Licensed to non-actual locations

[Doug Drown]

Maine has four municipal categories: cities, towns, plantations, and
unorganized townships.  A community of any size can have a city charter if
it wishes; Eastport (population around 1400) has been a city for decades.
Plantations differ from towns
in that they have assessors rather than selectmen, and I believe shoreline
zoning laws have applications in plantations that differ from those in
towns.  Unorganized townships can be either towns that used to exist (they
actually voted to disband, which is still possible), or they are territories
that never received town charters.  There are vast areas of Maine that fall
into this category.  For example, if you travel up I-95 toward Millinocket
from Lincoln, you'll see a sign that reads: "Entering T2 R8 NWP" --- 
Township 2, Range 8, North of the Waldo Patent.  DeLorme's Maine Atlas and
Gazetteer contains a grid depicting all these.  Most, if not all, of the
patents and territories go back to colonial times.  Some of the territories
are inhabited; most aren't.  As in New Hampshire, people living in
unorganized territories pay their taxes directly to the state.  Their
respective county commissioners have municipal oversight, and the State DOT
maintains their paved roads.

A lot of people don't realize that Maine used to be part of Massachusetts,
that it's the most forested state in the Union [including Alaska] and, like
Massachusetts, it is still firmly and strongly linked to colonial and
aboriginal history.  The county I live in, Somerset, received its charter
from King Charles I in 1629.

-Doug



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Hopfgarten" <paul@derrynh.net>
To: "'Dave Doherty'" <dave@skywaves.net>; "'Garrett Wollman'"
<wollman@bimajority.org>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 2:50 AM
Subject: RE: Licensed to non-actual locations


> Actually, The various "Purchases and Grants" in Northern NH are not Towns
> per se. They are (AFAIK) unincorporated political subdivisions, and for
> example, I think the few residents in these places basically are
considered
> residents of Coos County for the purposes of taxes, schools, etc.
(Sargent's
> Purchase, Bean's Grant, etc)
>
> I believe Maine also has many unincorporated places, especially in
Aroostook
> County.
>
> Having said that, I agree that New England (and I believe NJ may also fall
> into this category) send to operate by Town (or Township in NJ), while
most
> of the rest of the country operates by County. Size of the land area
> probably has a lot to do with that...
>
> -Paul Hopfgarten
> -Derry NH
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Doherty [mailto:dave@skywaves.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 10:40 PM
> To: Garrett Wollman; paul@derrynh.net
> Cc: boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org
> Subject: Re: Licensed to non-actual locations
>
> There's a lot of case law about New England towns because the legal
> organizations of communities are so different here than in the bulk of the
> country. I think it is likely that every square inch of New England
belongs
> to some "town" or other. That is patently not true in other areas of the
> country, particularly the West.
>
> CDPs were meant to add substance to concentrations of population that were
> not incorporated in the traditional sense. They are accepted by the FCC as
> licensable communities without any further documentation. If the community
> is not a CDP and is not incorporated, then there are qualifications hoops
to
>
> jump through - local governance, local school district, local police
force,
> band existence of local businesses all help to establish a place as a
> licensable community.
>
> The peak of Mt. Washington is in Sargents, but the slopes include
Crawfords
> (where the base station is located), Beans, Chandler, Thomson and
Meserves,
> Cutts, and arguably several others. I doubt anybody actually lives in any
of
>
> these "towns," and not one is included in the census places table. I am
> totally guessing here, but I suspect that these "towns" represent the
> original landholdings granted by the King or the territorial Governor way
> back when.
>
> So, could you license WHOM today to "Mount Washington?" Probably not.
Gorham
>
> would a piece of cake, though.
>
> Tuck showings are intended primarily to establish that a community is not
a
> made-up entity within a larger community. It works mostly to prevent
> wholesale moves of stations from small communities to large metros. When
you
>
> move a station to a new community, you can't propose to serve more than a
> particular percentage of any recognized urbanized area. As an example, you
> could not propose to move a station from, say, Provincetown to Norwood, if
> the station would serve more than half the Boston urbanized area.
>
> -d
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org>
> To: <paul@derrynh.net>
> Cc: <boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 9:33 AM
> Subject: RE: Licensed to non-actual locations
>
>
> > <<On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:20:49 -0500, "Paul Hopfgarten"
<paul@derrynh.net>
>
> > said:
> >
> >> If you think about it, WHOM is also currently licensed to a
> >> "non-political"
> >> subdivision.
> >
> >> Mt. Washington is NOT actually a political subdivision in New Hampshire
> >> (I
> >> want to say it's Sargent's Purchase...which even at that, is still
> >> unincorporated).
> >
> >> I guess "common knowledge" of a location is sufficient for the FCC...
> >
> > The FCC generally prefers incorporated municipalities, and if pressed
> > will accept a "Census-defined place" (particularly in southern states
> > where municipalities ae in short supply).  They don't believe our
> > towns really exist, because the Census Bureau conflates them with
> > midwestern townships.
> >
> > For allocations purposes today, there is something called "/Tuck/
> > analysis" which is supposed to demonstrate that the proposed community
> > is a real community.  The commission was much more lax in the days of
> > yore when they could hardly give away FM licenses.
> >
> > -GAWollman
> >
> >
>