During a recent Rockport planning board meeting, the town invited Valli Geiger, who is a politician that represents Rockland to speak about housing. She advocates for jamming more housing onto every possible piece of land in Rockport. It's my bet she supports a government database of rentals and classifying all short term rentals as "commercial use." She is an advocate for "government knows best"  in Rockport, a town that she does not represent. And she owns/operates a short term rental that won't be affected if horrible Articles 2 and 3 pass.

And do you know how she labels anyone who is interested in preserving their beautiful, historic town like Rockport? She says that's a, "rampant disease in Maine."

Rockport's Select Board and Planning Board members are attempting the biggest transformation in Rockport's history. They're attempting to jam 200 more housing units into our tiny town by 2030 in any way they can.  That includes making life for any landlord as unpleasant as possible by forcing them to get a certificate of occupancy, to force them into paying for an expensive home inspection, to apply and pay for a registration certificate every year and the law would even tell them when they have to take out the garbage or else!

And that's not all. For short-term rental landlords, your property would have to comply with all "commercial use" zoning and related regulations under penalty of law and you'd have to place a "complaint sign" near the front door of every rental that goes directly to the government. 

The fact is Valli Geiger is correct about one thing. There is a disease running rampant though Maine, as she stated. But the disease is not the valid concern citizens have about preserving the historic character of their beautiful towns... no.  

The disease spreading throughout Maine, especially Rockport, is the terrible condition affecting those we entrust to make sound decisions but instead are abusing governmental powers to remake our towns into their own personal vision of social engineering.  They want...

1) 200 more units in Rockport even though we don't have anywhere near that number of open jobs.

2) denying that they intended to reclassify short term rentals as "commercial use" when that is specifically written into Article 2.
3) encouraging quasi-government housing like "affordable housing" that carries with it all sorts of government stipulations and discriminatory practices based upon income.

3) placing "letters of support" of Articles 2 and 3 onto the official Town website in a blatant attempt to interfere with our election. 

Voters of Rockport, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to oppose this massive government overreach and abuse of power. We are not Rockland! We are not Camden.

Please vote NO on 2 and 3.

Preserve, protect and defend Rockport...the town we love.

Ethan Jones lives in Rockport