New low for Bar Harbor as business owners joust on social media

APPLL president cuts off ties to business owner who opposes council's new cruise ship pact

BAR HARBOR - The rancor over the proposed replacement of the current cruise ship caps hit a new level of toxicity this week, prompting some to worry that the divisiveness will fester for years no matter who wins.

The board president of APPLL threatened to stop doing business with Parson’s Lobsters after its owner posted on Facebook her opposition to increasing the daily cruise ship passenger cap to more than 3,200.

Debbie Parsons last Wednesday posted:

“I’m so sick and tired of the downtown business people saying they have a plan … So your telling me you don’t give a shit about this town or the community if you can’t make money off it, shame on you, shame on you, shame on all of you!

“I’m not going down with out a fight VOTE NO ON THE 50 what ever the Council is proposing !!!!” (That would be Article 4.)

APPLL president Kristi Bond replied, “Wow. So if I go out of business and can't feed my kids and pay my taxes, do you care then? Sorry but I'm no longer your customer. If you don't support me, I don't support you. The town said they wanted a reduction in ships, article 50 provides 20 free ship days a month, plus a daily, monthly and annual cap lower than it ever has been. How is that not a reduction? Have you even read it?”

(Bond didn’t mention the no-ship days are reduced to 10 for September and October at the height of the cruise ship season. )

Things got worse.

When Parsons began to receive supporting comments, Bond went after them.

This was one of such exchanges:

Jan Brewer: I was born here and spend the most off my life here and Deb your absolutely right...this town is being ruined by money grubbers....I'm also sick of it...used to be a great town but that's long gone..”

Bond: “I was born an hour away, and grew up running around the forest of Acadia national Park. I have lived here for over 20 years and I work hard to take care of my family. I employ 100+ people who are also part of the community. I pay taxes, in fact last year my tax bill was only 19% less than the Jackson lab joke of a PILOT which is a $600 billion business. I support local non profits, do you? I am not a money grubber!!! And I think it's offensive that that's what you're calling your neighbor and community members that just also happened to be business owners working hard to make a life for ourselves.

Brewer: we all have an opinion..guess you told all yours...if it any concern...I was referring to those who are not locals...I was born and raised here....who run this town and the good old dollars are more important than maintaining our heritage...I also pay taxes and mine have increased the last few years...I also support all those non profits and the hard working local who are trying to make a go off it....you have no right to go at me with your personal reasons..if you don't like what I wrote that's you opinion...as my opinion are also valid....I really don't appreciate you ripping into me..what gives you the right to ridicule my opinion.....

Bond: “ditto. I was responding to your ridicule, the attitude that one community member matters more than another is absurd and insane in my opinion. The idea that a ‘local’ is different than another person who lives here is also absurd and asinine in my opinion. You said you support the hard-working locals, I guess that's just not me.

Brewer: “thats not what I wrote...you've got blinder on....the non locals are the one who have changed this town...a lot of locals have had enough and moved out off town...I don't know you and I will not so I don't know what you do...I'm done with this you have taken this as a personal against you and it's not.”

It’s not enough that Bond and her cohorts on Association to Preserve and Protect Local Livelihoods are suing the town. She is now raging on Facebook against locals opposed to the agreement she and other businesses recently fashioned with the Town Council.

You may read the entire exchange and comments on Parson’s Facebook page. It unearths a resentment toward the seasonal tourism businesses which have displaced a significant share of year-round, generations-old businesses.

Many of them, like Parsons, live here and have seen not only the change to the community but also to their own neighborhoods.

Full disclosure: I have been a Parsons customers for decades.

I was in her shop yesterday and ordered a strawberry rhubarb pie made by her sister and a pound of shrimp.

Now, dear reader, ask yourself this:

When was the last time you were in any of Kristi Bond’s restaurants and can you even name them?

On the same FB thread, she was joined by another APPLL board member Tom Testa, who wrote, in response to a sarcastic comment about pollution by cruise ships:

“Those cruise ships pollute so much they voted for an ordinance that allows 365 ships a year and 365,000 passengers to disembark. Something doesn’t make sense there.”

Testa apparently was referring to the 1,000 daily cap which if multiplied by 365 days would result in 365,000 passengers a year. But that would require 1,000 passengers to disembark each day in November, December, January, February, March and April.

Such is the quality of discourse from APPLL and supporters of the council’s efforts to repeal the citizens ordinance passed Nov. 8, 2022 to limit daily cruise ship passengers to 1,000.

The 365,000 passenger number also has been used by some council members, including Kyle Shank.

Very few people are challenging these assertions in public from council chair Val Peacock and Town Manager James Smith as they campaign, on taxpayers’ money, for the council proposal.

(I will file a Freedom of Access Act request for legal fees paid to Rudman Winchell for Smith’s “informational” session in August when he hired a COA professor with a published bias against the citizen referendum on Nov. 8, 2022 and the unprecedented “ethics training” for municipal officials during which Rudman Winchell gave a free pass to Eben Salvatore of Ocean Properties to continue to have a strong role in influencing public opinion.)

Debbie Parsons said the tipping point which drove her to go public was reading another post on Facebook that said, “This town sucks. I'm on a five-year plan … then I’m out of here.”

She said:

“Come on, guys, so you’re only using the town? You don't enjoy it? You don't like it? You just want to make your money?”

Debbie Parsons is no effete retiree from away making noises about pollution and over-tourism. She is an authentic local with more than 900 followers on Facebook. She lists as FB friends Earl Brechlin and Tom Testa. She has no reservations about telling Eben Salvatore that the town doesn’t need “4,000, 5,000, 6,000 cruise ship visitors.”

She shared a story that Brechlin once quipped that the Chamber of Commerce slogan, “Bar Harbor welcomes all” doesn’t mean “we want them all at once.”

Of course councilor Brechlin has drunk the Kool-Aid and is now campaigning to repeal the citizens cruise ship ordinance imbedded in the town’s Land-Use Ordinance, which is the only local law which requires a election by the citizens to make any changes.

On this issue, Debbie Parsons is unbending.

“Don’t take it out of the LUO, or we’re done,” she said.

FOOTNOTE: To end on a mirthful note, here was the editorial cartoon in the Islander this week, borrowing a phrase from one of my previous articles. Enjoy!

The Little brothers: Rare collaboration of two famous Maine siblings

NORTHEAST HARBOR - Friday night, the Little brothers opened David Little’s September Exhibit: “The Real and the Surreal” at the Northeast Harbor Library which will run through Sept. 30.

I love an exhibit from anyone who may enlighten me on the art of the Maine coast.

We had a practitioner of the craft, David, whose “The Real and the Surreal” offered a cross-section of his work, along with his familiar traditional plein-air landscape paintings and craypas drawings of Maine, including Katahdin, Corea, Great Cranberry Island, and Acadia.

The show presented recent mixed media explorations of abstract idioms in watercolor, ink, collage, and photography.”

The brothers signed their new book, “Art of Penobscot Bay.”

Carl Little is a well known writer in these parts.

His books include Edward Hopper’s New England, The Watercolors of John Singer Sargent, Nature & Culture: The Art of Joel Babb, and Irene Hardwicke Olivieri: Closer to Wilderness. His 2011 book Eric Hopkins: Above and Beyond won the first John N. Cole Award from Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

He’s also a neighbor off Beech Hill.

I’m happy their new book is now part of my personal library