In mid-June, a paper tacked to a bulletin board in the small central Aroostook town of Ashland declared a neighboring community would no longer be able to use several of the former’s facilities.

“Effective immediately,” it read, “residents of Masardis will no longer be able to utilize the library and recreation center.”

Masardis, a rural town of 204, had declined to pay subsidies to support either facility, including more $11,000 for the library, which is nearly 40% funded by a handful of nearby communities that don’t have a library of their own.

The same message reached the select board of Portage Lake, a town of 359 some 16 miles north of Ashland, where residents had voted down a nearly $21,000 subsidy for the library and another for the recreation department. “If Portage does not wis

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