Independence Day comes twice in July on Frye Island, once for the town, now 10 years old, and once for the country.

“It’s like being in another world out here,” said Recreation Director Nancy Bishop. A schoolteacher in Massachusetts during the rest of the year, Bishop has been coming to Frye Island on Sebago Lake for 12 years.

Bishop said parents, including herself, generally let their children roam the island on their own once they turn 10, giving them walkie talkies and cell phones to stay in touch.

“Everybody knows everybody,” Bishop said.

A vacation spot with as many golf carts traveling the dirt roads as cars, Frye Island is a seasonal town reached by ferry from Raymond, with governing done over the phone and the Internet during the winter.

After years of paying taxes for services not received from Standish, town residents started moving towards secession in the mid-1990s.

For a crowd of residents and media, in 1996, islanders re-enacted the Boston Tea Party in costume to symbolically protest their connection to Standish. In the spring of 1997 the Standish Town Council voted 4-3 to support state legislation to allow the island to split from the town. Standish residents did not vote on the question.

Soon afterwards the Maine Legislature approved the secession, scheduling the legal break for July 1, 1998.

Paul Cole, who was the town manager in Standish from 1992-1999, said Frye Island started as one big subdivision, with services provided by the Frye Island Municipal Services Corporation. Residents were paying association dues for town services on top of paying taxes to the town of Standish.

From the perspective of the town of Standish, losing Frye Island meant losing part of their tax base, Cole said, estimating that the island made up 10 percent of town taxes.

“From a purely business point of view, it made no sense to let Frye Island walk,” Cole said, adding that the human element made the proposal more compelling.

“I think everybody won in the end,” said Cole.

The town is one of few in the state where golf carts are allowed on the roads, though you need insurance and a driver’s license to operate them. There are eight times as many golf carts registered in the town as cars, but still less than the 300 boats registered there.

For an island, there’s certainly plenty to do. There’s a nine-hole golf course, tennis courts, basketball courts, pool, playground and community center with a game room, honor system library and recreation activities for children. Public beaches ring the island and a marina stores many residents’ boats.

Ten years after independence, residents continue to fight to pay less taxes for services they don’t use, this time regarding their share for School Administrative District 6.

This past year the Maine Supreme Judicial Court upheld a ruling by the Cumberland County Superior Court to allow the Maine Legislature to ban Frye Island from withdrawing from SAD 6 and exempt the island from the formula the state uses to determine how much each town pays based on the number of students.

“We didn’t think we were being treated the same,” Town Manager Wayne Fournier said.

“We understand that everybody should be paying for education,” long time resident Patricia Karpacz said, adding that the amount seemed unreasonable. Frye Island’s share of the SAD 6 budget went up 21 percent this year to more than $1 million, according to Chairman of the Board of Selectman John Nun.

The total municipal budget for Frye Island is almost $949,000 in 2008 and the tax rate is $18.37 per $1,000 of assessed property, $7.85 of that for the municipal share.

“This town is unique,” said Nun, explaining that town governance on Frye Island is different from most towns because only 95 of the estimated 1,500 who live there are legal, voting residents of the town.

To give everyone a voice, town residents created a system where the town is governed by both a Board of Selectmen and a Board of Island Trustees. At the annual town meeting, held in October, legal residents and members of the Board of Island Trustees vote on each budget item. Warrant items on the budget fail if either the residents or board members vote against them.

Three selectmen and four elected representatives from the trustee board make up the executive committee, which does most of the town governing, Nun said.

The town has only two year-round employees, a town manager and bookkeeper. The rest of the town’s positions, including the public works department, one full-time policeman and ferry operators, are seasonal. The town has a volunteer fire department with three fire engines.

Fournier has been the town manager for six years. He lives on Frye Island in the summer and in Florida during the winter, where he continues to conduct business through the phone and Internet.

“It’s a challenge because we’re a new town,” Fournier said. “I get a lot of support from the people.” Fournier said some of the primary challenges involve the inexperience of some of the town’s boards, maintaining services in the winter and finding qualified seasonal workers every year.

Nun, who has been coming to the island for 15 years, said he meets a group of men at the store every morning for coffee and to pick up the paper. “We discuss the same things day after day,” Nun said, adding they mostly talk about what’s happening on the island.

Nun estimated that 50-100 people stay for the whole season, but he was nostalgic for the time when only a handful of people were on the Island in the spring and fall. “That’s when this was truly heaven,” Nun said, though a second later he added, “It still is.”

Frye Island celebrates with the nation