Looking for advice from residents (Presque Isle: shop, licenses, place)

[znlwovuhrjw]

Originally Posted by MCringle

Sorry to bump an old thread, but looking for more specific info now.

My wife now works from home for a company in Oxford County, and we are planning on making our move to Maine during the fair weather of 2017 (certain onerous NYS legislation goes into effect early 2018). My family is making our first exploratory trip this September (unfortunately not timed well enough to go to the Common Ground Fair...2016 for sure), and we are thinking of spending a night in Caribou and taking three days to explore some of northern Maine down to Springfield and Dover-Foxcroft. We are drawn to Northern Maine, though we do need to move somewhere with high speed internet (my wife will continue to work remotely even after we move), so we understand that provides a severe constraint.

So, obvious places that need to be explored? Obvious places to skip? Hotel, inns, or campground recommendations?

Thanks much, helpful folks of CD.

One easy way to do that is to use Cable TV, High Speed Internet & Home Phone Service | Time Warner Cable while using Zillow: Real Estate, Apartments, Mortgage & Home Values in the US, everytime you see a house you are interested in, swap over to the time warner website and put in the address details. If the house is covered by TWC, your problem is solved! Of course it can be much more complicated than that, chances are you could be using Fairpoint. The best way to check into Fairpoint (ADSL2+ connection, 20mb/s max) would be to either call the town hall of the area you are interested in or calling Fairpoint themselves for the areas not serviced by TWC.

[Submariner]

Internet speeds and ping times, are kind of like cellphone coverage. There are websites that show maps of projected coverage, but that does not guarantee all those areas actually get signal.

One of our long-time posters 'Starwalker' had an extremely difficult time locating a residence that had enough internet connection to allow her to work-from-home. There were a couple threads about her struggles to find towns she could settle in that had good ISP service. All ISPs will tell you that they service areas and that they have fast speeds. Her trick was visiting the ISP and speaking with their techs. If you speak with marketing staff, they will flavor their answers in light trying to get you to be a customer.

In much of Maine, if you can get online in the first place, even with 'DSL' you may have difficulty getting ping times of less then 100ms, and Download speeds may be capped at 1Mbps.

I have over-heard as many complaints about TWC as I have about Fairpoint, and they are not the only providers. I use OTT. [OTT is not any better].

[maineguy8888]

All I know is that in Caribou our service is fast and good. It's Fairpoint.

[znlwovuhrjw]

Originally Posted by maineguy8888

All I know is that in Caribou our service is fast and good. It's Fairpoint.

Even in Caribou, if you live on the "wrong" street, you might not get internet. For example, E Presque Isle Rd.

[MCringle]

For anyone interested, ConnectME Home is a pretty amazing source of information on this subject with many huge maps.

[DLW007]

MCringle,

Your people are calling you home to Maine! LOL Definitely come visit first. Always a must. I'm in the Mid-Coast region of Knox County. The largest city here is Rockland with Augusta in Kennebec County being about an hour away. Belfast in Waldo County would be the next largest city and is about 45 minutes to an hour away and is on the way to MDI (Bar Harbor area). Belfast has an eco village community called Belfast Cohousing and Ecovillage. They have given us a ton of info on the kind of house we are looking to build someday. Really lots of great info! As far as sprawl goes, you don't see a ton of that here like in NY. Yeah there are some crowded areas but you know where those are and you aren't looking there. Most of Maine is rural so it's a Haven for those that just want to get away from it all, work hard and live a better life. I too am from Upstate NY so I get it. We moved here a little over 5 years ago form Rochester. We had enough of paying $7k a year in property taxes on a 1/3 acre for a 3 bed 3 bath home in a cookie cutter subdivision. We do miss certain aspects of NY but we can always visit if we get the hankering to do so. We don't have kids yet so I cannot comment too much on the schooling aspect but there are certainly a lot of home schoolers around here and it's a great place to raise kids. If you're willing, you can find a great fixer upper with tons of potential. There are also lots of green homes and eco friendly builders. We pay less than half in taxes here and we have much more land and privacy. I don't think I could go back to the "Little Boxes on the Hillside" lifestyle. It just doesn't fit any longer. Definitely check out Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine. We love our little slice of Maine just outside of Rockland. Our taxes our lower and we don't get as much of the tourist crowd. I think just about anywhere you go in Maine, you'll find what you're looking for. Best of luck and keep us posted on your endeavors!

[TheKezarWoodsman]

Originally Posted by Submariner

Much of Maine has population-density of 10/sq mile or less.

Most Maine towns [52%] are Unorganized Townships, as a method of keeping their taxes low. My township burned their charter in the 70's for that reason. So far 40 Maine towns have done this.

what are the major diffrences between unorganized towns, vs orginized?

[znlwovuhrjw]

Originally Posted by wolfhelm

what are the major diffrences between unorganized towns, vs orginized?

From the sound of it, just taxes.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Oh, it is much more than that. Organized towns have several styles of government to choose from. Some towns who like small government have selectmen, a treasurer, clerk and a code enforcement officer often shared with numerous other towns. These towns tend to have no zoning.

Some towns have large town councils, large staffs, paid fire departments, paid police departments, very restrictive zoning and squads of code enforcement bureaucrats to enforce the rules in their many zones.

You can't tell by looking at a map which style of government the town has. You have to ask people who know.

Unorganized towns have no local government. 52% of Maine is unorganized. In those townships you deal with the state. People in the unorganized townships are not allowed to vote for those who rule them. They are required to just submit. It is not as bad as it sounds. The state employees are busy and do not have the time to bother property owners that the enforcement squads in very restrictive organized towns have.

If all this seems confusing, you would be correct. For somebody new to Maine it can be positively bewildering. There are good people who can guide you toward your goals. That said, there are many superstitions that are not at all founded in fact. Proceed with caution.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by wolfhelm

what are the major diffrences between unorganized towns, vs orginized?

The biggest difference is taxes. The reason is that local government requires a local payroll. An Organized Town will have some assortment of: selectmen / council, treasurer, clerk, code enforcement officers, staffing, fire departments [even an all Volunteer FD still requires a budget], PD, Parks & Rec, etc. Plus locals will demand municipal services, which also cost revenue.

UTs have none of that. LUPC does zoning / planning. The county sends a sheriff deputy through once a week, and the county paves the road [if you have a paved road].

The nearest volunteer FD provides some level of coverage, our FD is proud that they have never lost a concrete foundation. I have seen them in action, and I must say that is a big accomplishment for them.

On the other hand, with no Health Inspector on payroll, if you ever tried to get a kitchen licensed to sell food, well, good luck