Gov. Paul LePage put plans for an east-west highway study on hold Tuesday. Planning should stay on hold until we know the answer to one key question:
Can a project of this size and complexity be completed without the use of eminent domain?
The importance of that single question was highlighted Monday by one of the project’s leading proponents, Sen. Doug Thomas, R-Ripley, when he asked Gov. Paul LePage to hold off on a $300,000 study that Ripley himself had helped push through the Legislature.
The senator’s Somerset County district would be traversed by the proposed 220-mile highway that would stretch from Calais in the east to Coburn Gore in the west.
The most passionate proponent of the limited-access, high-speed highway is Peter Vigue, CEO of the engineering and construction dynamo Cianbro Corp.
Vigue has spent the past four years promoting the highway, which he passionately believes can jump-start the economy of rural central Maine. Vigue is a convincing spokesperson for the project and has traveled widely to promote his vision.
But his determination to see this project through has also earned him equally outspoken and passionate critics.
Vigue dismisses many as out-of-state ecoradicals intent on thwarting any type of development.
But serious opposition also has come from property owners and communities along the proposed route who fear their land might be taken without their consent.
At issue is the government’s power of eminent domain, the power to take property for a greater public purpose after paying compensation. In practice, that compensation is often determined by a court, and is often less than the original property owner had hoped to receive.
Although Vigue’s east-west highway would be a private toll road, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that a government can move ownership of property from one private owner to another private owner for economic development purposes.
Vigue, meanwhile, has pledged that his financial backers would not use eminent domain to obtain land for the highway.
But property owners are skeptical, and they should be. It is impossible to see how a project of this scope could be completed without that tool.
First, every homeowner, farmer and business along the proposed route will know this road is coming and raise their asking price accordingly. Will Vigue’s backers be willing to bargain with each and every person who thinks their property is worth two or three times the tax valuation?
That could push the cost of the project into the stratosphere.
Even if it is possible to sign those deals, the project will run into farmers, homeowners and business people who are simply unwilling to sell, no matter the price.
What then? Re-engineer around them? That would be costly and impractical.
Sen. Thomas, based upon the concerned reactions of his constituents, now wants an amendment to Maine’s Constitution to prohibit the state from using eminent domain to take land.
Even if that is legally and politically possible, that amendment would constitute a poison pill for this project which, we believe, cannot realistically be accomplished with handshake agreements alone.
Again, the unavoidable question: Is Maine willing to use eminent domain to build an east-west highway?
If the answer is no, then Gov. LePage should call off the entire project now rather than waste $300,000.
Sun Journal, Lewiston (Aug. 14)
“Sen. Thomas, based upon the concerned reactions of his constituents, now wants an amendment to Maine’s Constitution to prohibit the state from using eminent domain to take the land.”
Don’t buy it!
What a better way to secure Vigues already stranglehold on what should be a public rd IF it would be warranted!
Blocking the use of Eminent Domain for this road not only would block the State from taking needed land to tie the unsecured properties needed but also for the private investors land that Vigue claims that he has already lined up.
This Rd should belong to the Taxpayers of Maine and only through the traditional verification of need process and the existing constitutional means of securing needed land for public use!
If someone came to me a told me that my land was of dire need for the public so be it!
If they come to me and say that they need my land to give to a private investor all H– is gonna break loose!
When the SJ and the BDN, finally, start asking the basic question’s of need, motive, reason, finance and consequence’s, and then not so politely give both Sen. Thomas and the Governor a serious fannysmack, maybe it’s about time that Maine’s citizen’s took a moment, stopped this whole ferris wheel and took a good long objective look at this. That the SJ and the BDN are also calling for a halt to the $ 300,000.– K feasibility study should also be seen as a warning to those who are playing ‘The System’ right now as well. Maine’s DOT Commissioner has been publicly very invisible about this road and with the feasibility study coming out of his Dept’s budget, and the public watching every taxdollar like their daughter’s virtue, he shouldn’t be. If, and I will admit it’s a big ‘IF’, this highway ever comes into existence, Maine’s DOT is eventually gonna get stuck with it. Does The Commissioner really want this Edsel hung around his neck when he had the power to stop it in the first place for the right reason ? That $ 300,000.– feasibility study needs to be looked at like the proverbial honeycomb in the tree. Is what’s gonna come out of it really gonna warrant the risk of what’s sure to come out, and not just the honey but the swarm that’s sure to follow ?
One thing’s for sure and that’s the fact that the public is gonna follow this like a starving bear. And once the public get’s even a hint of something not being either right or being manipulated, it’s over and even Thomas and Lepage know it. No one is gonna want to be around when this goes ‘off’ and the recent retreat of both Thomas and LePage should be seen for what they are, that being political distance being sought before this whole thing goes POOF when the next suppossed ‘Independent Feasibility Study’ is done and published. And with the $ 300,000.– coming from Maine, that means that OPEGA is gonna have a huge ‘say’ in just how that money is spent, and is gonna be checking out whoever gets a piece of it as far as any conflict of interest goes. The recent conflict of interest questions raised over the Bald Mountain permitting proceesing vote aren’t even be close to how serious this E-W Highway Study is going to get a review. The phrase ‘cleaner and more virtious than Christ’ is about to take on a whole new meaning.
Vigue and some Canadian Transport Companies get rich – or Richer.
I was at a meeting and every person at my table, and within earshot, thought their was some was major deception going on.
Why should we (paritally) finance and give up land and natural beauty for Canadian companies?