To the petty criminal in Cape Elizabeth: touché douchebag

Imagine how small one must be to steal homemade signs for affordable housing for kids and refugees. Now imagine how small an outdoor mobile security camera is and how mortifying it will be when the poacher is revealed in one of Maine’s most affluent towns. It’s a whodunnit whopper. Was it the banker with the website in the dining room? Professor Plum-Progressive with the chip on his shoulder in his SUV?

They don’t like it when I say things like “douchebag.” It makes them SO ANGRY they could steal a campaign sign, if only there were any left after Saturday’s heist in otherwise sleepy Cape Elizabeth. Instead, the enemies of Community Housing will have another circle jerk rally on Facebook.

It means they are losing.

I know this because campaigns are like legal cases. You win with good facts and ruthlessly playing by the rules.

Community Housing will get on the ballot in Cape Elizabeth. More than 750 Cape voters signed on to the petition in seven weeks because affordable housing for families and the local workforce is a good idea, and because I know something the “Dunham I Court Cabal” also known as the DICs don’t know.

The deadline for submission of the Plan B petition is entirely up to me. The source of my power is the charter and as captain of the ship facing fetid and foul head-winds a change in tack is in order to protect the interests of the hundreds of people who signed Plan B, and to avoid the sparks when Dunham Court goes down in flames.

The enemies of Community Housing will go apoplectic over their impotence. The pearl-clutchers will seethe.

Word got out Saturday that over 750 signatures had been collected for the Plan B Petition and suddenly the signs pointing to the proposed Community Housing location were stolen in a desperate attempt to kill it before it reaches the 870 certified signatures required to get on the ballot.

The signs were permitted protected speech and served the important purpose of blunting a misleading map created to pollute the water of Community Housing.

While the brazen caper in Cape Elizabeth is being investigated I am pleased to announce (1) a huge cash reward to anyone with information that helps crack open the crime, (2) if the stealer returns the signs unharmed criminal charges will be dropped, and (3) I challenge any DIC to a public debate about affordable housing.

The signs were not fluff. Numerous Cape voters told me that placement of the signs showing the accurate proposed location of Community Housing influenced their decision to sign the Plan B petition.

The planner’s map that was later tacked to the banker’s church door as gospel is misleading because it gives the wrong impression it depicts the proposed location of Community Housing. In fact the planner’s map shows the opposite. It shows 113 acres of the Gull Crest parcel that contains the athletic fields, ski trails and future ice arena — all of Gull Crest except where Community Housing will be with Plan B.

Gee. I wonder how the planner could make such a mistake and suggest Community Housing will pave the fields and ice rink at Gull Crest. She is normally such a perfectionist. It’s weird the illegible map she colored with green magic marker allegedly to show Community Housing does not include the 66 acres of land in the Gull Crest parcel left to the town by Thomas Jordan that has been the clearly stated proposed location of Community Housing since its inception.

What does the misleading map have to do with the petty crime? Both have the same bitter flavor.

Did the news Saturday that despite the smears, the bad map, and Facebook conspiracy theorists Community Housing was winning blow a DIC’s gasket? Or is the crook that guy who got a well-deserved dressing-down for thinking getting in my face at the transfer station was a good idea after I had been collecting signatures in the hot sun for 8 hours?

It’s my fault he stole the signs, his wife will shout on Facebook. “Her audacity provoked him!”

The kid gloves are coming off in the fight for affordable housing for kids. Turn up Tom Petty and rock with me against assholes everywhere. To anyone who thinks collecting signatures for affordable housing for families is a joke or a crime, take your cocktail ice and shove it.

Here is my first email of the day. I’ve had it with douchebags.

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Dear Ms. Dill,

If, in fact, you are in fact the sponsor of the "Cape Elizabeth Citizen Petition To Create Community Housing - Plan B" circulating around town, then I commend you for your ability to author a document that duped me into adding my name.

I returned to town on Saturday after some time away, and pulled into the IGA to pick up a few things. I saw the table housing the petition, and I did something I have never done before; I quickly read the title and signed without exercising due diligence. After arriving home, I gave the petition more thought and did a little research.

The strategy enlisted in this petition to garner names is certainly clever, it even snared me!

Needless to say, I will be asking the Town Clerk to invalidate my signature, and hopefully others who signed will as well.

Sincerely,

F. W.

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Dear F. W.,

In fact I am the person who drafted Plan B for Community Housing, a copy of which I have attached for your review. There is nothing "misleading" about it and your mean-spirited attack on my credibility is unwarranted. The petition is a proposed change to the zoning ordinance that is written in plain English. While you've been away I have spent hundreds of hours collecting over 750 signatures to try and create housing for people in need. It was RT, a Cape resident and volunteer, who took your signature at the IGA. If you wish to make another spurious accusation of deception against one of your neighbors, contact her.

Cynthia Dill 

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Dear Ms. Dill,

While I still feel that the petition is misleading, I apologize for my email coming across as mean spirited. I believe in the end, we all want to see a solution to affordable housing in our community.

F.W.

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Cynthia: What is misleading about it?

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F.W.: (crickets)