The state of Maine made a very good case before seven Virginia Supreme Court Justices last week that a copy of the Declaration of Independence delivered here in October of 1776 should be returned. Assistant Attorney General Thomas Knowlton argued convincingly that the document belongs to the government, not a private collector.

Discovered in a trunk in an attic in Wiscasset in 1995 by an auctioneer engaged by descendants of the Holbrook family, it was sold at auction for $77,000, then sold and re-sold to several collectors until it was purchased for $475,000 by Virginia resident Richard L. Adams, Jr. We won’t know for several weeks what the decision of the Supreme Court will be, but one thing is certain – this is something worth fighting for, and we can be proud of the state’s efforts on behalf of its citizens.

If it returns to Maine, State Archivist David Cheever says it will first be offered to the town of Wiscasset. Although the town certainly would have a right to keep it in its possession, we hope the Selectmen and residents decide to entrust it to the State Museum, not only so that more people will be able to view it, but also because old documents must be preserved by professionals so that they do not deteriorate over time.

Cheever tells us that the town of North Yarmouth, which also had an original copy, opted to have the state make a digital copy of the document, which now hangs in the town offices. This seems like a great solution to let Wiscasset show off a monumental piece of history, while at the same time keeping such a vital document safe and well-preserved for generations to come.

- Paula Gibbs

To the Citizens of Edgecomb:

   As you are aware there has been debate about the acquisition of the Murray waterfront property on Cross Point Road initiated by Mr. Thomas Boudin. He had circulated and submitted to the Selectmen a Warrant Article signed by a number of citizens within the past several months. However, it was not properly written nor representative of a warrant article as defined by the Maine Municipal Association.

He is now circulating another – however he is proposing a secret ballot, which would be a referendum vote on the day of the town election –one day prior to town meeting.

This would be a very divisive approach, which would take away the political process of open debate and protocol of town meeting. Edgecomb needs to come forward and unite as a community open to dialogue, open debate and decision making as seen in its historical past of town form of government - that of town meeting.

It is crucial that we ask "The Citizens for Public Access to Public Water" to come forward to define why citizens do not have the opportunity to debate this nor hear from elected officials and various committees that are concerned with such matters. Major questions emerge:

1. Why is the town being deprived of the opportunity to hear from:

Selectmen

Town Committees

Abutters (crucial to this debate),

Citizens at large ?

2. Why has Mr. Boudin chosen to negate public opinion and debate from town meeting?

3. Who are "The Citizens for Public Access to Public Water" – up to this point Mr. Boudin was the only person who spoke up regarding the purchase of the Murray Property ($225,000) that would take several votes at town meeting to use the Woods End Boat Landing Fund; and what if the state (Land for Maine Future) does not grant the funds?

This is contrary to Edgecomb’s form of government – that of town meeting. We, the selectmen urge that Mr. Boudin change his petition to be a warrant article so that all citizens have an opportunity to participate in the process of town meeting.

This opportunity brings Edgecomb together where its citizens may be heard at town meeting which equalizes the political process and puts the decision in the hands of its citizens. To request the secret ballot would be the opposite – be divisive and put the decision in the hands of a few.

Please contact "The Citizens of Public Access for Public Water," the Boat Access Committee and your Selectmen to keep this debate for acquisition of the Murray Property as part of town meeting welcoming open debate and dialogue.

Yours Sincerely,

Dr. Jack Sarmanian

Selectman, Town of Edgecomb

Dollars and Sense

In these days of bailout-mania, it’s easy to lose perspective. Huge headlines splash across the Wiscasset Newspaper when someone is caught embezzling $50,000. Many readers are shocked and digest every word of the article, then talk about it with anyone who will listen for a week. If that is a typical reaction to a $50,000 story, what must be the typical reaction to a $700 billion story?

When taxpayers see figures in the billions and trillions being tossed around, it’s hard to remember that you work 250 days a year for $34,000, and you are the one who will eventually have to step up to pay for all the bailouts and stimulus packages. And then it occurs to you: not only have you lost perspective, the government has lost perspective!

So, exactly what is a billion?

If you stood next to Red’s Eats and gave away a dollar a second for 24 hours a day and seven days a week, you’d give away just $31 million in a year. To give away $1 billion in a year, you’d have to give away $31 each second.

One billion seconds ago, it was 1977 and Jimmy Carter was President.

A billion minutes ago, it was 107 AD. If you had been alive then, your grandfather would have seen Jesus heal a blind man, and your mother would have heard St. Paul preach.

A billion hours ago, the wheel hadn’t been invented and people lived in caves.

$1 billion is enough money to run the city of Portland for seven years, and about the size of the economy of Grenada.

$1 billion approximates Staples’ annual net profit, according to Fortune Magazine’s 2008 list of the 500 largest US Companies

$17 billion equals a down payment on the GM and Chrysler bailout; it would:

rank as the world’s 138^th largest economy, about the size of Macedonia, Armenia or Jamaica, according to data from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and CIA reports;

rank at 142 in sales volume on the Fortune 500 list of largest U.S. corporations, clustered among Rite Aid, DirectTV and Xerox;

$17 billion would be enough to run Maine state government for nearly six years;

Every man, woman and child in Maine would have to chip in $12,500 to raise $17 billion; a family of three would have to come up with $37,500

$50 billion equals the size of the alleged Bernard Madoff fraud; this amount of money:

ranks in the top 85 world economies, about the size of the economy of Tanzania (population about 40 million)

ranks 46^th in sales volume on Fortune 500, in range with Sears or UPS

would be nearly the size of the Bill Gates fortune ($58 billion)

would be slightly larger than the size of Massachusetts’ budget ($47 billion)

$350 billion – this is how much has been spent on the financial industry bailout as of today; this amount of money:

ranks as the world’s 30^th largest economy, between Malaysia and Sweden

ranks third in sales volume on the Fortune 500, between Exxon Mobil and Chevron

is enough to pay for California state government for three years

is equal to the combined net earnings of the top 84 companies on the 2008 Fortune 500

$800 billion is the estimated cost of the next "stimulus package:" this is the same amount of money as:

the total of U.S. Personal Income Taxes collected in 2004 or Social Security Taxes collected in 2006

the total of all U.S, Government taxes received in 1986 or 1987

A Gross Domestic Product figure exceeded by only 18 nations in the world, and approximately the size of the economy of Australia, Indonesia or Iran

17.25% of the size of 2007 U.S. Gross Domestic Product ($13.8 trillion)

More than twice the size of Wal-Mart sales, the largest Fortune 500 company with over 1 million employees

Approximately 11 years of Iraq war expenses

Approximates the value of America’s jobs outsourced overseas

About 1/3 higher than the 2008 US Defense Budget, and 40% of all US Government outlays for "Human Resources" (Social Security, Medicare, Education, etc)

Some people suspect that politicians are trying to find out how high is up, in terms of how much of the next generation’s money we are willing to allow them to spend to maintain the "standard of living to which we have become accustomed." So far, there seems to be no limit, and numbers are tossed around like people really understand them.

Living beyond our means, loose credit, corruption and greed created the US financial time-bomb, and it appears that the same people who engineered the bomb want to pull out more credit cards to defuse it. During the presidential primaries, Governor Huckabee pooh-poohed the original February 2008 $168 billion tax-rebate stimulus package by saying, "How will it help if we borrow $168 billion from China and give it to US consumers so they can spend $168 billion at Wal-Mart on Chinese goods?"

So far, Senator Collins has been the sole member of Maine’s delegation in Washington to vote for more caution, deliberation and accountability as the spending tab climbs ever higher. And nobody is promising that the money being spent and action being taken will actually solve the problem. Rather than avoiding risky and wasteful panic programs, our federal government seems to be embracing them.

Rahm Emanuel, the new Obama White House Chief of Staff seemed to encapsulate Washington’s attitude with a summary statement when he said: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Sadly, it doesn’t sound like we’ve learned much from our mistakes.

Editor’s note: in the spirit of a billion here, a billion there, some of these numbers have been rounded off.