LOCAL NONSENSE FART for Falmouth

You may have seen the bumper stickers. If you’re lucky, you’ve come across the T-shirts. Falmouth Against Raising Taxes (or "FART") is the anti-tax hike, pro-property rights group formed by famed heiress and ’burbs activist Mary Alice Davis. The group was formed in December of 2002 by Davis, Falmouth resident Holly Bernstein, and Falmouth real estate agent Willie Audet, Jr. To date, FART has held a handful of meetings in the Falmouth Public Library, the Falmouth Fire House, and at Davis’s house on Woodville Road to discuss members’ views of the tax rate situation in Falmouth (bad), to plan to try a second time to pass a property compensation referendum next November (good), and to give away over 500 FART T-Shirts (even better).

Founder Davis admits the group’s acronym is a little funny but she says that’s part of the point.

"I wanted to do ‘Falmouth’ and something about ‘Raising Taxes’ [for the group’s name] and when we came up with the other word, I laughed so hard and then all of my friends thought it was so funny we had to use it," she says. "Sometimes, a sense of humor is all you have. That’s life."

FART joins Davis’s other nonprofit group "Our Property Rights," which was also founded with Bernstein and Audet. Davis, the widow of a Shaw’s Supermarket heir who inherited millions of dollars in Falmouth property when her husband died in 1996, has a long, contentious history with the town related to her failed plans to develop 60 acres of her residential property. Last October, Davis sold her land and her two Woodville Road estates to local businessman Eric Cianchette to settle a debt of more than $2 million owed to his real estate company. She remains in her home on Woodville Road although she claims to have plans to move in the near future.

The Web sites for Our Property Rights and FART read like advertisements for Davis’s battles with the Falmouth Town Council and the Planning Board. The sites include links to national and local articles about "sustainable development," information on a supposed conspiracy between environmentalists and local property owners to prevent certain private property development, and, on www.ourpropertyrights.org, glamorously hazy portraits of Davis accompanied by calls to rise up and "reclaim Maine." FART’s Web site, www.fartonline.org, also includes a bizarre video of a baby farting, which is directed to "the members of the Falmouth Maine Town Council, Planning, and Zoning Board of Appeals."

Richard Olson is an attorney with Perkins Olson PA in Portland and has served on the Falmouth Town Council for four years. Olson was not familiar with the FART Web site but has heard of the group.

"The acronym FART might not have been my choice," Olson said, pausing to chuckle after using the word "fart" in a sentence. "I certainly don’t find taxes to be funny. People take taxes very seriously. I think [the name FART] is an effort to gain attention."