Medway, ME votes down new National Park.

[rickb]

Medway Maine votes against proposal for a new national park.

http://bangordailynews.com/2015/06/23/outdoors/medway-rejects-national-park-proposal-by-wide-margin/

I put this in the Straight Forward section to simply share this information, and would ask this thread be limited to sharing news reports.

[burger]

I'm pretty sure that the a bunch of (selfish?) locals do not get a vote in Congress on whether or not to create a new national park.

[Offshore]

First sentence in the report states it was a non-binding vote. Also, voter turnout of 36% means that 64% of eligible voters either just didn't care or realized this was a meaningless vote and chose not to waste their time.

[egilbe]

Congress won't create a new national park without local support. Locals won't support it because of the bad feelings that Roxanne Quimby created when she stole Burt's Bee's from Burt and then sold the company to purchase the land and then blocked off all access to it.

[egilbe]

And Apparently Burt Shavitz just passed away. RIP

[Dogwood]

Since something like 40% of the state of ME is controlled by the forestry industry it's my illusion they are very happy to note this result.

[bemental]

There are signs all over Millinocket by Baxter that say "No National Park!"

[bemental]

(And great few many less that say "yes")

[Heliotrope]

Congress won't create a new national park without local support. Locals won't support it because of the bad feelings that Roxanne Quimby created when she stole Burt's Bee's from Burt and then sold the company to purchase the land and then blocked off all access to it.

Because when you own a piece of land you do not have the right to restrict access? Then when you want to offer it to the nation as a gift people complain!? Because local people in a economically struggling area do not want more jobs and cash flowing into the area? How does this make sense?

[Sly]

There are signs all over Millinocket by Baxter that say "No National Park!"

Actually there were very few signs in Millinocket, but many in Medway on what looked like one piece of land. I also saw a few "National Park Yes" signs.

The few people from the meeting with the BSP about AT Hikers I spoke with on the subject (including one that worked for BSP) unanimously supported the idea.


If it were BSP on the ballot, you'd probably have the same results.

[Another Kevin]

Because when you own a piece of land you do not have the right to restrict access? Then when you want to offer it to the nation as a gift people complain!? Because local people in a economically struggling area do not want more jobs and cash flowing into the area? How does this make sense?

First, the locals do not trust her or her family, and never will. She has a long history of unsavoury business practices, and the locals have had their fingers burnt too many times.

Moreover, this deal would be at most a mixed blessing. My understanding is that she blocked off long-standing easements, some formal and some "gentlemen's agreements" that had given a lot of people recreational access under previous owners. She also (I hear) wound up cutting off access to leaseholds that weren't hers but were landlocked by her purchases, replacing them with access easements that were nearly unusable and effectively destroying the value of the inholdings. And she eliminated quite a few paper-industry jobs by ceasing to harvest timber when she bought the lands. (Note that even Baxter State Park conducts timber harvests!) There are a lot of locals who believe that forestry is more sustainable than tourism, and more friendly to their way of life. Then she turned around and offered the land to NPS, and wouldn't even consider trying to cut a deal with Baxter or the state - she wants it to be managed from Washington and not locally.

It's not just Mainers that resent that sort of thing. My brother took this picture near the Trail corridor in New York. The locals still smart from having their holdings taken by eminent domain to make the corridor - when there were longstanding trail easements in place. They resent the 'scenic and recreational river (http://www.nps.gov/upde/index.htm)' that the NPS manages upstream of Delaware Water Gap even more. There, the NPS doesn't even own the land, just the waterway - and yet it effectively overrules town governments and zoning boards and imposes its own management on any property in sight of the river. It's been able to shutter a big slug of the forestry industry in Sullivan, Pike, Wayne and Delaware counties, without paying the landowners or their workers a cent for their losses.
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/8/10605220_2766ddbd6a_z.jpg?zz=1 (https://flic.kr/p/WmyC)

Most people who aren't familiar with these issues see the NPS as always on the side of the angels, protecting land from the forces of development. But sometime it's simply stepping in to micromanage land that's already protected by state conservation easements, and being managed very well by private landholders with easements for public access, or by the states. And its management often extends far into the neighbouring lands. It was surely the right thing for protection of Yellowstone or Yosemite. It's less clear that our more newly chartered national parks are anything other than power grabs, over land that is already being managed in such a way as to allow for extensive public outdoor recreation and environmental protection.