On June 9, the Residents and Taxpayers of Camden face important decisions about the future of their community. At its heart is a simple choice: Do you want to be an owner, or a consumer, of your public safety services?

You will be presented with several confusing and nonbinding advisory questions about whether Camden should continue operating its own police department or contract with Knox County for police services. Another question begs, when did votes become suggestions, or advisory in nature? Your nonbinding vote may become your charm or your chain. It enables your elected selectpersons' authority to act against your vote.

As a taxpayer, you are a co-owner of this incorporated community.

Your vote directs your “board of directors”, the town Select Board, on the type and quality of services you expect such as public safety. Local control is not symbolic; it has been the backbone of 250 years of American self-governance.

When control is outsourced, you become a mere customer, bound by terms set by an outside, self-interested entity. Your influence is limited to comments and complaints, rather than direction.

In 2007, in a special election, taxpayers voted to keep their public safety dispatch services local. The Select Board subsequently held a budget vote, that unbeknownst to many, eliminated dispatch services from the budget, with citizens believing their vote to keep dispatch was honored.

Trust was broken. Loyal employees were displaced. Self-serving politics helped the selectboard in overriding the vote of the public.

This tactic is being replayed here today. Officers and their families have endured months of uncertainty in a profession already facing a critical staffing crisis. Their commitment to Camden has not wavered, but the message sent by legalistic maneuvering is unmistakable.

These advisory, non-binding questions set the course for your selectboard and risk repeating the Select Board's behavior of 2007.

Please join those who petitioned to keep Camden P.D. local. Local control is irreplaceable, and once surrendered, is extraordinarily difficult to reclaim.

 Paul D. Gaspar is Executive Director of the Maine Association of Police