EAST MILLINOCKET — Tom St. John, a Katahdin region businessman who favors a proposed north woods national park, had several minutes of convivial talk Thursday with former Millinocket Town Councilor John Raymond, a park opponent.
Unremarkable by itself, the low-key conversation underlined a goal of the informational session hosted at Schenck High School: To get people engaged in considering the park idea, said David Farmer, a spokesman for leading park proponent Lucas St. Clair.
“People are engaged,” Farmer said Thursday. “I think it shows that this is a debate about an idea and we can all be friendly and stand in the same room and have civil and informative conversation.”
Farmer counted 92 people in attendance at the two-hour event, one of several since U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, effectively revived the often-contentious national park debate with a letter to Millinocket officials seeking their requirements of a park should Congressional delegates write legislation seeking one. Millinocket officials revealed the letter’s existence on Feb. 7.
The proposal includes a 75,000-acre national park and a 75,000-acre recreation area on land east of Baxter State Park. Park opponents have said they fear a park would bring federal authority into Maine, cramp the state’s forest products industries with tighter air-quality restrictions, generate only low-paying jobs and morph into a 3.2-million-acre park plan offered in the 1990s.
Proponents 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.
East Millinocket will hold a non-binding referendum during a school budget validation vote tentatively set for June 11, said Mark Scally, chairman of East Millinocket’s Board of Selectmen, who did not attend Thursday’s event.
The date might change if the school budget process goes beyond June 11, he said.
The idea of the forum, Scally said, is to give East Millinocket residents a chance to learn more about the park. Selectman Clint Linscott and his wife, Amy, were among the East Millinocket residents in attendance at the forum, which had a strong showing from Millinocket residents as well.
Jimmy Busque, a Millinocket Town Council member, said he was disappointed at the forum’s lack of attendance.
“It was overall a low turnout and I thought it would be a question-and-answer session with a moderator,” Busque said. “It was one-sided.”
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