Solar power devotees rage on, as backlash overwhelms Island towns, Trenton

OTHER NEWS: Doctors in SWH change roles; $62.5K settlement in protester lawsuit against cops; SWH election results

TREMONT, May 11, 2024 - Solar power advocates on MDI, and nearby Trenton, are at a crossroad.

The Planning Board here, in a clumsy effort to prevent large commercial solar farms from defacing the rural town, proposed a sweeping ordinance change which would effectively bar even small-scale residential solar arrays. Local solar advocates hope to persuade the board to amend the ordinance which goes to voters for approval next week at town meeting.

Up in Trenton, which already has three solar farms, a raging debate has divided residents on how the town should handle two more large commercial solar projects in the pipeline.

And in Bar Harbor, mismanagement of the Higgins Pit array has brought the $5 million project to a standstill, with some community solar advocates accusing the town manager at Tuesday’s Town Council of marginalizing their roles.

A member of the town’s task force on climate emergency said the process has become “guarded and secretive.” He was joined by two other members.

The night’s biggest surprise was when Johannah Blackman, one of the most prominent environmentalist on MDI and director of A Climate to Thrive, came to the microphone to “red flag” the sudden constriction of information flow from the town manager to community members who care passionately about such matters.

“These projects require a lot of local advocacy and understanding,” she said.

Transition to alternative energy such as solar “can happen in a way that is community driven and really benefits local communities in terms of energy equity, energy democracy, energy resilience, or it can happen in a really kind of top down, investor-driven, utility-driven way,” she said on a phone call.

“Where things are getting muddled is when communities are not adequately empowered to really take advantage of this transition … then you get community backlash.

“So some of what's happening in Trenton, Tremont is because of these investor-owned subscription model arrays that are coming and taking up huge swaths of land that aren't being sited in a community driven manner and there's not any local energy literacy or local energy equity.”

After the remarks, Town Manager James Smith said he “takes offense” at the suggestion that “we’ve cut people out of the process.”

But participants said that’s exactly what he did to reduce cost by shrinking the size of the working group. And he did not adequately explain why the pipeline of communication to these two important constituent groups suddenly stopped.

Blackman said she was willing to offer her services pro bono because it was important the non-profit model for solar implementation was represented as opposed to one with a strictly commercial sensibility.

(This is how fledgling lawsuits get their oxygen.)

The town is going to face a backlash either way on Higgins Pit. If it cancels the project, it will hear from citizens who voted for the $4.35 million bond issue two years ago on a promise to reduce the town’s carbon footprint. By suppressing the point of view of the community experts, did Smith seek to manage to a predetermined outcome? (The QSJ didn’t bother to ask Smith because he doesn’t return my emails.)

If it proceeds with the project, it will need to go back to the same citizens for an extra $715,000 to cover unanticipated cost just as they grapple with a 15.5 percent property tax increase this year. Taxpayers facing such a big increase under Smith’s watch are in no mood to add more burden.

After the town let go in January 2023 of then town manager Kevin Sutherland and sustainability coordinator Laura Berry, Blackman and her team were engaged to help keep the Higgins Pit project alive by scheduling meetings with the stakeholders, performing financial analysis, and generally moving things forward.

A few months later, the town hired energy consultant Chris Byers, who previously represented a subscription-based solar company which last summer clear cut 10 acres of forest off Knox Road to build an array of solar panels near the Versant Power substation.

That brought a torrent of criticism from residents and environmental activists. The town hired Byers on the recommendation of Town Planner Michele Gagnon even though the code enforcement officer and the fire chief opposed his project as abutting neighbors. (Why the town planner is recommending consultants who seek town approval on projects is a separate question.)

Town Council vice chair Gary Friedmann, a former board member of A Climate to Thrive stated in an email last August, “Neither ACTT nor I endorse subscription-based solar.

“We believe that locally owned models such as co-op solar offer superior benefits to Maine ratepayers.  We also prefer projects such as the Long Pond CSF and Tremont CSF which are built on brownfields (former landfills) and offer opportunities for local ownership.”

Friedmann said Friday he still worries that Chris Byers’ expertise is largely with commercial, subscription-based solar companies.

The Bar Harbor clear-cutting alarmed neighboring towns like Tremont and Trenton.

As a result, the Tremont Planning Board over-reacted, resident Joe Blotnick said, and proposed that electricity generated by solar arrays in town would have to be “primarily or solely for on-site use” restricting their ability to share the benefits and costs with off-site family members and neighbors. 

Blotnick was an original founder of A Climate to Thrive and ran it as its coordinator for two years. He is still a board member.

The new ordinance would mean “Only Tremont residents or businesses with the means to invest upfront in an expensive solar array and have good solar exposure on their buildings or property would be able to enjoy long-term cost-saving benefits and reduce their impact on climate change,” Blotnick said. 

“In 2018 over 40 residents voted unanimously to install a solar array on our closed landfill that provides electricity to the school and all town buildings estimated to save a million tax-payer dollars over 20 years.

“My home solar array offset $2,200 in electric costs last year, enough to heat our home, provide hot water and electricity with a little left over to share with my son in SWH through Versant”. 

Former chair of the Tremont sustainability committee Rick Smith wrote, “I am very disappointed that the Planning Board took charge of this ordinance and made it more difficult to establish solar power for our residents even if that was not their intent.

“The Select Board was derelict in approving this for the town. Kevin Buck was the only Select person who understood the issue because he is a member of the Sustainability committee and a big proponent of Solar.

“In effect ,those fools are pricing our residents out of cheaper solar power simply because they don’t want a NexAmp to build a large solar farm in the town even if doing so would greatly reduce the price of electricity.

“I am fortunate to have the resources and insight to site my buildings for maximum solar power. Others aren’t so fortunate and the town is making it more difficult,” Smith wrote in an email.

The solar ordinance was tucked into the voluminous article on all the amendments to the land-use ordinance so that voters must reject the entire article just to oppose the solar section. Blotnick said he hopes the Planning Board will develop more detailed standards for development of industrial solar fields over the next year before allowing those structures to be built.

Meanwhile in Trenton, a war of letters to the editor in the Islander is being waged since it passed a moratorium on future solar development to update its solar ordinance in response to inquiries for two projects in the 200- and 300-acre range. Trenton already has three solar farms totaling about 60 acres. Here was an earlier letter.

The flotsam from the Bar Harbor clear-cutting wreckage still resonates with locals there.

“So that's where you're getting solar moratoriums or solar ordinances,” Blackman said. “Communities can do those in a way where they can make sure that they can still have larger arrays, but only those that are sited responsibly, that the ownership stays in the community.

“But that's a very nuanced type of work and a lot of rural communities don't have the existing understanding to take advantage of that.

“And that takes a lot of local work and local knowledge and a lot of time and a lot of resources and really strong commitment to stick through it even when the going gets rough because right now, our our utility is is making it very difficult specifically for this community on projects because the interconnection experience is so uncertain and so costly.”

James Smith started last November just before Thanksgiving, coming from Brewer where he was assistant city manager. In his first public meeting, he went into executive session on the Higgins Pit matter.

The QSJ then asked Smith why the project, which has been discussed openly for more than four years, is now suddenly a matter held behind closed doors, in executive session Nov. 21, which was Smith’s first meeting as town manager.

In a statement by email on Nov. 22, Town Clerk Liz Graves wrote, “We are concerned that portions of this document may be confidential and need to do a thorough review to determine which portions, if any, can be released. We expect to be able to respond within 30 days.”

On Dec. 14, Graves released this document which included two ACTT executives as senders.

Since then those ACTT representatives have been removed by Smith from the working group. He has chosen to work solely with Byers, who already was a lightning rod among non-profit solar advocates. The two have take their time even though they face a deadline to complete the project by Dec. 31, 2025 or lose a federal subsidy of up to 30 percent. Required action on the project has been postponed twice by the council because of inadequate information.

The project’s contractor said Tuesday it will take at least a year to get critical parts for the arrays.

The project also faces environmental hurdles because the proposed access road must protect the vernal pools and other wetland in the area.

The town acquired Higgins Pit in 1972. It has since been used as a waste and sludge dump. The town owns the 40-acre site in Salsbury Cove but only a portion of the land is usable for construction, according to a 2021 feasibility study.

Smith has narrowed his team to Byers, the contractor Sundog Solar and his own staff. They will make another presentation to the Town Council on May 21, presumably without input from Johannah Blackman and the climate task force.

At Tuesday’s meeting, council member Maya Caines stated she also was concerned that the town was marginalizing the work of its committees and boards.

“It’s very frustrating and unfair for these committees to be meeting and giving us very thorough information and then we just throw it out.”

Caines also said too much of the council’s work is now being conducted behind closed doors. She said she preferred fewer executive sessions.

Six months into his job, Sutherland began to demonstrate behavior which caused concern among councilors.

If James Smith thinks he can be a successful town manager for another two and a half years and alienate the likes of Johannah Blackman, I think we’re in for a reprisal of the Kevin Sutherland Show.

His defiance Tuesday night, instead of a deft handling of the criticism, should concern councilors.

Or maybe not.

Session on how to overcome barriers to installing solar

On Thursday May 16 from 6-7 p.m. at the Jesup Memorial Library, A Climate to Thrive will discuss the utility interconnection issues homeowners in Maine increasingly face as they try to build small rooftop solar arrays - the process, the current barriers homeowners experience, and how other utilities and states address the same issues.

More primary care questions on Quietside; Witham leaves SWH practice

SOUTHWEST HARBOR - The roiling changes to primary medical care on the Quietside took another twist earlier this month when Dr. Peter Witham announced he was cutting his hours to take on a new role as medical director of all of Mount Desert Hospital‘s health centers. He has also moved his office to the Cooper Gilmore Health Center near the hospital in Bar Harbor.

He will be replaced by Dr. Daniel Lomelin, who is moving to the SWH center from Bar Harbor.

It’s unclear how many of Lomelin’s Bar Harbor patients will have to come to Southwest Harbor. I was told by the SWH office that I could not get an appointment with Witham even though I was his patient before moving to Clarke Baxter on Herrick Road. The office said it has been swamped with requests since the announced closing of the other primary care clinic half a mile away.

Witham said he is reducing his hours to see patients to three days a week, which means some existing patients will need to transfer to another doctor.

The two other physicians at the MDI Hospital center are booking appointments more than a year out, the office said. Patients are bracing for the fallout from the recently announced closing of the Northern Light clinic on Herrick Road on Aug. 30.

Man arrested at Leonard Leo protest gets $62.5K settlement, BDN reports

NORTHEAST HARBOR - Protester Eli Durand-McDonnell, who sued police after he was arrested at a protest outside dark money operative Leonard Leo’s home at 46 South Shore Road received $62,500 in a settlement with the officers who handcuffed him and took him to jail, according to BDN this week.

Eli Durand-McDonnell was arrested as he and others were protesting in Northeast Harbor in July 2022 over Leo’s influence in getting the Supreme Court to overturn Roe V. Wade.

The members of the Mount Desert Police Department who made the arrest were Lt. Kevin Edgecomb and Officer Nathan Formby.

Bill Trotter of the Bangor Daily News was able to obtain a copy of the settlement through a request under Maine’s Freedom of Access Act.

Durand-McDonnell and his attorney Matthew Morgan did not immediately respond Friday to requests for comment.

Leo told Trotter, “Getting more than one and a half times Maine’s per capita income for harassing and verbally assaulting a young girl and her parents while walking down a public street, and then waiting for them outside their home,” he said. “Nice work if you can get it.”

When he was arrested on July 31, 2022, Durand-McDonnell, 25, was charged with disorderly conduct, but Hancock County District Attorney Robert Granger later dismissed the misdemeanor charge.

Granger characterized the case as a low priority for his office and said prosecutors should “tread very carefully” when considering whether protected political speech crosses the line into a breach of the peace.

Mount Desert Town Manager said the town paid a $5,000 deductible under its insurance policy with the Maine Municipal Association.

SWH election results

SOUTHWEST HARBOR - Below are the results from Tuesday’s Municipal Election, as reported by Town Clerk Jennifer Lahaye.

Select Board: 

• Noah Burby 154

School Board:

• Susan Allen 158

• John Bench   142

MDI High School Trustee:

• Ann Ratcliff 164

Question 1: Shall an ordinance entitled “Solid Waste Ordinance” be enacted.

150 YES    29 NO

Total number of Ballots Cast: 179

TRIBUTE: Moorhead Cowell "Mike" Kennedy Jr.

1930 - 2024

NORTHEAST HARBOR - It is with deep sadness that we announce the peaceful passing of Moorhead Cowell Kennedy, Jr. Mike, in the early morning hours of May 3rd, 2024, beloved father, husband, and courageous American, Moorhead's life was a testament to his unwavering strength, resilience, and love for his country.

The son of Moorhead C. and Anna S. (Scott) Kennedy, he was born in New York City on November 5th, 1930, Mike went to Buckley and Groton Schools. At Groton he excelled in history and developed a keen interest in the politics and cultures of the Middle East. He was the first Magna Cum Laude graduate of Oriental Studies at Princeton University. After his Army years in post-war Germany, he entered Harvard Law School, studying at the Middle Éast Center for Arab Studies in Chemlan, Lebanon. He earned his Juris Doctorate with a specialization in Islamic law. A version of his thesis was published as the entry for Islamic Law in Collier's Encyclopedia.

Mike entered the Foreign Service in 1960. Over the next twenty years, he enjoyed a distinguished career in Yemen, Greece, Lebanon, Chile, and Iran, and was the first director of the Office of Investment Affairs. In 1979, he was one of 53 United States Embassy personnel who were taken hostage by Iranian militants and was imprisoned for 444 days until their release in January of 1981. His wife, Louisa helped create F.L.A.G. the Family Liaison Action Group which reported directly to President Carter: He was awarded several honorary doctorates and given the keys to various cities. The government has not yet fully paid the families for their traumatic days in captivity, despite Congressional Legislation in 2015 which guaranteed it.

As a global educator who understood the challenges of diplomacy, he created the Council for International Understanding. His autobiography "The Ayatollah in the Cathedral Reflections of a Hostage" was published by Hill and Wang in 1986. It was described as "a careful, reasoned analysis of the U.S. Foreign Service". He also published "The Moral Authority of Government: Essays to Commemorate the Centennial of the National Institute of Social Sciences", for which he won a Gold Medal, and "Think About Terrorism: The New Warfare" with Terry Arnold. His role-play simulations for young people always seemed to anticipate and foretell what America was struggling to resolve. The first was "Hostage Crisis". The second is "Fire in the Forest" and will be launched on six continents in 2025.

He leaves behind four sons, Mark, Philip, Andrew, and Duncan, and eight grandchildren. A celebration of life will take place in his beloved Northeast Harbor, Maine, 11am, July 19, 2024, at St. Mary’s-By-The-Sea, 20 South Shore Rd, Northeast Harbor, ME. He will be greatly missed!

In lieu of flowers consider a donation to the Mount Desert Historical Society, P.O. Box 653, Mt. Desert, ME 04660. www.mdihhistory.org

Condolences may be expressed at www.jordanfernald.com