At the Windham Veteran’s Center last Saturday, a crowd watched from a safe distance as tax reform advocate Mary Adams lit the fuse on a cast-iron cannon, replica of the cannons that once fired on the British during the American Revolution.

The bang sent a shudder through the audience who, after unplugging their ears, clapped at the thundering kick-off to the Second Great American Tea Party.

Like the Boston Tea Party of 1773, more than a hundred people came together for this “tea party,” organized by grassroots tax reform group Citizen’s Alliance of Maine, to protest rising taxes.

“We are living in a state that is being hurt by high taxes and we have to do something about it,” said John Dinan of Falmouth. “We’ve been offered no other option. It seems to me Augusta is not listening.”

Inside the Veteran’s Center, Dinan and other local taxpayers listened to speeches about rising property taxes and “out of control” government spending. These speeches advocated for the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, a citizen’s initiative to curb local and state spending, and took aim at L.D. 1, a recent state tax reform legislation that put a limit on local and state spending, raised state aid for local schools and doubled property tax rebates.

Jack Wibby, founder of the Citizen’s Alliance, looked at aspects of L.D. 1 and asked the audience to rate on a ballot whether they felt the legislation provided “real” property tax relief. L.D. 1, which went into effect this year.

Wibby said that the local spending caps imposed by L.D. 1 could be overridden by “a simple majority vote of town officials who made the budget” and asked querulously, “Is this property tax relief?”

He also noted that though the Homestead Exemption – rebate given to home owners whose primary home is in Maine – had been doubled, but it required towns to pick up half the cost.

After a roar of applause, Adams, dubbed “General Adams” and wearing a tricorner hat, took the floor and called for people to “continue the American Revolution” by supporting the Taxpayers Bill. Adams said that tax reform supporters were “a middle-class pitchfork army up against tremendous resistance.”

“We are going to tell the people of Maine the truth, and the truth will prevail,” Adams said.

That truth, Adams said, is that Maine citizens are being overtaxed by “a large and inefficient state government.”

“We are becoming an occupied people who are paying for our own occupation,” Adams said. “When did public servants become public serpents?”

She then likened the Windham tea party to the Battle of Saratoga in 1777 – the event and the date of the battle were just a day apart. She called that battle, where local militias came out in force to support the patriots, the “turning point” of the American Revolution and hoped this tea party would do the same for the Taxpayers Bill.

The Taxpayers Bill of Rights is a proposed amendment to the state constitution that does not cut local and state spending, Adams noted for the audience, it just puts a limit on the state and local increases in spending, adjusted to inflation and population growth.

Legislative support for the Taxpayers Bill has so far all come from the Republican party. Republican legislators, like Rep. Richard Cebra of Naples and Rep. Gary Plummer of Windham, attended the event to show their support for tax reform and Rep. Scott Lansley of Sabattus read a letter by 2006 Republican gubernatorial candidate Peter Cianchette endorsing the Taxpayers Bill.

Though the tea party was open to all taxpayers, regardless of political party, there were several partisan barbs like Adams’ “the socialist in tweed is harder to spot than a red coat on a fat horse.”

Gordon Browne of Windham, who spoke about the future of tax reform, said that “Democrats are nice people, but they are wrong-headed” and asked anyone who was thinking about voting Democrat in 2006 to call him so he could “talk them out of it.”

Deadline for the Taxpayers Bill is Oct. 21. The citizen’s initiative needs about 50,000 signatures to be put on the November 2006 ballot and Adams, who organized the petition drive, hopes to get more than the number needed in case some signatures are deemed invalid by the state.

At the Second Great American Tea Party, tax reform advocate Mary Adams lights the fuse on cannon, with a little help from Fern Letellier of Sebago dressed as revolutionary soldier.