About a month ago, an out-of-state consultant sent his harsh assessment to the town of Millinocket. The town was shabby and its residents insular and too resistant to change, the report said.
A few weeks later, a new group called Our Katahdin launched a website that is bursting with ideas for the region. Earlier this week, the re-energized Millinocket Downtown Revitalization Committee unveiled an eye-catching design for banners and other materials to be used by the committee. A simple line drawing shows a small community in the shadows of Mount Katahdin.
These may seem like small things, but for a town and region rocked by mill closings and a steady loss of population — and told to “improve your attitude” by Virginia-based CZB Associates — they bring important positive energy to Millinocket and the Katahdin region.
The revitalization committee was founded in 2008, when Millinocket’s Great Northern Paper mill shut down. Members began meeting again each month in October with the hope of raising $5,000 for projects including new banners to be hung downtown and repair to a downtown bandstand. It reached this goal by late January.
“The idea is to have visible projects that we complete so that visitors would see a change, a little more color, a little more life” in downtown Millinocket, Marsha Donahue, chairwoman of the committee’s board of directors said earlier this year. Donahue, owner of North Light Gallery in Millinocket, designed the new downtown logo.
Sean Dewitt, who grew up in Millinocket, created Our Katahdin late last year. The group’s website is a forum for collecting and sharing ideas for the area. It also helped raise the money for the new banners. New walking trails, a north woods aquarium, a long-distance bike race, river tubing, a skate park, a dog park and solar lights for downtown are among the projects suggested on the group’s website. A proposal to show movies on a large screen downtown was supported by the Katahdin Area Chamber of Commerce and will become a reality.
“I think people are ready for solutions,” DeWitt said last month. “Everyone understands that these [completed projects] are small wins. These are the baby steps that we need to take before we can take on the big problems.”
Another town resident, Amy Collinsworth, launched the Facebook page, “ There Ain’t No ‘Mill’ In Ocket.” “This page was created because I know there are lots of you out there who complain constantly about what NEEDS to happen, what we WANT to happen. Well guess what folks? It ain’t going to happen with gossip and bitching, so time to take action,” Collinsworth wrote in introducing the page.
In addition to working with the other two groups, Collinsworth is focusing on parks and playgrounds.
“I am very proud of Millinocket for stepping up and realizing the need to move forward, and I am very excited to see what is to come in the next few years,” Collinsworth said recently. “Change is definitely in the air.”
Change has and will continue to happen in the Millinocket area. These groups can help to ensure future changes are planned and positive.
