EAST MILLINOCKET, Maine — Votes on the proposed north woods national park and the annual town meeting at which the selectmen and school board hope to pass budgets have been delayed by uncertainty about state funding.
The school board requested the change recently because state education funds are critical to their budgeting efforts, said Mark Scally, chairman of the Board of Selectmen.
“They have too many variables right now so they have asked us to put off the meeting,” Scally said Saturday. “While the town is ready to present their budget, the school is not. They are being cautious and they want to be sure that all their ducks are in a row.”
So East Millinocket’s annual town meeting at which residents will decide on the municipal government budget will now be June 22. Both the non-binding vote by which residents will declare whether they support or oppose the proposed 150,000-acre national park and the school budget referendum will be June 25, Scally said.
The town meeting was set for June 9 and the national park and school budget referendum were set for June 11.
East Millinocket’s was the first Penobscot County government to schedule a referendum and the third to take on the park question since Feb. 7. That’s when Millinocket officials said that U.S. Sen. Angus King had asked them last fall how they could contribute to a federal park bill should one be drafted. His request renewed a park debate that had been largely dormant since 2013.
That’s when Lucas St. Clair proposes to donate family lands east of Baxter State Park to create a 75,000-acre national park and a same-sized multi-use recreation area as a gift to the nation. His proposal follows a similar plan his mother, millionaire industrialist Roxanne Quimby, offered in 2011.
That year, East Millinocket residents voted 513-132 against supporting a feasibility study of her proposal. Despite receiving endorsements from Katahdin area businesses and several environmental groups, St. Clair faced intense state political opposition, and he pulled Quimby’s plan off the table in December 2012. He substituted what he said was a different proposal two months later.
He said a park would generate 400 to 1,000 jobs, be maintained by $40 million in private endowments, diversify a Katahdin region economy devastated by the closure of two paper mills and coexist with existing industries.
Park opponents have said they fear a park would bring federal authority into Maine, cramp the state’s forest products industries, generate only low-paying jobs and morph into a 3.2-million-acre park plan offered in the 1990s. They also express skepticism about the job-creation estimates and the idea that St. Clair’s plan is substantially different from Quimby’s.
Medway’s residents will decide whether they support the park in a nonbinding referendum on June 23 during the town’s annual election. Medway’s selectmen have said they believe that a park would be beneficial to the area, but want to see how their residents feel.
Bangor’s Town Council supported the park concept in a vote on March 23, while Millinocket’s Town Council rejected holding a nonbinding vote and opposes the park. Several members have expressed confidence that they are following residents’ wishes.
The debate flared again briefly during a Millinocket council meeting on Thursday. Councilor Jimmy Busque read two paragraphs from a letter Gov. Paul LePage wrote to President Obama on Earth Day opposing the park. LePage had said that the park threatened forest-products industries and would introduce unwanted federal bureaucracy into the area.
Councilor Anita Mueller, a park supporter, left the meeting in protest after her attempt to block Busque’s reading of the letter failed, saying she didn’t think LePage’s letter was appropriate council business.