National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis has already visited the Katahdin region a few times — once, at a 2011 forum with entrepreneur Roxanne Quimby on her proposed national park, and again in 2014 as a guest touring Quimby lands with her son, Lucas St. Clair. The 2011 forum was a cordial event at Stearns High School in Millinocket that included then Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and the 2014 visit was unpublicized.
Jarvis will be back in Maine on Monday, accompanied by U.S. Sen. Angus King, at two forums where he will listen to people on both sides of what has become a contentious, politicized debate over a proposed national monument east of Baxter State Park. He is the main attraction this visit. Both sides know he is coming, and they plan on letting him know that they’re there.
Sierra Club Maine and the Natural Resources Council are busing Portland-area residents who largely favor the national monument to the University of Maine in Orono for the 5 p.m. forum at the Collins Center for the Arts, and people opposed to the monument are printing signs and fliers that they will be distributing at the UMaine event and at a noon forum at Katahdin Region Higher Education Center in East Millinocket.
Crowds are expected at both venues. Here’s what you can expect to hear and see:
Accusations of pro-monument favoritism. The locations and formats of the forums have already sparked questions about a pro-monument bias. King’s spokesman, Scott Ogden, described the East Millinocket meeting as public and moderated by King, with selectmen from East Millinocket, Medway, Millinocket, Mount Chase, Patten, Sherman and Stacyville attending. Jarvis will answer questions from the elected officials in East Millinocket and from the general public at the event at UMaine, Ogden said.
Millinocket Town Council Chairman Richard Angotti Jr. called the UMaine forum a distraction amid a trip that was supposed to be about hearing people from the Katahdin region voice their thoughts on the monument proposal, as King described when he invited Jarvis.
“They should just have it up here [in Millinocket] where people can get to it,” Angotti said after a council meeting on Thursday. “Our council chambers are larger than what they have” at the East Millinocket center.
Both forums seem designed to give the impression that the monument proposal enjoys more local support than actually exists, opponents say. The East Millinocket center is not nearly large enough for the more than 300 people from the Katahdin region who almost filled Stearns’ auditorium in 2011, Angotti said, while the 1,400-seat UMaine campus venue has plenty of space for the crowd bused in from Portland.
Holding the Katahdin forum at noon increases the likelihood of a sparse local showing, Angotti said, pointing out that most people are at work then. Angotti said he doubted that much of the UMaine crowd would be from the Katahdin region. Anybody leaving work from a regular shift will be late, Angotti said. UMaine’s campus is about 50 minutes away from Medway, the closest Katahdin region town. The campus is almost 1½ hours distant via Interstate 95 from Patten, whose residents voted 121-53 against supporting a proposed national park or monument in a nonbinding referendum in April.
Ogden disputed the notion that King or the forums favor one side. “Senator King has openly and repeatedly expressed his concern about a monument designation, and he intends to express those concerns to the director directly at the two public meetings,” Ogden said in a prepared statement in response to Gov. Paul LePage saying last week “the fix is in” when it comes to the proposal.
Patten Board of Selectmen Chairman Richard Schmidt III said he appreciated King’s efforts to give local people a voice by at least holding the forums.
“I know that I am going to be able to represent the views of constituents and convey my feelings on the proposal, and I have faith in the councilmen from other towns that they will be able to as well,” Schmidt said Friday.
King “is doing all he can to ensure that these meetings are open, productive, and will be beneficial to the people of Maine,” Schmidt added.
Jarvis might have inadvertently added weight to Angotti’s argument that the itinerary favors monument proponents. His office announced on Friday that he will attend a private breakfast on Monday with Katahdin Area Chamber of Commerce members at River Drivers Restaurant, which is owned by Matthew Polstein, one of St. Clair’s advisers. The chamber endorses the park and monument.
Questions about what the forums will accomplish. The quest for a national park in Maine’s North Woods dates back decades. The concept has evolved through the years in size and location. What hasn’t evolved is the debate. Local residents who oppose the park are exasperated that the issue drags on, and park proponents show no sign of going away. If this is all about a monument, and the power to decide that issue lies solely with the president, then what’s the point of Jarvis’ visit?
Is compromise possible?
Jarvis is expected to address such questions and shed some light on how the whole process will work and his role in it. His answers will be complicated by the flurry of recent political activity surrounding the issue. U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, announced Friday his request to have members of the 44-member House Natural Resources Committee come to the region for a congressional field hearing. There was no response to a request for comment from the committee chairman as of Friday.
Poliquin also has pending a bill that would limit presidential authority to create monuments. Presidents, not the park service, are authorized to create monuments through executive orders.
The state has passed legislation that would effectively bar the president from creating a national monument in Maine, although many observers question whether the law could be upheld when federal authority typically supersedes state power.
Expect King to weigh in on the purpose of Monday’s events.
King is the catalyst for the forums. He also focused the debate by asking Millinocket leaders in 2014 to submit their requirements in the event park legislation was crafted. But at least on Monday, Jarvis is expected to be the star.
Civility. That might seem strange to say about an area known for its outspoken people, but Jarvis and Salazar were treated very respectfully in Millinocket in 2011, and so was Quimby, despite a few verbal missteps.
When a resident asked her if she could see herself investing in manufacturing in the region, a surefire way to gain support, Quimby replied, “Manufacturing? Oh, I don’t know …” The air went out of the auditorium.
History shows that Katahdin region leaders know that a monument would represent a major shift in their region’s identity, and they take the subject very seriously. You can expect them to set a courteous tone. What’s less certain is how the audiences will react.