Maine Islands Coalition Minutes March 5, 2004

Present:
Dexter Lee Swan's Island
Marjorie Stratton Vinalhaven
David Jermann North Haven
Roger Berle Cliff Island
Mark Greene Town of Long Island
Nan Stockman Great Diamond Island
Sandy Fitch Great Diamond Island
Mark Tierney Little Diamond Island
Thomas Fortier Island Liaison for the City of Portland
Hannah Pingree Maine State Representative for District 129
Boyd Marley Maine State Representative for District 36
Nate Michaud Programs Director, Island Institute
Dana Leath Casco Bay Fellow, Island Institute
Cherie Galyean Downeast Fellow, Island Institute
Chris Wolff Fellowship Coordinator, Island Institute

The following could not attend the meeting, but have been appointed by their local governments to participate in future Coalition meetings:
Donna Damon Chebeague Island
Marjorie Phyfe Peaks Island
Grayson Hartley Islesboro

1. Purpose/Need for Island Coalition:
Generally, everyone present at the meeting had similar views on the need for and value of an Island Coalition. These reasons include:
-To get islands communicating with each other and working together. While every island is unique with different problems, there are several commonalities and islands can learn from each other.
-To save the culture and character of islands by working to maintain the traditional aspects of island communities, keeping islands as year round communities, sustaining the fishing livelihood, and conserving resources.
-To advocate to legislature, intervening before issues bubble and crisis hits, preferably giving legislators input at the committee level, helping them to make informed decisions before going to vote.
-To validate island issues.
-To be the squeaky wheel. If we all squeak together and we can make more noise.
-To broaden the perspective of islands. We can't solve all problems but we can work towards solutions that work in tight times as we adapt to the world today
-To be constructive and proactive, creating a voice of consensus on island issues that can have an impact.

2. Mission
The group reached tentative agreement on the following mission statement. Changes can be made as needed at the next meeting.
The Maine Islands Coalition is a collaboration of island communities to discuss and, when possible, reach consensus on issues brought forth by our communities, and to advocate for the economic and environmental sustainability of year-round island communities.

3. Name
"Islands Coalition" was just a working name created while organizing the meeting. Meeting participants came to agreement on naming the organization the Maine Islands Coalition.

4. Maine Islands Coalition Membership and Voting
Membership for the Maine Island Coalition and who to include was a much-debated issue. The greatest controversy was whether to include summer island communities (those without year-round populations) and, specifically, how this inclusion might influence perceptions or the effectiveness of the coalition. Some arguments for including summer islands:
-Summer islands could be resource for the collation, i.e. networking, professional skills
-In Casco Bay, all islands all work together and there isn't a differentiation between summer and year round communities.
-Issues are pertinent to all island communities, lots of commonality.
-Summer people and year round people have different concerns, many summer communities won't be interested in participating.

Motion: The Maine Islands Coalition should be a voting organization and should vote to decide to support island issues. There is more accountability as a voting organization. Motion passed with unanimous vote. (All meeting attendees, excluding Island Institute staff, participated in the vote.) Who gets to vote? Should there be voting and non-voting seats? It was proposed that each year-round island community gets a vote. Restricting voting to year-round island communities will give the organization more clout with the legislature.

Motion: Allow each of the 15 year-round island communities to have one vote each, recognizing that there will always be a place at the table for other island communities who want to participate in a nonvoting capacity. Motion tied with 5 in favor and 5 opposed. (All meeting attendees, excluding Island Institute staff, participated in the vote.)

The 15 year-round islands communities include:
1. Swan's Island
2. Isle au Haut
3. Islesford
4. Great Cranberry
5. Frenchboro
6. Monhegan
7. Matinicus
8. Islesboro
9. Vinalhaven
10. North Haven
11. Chebeague Island
12. Cliff Island
13. Town of Long Island
14. Peaks Island
15. Great Diamond Island

Other ideas were discussed including whole votes for the 15 year-round island communities and ½ vote for others island communities.

Motion: There are 15 votes, 1 vote for each of the year-round island communities. The Coalition can decide whether to add representatives from other communities (with full voting status) on a case-by-case basis with a simple majority vote. Motion passed with 8 in favor and 2 opposed. (All meeting attendees, excluding Island Institute staff, participated in the vote.) From this point forward in today's meeting, only appointed island representatives can vote. The Coalition went to executive session for the following vote:

Motion: To include community of Little Diamond Island, as represented by Mark Tierney, as a regular voting member in the Maine Islands Coalition. Motion passed unanimously. The Little Diamond Civic Association has already approved Mark's representation of the community.

5. Who else to include in the Maine Island Coalition?
Other islands, non-profits, legislators, Maine Sea Coast Mission are welcome to participate. Meetings will be open and others are encouraged to attend.

6. Island Representatives
Island representatives (those who vote) are elected or appointed by the islands governing body, such as the town council or neighborhood association.

Motion: Representatives serve for a 3-year term with no term limits. Each island community is responsible for monitoring this. Motion passed with unanimous vote.

7. When/how often to meet?
Several ideas were discussed including biannual meetings with ad hoc meetings as necessary, forming subcommittees, regional meetings, quarterly meetings, bimonthly meetings and monthly meetings. Another suggestion was to decide the issues and then decide when and how to meet. The discussion included understanding the need for the coalition to meet in order to get started and accomplish things without the effort fizzling out, yet recognizing the time and energy required logistically to get representatives together for meetings. Future meetings may be held at different locations, perhaps even on participating islands. The issue of how frequently to meet was tabled.

8. Chairman, staff support, and media
Motion: Roger Berle, representative from Cliff Island, is nominated and elected as Chairman of the Maine Islands Coalition. Motion passed by unanimous vote. The Island Institute will provide staff support for the coalition as requested, but the Maine Island Coalition should maintain its own identity and develop its own letterhead so the organization can be recognized as a separate entity from the Island Institute. Minutes from Maine Island Coalition Meetings will be posted on the Island Institute's website along with the list of island representatives. Policy for dealing with press will evolve. In the event the Island Institute is contacted by the media, the Island Institute will give out the contact info for island representatives. Each representative is entitled to share his or her opinion to the press.

9. Participation
In order to be most effective, it's important that the Maine Islands Coalition includes representatives from as many of Maine's 15 year-round island communities as possible. Information will be sent out to islands not present at today's meeting with a letter, information about the coalition and a list of reps. The mailing should be followed up with a phone call encouraging participation in the coalition and attendance at the next meeting. Nate Michaud will contact Frenchboro. Hannah Pingree will contact Islesford, Little Cranberry and Isle au Haut. Marjorie Stratton will contact Matinicus. Roger Berle will contact Monhegan. Towns, neighborhood associations and other organizations are encouraged to pass a resolution of support for the Maine Islands Coalition. A sample resolution, as passed by the City of Portland,
was handed out.

10. Date/Agenda for next meeting
The next meeting will be held 10:00am-2:00pm, Friday, May 21, 2004 at the Island Institute in Rockland.
Agenda Items to discuss include:
1. Property taxes escalation
2. Home owners insurance
3. Fire protection
4. School consolidation and regionalization
5. The feasibility of working via email or by phone between meetings as necessary.
6. Others - members can add items up until the day of the meeting, by emailing or calling Nate Michaud (nmichaud@islandinstitute.org, 207-594-9209).