Tremont residents in survey: Keep our town rural and quiet!
BH fails cruise cap test; Somesville to lose 4 elms; SWH to hike harbor fees
TREMONT, Nov. 20, 2021 - A vibrant working waterfront is the top priority for citizens who responded to a town-wide survey on development and other needs over the next decade. Home occupations, residential development and low-income housing also got high marks.
Preserving the quiet, rural nature of the town was a theme which coursed through the entire survey, in responses to questions and in comments.
The survey exposed in sharp relief the chasm between citizens’ wishes and the town’s two most important boards which have pushed for more business and development the past year.
Of 286 responses to a question about future development, only 14 favored campgrounds, like that approved by the Planning Board Nov. 1.
A total of 309 persons, or about a third of the town’s adult population, responded to the survey last summer conducted by the Comprehensive Plan Task Force. The survey was assisted by Hancock County Planning Commission and cost $23,750, according to Town Manager Jesse Dunbar.
The survey results were consistent with the action of 428 voters who on the day after the planning board approved Acadia Wilderness Lodge, the town’s largest development in history, voted to impose a moratorium on campground development in town.
Other topics which got high marks:
Consolidate police, fire, schools, code enforcement and assessor services with other towns.
Improve the condition of town roads.
Allow deer hunting.
The town office building staff got favorable marks.
Brett Witham is the chair of the task force and also a pro-development Planning Board member who voted on Nov. 1 to approve Acadia Wilderness Lodge in a residential/business zone. At a meeting of the task force Thursday night, Witham showed up almost 10 minutes late and blamed it on confusion about whether it was on Zoom.
If the chair of the task force can’t find the correct venue, what does that say about how well the meeting was publicized? The meetings of the task force are scheduled for the third Thursday of every month, but the town website contained no information on how to attend.
QSJ found out about the meeting only from several emails with the town manager inquiring into the survey results.
Witham seemed surprised there were a few citizens attending the meeting, which felt more like a planning board meeting as its three members dominated the session.
Witham immediately took aim at the survey to diminish its importance, as did Planning Chair Mark Good and PB member Lawson Wulsin, the three Amigos who voted in favor of the AWL campground.
“The reality is that this is one step in the process of gathering information. There’s also other public engagement … and we’ll hear form people who didn’t submit through the survey,” Witham said.
Any statistician will tell you that a sample pool of one third of a community is essentially a representation of the entire corpus. QSJ urges readers to peruse the survey, especially the comments by citizens. Click here to access.
Witham snickered and laughed out loud at some of the survey responses without any explanation. (QSJ has a recording). QSJ asked in the chat function why Witham thought the responses to town services were so funny but got no response. He also did not reply to QSJ’s email.
The town’s primary elected body, the select board, was viewed harshly by the citizens.
One resident wrote, ”I would like the Select board to represent more fairly the concerns of all residents of the town and not only the business and development interests, which is how it currently appears to me … the Select board is not protecting the town's rural residential character nor is it representative of residents such as myself who seek to do this.”
Only 8.4 percent of respondents thought the select board was “very responsive” to their needs. The survey showed the select board as not being very relevant to most residents, 58 percent of whom checked “don’t know/unsure.”
The select board has demonstrated a strong bias in favor of more development. It passed over anti-development Planning Board member Margery Buck in June, and voted in Beth Gott, whose family’s construction business was already doing work for the AWL campground on Kelleytown Road. The board also opposed the appointment of a former appellate judge, Richard Cohen, to the appeals board after he voiced initial disapproval of a 154-site campground first proposed by AWL. That was overturned after a citizens’ revolt.
Two of the select board members, Howard “Howdy” Goodwin and McKenzie Jewett, are in the construction business. It was Goodwin who made the motion to nominate Gott.
Thursday night, the at-large members of the task force were mostly quiescent. Select board member Kevin Buck made a few suggestions and pointed out that some data in the survey published online could not be accessed.
The task force plans to spend another 18 months to fashion a comprehensive plan. Perhaps it will post the Zoom address so citizens may shine a bright light into this process.
Town Council fails to act on 2020 cruise ship caps; buses to queue on Ledgelawn Avenue?
BAR HARBOR - The cruise ship discussion at the Town Council meeting Tuesday night was a messy affair, and not only because the entire audio portion on Town Hall Streams was choppy and indecipherable. The meeting left more questions than answers:
How will the town handle the new plan announced by Eben Salvatore to stage buses carrying cruise ship passengers at the town’s sewer plant area at the end of Ledgelawn Avenue? Salvatore is the chair of the cruise ship committee and a the largest pier operator in town. Bar Harbor set a record last summer for trash. Will the queued buses block access to the town’s transfer stations? How will they negotiate the narrow streets in that area? Salvatore and Town Manager Cornell Knight did not answer QSJ emails seeking more information.
Is council member Val Peacock caving in to the pressures of the cruise ship industry for a full 2022 season? She would not join the bloc of members seeking to force the industry to comply with its proposed cutbacks even though she was the primary architect of the plan. Peacock would not comment when asked by QSJ.
Was member Matt Hochman up to his usual scare tactics when he mentioned that an industry lawsuit could cost the town $4 to $5 million? Other members said Hochman was citing a case of the Cruise Lines International Association’s claim agains the City of Juneau, Alaska, which had nothing to do with the events in Bar Harbor. CLIA sued Juneau because the city was not using fees collected on expenses which had nothing to do with cruise ships. Hochman did not reply to QSJ’s email. Any lawsuit by CLIA would trigger liability insurance for the town to cover legal costs.
Did anyone challenge CLIA’s claim that Bar Harbor’s usual practice was to give ships an 18-month notice on scheduling changes? Where’s the contract, member Joe Minutolo wanted to know, in an interview with QSJ? Attorney Arthur Greif said Maine laws states that any agreement longer than a year must be in writing for it to have standing. Did any council member ask for a legal opinion? QSJ asked Salvator and Knight to cite the last time the town gave a ship operator such a notice. They did not respond.
Peacock’s preference to work with the industry rather than demand it comply with the council’s proposed cutback for 2022 was a significant blow to the anti-cruise ship movement. She is banking on the possibility that cruise ship bookings on their own may achieve a lower number of passengers.
Peacock appeared to leave it up to the industry to self-regulate if bookings in September and October 2022 spiked higher than expected, according to the garbled audio. How the industry can pull the plug on a ship’s visit on short notice, while still insisting on an 18-month advance notification, is anyone’s guess.
Anecdotal evidence shows that land-based tourism next year may be a repeat of this year’s record attendance on MDI. Layering a full cruise ship schedule on top of that had Minutolo, Jill Goldthwait and Gary Friedmann stirring for more aggressive action.
Goldthwait talked about the dangers imposed on police and other front-line workers last season and that adding a full cruise ship schedule next year would be bad policy.
Minutolo said he thinks Val Peacock is “scared of a lawsuit” and that CLIA’s threats and intimidation may be taking hold.
The Los Angeles Times reported on Nov. 3 that cruise ship bookings for 2022 has already exceeded that for 2019, the last full season of operations.
“Carnival Corp., the world’s largest cruise company, reported that bookings for the second half of 2022 already surpassed bookings for 2019,” the Times reported. “Royal Caribbean cruises for 2022 are nearly at 2019 levels, the company’s chief financial officer, Jason Liberty, said on a recent earnings call.”
Kelly Craighead, CEO of CLIA, wrote in a letter to the council Nov. 12, “In short, because the sudden cancellation by a local government at one port of call in a range can have knock-on effects on previous or subsequent port calls, the adverse financial impacts can amount to an unconstitutional taking by the local government.”
Eben Salvatore, in a straight face, told the council he did not think that was a threat.
Attorney Grief said Bar Harbor is in good standing and need not fear CLIA’s threats. He urged the council to seek advice from the legal staff at the Maine Municipal Association and its own town counsel.
Somesville Village to lose 4 large shade trees
SOMESVILLE - Tom and Carroll Fernald have been guardians of one of the most picturesque and natural tableaus of the island for an entire generation, so its hurts Tom deeply that the four trees on his property on Main Street have contracted Dutch Elm disease and must be taken down.
On Dec. 6 and 7, and possibly Dec. 8, Somesville will have a major traffic detour so that the trees may be removed to avert them falling on wires and the road itself. Traffic will be detoured onto Pretty Marsh Road, at the fire station, Whitney Farm Road and Oak Hill Road.
The state DOT will supervise, and Versant Power will take advantage of the interregnum to complete the power-line project last summer which was halted because of tourism traffic, at Tom Fernald’s suggestion.
The Fernalds have dutifully lined parts of Main Street with flowers each season. They were able to keep the elms alive for decades with care and feeding.
Babson Creek bridge replacement pushed to 2025
SOMESVILLE - The bridge over Babson Creek, which is near the intersection of Routes 198 and 102, is now scheduled for replacement in 2025. That’s four years after construction was originally slated to begin. (See Dick Broom report in this article in 2019.)
Maine DOT bridge project manager Andrew Lathe said this week a consultant’s recommendation will be completed in 2022 to begin design work which will take 18 months. In-water work will likely start in November 2024 in Babson Creek beneath the bridge and full reconstruction will begin in the spring of 2025.
The project is also $1 million more than its original cost of $1.7 million.
A temporary bridge would be built alongside the one being replaced, which likely would mean encroaching on private property on either side of the creek.
“One lot abutting the creek on the upstream side of the bridge is owned by the Community School of Mount Desert Island, the other by Maine Coast Heritage Trust. Residential properties are on the downstream side,” Broom reported.
A one-lane temporary bridge would require less encroachment on private land than a two-lane bridge, but it would require traffic lights or flaggers and would cause some traffic back-ups, Lathe said.
The project would also involve the temporary relocation of utilities. A sewer main runs along the upstream side of the bridge.
Lathe said the traffic lights just south of the Somesville Post Office saves the project from having to construct temporary lights on Rt. 102.
The project will challenge established traffic patterns, as the bridge is the main connection between the Quietside and the rest of MDI.
Shopping and other commerce will no doubt be affected. Plan for more traffic on Crooked Road in Town Hill.
SWH Harbor Fees face “dramatic” increase
SOUTHWEST HARBOR - The select board will discuss fee increases for harbor permits proposed by the harbor committee at its meeting Tuesday night.
Acting Town Manager Dana Reed is recommending a public hearing Dec. 14 to air the proposal to increase the fees , some “quite dramatically,” Reed wrote in a memo.
Three large commercial barges face a 470 percent increase from $880 to $5,000. Barges under 10-ton displacement will go from zero to $2,500.
Several less frequent use permits for moving equipment on boat ramps and piers are being eliminated, and an unlimited use permit is being proposed for $2,500.
The schedule of increases is as follows:
November Covid cases already at MDI record; Thanksgiving could make December bleak
SOMESVILLE - The Covid news continue to be troubling on MDI, where the first two weeks of November have recorded the highest number of positive cases yet, according to MDI Hospital.
Thanksgiving is certainly going to make matters worse, said Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah.
There were 27 positive tests at the hospital for the first two weeks of November. Both September and October had 35 cases.
Shah reiterated this week that most serious COVID cases and hospitalizations are among those unvaccinated.
He suggested Mainers who plan to have family join them for the holiday use multiple tactics to reduce the chance of spreading COVID among loved ones. Masking, distancing, home ventilation, and testing prior to showing up are all on the table. But, Shah said, the most important piece of protection is testing.
“Have a hard conversation with individuals who may be coming who are not yet vaccinated, to see if they are willing to get a shot,” he said. “Now, hard conversations are hard, but they can pay off.”
TRIBUTE: Wesley P. Bracy Jr.
1938 - 2021
GREAT CRANBERRY ISLAND - Wesley Bracy Jr., 83, died at MDI Hospital in Bar Harbor on Nov 14, 2021. He was born on Great Cranberry Island Feb 19 ,1938 the son of Wesley Sr and Annie Bracy.
Wesley graduated from Pemetic High School class of 1956. Following graduation, he joined the United States Air Force 18 Feb 1957 serving 4 years active duty at George AFB California as aircraft fuels systems tech, and 2 years inactive reserve. He was honorably discharged 17 Feb 1963. Once discharged that call of the ocean returned him home where he went back to lobster fishing with his family. Wesley also became a scuba instructor for YMCA Scuba Club in May 1968 teaching many students the wonders of the depths. He married his wife Lorraine Bracy on Great Cranberry August 11th ,1975, who also joined him in scuba diving ventures and assisted Wesley in instructing many students. They were married 46 years this August. Wesley continued as a commercial lobsterman long after his diving days. His entire life was being out there on the ocean in the boat and catching those Bugs with his son Scott.
Wesley is survived by his wife, Lorraine; son, Scott and partner, Michelle; daughters, Christina and husband Nick, Amanda; grandchildren, Bri, Fisher, Lyla, and Sophia; eldest brother, Lewis; sister, Eva; several nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his parents Wesley Sr & Annie Bracy; brother Lester Bracy, and daughter Elizabeth.
Service date to be determined in spring 2022 so family can have proper Flotilla to scatter ashes.
Arrangements by Jordan-Fernald, 1139 Main Street, Mount Desert
Condolences may be expressed at www.jordanfernald.com
Lincoln’s Log
SOMESVILLE - Readers at my online Acadia Senior College presentation yesterday asked how to submit letters and articles to QSJ. As a subscriber, you may do so by replying to my weekly email newsletter.
MDI schools’ central office raises
A reader asked about the annual raises for MDI schools’ central office staff. Finance Director Nancy Thurlow said they were: 2.5 percent for Fiscal 2019, 3.5 percent for Fiscal 20, 3.87 for Fiscal 21 and 3.5 for Fiscal 22. The raises for the teachers union were 3.56 in Fiscal 19, 6.81 for Fiscal 20 and 3.87 for Fiscal 21. Teachers are working without a contract in 2021-22.