MILLINOCKET, Maine — The new Town Council is taking its first steps toward reversing Millinocket’s struggling economy with plans to promote the town.
Councilor Michael Madore told the council during its meeting Monday it needs to start doing economic development work.
“We have talked about it long enough,” Madore said during the meeting. “I really want to start to move the town forward.”
“I think for the last year or so we have spun our wheels in the mud, and this, in one step, is” moving the town forward significantly, he said.
Madore advocated using about $47,000 in Tax Increment Financing funds for the development work. About $12,000 would develop a marketing video and other promotional materials, and the rest would be used to raze blighted properties, Madore said.
Councilors seemed to like Madore’s proposal. TIF funds are kept outside the town’s operating budget, thus their use would have no impact on the town’s tax rate.
“I think Mike hit it pretty well. We have to do it. We have to move forward with it. The money has been sitting there for too long,” Councilor Paul Sannicandro said. “The sooner the better.”
Since the closure of the paper mill on Katahdin Avenue in 2008 — its top employer and taxpayer — Millinocket has suffered from as high as a 25 percent unemployment rate. The closure of the paper mills in East Millinocket and, as of this week, in Lincoln, has further devastated the Katahdin region.
The town had assumed ownership of about 97 properties through the tax foreclosure process since 2012, according to numbers compiled in March. Town Manager John Davis said the town would acquire 70 more houses in January if the owners of the foreclosed properties fail to pay their back taxes.
Millinocket had 4,466 residents and 2,155 homes in 2014, according to suburbanstats.org, which uses U.S. Census data to track residential and population trends in the United States.
Councilors Jesse Dumais, Louis Pelletier, Charles Pray and Sannicandro were elected to the seven-member board Nov. 3.
Councilors told Davis to work with former Councilor John Raymond, who chairs a seven-member volunteer economic development committee, to flesh out a marketing plan the council can consider at its Dec. 10 meeting.