NY Times quotes Brewer, Palmer in article on unorganized territories
Mark Brewer, a political science professor at the University of Maine, and Kenneth Palmer, a professor emeritus of political science at UMaine, spoke with The New York Times for the article, “In Maine, local control is a luxury fewer towns can afford.” In northern Maine, as operating costs have increased, the economy has stalled and the population has aged and decreased, some towns have pursued the process of eliminating local government, according to the article. “Just the price tag to keep their local governments up and running is more or less untenable,” Brewer said. “It’s the final step in this long, drawn-out process, which really starts with population decline.” Other states have unorganized or unincorporated areas, but in Maine about half of the land is Unorganized Territory, the article states. “Maine has this oddity of having all of this space in an area of the country that cherishes town meetings and town governments,” Palmer said. “These tiny towns don’t have enough people to generate the municipal staff to really run the town. It’s this abandonment of a town structure.” Boston.com also published the New York Times report.