CHEBEAGUE ISLAND, Maine — The bumper stickers — "Independence Day 07 01 07 Chebeague Island ME" — began showing up a couple of weeks ago, along with T-shirts proclaiming "Town of Chebeague Island, est. July 1, 2007."
While the rest of America prepares for the Fourth of July, Chebeague residents celebrate their own independence day Sunday when the island becomes the nation's newest town.
After 186 years as part of the town of Cumberland, a suburb of Portland, Chebeague Island is going it alone. Islanders say independence will help the island remain a viable, working-class community rather than become another seasonal playground for the wealthy.
"I've wanted this since way back when," said Bob Dyer, who was born in a house on Chebeague 75 years ago and never moved away. "But I didn't think it'd ever happen."
The rocky-shored island, settled in the 1700s, is barely 5 miles long and 3 miles wide, a 20-minute ferry ride from the mainland. It has 350 year-round residents, many of them still earning their livings by fishing, with more than 2,000 in the summers.
The idea of seceding from Cumberland had come up now and again over taxes or the differences between life on the island and life on the mainland.
The turning point came two years ago when the school district — which oversees both mainland and island schools — considered eliminating a teacher position at the K-through-5 Chebeague Island School, which would have meant closing a couple of grades
Islanders were concerned, and not just because fourth- and fifth-graders would have had to go the mainland for school.
The school is the lifeblood of the island. No school, no children. No children, no future.
"We love babies, because that means they're going to grow up here," said Deborah Bowman, the island's librarian.
The last time a Maine island community lost its school was in 1941 when Criehaven, more than 20 miles offshore in Penobscot Bay, couldn't find a teacher, says Philip Conkling, president of the Island Institute in Rockland. Children, accompanied by their mothers, went to school on the mainland. Without women and children, the island store couldn't stay in business, the mailboat ended service and the men got lonely and moved to the mainland as well. Within just a couple of years, the island had lost its year-round population.
The Chebeague school proposal was withdrawn, but islanders were shaken. On Election Day 2005, 86 percent of islanders voted in favor of breaking away. And in April 2006, the governor signed a bill allowing it to happen.
Chebeague Island is one of only 15 year-round island communities left in Maine, down from more than 300 in the late 1800s. All but one have their own schools.
Islanders seem to be excited about striking out on their own, and don't feel the need to be a part of a mainland town.
Out here, life is simpler. Everybody knows everybody — and their business. People wave as cars pass by. There's no need for traffic lights, or even road signs. A sign on Bob Dyer's garage reads: "If you don't have 20 mins., don't stop."
Every morning, people go to the no-frills Doughty's Market, the one and only store, for coffee and conversation.
Roy Jackson, 75, hardly ever goes to the mainland.
"There's nothing over there I need," he said, a cup of joe in one hand, a doughnut in the other
For months, islanders have been working toward independence. They hired a town administrator and a school superintendent. A former police garage was converted into the town office.
People still have to be hired — from the town clerk to the shellfish warden and animal control officer. Budgets have to be calculated, and residents have to vote on it all.
But they feel they're up to the task.
"I think we'll make it with flying colors," said garage owner Dyer.
Celebrations are planned all week, including a pot luck supper, a church choir concert and an ice cream social. There'll also be fireworks, a contra dance, a parade and a blessing-of-the-fleet ceremony.
Going independent is a bit scary, acknowledges lifelong islander Tom Calder.
"But it's more scary staying the same," he said. "We could see the writing on the wall that we wouldn't stay a viable community for family and working people."
Original Source