This is what you can do without any stimulist money. I hope you have much success and I will buy your tomatoes. They look fantastic.

The lady in the article states that it in Millinocket but you can bet your bottom dollar they councelors will waste the money on there little field trip anyway. What are ya gonna do when youve spent every last dime boys?

Eight Characteristics of critical thinking:

* Defining a problem: (Extremely high unemployment and relative loss of tax revenue, aging population, and the paper company continuing to lay off workers with no end in sight given the current financial climate. To summarize: No work, no money, and the exodus of working age people and their families to areas that work is available)

* Asking questions: The old: Who, What, When, Why, and Where, and finally, Why Not try something different??)

* Examining evidence: (The paper industry is not coming back to the Katahdin Region. The owners will concentrate on profitable electricity production)

* Analyzing assumptions and biases: (That people in Millinocket are fixated on returning to a manufacturing based economy, and that tourists are unwelcome, barely tolerated nuisances)

* Avoiding emotional reasoning: (Recent threats of eminent domain regarding Brascan's water power by Town Council members)

* Avoiding oversimplification (In regard to this particular BDN article, by providing cheap electricity, manufacturing entities will flock to the area and save us)

* Considering other interpretations: (Critical thinking versus literal, or the current dogmatically inflexible paradigm of the town remaining a manufacturing based economy that is in reality, antithetical to Millinocket to again becoming the vibrant, productive, and healthy community it was for almost one hundred years)

* Tolerating ambiguity: (The ability to listen to other, non-native interpretations, explanations, and meaning of the existing problems facing the town. In this case noting the loss recently of more progressive Town Council members who grew tired of bucking what they perceived as stubbornness, inflexibility, and archaic thinking around economic development proposals, i.e., Matt Polstein who is, on his own, developing a much lauded Eco-Resort on Millinocket Lake)

* Meta-cognition (Developing a plan of action; Maintaining/monitoring the plan; Evaluating the plan) Should part of the plan be hiring a Community Development Director to oversee Grant Writing opportunities, website development, promotional activities and advertising, coordinating and re-energizing the Chamber of Commerce, and acting as liaison with Penobscot Community Development and Augusta?

Until Millinocket starts thinking with both it's head and it's heart, instead of just it's heart, the current problems will only deepen.

The lady in the artciel state that it WONT WORK IN MILLINOCKET. But you can bet your botton dollar the councelors will waste the money on a field trip anyway. What are you going to do when you've spent every last dime ? They have allreay wasted nearly 4 million on swimming pools and a house to store the towns junk in. What about the bad loans fellas? We dont hear to much about them lately. Why's that? Our town councel is an embarassment. And are held accountable for nothing. It's time we clean house.

jj16oz.....very well written , very well said and 100% agree with you and never could of come up with any of it on my own....you should be running this town and while you are at it take over and please run the schools , whom ever you are you have the smarts and the ability to make alot of motivation this area needs ....keep posting...finally someone with some sort of intelligence and a matter of fact , no fingerpointing , proactive attitude .....made me smile this morning.......

Also, if they could find a way to move Millinocket 2 1/2 hours South, that might help business too. Keep in mind that Millinocket was built, literally, to house the papermill workers. Without those mills, there's no point to it being there.

the nature ( mountains , trails lakes and streams ) is what keeps us here.......we love the land .....will it be enough to keep us here , now? Probably not......we will be forced to relocate and for some of us .......we will have to learn to love other areas.......and make them our home.......it's just a matter of time..................

The reason the paper machines were erected where they are in Millinocket is the proximity to the Penobscot River. In the beginning of the twentieth century, when the country was in the mist of the industrial era, then the mills of Greater Millinocket were strategically placed because of the potential of harnessing the power of the Katahdin watershed. The multi-nationals have come and gone. We now confront all the uncertainties of the postindustrial era. Where should we be spending our stimulus money? The infrastructure of the nation is breaking down. With today’s oil prices it is becoming more and more expensive to haul products over roads and bridges that are on the verge of collapse. This magic city has all the potential it has always had. This town is at the epicenter of what could be. The infrastructure is here. Not too many years ago the town housed near 10,000 people very comfortably. The schools, hospitals, and libraries as well as churches remain outstanding examples of the age of abundance this town enjoyed for over one hundred years. The potential is here just as it was then. Here is the clean water, the flow of the rivers, the open space for development without over taxing the resources. The potential here is: to be at the center of the postindustrial age. The question of balance is do we leave all this behind to go and find other places to live or do we try to build on what we have. Personally, I do not want to live in an over populated city with it’s decaying infrastructure. The philosophy that will work here, the idea that will keep us all surviving very nicely is a philosophy of the original people. Build a small fire and remain close to it. I think that it is wrong to have all this hydropower at our doorstep and not be able to utilize that potential.

Could it be time for a nuclear powered paper mill?

Bicycle sounds like he's advocating for a return to the 1800's. Thanks but no thanks.

nimby

Maybe you can grow mushrooms in the Mills. There is plenty of manure produced by Millinocket's Town Council.

Yah concerned1 you run your chops but why don't YOU run for council if you have all the answers!

Well, how quickly we forget that Millinocket owned a public utility and sold it. They managed their own water district and sold it because they said we would benefit from someone else's management. The upfront cost is what they can not handle for the power utility. Who would they get to manage this new venture? Millinocket could not even manage old school building they were renting out. If this was an easy solution to save money every othertown in Maine would have tried it.

If you want to have a creative idea in Millinocket, figure out how to use the mills waste products to create fuel source or a business. The mill has sent millions of truck loads of slug to the dump each year and many a creative mind to use this waste product to alchol base fuel, just an idea.

jj16oz Wonderful!! Wordy but well stated. I for one can certainly see the tide turning against the present town councilors and I say it;s about time. We need some town councilors that possess an education and world experiences instead of what we have with the present lot. Just siting here and bidinng my time.

I'd like to see the towns that will have these windmills

set up electric co-ops to take advantage of the

inexpensive electricity being produced right in their backyards.