State legislators are working to help meet a request from sporting goods retail giant Cabela’s to exempt the company’s Maine catalogue customers from paying the state’s sales tax.

At the same time, the Maine Revenue Service is working to collect unpaid back taxes from Maine residents who failed to pay them when they ordered products from catalogues and Web sites.

Readers will find both stories on the front page of this week’s Current. Together they beg a question: How can the state exempt the customers of Cabela’s while going after Maine residents who have failed to pay sales taxes for the same thing?

Hopefully, the Maine Revenue Service has an answer to that question that treats Cabela’s and Maine taxpayers equitably. The head of the Maine Revenue Service, Jerome Gerard, declined to comment for our front-page story on Cabela’s this week, saying he wasn’t at liberty to discuss the treatment of an individual taxpayer – Cabela’s.

Cabela’s argument is that its catalogue is a separate company that’s based out of state. Therefore, its Maine customers shouldn’t be penalized because a separate company is building a store in the state.

That argument, however, is a bit specious. It’s absurd to think that the Cabela’s catalogue and its retail stores are not in some way connected. They’ve evolved from the same company even if they are separate on paper now.

Gov. John Baldacci and legislators would no doubt love to tout bringing a business like Cabela’s to the state in an election year. Cabela’s would bring jobs and tax revenue to the state. The project is great for Scarborough, which has been waiting to get commercial development moving on the Haigis Parkway.

Meanwhile, the Maine Revenue Service is busy collecting $1.5 million from taxpayers who have confessed to failing to pay sales taxes on purchases they made over the Internet and from catalogues. The state sent 90,000 letters out to taxpayers and is running ads on television reminding them of their civic duty.

If the state’s going to cut a deal for Cabela’s, then these taxes need to be returned to these taxpayers who were honest enough to fess up about owing them. If they proceed to collect them, then Cabela’s customers should have to pay them too.

Bad blood

As bad as they were already, relations between the Scarborough Town Council and School Board reached a new low last week.

The School Board held a meeting to answer questions some councilors have raised about sewer backups that have occurred at the high school. However, as Council Chairman Steve Ross proceeded to ask questions, School Board member David Beneman began to criticize him personally for jumping “on the bandwagon” with three other councilors who have voted for school budget cuts and questioned the quality of construction at the high school.

The relationship between these two public bodies has been strained ever since some councilors began to question the quality of the construction at the high school. As that has occurred, it’s become increasingly difficult for residents to figure out what is fact, what is political and what is personal.

One thing, however, is clear: The residents of Scarborough deserve better.

Councilors have a right to question the construction quality on a $27 million public project, regardless of what people believe is motivating them to ask the questions. If their questions are unreasonable, the answers will bear that out.

If public representatives can’t set their personal feelings aside and do the job the public elected them to do, they should step down.

Brendan Moran, editor