Breaking up is hard to do: Time for a Peaks summit

When you see a couple fighting, it's always hard to know how to assert your own personal wisdom. Even if you know what they ought to do, your opinions are apt to receive the kind of receptions usually reserved for former boy/girlfriends attending the wedding unannounced.
Still, when even mediation and restraining orders fall short, it's time to have your say.
Which brings us to Peaks Island and the city of Portland.
Kate Bucklin at the weekly Forecaster wrote last week about the unfortunately named Peaks Island Council "falling apart" three years after the island's "secession" election. I say "unfortunately named" because calling it a "council" implies it has authority similar to city council or a council of elders or ... well, it implies that it has some authority. And I put "secession" in quotes because when you write about the island, you find folks can get a bit touchy.
Some prefer the term "independence." Still others say it's wrong to imply that the election actually "supported" separation from the city, since some people voted in favor simply to keep the process moving ahead to a "real" vote somewhere down the road.
Whatever. The state legislature punted, and the PIC was born.
The most recent issue has to do with security on the island. Police coverage was cut, even in the summer, and it didn't go over well. Not only did the decision not go over well, but the process was also said to ... let's see the exact word here ... yeah: suck.
But that's just the latest symptom. There was the school principal dust-up, the teacher reassignment dust-up, the fact that Dave Adams' widow STILL hasn't gotten her promised phone call from the city to explain things, and Mr. Adams died in Dec. of 2008. (His case is usually cited in the security debate; he died after a police officer responding had no backup, instead pressing neighbors into de facto helpers, and one drove the ambulance ... officials said it would have made no difference in the outcome, but Mrs. Adams disagreed ... that case was also, BTW, the very first Page One story in this newspaper).
Symptoms aside, this all goes back (as all good revolutions do) to taxation. The heat really came after a new assessment, and the view of many islanders that they pay way, way more into the city of Portland than they receive back in services. This feeling is not unique to resident of Peaks Island, but it's a big part of this problem.
And on the island, they hold fundraisers to help keep their friends in their homes. Yeah, you can think of the island as a place of rich part-time residents, but that's only part of the story.
Look, we already have three councilors declining to seek re-election, and there's a real danger that the PIC loses its quorum, rendering a crisis more symbolic than actual given the group's lack of authority.
What's called for here is a discussion of the actual issues: A Peaks Island Summit.
The city needs to make its case for tax revenue allotment, and if the island isn't getting a good deal, that can be discussed. It wouldn't be the first time the rich areas of a government helped out the less fortunate, the way that most "blue states" pay way more into the federal government than "red states," which tend to receive more benefits.
The city should be willing to put actual money on the table: Why not set a budget for the island, then let them allocate it? And not like that $50K parking fund you cut to $30K — it's a bad example.
And we'd better hurry. Remember the back-to-school crisis last year?
The city should make its case, but the islanders should realize the real value of benefits they get from the city. After those things are known, we can at least have a discussion that means something. We can then address other hard issues of "independence," like what it means to city bonds and island facilities.
Otherwise, we're headed to yet another ugly fight highlighted by threats of breaking up, when we know the best reason to try and reconcile. With that school, and with that community, we owe it to the kids.

(Curtis Robinson is editor of The Portland Daily Sun. Contact him at curtis@portlanddailysun.me.)