AUGUSTA, Maine — The longtime director of the Land Use Regulation Commission has stepped down from her post and taken a job at a sister state agency, state officials announced Thursday.
Catherine Carroll’s departure from LURC comes at a time when lawmakers are poised to make substantial changes at the agency responsible for overseeing planning and permitting on more than 10 million acres in Maine.
Carroll stepped down as LURC’s director on Wednesday after 24 years with the commission — including 10 as the top staffer — and began work as a senior planner within the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands. Both LURC and the parks bureau are part of the Department of Conservation.
She said in an interview that it was entirely her decision to leave LURC.
“I felt like it was right and I felt like it was time,” Carroll said.
Samantha Horn Olsen, manager of LURC’s planning division, was appointed by Gov. Paul LePage to replace Carroll.
“We will miss Catherine at LURC, yet look forward to bringing her planning and management skills to Maine’s public lands,” Conservation Commissioner Bill Beardsley said in a statement. “She has been with LURC for over half of its 40-year existence, and we will continue to draw on her historical knowledge and professional insights.”
LURC has long been the target of criticism by some landowners and companies doing business in Maine’s Unorganized Territory, who contend the commission’s policies and staff have stymied economic development. And as LURC’s most public face, Carroll was occasionally singled out by some of those critics but also praised by others — including commission members — for her management skills.
Carroll’s tenure coincided with an unprecedented workload at LURC as the commission reviewed numerous applications for commercial wind power projects — often several simultaneously — as well as Plum Creek’s Moosehead Lake development plan, the largest such proposal in state history.
LURC’s future will once again be a hot topic in the State House beginning this month when lawmakers consider the report of a task force charged with recommending ways to improve planning, permitting and zoning in the 10.5 million-acre Unorganized Territory.
The task force did not recommend abolishing LURC, as some had wanted and others had feared. Instead, the panel recommended giving county governments more say over LURC decisions, most notably by reserving six of the nine seats on the reformulated commission for representatives of counties with the most acreage within the Unorganized Territory.
Carroll said she was proud of her accomplishments at LURC but pleased that Beardsley expressed a strong desire in her staying within the Department of Conservation.
Carroll said she began thinking about changing jobs about a year ago but she wanted to remain with the commission as lawmakers and the task force debated the agency’s future. But now that those changes are coming, she believed it is time to bring in new blood.
“I think this administration, rightfully so, needs to pick a new leader … to see the commission through those changes,” Carroll said.
Sounds like another job for Darryl Brown to come in and gut another environmental agency.
MeForest would like that.
I remember when Catherine was appointed. She was appointed because she was one the best staff people that ever worked for LURC – honest, personable, fair, brilliant. etc. I hope Catherine is not stepping down because of the pressure created by the new LURC study panel that in my opinion is trying it’s best to demean LURC. I can honestly say that LURC is the finest State agency that I have ever been associated with. I can also say that all of the LURC Commissioners and the LURC staff people that I’ve known have all been outstanding people. I wish Catherine Carroll the very best in whatever endeavor she now seeks.
Agreed, she is one the state’s best public servants. Good Luck Ms. Carroll
Bill , what do you think is going on with this? How do we find out if there is wind industry skulduggery going on?
All we can do is rely on the media and the honest people within the government to tell us the truth. The bottom line with corporate entities, as you know, is the dollar bill.
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Subject: [bdn] Re: LURC director steps down after 10 years
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enroncrooks wrote, in response to Bill_Randall:
Bill , what do you think is going on with this? How do we find out if there is wind industry skulduggery going on? Link to comment
State Fire Marshall also left today.
Interesting
40 years in service he’s do. Started out as a Fireman in Old Town in 1971.
“due”, not “do”. Your education is showing.
Good riddance-
LURC Needs to Go…!
We need real protection for Maine’s wilderness lakes and mountains. We need to stop the invasion of our precious wilderness places by Iberdrola and it’s like’s development plans. MeForest needs to take his medication.
Your just bumming because LURC is getting gutted
So that is the face behind the damage!!
Caroll has been a real trooper at LURC and making good choices as she exits. She is not any face behind any damage. I wish her well.
What the blazes are you talking about?
Get while the getting is good.
I wouldnt want her job.
Its like being on the school board.
You aint never gonna win.
I can agree with that.
LURC needs to be disbanded.
So much for being able to use public lands. It’s typical though, you have a department that’s failing and it’s top dogs go to other departments instead of going down the road. No wonder the state can’t get itself back on track.
How is LURC related to your ability to use public lands? LURC regulates private development – buildings, roads, subdivisions, that kind of stuff. Public lands are public, and don’t get developed.
LURC is not a department that’s failing. LURC is a convenient target for politicians who want to make a name for themselves, and for ignorant people who want to be angry at someone. Individual landowners are mad because they have to follow the rules and stay back from the lakes. Big developers are mad because they can’t chop entire townships up into two-acre lots without building infrastructure. Tree huggers are mad because multi-million dollar wind power projects can get approved, but tea partyers are mad because LURC stifles development. It sure looks to me like LURC has been doing a pretty good job of balancing both sides of things. How can it be that they are both too restrictive and too lax at the same time? Because people don’t want to follow reasonable and intelligent rules, they just want to pave the whole state right up to Canada. So yeah, let’s get rid of LURC and go back to the dead rivers of the 1960’s.
You obviously didn’t read the article. Let me help you. It reads the head of lurc is moving to public lands and conservation. That’s how it affects me using public lands. I’ll bet within five years it will be reduced to foot traffic only. If lurc was even close to being reasonable and intelligent they wouldn’t be under the gun. Is it reasonable to have to wait six months for a building permit that’s miles away from water? Is it intelligent to stop someone from building on their property in order to protect a rare mosquito?
LURC has been destroying the small, unique, communities that set Maine apart from the rest of the country. I have witnessed this myself. Many of these small communities may never recover from the damage LURC has done.
Yeah, they keep stopping people from ruining the lakes by building too close, they won’t let you put nine houses on a one-acre lot, they won’t let you just dump your trash in the woods – what a bunch of jerks.
Your sarcasm is sophomoric at best.
The damage LURC prevents is exactly what I described. The damage LURC has done is all in your mind. Without regulations and enforcement, people will develop lakefront property inappropriately, and we’ll end up with overdeveloped dead lakes like Winnipesaukee.
The people who complain about LURC are the ones who can’t deal with building 100 feet back from a lake, and who can’t deal with not being able to clear their entire lot down to the shoreline and dump in 100 loads of sand to make their own beach. So what if it kills all the fish? Why the blazes did you buy a house in the woods if you wanted to live on a golf course? Why do you want to spend your vacation mowing the stinkin lawn? What is wrong with you that you can’t see the value in regional planning?
My sarcasm is sophomoric? Your lack of perception of anything beyond the end of your own nose is nothing short of astonishing.
If you read my comment, you would realize I was talking about communities, not lake front retreats. I have no problem with preserving nature. What I’m talking about is small historic communities that are struggling to survive. LURC rules have put unrealistic constraints on these communities, with no recourse, appeal, or negotiation. You need to expand your myopic view of this out of control government bureaucratic nightmare.
Another life long hack gets a cushy landing. Pump up the pension!
You seem to have lost your clue.
What a pithy response…LOL So, you refute that by remaining a transferred State employee, her pension is not enhanced? You need a clue, my dear hiker.
Good riddance……..
to you.
I am worried that FirstWind is playing their games and pro windsprawl plants will take over the LURC board before they give the final denial for the Bowers project which would demolish the Downeast Lakes region. FirstWind go away and take Dylan Voorhees with you.
I cannot understand why anyone would be critical of LURC. It is a democratic process where everyone in our State has a voice and the Commissioners make the decision. LURC is not a biased group of people. It seeks to do nothing more than regulate in an orderly way, and in accordance with the statutes, the development of what happens in unorganized territories.
That is crap…. LURC is a group of folks given wide latitude and little oversight from the Legislature. They sometimes make up their own rules as they go along. Too much power which is why folks in small towns resent them.
Small town people resent them because they resent anything imposed on them from outside. If the small towns don’t want LURC oversight, they need to man up, organize, and do their own local planning and zoning regulation. But that means spending money to pay a CEO, and writing local ordinances, and having a Zoning Board of Appeals, and all the stuff that goes along with it. If they took the time to educate themselves about the importance of planning and resource protection, they wouldn’t object at all to the great deal they have been getting under LURC. But ignorant people who want to build ten feet from a lake, or in a wetland, or without erosion controls, or any of a thousand other inappropriate things, just don’t want to hear it.
I will not forget the the illegal process that took place when first wind came in and manipulated Balducci’s administration into getting projects bypassed through the normal course of proposal. Is this still happening? look around you. Is it going to take another course? I do not think so, there is too much greed. Gov.Lepage prove me wrong? The politicians can call it progress, or for the good of the people but we all know wind development hasn’t done a damn thing for my wallet but has destroyed the beauty We once had on the landscape. The states and feds call it unorganized territory I call it our forest land, (Leave it alone) The governments are desperate I get it But if you really are serious about the energy crisis, the economy,the atmosphere then lets push through the National Bullet Monorail System that can and will create Electricity as good folks ride, It will not pollute the air we breath,and will create 10s of thousands of jobs nation wide. When the political word steps on board to this Idea then we all will have our answer. “Washington post comment”: We build it in Maine we sell it to Canada, We build it in NH then we sell it to Vermont we build them in Vt we sell it to NY, sounds like corporate to me and it’s really getting me dizzy. The only real working Turbine is the one in my own back yard I know because it’s mine and it’s not Corporations,nor Government that controls it.————- Got Vision!