Vote against D-F charter revision
There’s a new day coming and it’s June 13 — Municipal Election Day in Dover-Foxcroft. It can be a day of victory, a day for rejoicing because it will be the day we can vote our Freedom.
We’ve had years of the freedom to vote by secret ballot in the privacy of the voting booth. Municipal Election Day has been a time when we’ve been able to express our true feelings about the town budget, how our money is spent, where it will be allocated and what expenditures would be required by each town department.
Yet, during recent months a Charter Revision Commission, composed of a handful of folks, many of whom appointed by the Selectmen, have been eagerly working to take away our freedom. They have re-worked the Charter with a primary objective of removing our ability to vote all Warrant Articles by secret ballot. Do you wonder why? They would have you believe it is being done in an attempt to “streamline” the voting process. But could there have been another reason, and the Commission’s use of the word “streamlining” became the operative word as a means to spin the facts in order to obscure another agenda? Could it be that by removing our privilege to vote by secret ballot the administration would be able to further centralize and consolidate its power? For sure, by eliminating the secret ballot, with its complete listing of all budget related Warrant Articles, the town administration would successfully obscure how tax-acquired funds would be spent.
The new day will be a good day because we will be able to defeat an attempt to suppress our freedom and to keep the town from returning to a time of yesteryear. It will be your vote against the proposed Charter with its revisions that will preserve the secret ballot, retain your ability to express yourself in the privacy of the voting booth, and most importantly, stop the erosion of one of our basic freedoms.
Your vote not to approve the revised Carter will help keep the town on a steady path of growth; a progressive town attractive to newcomers; a town filled with the vitality of a future loaded with potential.
It’s time to leave thoughts of the horse and buggy days behind and to embrace the hard-won freedom we’ve come to enjoy. Voting NO to the revised Charter will send an important message to Dover’s administration – don’t attempt to take on power we, the people don’t give you. Don’t intentionally attempt to silence the voice of the people. Don’t try to hide the actual use of our tax dollars! Your NO vote will deliver that message, and it will give us a New Day.
When you go to the polls, cling tightly to your freedom and use the privilege and your power to vote NO to Article 8, the Charter revision.
Don Benjamin
Dover-Foxcroft