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Is Rep. John Martin Making
This Money for Nothing?
By: David Deschesne
Fort Fairfield Journal
October 22, 2020
A little-known office buried in the bureaucracy of the University of Maine, Fort Kent has no employees and its most meaningful website post is on biomass conversion from over ten years ago. Yet, State Representative, John Martin (D-Eagle Lake) sits in the cushy position of Director of this “Center for Rural Sustainable Development” and pulls down $30,000 per year at this half-time position, even though there are no ongoing projects, no employees to oversee and essentially nothing to do.
The last posting of the CRSD was from 2015. So, for two years or more, Director Martin seems to have had nothing to do to earn his money - which works out to around $30 per hour for the half time position (20 hours per week).
While sounding warm and cozy, Sustainable Development is right out of the United Nations' Agenda 21 program that was set up to “rewild” America by herding the population of people into compact cities and have them living in high-rise public housing projects stacked one on top of the other while allowing all of the rest of the U.S. to return to its original condition before humans arrived here.
While this model may have seemed wonderful for globalists at the time, the lessons learned from the recent COVID-19 pandemic is crowded, compact cities are bad places to be when confronting a new virus. As a result, many people have already moved out of those cesspools of liberalism and established new homes in the rural countryside of lesser-populated states - certainly a giant step backwards for those in the Sustainable Development crowd.
Sustainable development also creeps into other aspects of people's lives without them knowing it's actually a UN program being adopted locally and unwittingly by local councilors and selectmen who have no idea what they're implementing. Some of these measures restrict land owners from developing their land, building new structures near so-called “wetlands” and even prohibit people from clearing brush from around a pond on their property.
The CRSD at UMFK has three stated goals, one of which is:“Train a technically competent citizenry to conduct the business of sustainability.” One has to wonder how an organization that has no employees, has no current data shared on its webpages, nor provides the status of its goals, whether it actually does anything at all, would conduct such training and to whom.
While the Center hasn't done anything for years, John Martin still cashes in on the $30 per hour position for doing nothing, even in a time of economic shutdowns in Maine due to a contrived coronavirus scare. “I suspect most people have suffered quite a bit given the lockdowns, business closures and the like, yet from 2019-2020, Mr. Martin has made out quite well from what UMaine documents show,” said Kevin Bushey, from Ashland, who is running against John Martin in this year's election for the Maine House of Representatives.
Mr. Bushey points out a couple questions that need to be resolved:
1. UMFK has some explaining to do on why Mr. Martin is on its payroll as the Director for the Center for Rural Sustainable Development, yet on Mr. Martin's own financial disclosure in 2019, he lists himself as an Assistant Professor of Political Science, but that's not how the UMaine system is apparently paying him. Why not list your correct title Mr. Martin?
2. Does UMFK have a vested interest in Mr. Martin's serving on the Appropriations and Environmental Committees of our Maine State government? One might assume those committees are vital to the Center for Rural Sustainable Development's mission and goals. Is this a conflict of interest or not? Voters can decide.
“I understand that given Representative Martin's busy schedule of teaching, serving as a Representative, serving on at least 12 boards and directing the CRSD, some things fall through the cracks. Perhaps his drop from 36 hours to 20 hours per week has taken some of the pressure off him to produce anything worthy to share about CRSD initiatives with the public,” said Bushey.“I think the title of the 70’s song, by the band WHO, aptly applies: WE DON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN.”
“A bureaucrat of 56 years who knows the ins and outs may think he still rules the roost and can get away with much by misleading the voters. Martin and his supervisor (if he has one at UMFK), have some explaining to do. I'm sure he can describe his Agenda 21 work as really important and for our best interests, thus we the voters better re-elect him.”
Sustainable Development has crept into District #151. The question is, do you agree with it, or are you tired of the manipulation by progressive globalists in this state? The choice in this year's election seems to be pretty straightforward: If voters in District #151 want to allow taxpayer funds to be spent recklessly on salaries with no accountability that pay for the encroachment into their lives by globalist bureaucrats, then they should vote for John Martin. If they want honesty and integrity in Augusta, while placing a check against these globalists' dictates, then a vote for Kevin Bushey would be the right thing to do.
This writer reached out to John Martin for his commentary and clarification on the CRSD but has received no comment as of the time of this printing.