emotions just keep returning to the fact that I cannot tell my sister that I am sorry about what happened to her.
On with the story I was telling when yesterday began.
In my wildest dreams the fact that the Town voted to extend the TIF Zone for the corporate owned over-crowded housing zone and finance its infrastructure could be a hidden blessing. The plans of the Boothbay Regional Development Corporation are unconstitutional not only because of the substance of the Act but also because it was enacted as an emergency:
This is what the Maine Constitution says cannot be in an emergency act:
Maine Constitution
Legislative Power.
Section 16. Acts become effective in 90 days after recess; exception; emergency bill defined. ……..An emergency bill shall include only such measures as are immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health or safety; and shall not include (1) an infringement of the right of home rule for municipalities, (2) a franchise or a license to a corporation or an individual to extend longer than one year, or (3) provision for the sale or purchase or renting for more than 5 years of real estate.
The concentrated housing zone is said to take ten years to complete, Land was purchased for the project. The TIF Zone was created specifically for high density housing project but a project of such density is not legal except for H.P. 1489An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Commission To Increase Housing Opportunities in Maine by Studying Zoning and Land Use Restrictions, enacted as an emergency.
To do anything with that, first one must establish standing in court to challenge the constitutionality of the plans for Butler Road. Perhaps any inhabitant of Boothbay has standing since the act that makes such housing density possible takes away the home rule rights of every Maine citizen. It’s something to figure out. The infringements of our home rule rights have come in leaps and bounds over the past year and Boothbay is at the forefront. If it doesn’t stop here, where does it stop?
Imagine if the concentrated housing zone could not proceed if there was no “density bonus” to attract the equity investors. Then what? What if instead there was a worker in residence zone with spacious density in the style of the old New England villages that Lewis Munford so admired? See previous discussion of worker in resident zoning here. The overcrowded density is not a mandate in HP 1489, it’s just not prohibited- so we don’t have to overcrowd to satisfy the “priority zones” in the act. We can “innovate” around the act. There should be options on the table, not just voting on a single option as Boothbay just did.
It would take a lot of convincing to get people to see things differently than the ubiquitous plan for everywhere advanced by state corporatism. I am thinking of contrasting two narratives, or even three narratives (can concentrated housing zones co-exist with worker in residence sone in one community?). The Kicktsarter project will help me to get there.
This is not the official beginning of the Kickstarter Project. I have submitted a letter that has been approved by the Field for that.
This is a pre-launch pledge drive because Kickstarter projects that start off with a bang have a greater chance of succeeding.
Make a Pledge To My Kickstarter Campaign
The goal of the Kickstarter project is to raise $5000 to hire a small size equity firm. I would like any funds over that amount to go toward a miscellaneous fund and a general fund for paying people to work on the projects that are listed in my Field Profile. I can also set up a running donation fund on the Field. We always wanted a board for Andersen Design. Having the Field to manage the distribution of Funds is somewhat like having a board. If I can grow support for this project through the ongoing fund that means I can pay other people and create a team.
Andersen Design Profile, Mission, and Vision
A campaign can either offer tax deductible donations or offer rewards. This campaign will offer rewards. The rewards will be vintage ceramics, which are part of Andersen Desings productivity assets. Andersen Design vintage work has been increasing in value. Should we succeed in bringing about an innovative way of working together with independent studios and creating a viable model for worker-in-resident zoning, that will link the past to the future. Feel free to make offers for any vintage work found on Andersen Design, when you make a pledge. That is what the comments section is for. Perhaps I will also be offering prints of some of Elise’s marvelous artwork so you can ask about that as well.
You can also purchase directly via the Andersen Design online store, in which case the funds go directly to me without an intermediary. To make an offer that way just email me.
So, my first morning waking up without my sister and it feels right to be continuing on as I would have yesterday morning. It helps to have this focus. to mediate the loss. I wish she could be here for the next chapter. Maybe she is.
Mackenzie Andersen is a sponsored artist with The Performance Zone Inc (dba The Field), a not-for-profit, tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization serving the performing arts community. Contributions to The Field earmarked for Mackenzie Andersen are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. For more information about The Field, or for our national charities registration, contact: The Field, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 906 New York, NY 10038, phone: 212–691–6969. A copy of our latest financial report may be obtained from The Field or from the Office of Attorney General, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271 .
Mackenzie’s Profile on the Field
Originally published at https://mackenzieandersen.substack.com.
