EAST MILLINOCKET, Maine — This town is awaiting a response from Maine officials regarding its latest offer to help the state manage the Dolby landfill, Board of Selectmen Chairman Clint Linscott said.
Linscott declined to say what the offer entails, saying that state officials had asked town leaders to keep it confidential until they had a chance to reply to it.
“We have made an offer and we are awaiting a reply,” he said Thursday.
The Legislature agreed to assume ownership of the landfill with many misgivings last spring as part of what was described as the removal of a key element blocking the revitalization of the Katahdin region’s two shuttered paper mills.
Several would-be owners walked away from buying the mills, state officials said, because they feared the estimated $254,100 annual cost of operating the landfill and the estimated $17 million it would cost to close and cap the landfill and contain leachate from the Dolby II and Dolby III portions of it.
But state leaders balked at entirely assuming the costs, arguing that Millinocket and East Millinocket should help. Municipal leaders responded that while they were grateful for the new mills’ ownership, the towns lacked the funding, manpower, equipment or expertise to maintain the landfill.
Millinocket town leaders disclosed last week that they had offered the state a $50,000 one-time payment to help it operate the landfill next year in an attempt to end negotiations with the state over the landfill’s future.
The deal’s conditions include the state’s completely indemnifying the town of responsibilities, other costs, lawsuits or any other obligations that may arise in connection with the landfill; state acceptance of April 30, 2012, as the date when such payment shall be made in full, and Gov. Paul LePage’s support of a bill by Rep. Herbert Clark, D-Millinocket, to have the state fund landfill operating costs beginning July 1, 2012.
That offer is pending, Millinocket town officials said Wednesday.
Yet another Bailout from Maine Taxpayers. It’s about time that Millinocket and East Millinocket find a way to pay their own way. We’ve been propping these towns up for too long.
you may have to work a little harder to get those stinkin people out of the way so you can build a Park there and save us all
No “one thing” neither park nor industry will “save us all”. It’s time to sharpen our pencils again, though, and figure out which takes more wealth from our communities. The answer may fly in the face of long-held assumptions.
This isn’t isolated, and it isn’t the towns that “we’ve been propping up for too long” — it’s the corporations who flit about the world like a dark cloud, and whatever country PAYS them the most in subsidies “wins” (low wage jobs, dirty air and water, increased tax burdens for more and more “incentive packages” to stay, and (my personal favorite) “public-private partnerships” –ugh! …a euphenism for “corporate welfare”.
Workers, even if they agreed to work gratis cannot “compete” with governments that pay millions per job. Neither East Millinocket nor Maine can address this fundamental problem on their own. Neither can YOUR community for that matter. We have to pull together if global capital is to once again serve the public good rather than obliterate it.
It’s ridiculous to hear you say “we’ve been propping these towns up for too long.” I bet you didn’t complain when these towns paid the most taxes per capita then almost everyone else in this state up until 2001. Yes these towns have fallen on some hard times and the don’t want help from the state, but right now they need it and they have earned it. These towns don’t own the lanfills, never have and never will and they are not the only ones in this state to use them.
They should open it up and utilize it like the money maker it is. Landfills will never go away, we need to manage the ones we have.
Did you and “wishyou knew2” read off the same memo? Looks like it to me.
No one complained when the Katahdin regions mills were pumping out paper in the 70’s and 80’s, and paying huge amounts of taxes to the town, county and state. When the people that worked in those mills were making big bucks for the time and paying a chunk of taxes to the state in income taxes. Those taxes funded stuff all over the state for many people not associated in anyway with the Katahdin region. The communities propped up the economy in Bangor for decades, taking paychecks to the mall and spending there, buying vehicles there and eating in their restuarants.
I do not agree with the state take over of the Dolby. Brookfield threatened to abandon it but they own other property in the state that could have been taken to pay for any problems associated with the dump. I have seen other situations where previous owners were on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions in clean up fees for dumps much like the Dolby. Some of the pervious owners are still in business making it a bit easier to recoup some of that money. The state failed to oversee it like it should have been all those years too. The state owns the dump. The state tied the towns hands when it set a tax cap for this new company. Leaving these new unexpected costs to be set directly on the local property tax payers, most of which can’t afford another increase in taxes nor are there many cuts that can be made to our services to make up the difference.
We love you!!!
Privatise Profits —Socialize Losses!
So WHY are we Open for Buisness!?
Haven’t you heard? It’s our “new normal”! We’re supposed to subsidize the crap out of global capital with our meager, subsistence salaries; work until we croak and send everyone and make available everyone and the dog in a household available 24/7 to produce for the almighty shareholder — never mind the needs of children and the elderly.
I’m heartened to see people refuse to accept the dictates of global capital, and fight back with their civic power.
This is public business after all. Why the secrecy? Is the state getting ready to present the taxpayer with another fait d’acompli and transfuse the Millinocket zombies again.
I used to work in Economic Development. The demands for secrecy on the part of businesses looking for public subsidies are ALWAYS forcefully applied; public officials often simply grant these demands without question, fearing the loss of low-wage-jobs-we-must-subsidize-forever which, in my view, is wrong. These businesses are often not entitled to secrecy, and should NOT be indulged.
What on Earth is the point of this endless drain on our public wealth? …a bunch of subsistence-wage jobs that we have to tax to death to support the corporate nanny state? If “business-friendly” (read: corporate nanny state) impoverishes us, than why continue? For “the economy”? What is an “economy” FOR if not to afford people a decent life that they may be engaged and good citizens?
What is an “economy” for? …NOT just for shareholders anymore…..!
Why are we allowing global capital to decide what communities live or die? Why should we allow global corporations to decide ANYTHING? …good servants — BAD masters.