What ever makes you think that the large cruise ship passengers (three meals a day buffet) would spring for something as expensive as a lobster roll?? Ice cream, maybe. Or a T-shirt as a stretch.
Exactly! I had numerous cruise ship passengers ask if they could split a lobster roll or share a small cup of chowder, one group wanted to split the lobster roll four ways! I told them no. Two cruise ladies took a table for four at the lunch rush and each had a small bowl of clam chowder over which they dawdled for over an hour, then tipped 25 cents BETWEEN them! Several cruise ship staff came in for meals, some of them extensive and expensive and not one of them tipped! These incidents were more the rule than the exception.
Meanwhile, the German cruise ship company Meinschiff avoids Bar Harbor and the itinerary is depart cruise terminal Hoboken NJ, to Rockland, to Halifax, and up to Quebec City. The ship operates only in the German language on-board and virtually all the passengers speak no English. I make it a point to be in Town to greet the tourists, quote passages from Goethe's Faust, and act as guide. Having German tourists does bring a nice international flavor to this working port!
Good for you for making your self available to our international guests, I'm sure it's appreciated. Ich spreche auch Deutsch. Je parle français aussi. I loved having the international guests from Germany and France or anywhere else for that matter and they were more than a little surprised when I spoke to them in their language. Many of the cruise ship passengers, however, that I came in contact with working in restaurants in Bar Harbor were often cheap and rude. When I travel, as I did in South America, Central America, Asia, and Europe for 30 years in my job, I make it a point to learn the customs of the place I'm visiting and at least a few words of the language, especially please and thank you.
Before I get into the economics let's not ignore the deleterious environmental toll these floating hotels take on our waters and air, not to mention everywhere they operate, but I will and almost leave it at that. If they spent more on addressing that issue than slick PR that paints a rosy picture on their half-baked efforts that ultimately does little that'd be huge. They should used land based power not idle 24/7. These ships costs a billion or two to build and since they put on their big boy pants for show this would be just another cost of doing business and a better place to wear them. Now to Bar Harbor's alleged huge lunch business that begs the question how many restaurants and how many more covers? And do dinner covers increase after the crowds leave for the day and overnight visitors come out to play. Merchants ditto with $ale$. No need to query hoteliers. APPLL needs to stop taking the easy way out, spending OPL's virtually unlimited money on lawyers that's a drain on Bar Harbor taxpayers and spend OPL's money on research that's done by UMO or some capable/impartial fact finder to back up their anecdotal economics. It's also hard to believe that 20% or 80,000 cruise ship passengers visit the park and even if that's accurate their economic impact can't begin to match the land based day visits.
20% of the 132,000 per year, disembarking passengers, will make one visit to ANP. That is 26,400 visitors or 2.1% of the 1,250,000 visitors per year. It is an impact of .66%, less than 1%, on the 4,000,000 total visits to ANP per year.
Some of the recent facebook commentary regarding Mr. Millstein takes an "othering" approach. One even offers to serve him up as bait for shellfish. Some undercurrents on this island are disturbing, from the Klan rallies of the 1930s, to C.C. Little's Eugenics movement, and god knows how many slights against fellow humans before and after. The island loses a little of its soul with each personal slight. "Otherism" is dehumanizing and it sucks. Please stop.
There's been a lot of talk about legal fees paid out by the town in relation to this cruise ship issue. Regrettably the onus for these expenditures has largely been placed upon the shoulders of those advocating in favor of cruise ship limits. In fact, the vast majority of these legal expenses are a direct result of APPLL's refusal to accept the results of democratic process. Sadly this is far from the first time that the town has had to expend large sums of money defending against law suits from APPLL's main proponent, Ocean Properties. It would be interesting indeed for Bar Harbor's financial office to tabulate a total of the amount of money expended over the past several decades by the town in lawsuits generated by that company. If this were done I very much suspect that the stickers placed upon signs would target someone other than Charles Sidman.
The Chamber of Commerce is ruining MDI. They have no vision other than unsustainable growth in visitation. No care for promoting business that actually provide decent year-round jobs or benefit locals (other than lining the pockets of a few wealthy restauranteurs and hoteliers)
The cruise ship industry seems to be lowering the numbers on its own. Because of the situation created by the corrupt dealings of the BH Town Councils, Town Managers, and APPL.
Restaurants, hoteliers, and merchants are reliant on the business 4 million ANP visits generate not cruise ships. And to Kyle Shank Charlie Sidman is a very decent citizen and this is not the issue over which to make an academic argument defending the right of free speech. Metaphorically you just shot a dog and it's going to come back and bite you.
Good afternoon David. Respectfully, I disagree - I think this is exactly the time to make academic arguments and hold to principles. I find the sticker distasteful and would have counseled whomever put them up against it. But, like I said, this comes down to principles: in my mind, a sticker on a sign is no different from chalk on a sidewalk in that both are easily washed away. I believe the Town was far too heavy-handed in dealing with the sidewalk chalk campaign about Leonard Leo; it would be hypocritical to then change tunes and bring that same heavy-handedness against some unknown person(s) for roughly the same thing.
I’m realizing that the nuance I was trying to land here - “these stickers are particularly stupid and shouldn’t go on public signage, but I’m really reluctant on principle to ‘do’ something about it - from the position as an elected official - so as to respect speech, even if I find it distasteful” didn’t really land well.
But to be extra clear: I do not applaud or celebrate vulgarity, regardless of source.
As always, happy to chat about this with you sometime should you ever desire.
This is a fair take, and thank you for sharing it! If given the opportunity to restate my position, I think I'd state it differently to focus less on the equivalency between the two and more on the corrective response being fair and respectful, as I'm trying to balance the sensitivities between peoples' rights to express themselves and the (myriad!) ways that expressions interact with law. I don't want to implicitly validate vandalism while trying to explicitly avoid interfering with speech, but that's probably a harder needle to thread overall and probably worth a much longer conversation than an e-mail.
As a government official, and in general, it is not so much 'balancing sensitivities', as knowing the law and protecting people's rights. Respect for the law - its parameters and provisions - is the way to avoid 'implicitly validating vandalism while trying to explicitly avoid interfering with speech.' Any envisioned protest should also start with consulting the authorities. Then activists can plan how to legally publicize their message or knowingly engage in civil disobedience. 'Balancing sensibilities', or acting as the arbiters of 'public taste' is not the work of government officials.
Bar Harbor Town Councilors and their Town Manager have acted corruptly regarding the Leo chalking protest, by overstepping their enumerated duties, bending the law to accommodate a powerful individual, and indulging their own prejudices. They continue to act corruptly regarding the cruise ship issue by overstepping their enumerated duties, bending the law to accommodate powerful individuals, and indulging their own prejudices. At the town's expense. Including diverting tax dollars to dubious schemes.
Having previously addressed the protest media, let's consider the protest messages. The chalked 'Google Leonard Leo = Corrupt Courts' invites viewers to learn more and consider their own position about a significant civic issue. While the stickers are an intentional
attack on an individual and an incitement to violence.
It is not surprising that town officials who themselves have bent the law to profit their own purposes and prejudices, should align themselves with Leonard Leo and APPL in seeking to suppress protected civil rights. While being opposed to the efforts of Charles Sidman, who has consistently respected the democratic process and works to uphold the law. Not surprising, but nonetheless shameful.
I'm more than happy to respond. While I suspect this question might not have have been posed in good faith, I'm actually thrilled to have the opportunity to not only catalogue and describe my wife's virtues, but to also take a moment to share just how much work it takes to build a good life for a family in Bar Harbor.
To answer your question directly - no, my wife does not benefit from "unfettered tourism due to a business relationship with the Youngs". As it stands, at least for the moment, her only active commercial relationship is with the Bar Harbor Food Pantry, for whom she is currently providing freelance graphic design work. Before that, she did indeed provide marketing consulting and social media work to several of the Youngs' businesses, amongst others, just prior to and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Before that still, she was the Manager of Creative Services at the Abbe Museum, where she helped to design and construct their current permanent exhibit while also working intimately with the various Wabanaki tribes to purchase and market their artisanal crafts.
You see, like many of us here, my wife has had to hold many different jobs on this island in order for our family to make life here work and put down roots. When we first arrived in 2012 for me to attend College of the Atlantic, we were - frankly - broke, just settling into our first winter rental, freshly-married, and clueless as to how to get by. We both worked odd jobs - her in retail and restaurants, me in restaurants and at the college - in order to stay fed, keep the oil tank filled, and to pay our rent (on time, as best we could). Was the majority of our work in those early years in the service industry? It most certainly was - unsurprisingly, given that it's the largest sector of Bar Harbor's economy. But that work didn't just pay for the bread and milk, it was also foundational to us integrating into the social fabric of the town. Through her hard work, we made lasting friendships, built relationships, and slowly settled into our island life. Which, it turns out, would be pretty important given that we welcomed our daughter to our family in 2014, barely two years after settling in.
Fast forward ten years, and here we are - still. We live here year-round. We have two beautiful children, both of whom attend our towns' elementary school. We - after more moves than I'd like to count - own a home. We're lucky to have dear friends, and luckier still that our dear friends reflect the fabric of our town: some who own restaurants, some who hate certain restaurants, some who own AirBNBs, some who hate AirBNBs, some who love cruise ships, some who hate cruise ships - you get the idea. But none of this would have happened had it not been for her. None of this would be our life had she not worked tirelessly for those first few years while I attended school, and even more tirelessly for those years afterwards while I climbed my own career ladder. None of what we have now would be possible had she not selflessly walked away from steadier work when our son was diagnosed with special needs and we were suddenly uncertain of how we could balanced multiple careers with his care during the pandemic. None of what I am able to do now, neither professionally or politically, would be possible without the immense effort and force of will she brings to everything she does, day in and day out, for our family.
So, again, to answer your question: no, our bottom line is not affected by her business relationships. Our bottom line isn't even what really matters. Our life here is built the same way as many others are - yours too, I imagine - piece by piece, bit by bit, as best we can and as we are able.
Thank you for the opportunity to share this and have a good evening.
Kyle, I thank you for always replying to my questions. You're a paragon of transparency although sometimes I wish you wouldn't feed into that FB page filled with hate and overt bigotry. Thanks again for being part of the conversation.
the APPLL plaintiffs - Geddy's, Stewman, Harborside, Village Shop snd other merchants, Testa's, Kristi Bond's restaurants draw a huge lunch business from cruise ships. Cruise ships account for 20 percent of "visitors" to ANP.
You better check your math Lincoln. 20% of the 4 million ANP visitors is 800,000. Since we get roughly 200,000 cruisers into Bar Harbor in a year, calculated by adding up all the lower berth capacity numbers, and in reality only 66% get off the ship, then 66% of 200,000 disembark. That is 132,000.. Of those 132,000. I have observed that only a mere 20% of those will take a ship sponsored tour. But just for kicks let’s use Gabe and McConnons Economic scam and use their 47% take a tour. 47% of 132,000= 61,000. 61,000 is 1.5% of 4,000,000. Without using Gabe and McConnons exaggerated quess work and using facts gotten by visual observation claiming 20% take a tour into the Park than you can half that 1.5 % to .75%. That is a far cry from 20%.
I didn’t say visits. I said visitors.. park assumes each visitor logs three visits. That would be about 1.25 million visitors… at their height cruise lines easily bus 20 percent to Acadia.
Sorry, I misunderstood. I agree though that 20% of the 132,000 disembarking passengers will make one visit to ANP. That is 26,400 visitors or 2.1% of the 1,250,000 visitors per year. It is an impact of .66%, less than 1%, on the 4,000,000 visits
I am aware of the members of APPLL, but I don't know who is posting the stickers with their coarse vulgarities, it certainly stands the test of reason that's it's one or more of their members. That person or persons maybe affiliated with APPLL or it may be someone else. I wouldn't want to falsely malign all members of APPLL when it may not be all of them who approve of the stickers. I hope the culprits will be named at some point!
The Bar Harbor Town Council needs quite a house cleaning for some of their positions and decisions. That's up to the voters of the town. I hope they will take that responsibility seriously and exercise their right to vote at at every opportunity to elect councilors who will fairly represent them and the future of the town they want to have.
In any event, Charles Sidman speaks for many people in Bar Harbor and I applaud him for taking a stand. Perhaps vote for him at the next election!
I don't know who is posting the vulgar sticker signs referencing Charles Sidman but that language has become all too common in normal discourse and reflects very poorly on the members of APPLL. It's disgusting and has no place in Bar Harbor.
Not much outrage about this sticker, but if you replace "Charles Sidman" with "Valerie Peacock" or "Maya Caines" we would have an outright emergency on our hands!
A person commits a Class E crime if that person removes or tampers with a sign, light, flare, reflector or other signalling or safety device placed by the Department of Transportation, a county or municipal official or a contractor performing repairs or maintenance work on or adjoining a public way. [PL 1993, c. 683, Pt. A, §2 (NEW); PL 1993, c. 683, Pt. B, §5 (AFF).]
The sticker on the traffic sign may also rise to the level of Criminal Mischief
806. Criminal mischief
B. Damages, destroys or tampers with property of a law enforcement agency, fire department, or supplier of gas, electric, steam, water, transportation, sanitation or communication services to the public, having no reasonable grounds to believe that the person has a right to do so, and by such conduct recklessly creates a risk of interruption or impairment of services rendered to the public;
This new low is entirely on the Bar Harbor Town Council. Which has set the tone on publicly ostracizing those they disagree with and acted shamelessly and possibly illegally concerning the cruise ship issue.
What ever makes you think that the large cruise ship passengers (three meals a day buffet) would spring for something as expensive as a lobster roll?? Ice cream, maybe. Or a T-shirt as a stretch.
Exactly! I had numerous cruise ship passengers ask if they could split a lobster roll or share a small cup of chowder, one group wanted to split the lobster roll four ways! I told them no. Two cruise ladies took a table for four at the lunch rush and each had a small bowl of clam chowder over which they dawdled for over an hour, then tipped 25 cents BETWEEN them! Several cruise ship staff came in for meals, some of them extensive and expensive and not one of them tipped! These incidents were more the rule than the exception.
Meanwhile, the German cruise ship company Meinschiff avoids Bar Harbor and the itinerary is depart cruise terminal Hoboken NJ, to Rockland, to Halifax, and up to Quebec City. The ship operates only in the German language on-board and virtually all the passengers speak no English. I make it a point to be in Town to greet the tourists, quote passages from Goethe's Faust, and act as guide. Having German tourists does bring a nice international flavor to this working port!
Good for you for making your self available to our international guests, I'm sure it's appreciated. Ich spreche auch Deutsch. Je parle français aussi. I loved having the international guests from Germany and France or anywhere else for that matter and they were more than a little surprised when I spoke to them in their language. Many of the cruise ship passengers, however, that I came in contact with working in restaurants in Bar Harbor were often cheap and rude. When I travel, as I did in South America, Central America, Asia, and Europe for 30 years in my job, I make it a point to learn the customs of the place I'm visiting and at least a few words of the language, especially please and thank you.
Before I get into the economics let's not ignore the deleterious environmental toll these floating hotels take on our waters and air, not to mention everywhere they operate, but I will and almost leave it at that. If they spent more on addressing that issue than slick PR that paints a rosy picture on their half-baked efforts that ultimately does little that'd be huge. They should used land based power not idle 24/7. These ships costs a billion or two to build and since they put on their big boy pants for show this would be just another cost of doing business and a better place to wear them. Now to Bar Harbor's alleged huge lunch business that begs the question how many restaurants and how many more covers? And do dinner covers increase after the crowds leave for the day and overnight visitors come out to play. Merchants ditto with $ale$. No need to query hoteliers. APPLL needs to stop taking the easy way out, spending OPL's virtually unlimited money on lawyers that's a drain on Bar Harbor taxpayers and spend OPL's money on research that's done by UMO or some capable/impartial fact finder to back up their anecdotal economics. It's also hard to believe that 20% or 80,000 cruise ship passengers visit the park and even if that's accurate their economic impact can't begin to match the land based day visits.
20% of the 132,000 per year, disembarking passengers, will make one visit to ANP. That is 26,400 visitors or 2.1% of the 1,250,000 visitors per year. It is an impact of .66%, less than 1%, on the 4,000,000 total visits to ANP per year.
Suggestion: Reach reach our to as many friends and family as you can to complete the gofundme for this cause. Send this link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/8aeb5n-protect-acadia-from-cruise-ships.
The opposition has lots of funding and we need to match them.
"Too many signs", that's upcycling pizza boxes at its finest!
What gets me is trying to understand why someone with almost a dozen businesses to run with kids in school wants to add another job to his resume?
It seems the chamber of commerce is ready to take over the town?
Some of the recent facebook commentary regarding Mr. Millstein takes an "othering" approach. One even offers to serve him up as bait for shellfish. Some undercurrents on this island are disturbing, from the Klan rallies of the 1930s, to C.C. Little's Eugenics movement, and god knows how many slights against fellow humans before and after. The island loses a little of its soul with each personal slight. "Otherism" is dehumanizing and it sucks. Please stop.
I think you are referring to Luke Damon's post on FB in which the admin wrote about me, "He's about as local as Millstein."
The recent localism from the losers has been on 11 recently, it's not a good look for folks trying to win over votes.
Let's hope it makes people really think about whom they want to represent them and their vision for Bar Harbor.
To paraphrase a local fishmonger from a near generation, "We better skin 'em in the summah, if we don't we're gonna skin each other all winter".
There's been a lot of talk about legal fees paid out by the town in relation to this cruise ship issue. Regrettably the onus for these expenditures has largely been placed upon the shoulders of those advocating in favor of cruise ship limits. In fact, the vast majority of these legal expenses are a direct result of APPLL's refusal to accept the results of democratic process. Sadly this is far from the first time that the town has had to expend large sums of money defending against law suits from APPLL's main proponent, Ocean Properties. It would be interesting indeed for Bar Harbor's financial office to tabulate a total of the amount of money expended over the past several decades by the town in lawsuits generated by that company. If this were done I very much suspect that the stickers placed upon signs would target someone other than Charles Sidman.
Well said. Thank you.
"In fact, the vast majority of these legal expenses are a direct result of APPLL's refusal to accept the results of democratic process."
Yes. This.
And also a direct result of Bar Harbor former and current Town Managers' and Town Councils' refusal to accept the results of democratic process.
This is great news! And very well written. Thank you Mr. Millstein for continuing to let us know what’s really going on.
We need to continue to support Sidman in his battle for all the people on the island and its environment. The cruise Ships are ruining MDI.
The Chamber of Commerce is ruining MDI. They have no vision other than unsustainable growth in visitation. No care for promoting business that actually provide decent year-round jobs or benefit locals (other than lining the pockets of a few wealthy restauranteurs and hoteliers)
please donate to the gofundme. we need 100% participation by all those concerned
YES!
"The cruise Ships are ruining MDI."
The cruise ship industry seems to be lowering the numbers on its own. Because of the situation created by the corrupt dealings of the BH Town Councils, Town Managers, and APPL.
Restaurants, hoteliers, and merchants are reliant on the business 4 million ANP visits generate not cruise ships. And to Kyle Shank Charlie Sidman is a very decent citizen and this is not the issue over which to make an academic argument defending the right of free speech. Metaphorically you just shot a dog and it's going to come back and bite you.
Good afternoon David. Respectfully, I disagree - I think this is exactly the time to make academic arguments and hold to principles. I find the sticker distasteful and would have counseled whomever put them up against it. But, like I said, this comes down to principles: in my mind, a sticker on a sign is no different from chalk on a sidewalk in that both are easily washed away. I believe the Town was far too heavy-handed in dealing with the sidewalk chalk campaign about Leonard Leo; it would be hypocritical to then change tunes and bring that same heavy-handedness against some unknown person(s) for roughly the same thing.
You do not make an effort to applaud vulgar language. Bad move Kyle.
Thanks for the feedback here, Jim.
I’m realizing that the nuance I was trying to land here - “these stickers are particularly stupid and shouldn’t go on public signage, but I’m really reluctant on principle to ‘do’ something about it - from the position as an elected official - so as to respect speech, even if I find it distasteful” didn’t really land well.
But to be extra clear: I do not applaud or celebrate vulgarity, regardless of source.
As always, happy to chat about this with you sometime should you ever desire.
"in my mind, a sticker on a sign is no different from chalk on a sidewalk in that both are easily washed away."
This is a false equivalency.
Chalkings on sidewalks and stickers on street signs are not the same thing. Not even roughly.
1. Chalk washes away with water. The plastics and pressure sensitive adhesives used in stickers are formulated to be water resistant and long lasting.
2. The chalkings do not impede the normal use of the sidewalks. The stickers obscure the messages of the signs.
3. It is because of the factors noted above, that chalkings are protected by the First Amendment and compliant with Maine law.
4. It is because of the factors above that the stickers may be in violation of Maine law regarding Tampering with Signs and Criminal Mischief.
This is a fair take, and thank you for sharing it! If given the opportunity to restate my position, I think I'd state it differently to focus less on the equivalency between the two and more on the corrective response being fair and respectful, as I'm trying to balance the sensitivities between peoples' rights to express themselves and the (myriad!) ways that expressions interact with law. I don't want to implicitly validate vandalism while trying to explicitly avoid interfering with speech, but that's probably a harder needle to thread overall and probably worth a much longer conversation than an e-mail.
ThankYou.
As a government official, and in general, it is not so much 'balancing sensitivities', as knowing the law and protecting people's rights. Respect for the law - its parameters and provisions - is the way to avoid 'implicitly validating vandalism while trying to explicitly avoid interfering with speech.' Any envisioned protest should also start with consulting the authorities. Then activists can plan how to legally publicize their message or knowingly engage in civil disobedience. 'Balancing sensibilities', or acting as the arbiters of 'public taste' is not the work of government officials.
Bar Harbor Town Councilors and their Town Manager have acted corruptly regarding the Leo chalking protest, by overstepping their enumerated duties, bending the law to accommodate a powerful individual, and indulging their own prejudices. They continue to act corruptly regarding the cruise ship issue by overstepping their enumerated duties, bending the law to accommodate powerful individuals, and indulging their own prejudices. At the town's expense. Including diverting tax dollars to dubious schemes.
Having previously addressed the protest media, let's consider the protest messages. The chalked 'Google Leonard Leo = Corrupt Courts' invites viewers to learn more and consider their own position about a significant civic issue. While the stickers are an intentional
attack on an individual and an incitement to violence.
It is not surprising that town officials who themselves have bent the law to profit their own purposes and prejudices, should align themselves with Leonard Leo and APPL in seeking to suppress protected civil rights. While being opposed to the efforts of Charles Sidman, who has consistently respected the democratic process and works to uphold the law. Not surprising, but nonetheless shameful.
I'm more than happy to respond. While I suspect this question might not have have been posed in good faith, I'm actually thrilled to have the opportunity to not only catalogue and describe my wife's virtues, but to also take a moment to share just how much work it takes to build a good life for a family in Bar Harbor.
To answer your question directly - no, my wife does not benefit from "unfettered tourism due to a business relationship with the Youngs". As it stands, at least for the moment, her only active commercial relationship is with the Bar Harbor Food Pantry, for whom she is currently providing freelance graphic design work. Before that, she did indeed provide marketing consulting and social media work to several of the Youngs' businesses, amongst others, just prior to and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Before that still, she was the Manager of Creative Services at the Abbe Museum, where she helped to design and construct their current permanent exhibit while also working intimately with the various Wabanaki tribes to purchase and market their artisanal crafts.
You see, like many of us here, my wife has had to hold many different jobs on this island in order for our family to make life here work and put down roots. When we first arrived in 2012 for me to attend College of the Atlantic, we were - frankly - broke, just settling into our first winter rental, freshly-married, and clueless as to how to get by. We both worked odd jobs - her in retail and restaurants, me in restaurants and at the college - in order to stay fed, keep the oil tank filled, and to pay our rent (on time, as best we could). Was the majority of our work in those early years in the service industry? It most certainly was - unsurprisingly, given that it's the largest sector of Bar Harbor's economy. But that work didn't just pay for the bread and milk, it was also foundational to us integrating into the social fabric of the town. Through her hard work, we made lasting friendships, built relationships, and slowly settled into our island life. Which, it turns out, would be pretty important given that we welcomed our daughter to our family in 2014, barely two years after settling in.
Fast forward ten years, and here we are - still. We live here year-round. We have two beautiful children, both of whom attend our towns' elementary school. We - after more moves than I'd like to count - own a home. We're lucky to have dear friends, and luckier still that our dear friends reflect the fabric of our town: some who own restaurants, some who hate certain restaurants, some who own AirBNBs, some who hate AirBNBs, some who love cruise ships, some who hate cruise ships - you get the idea. But none of this would have happened had it not been for her. None of this would be our life had she not worked tirelessly for those first few years while I attended school, and even more tirelessly for those years afterwards while I climbed my own career ladder. None of what we have now would be possible had she not selflessly walked away from steadier work when our son was diagnosed with special needs and we were suddenly uncertain of how we could balanced multiple careers with his care during the pandemic. None of what I am able to do now, neither professionally or politically, would be possible without the immense effort and force of will she brings to everything she does, day in and day out, for our family.
So, again, to answer your question: no, our bottom line is not affected by her business relationships. Our bottom line isn't even what really matters. Our life here is built the same way as many others are - yours too, I imagine - piece by piece, bit by bit, as best we can and as we are able.
Thank you for the opportunity to share this and have a good evening.
Kyle, I thank you for always replying to my questions. You're a paragon of transparency although sometimes I wish you wouldn't feed into that FB page filled with hate and overt bigotry. Thanks again for being part of the conversation.
And who deleted the deleted comment?
I believe the author of the comment did, but I couldn’t have a way to be sure.
I would love to know more about this business relationship.
the APPLL plaintiffs - Geddy's, Stewman, Harborside, Village Shop snd other merchants, Testa's, Kristi Bond's restaurants draw a huge lunch business from cruise ships. Cruise ships account for 20 percent of "visitors" to ANP.
You better check your math Lincoln. 20% of the 4 million ANP visitors is 800,000. Since we get roughly 200,000 cruisers into Bar Harbor in a year, calculated by adding up all the lower berth capacity numbers, and in reality only 66% get off the ship, then 66% of 200,000 disembark. That is 132,000.. Of those 132,000. I have observed that only a mere 20% of those will take a ship sponsored tour. But just for kicks let’s use Gabe and McConnons Economic scam and use their 47% take a tour. 47% of 132,000= 61,000. 61,000 is 1.5% of 4,000,000. Without using Gabe and McConnons exaggerated quess work and using facts gotten by visual observation claiming 20% take a tour into the Park than you can half that 1.5 % to .75%. That is a far cry from 20%.
It is less than 1%. It is no where near 20%
I didn’t say visits. I said visitors.. park assumes each visitor logs three visits. That would be about 1.25 million visitors… at their height cruise lines easily bus 20 percent to Acadia.
Sorry, I misunderstood. I agree though that 20% of the 132,000 disembarking passengers will make one visit to ANP. That is 26,400 visitors or 2.1% of the 1,250,000 visitors per year. It is an impact of .66%, less than 1%, on the 4,000,000 visits
I am aware of the members of APPLL, but I don't know who is posting the stickers with their coarse vulgarities, it certainly stands the test of reason that's it's one or more of their members. That person or persons maybe affiliated with APPLL or it may be someone else. I wouldn't want to falsely malign all members of APPLL when it may not be all of them who approve of the stickers. I hope the culprits will be named at some point!
The Bar Harbor Town Council needs quite a house cleaning for some of their positions and decisions. That's up to the voters of the town. I hope they will take that responsibility seriously and exercise their right to vote at at every opportunity to elect councilors who will fairly represent them and the future of the town they want to have.
In any event, Charles Sidman speaks for many people in Bar Harbor and I applaud him for taking a stand. Perhaps vote for him at the next election!
The ones who ride the free buses and don't pay to ride into the park?
I don't know who is posting the vulgar sticker signs referencing Charles Sidman but that language has become all too common in normal discourse and reflects very poorly on the members of APPLL. It's disgusting and has no place in Bar Harbor.
Only an ignorant person would argue that defacing a regulatory traffic or parking sign is protected, first amendment speech.
Not much outrage about this sticker, but if you replace "Charles Sidman" with "Valerie Peacock" or "Maya Caines" we would have an outright emergency on our hands!
§2107. Tampering with signs
A person commits a Class E crime if that person removes or tampers with a sign, light, flare, reflector or other signalling or safety device placed by the Department of Transportation, a county or municipal official or a contractor performing repairs or maintenance work on or adjoining a public way. [PL 1993, c. 683, Pt. A, §2 (NEW); PL 1993, c. 683, Pt. B, §5 (AFF).]
The sticker on the traffic sign may also rise to the level of Criminal Mischief
806. Criminal mischief
B. Damages, destroys or tampers with property of a law enforcement agency, fire department, or supplier of gas, electric, steam, water, transportation, sanitation or communication services to the public, having no reasonable grounds to believe that the person has a right to do so, and by such conduct recklessly creates a risk of interruption or impairment of services rendered to the public;
This new low is entirely on the Bar Harbor Town Council. Which has set the tone on publicly ostracizing those they disagree with and acted shamelessly and possibly illegally concerning the cruise ship issue.