Following up on our earlier in the week Posting on how the Pros and Cons are shaping up regarding the creation of a Maine Woods National Park and Recreation Area............More and more Businesses in Maine are casting a YEA for the Park...........Gov. LePage, the State Legislature, Penobscot County Commissioners and the Millinocket Council remains steadfastly opposed..........From my perch, the momentum seems to be tilting toward the "YEAS" but there is still much convincing and collaborating to be done to get to a firm "Green Light" for the Park

From: Michael Kellett [mailto:kellett@restore.org]
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2015 2:19 PM
Subject: 200 Maine businesses endorse proposed Katahdin-area national park, Bangor Daily News, 20150326

http://bangordailynews.com/2015/03/26/news/bangor/200-maine-businesses-endorse-proposed-katahdin-area-national-park/

Bangor Daily News

200 Maine businesses endorse proposed Katahdin-area national park

By Nick Sambides Jr., BDN Staff

Posted March 26, 2015, at 4:08 p.m.

BANGOR, Maine — More than 200 businesses from around the state endorsed a proposed 150,000-acre national park and recreation area in the Katahdin region Thursday.

“I think this national park would be good for business,” said Brad Ryder, owner of Epic Sports of Bangor and one of the speakers at a press conference at the Cross Insurance Center where the mass endorsement was announced. “It branches out beyond Millinocket and beyond Bangor. It really affects the entire state in a good way.”

The endorsement, which included a letter signed by all the businesses to Maine’s congressional delegation urging the creation of the park, is the latest public approval of the controversial gift to the nation first proposed by entrepreneur Roxanne Quimby in 2011. Now an initiative fronted by her son, Lucas St. Clair, the 75,000-acre park and 75,000-acre recreation area would go on family land east of Baxter State Park.

The Bangor City Council voted 7-2 Monday to support the concept. It joined the Katahdin Area and Greater Houlton chambers of commerce, Maine Innkeepers Association, Town of Medway and the East Millinocket Board of Selectmen with endorsements registered since Millinocket officials said in February that U.S. Angus King, I-Maine, sought a letter from them listing their issues with the park plan.

The council endorsement was blasted Thursday by Millinocket Town Councilor Michael Madore, who said it interfered with the “sovereign right of Millinocket council [members] to handle their own business.

“A park if approved would be about 10.8 miles from our community but about 88-plus miles away from yours. We as a council would never ever consider involving ourselves in the countless problems [of] the Bangor City Council,” Madore said in an email.

“It’s as if the Katahdin region has no voice in its future,” Madore said Thursday. “Seriously: Run your own community and leave ours alone. When you get your own house in order, then come see me.”

Millinocket’s council opted earlier this month to oppose the park and is expected to discuss the latest endorsements when it meets at 4:30 p.m. Thursday. The federal delegation, Gov. Paul LePage and the state Legislature opted against Quimby’s proposal. The Penobscot County Commissioners opposed the plan in 2011 and was divided by St. Clair’s updated proposal, which the Maine Snowmobile Association and several sporting and forest products industry groups continue to oppose.

Bangor City Councilor Sean Faircloth, who helped engineer the 7-2 vote, dismissed Madore’s complaint. If distance is a factor in political involvement, then the Millinocket council “should defer to Medway’s endorsement because Medway is seven miles closer” than Millinocket to the proposed park area, said Faircloth, who attended the press conference.

Rob Lilieholm, a University of Maine economist whose study of the economic impact of the national park estimated it could create 450 to 1,000 jobs, said that Bangor has made many investments through the years that have benefited northern Maine.

Ryder counted among those investments Bangor International Airport, the Cross Insurance Center, about $63 million in Penobscot River restoration and $200 million in public and private investment in the Bangor-Brewer area that includes services used by all Penobscot County.

If the park is created, Bangor would be one corner of a triangle between the park and Acadia National Park through which most park visitors would have to pass via the airport or Interstate 95, which makes the park Bangor’s business, Ryder said.

“This is an issue for all of northern Maine,” Faircloth said.