MILLINOCKET, Maine — Town Council members were watching the state Senate on Friday, hoping that it would follow their advice and support a measure that aims to bar presidential authority to designate a national monument in the North Woods.
In a letter written by Councilor Michael Madore to the state Legislature, councilors supported the proposed law, LD 1600. The Maine House of Representatives voted 77-71 on Thursday to pass Gov. Paul LePage’s bill to the Senate for its review, a fact that cheered Madore even though the Senate adjourned Friday without addressing the bill.
The House vote “shows that we are not that splinter group that we are probably being advertised as in Washington. We know what’s best for our area. It represents the fact that the governing body of the state of Maine still knows that we are here,” Madore said Friday.
“They still know that we are united in our opposition and we back our representatives in the area who are trying desperately to keep this [national monument] from happening,” he added.
Millinocket has not held a referendum on the issue, but Madore said feedback from residents and the council majority’s stance show that the town does not agree with the national park proposal originally offered by entrepreneur Roxanne Quimby.
“How many pro-park signs do you see around town?” he said.
And Millinocket’s council form of government allows more for the council determining that a referendum is unnecessary, Madore said, unlike the selectmen forms of government employed in East Millinocket and Medway, where residents voted against a proposed national park in 2015. The Katahdin Area Chamber of Commerce does support a park and monument.
The House vote capped a busy week for Millinocket in which U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, promised federal aid during a town visit and a National Park Service spokeswoman said that service Director Jonathan Jarvis would honor King’s request and visit the region to discuss the monument proposal.
No dates for the visit have been set, she said.
“It’s important that Director Jarvis hear directly from the residents of the Katahdin region,” a spokesman for King said on Friday.
The majority of area residents, Madore said, have repeatedly said no to a monument and a national park it might spawn. They are frustrated that this message might be lost within the noise of the pro-park campaign or that President Barack Obama might use the power granted him in The Antiquities Act of 1906 to issue an executive order creating a monument, Councilor Charles Pray said.
“Let’s step back for a second,” Pray said. “If a president was going to use the Antiquities Act to create a nuclear storage memorial site, would you want your state to have a say?”
“I believe,” Pray added, “that a president should get agreement with the state.”
“Basically what we are most afraid of is some kind of hostile takeover through eminent domain or whatever to create a national monument or a park,” Madore said. “We have expressed this for years.”
In their letter to the state Legislature dated March 25, councilors described themselves as “the governing board of the town directly affected by any such [monument] designation.”
They said that as a council, they “feel that the establishment of a national monument would severely hinder our chances for any viable manufacturing industry to locate within the Katahdin region as it [the industry] would be too close to the national monument and therefore fall under the jurisdiction of the federal laws of the Department of the Interior,” the letter states.
This would make “our job of revitalization of our depressed area almost impossible,” the letter continues before asking for state government support.
Councilors voted 5-1-1 on March 21 to send the letter. Councilor Jesse Dumais abstained and Councilor Louis Pelletier opposed.
The monument would consist of approximately 87,500 acres of Quimby land east of Baxter State Park and closer to Sherman and Patten than Millinocket or the Katahdin region. If it uses existing roads, it would exit onto Route 11 in Medway.
Quimby’s son, Lucas St. Clair, announced in November that the campaign was in talks with the White House seeking that President Barack Obama declare the land a monument as a step toward making it a national park. Councilors plan to write Obama a letter opposing an executive order, Town Manager John Davis said.
The letter, Madore said, will help ensure that the president is directly aware of the local and state government opposition to a monument or park, which joins the reservations about a monument expressed by King, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine.
King toured northern Penobscot County on Tuesday and Wednesday and announced that the U.S. Department of Commerce would honor his request and send a team of economic development experts to assess and help develop the region’s economic potential.
Councilors are heartened by King’s support, Madore said. They met in executive session with him on Wednesday to discuss what Dean Beaupain, the town’s attorney, would only describe as a looming economic development project that, if successful, might shortly require federal funding to be completed.
Madore, who declined to comment on the project on Friday, said that town officials dislike the limitations that they believe the federal government would place on the land around a monument or park.
“The idea of our plan is to be able to have options — to draw in manufacturing of some type or another. It would also be able to develop other parcels in the landscape and retain our way of life,” Madore said, something that residents have great pride in.
“Anybody who moves to the area does so because they like it as it is,” he added. “They usually come from crowded areas and they love to be able to access wilderness without restrictions and involve families in landscapes that are much more free and open than what they usually get.”