MILLINOCKET, Maine — Town leaders should hold four public meetings and hire a consultant to explore a Virginia economic development firm’s advice on revitalizing Millinocket, Town Manager Peggy Daigle said Tuesday.
In town government’s first response to a Jan. 11 report from CZB Associates of Alexandria, Daigle issued a memo that discusses flaws in CZB’s work but said it was generally correct.
“I don’t disagree with their findings,” Daigle said. “I think they needed to go further. I think they made some assumptions on the land issues the town faces, for example, and they needed to go further, but it’s a good report.”
CZB President Charles Buki said the town needs to increase taxes, reinvest in and beautify itself, consolidate schools, seek grants and create a regional economic development strategy based on public land and tourism. Such steps, Buki said, would in several years or decades reverse the town’s devastating job losses in the forest products industry.
Dated Jan. 22, Daigle’s memo counts several town efforts that predated CZB’s report. Daigle said councilors would have discussed the report at their Jan. 22 meeting, but she persuaded them to wait.
“I think it is important to have a process where people have their say. The council is very open-minded to all these new ideas,” Daigle said. “We didn’t want to come off as having something predetermined. We wanted to give people a chance to weigh in on it.”
She suggests the council’s public forums address “Land Issues: Traditional Forest Harvesting and Recreational-Tourism,” “Municipal Structure,” “School Structure,” and “Investing in Yourself and Partnerships — Economic Development.”
CZB’s report recommended that Millinocket lead regional efforts to reduce private land ownership from 94 percent statewide to 60 percent and turn Great Northern Paper Co. LLC lands to publicly-owned recreation areas. Daigle found both ideas unfeasible.
“The private vs. public ownership issues will always exist, and we need to consider ways to work better together [with private landowners],” Daigle said in her memo. And GNP still owns its land, she said.
CZB overvalued tourism as the town’s economic savior, slighting the region’s forest products businesses, she said.
The CZB-recommended steps town leaders are taking or supporting include:
— The sale of 71 tax-acquired properties as part of a plan to demolish about 500 homes and buildings to beautify and scale down the town.
— The replacement of roofs and windows at the town office, fire station and town airport’s office. For the first time in years, the town repaved some roads in 2014, spending $250,000. The town seeks federal grants that would pay for the razing of several buildings on Penobscot and Aroostook avenues.
— Councilors have reduced the town’s budget by about $1.2 million since 2013 and cut the town’s personnel from 42 to 34 full-time workers. Councilors plan to cut about $2 million more next year.
— The town has invested $150,000 in grants in Millinocket Fabrication and Machine Inc. and Pelletier Manufacturing in an effort to help create new manufacturing jobs.
“We are a product of our environment, and as a paper mill community, we had a sole purpose of existing because of the needs of the company,” said Daigle, who will retire April 3. “We have been conditioned over the past 100-plus years to think, act, work and live in accordance with the wishes of our founders.
“It will take time to recondition ourselves into the entrepreneurial spirit that will help Millinocket overcome its burdens and challenges,” she added. “Unfortunately, time is not on our side, but taking steps now will move the community forward to a better future.”