Where should the line be drawn on Plum Creek’s development plan?
Submitted by Susan Young on Mon, 06/16/2008 - 21:32.
Plum Creek, the Seattle-based timber company and the largest private landowner in the United States, has gone in a different direction from Maine’s paper mills, by seeking to sell some of its land for housing and resorts. The Land Use Regulation Commission is presently weighing Plum Creek’s application to rezone much of its holdings around Moosehead Lake to allow 975 house lots and two resorts. Should LURC turn down the application? Or should it insist the company scale back its proposal, perhaps dropping its development proposals for the east side of the lake at Lily Bay? Or should LURC approve it as is?
Plum Creek, ClickBack.
The sooner the LURC makes a legally unassailable decision on where to let Plum Creek build, the sooner we can stop banging our heads with croquet mallets to keep us incensed about it. People have to live somewhere. Also, for all of you constrained letter writers (especially the guy who's always ripping on cops), Ms. Young and Mr. Groening have stormed the Bastille and given us ClickBack. We're free as birds over here on the Op-Ed page! Though maybe you're like me and wouldn't even know how to get started using a computer. You might want to ask your librarian to get a book called "Windows (version) Simplified" by Maran Graphics, for your library computer's particular version of "Windows". It will get you started with very easy to understand pictures. (Tip: If the computer screen is off, press "Enter" and wait.) Then you can call the National Toll Free Directory at 1-800-555-1212 and ask for America Online or some other e-mail provider, call them and ask for a free e-mail account. With these the world's your oyster! I wish someone had told me about both sooner. Any problems, ask the librarian! Van Buren's town librarians Nancy and Jackie are indispensible paragons of information and assistance, and your's probably are also.
The Op-Ed page has been liberated and you'd be amazed what you can say in a paragraph or two.
It's a trade, not a prohibition
The Natural Resources Council of Maine and Maine Audubon have offered to give 33,500 acres on the west side of the lake in exchange for the 400 units proposed on the east (more wild) side. This sounds more than fair (actually it seems overly generous to me). Plum Creek can build its resorts and housing developments in such a way as to preserve what people want to go up there for.
PLUM CREEK
WE, AS AMERICANS, HAVE THE RIGHT TO SETTLE WHERE WE PLEASE. IF IT'S A HOME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS OR ON THE SHORELINE OF A LAKE, SO BE IT. OF ALL THOSE COMPLAINING, MAYBE WE SHOULD LOOK AT WHERE THEY LIVE. WHAT WAS DISPLACED BY THEIR HOME. (THIS WOULD MAKE AN INTERESTING STORY FOR THE BDN TO COVER.) TODAYS NEWS HAS A STORY OF THE STATE SPENDING THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO ATTRACT TOURISM TO THE STATE. SO WHY NOT BUILD RESORTS TO MAKE THE STATE INVESTMENT PAY OFF? I ALSO WONDER AT HOW OFTEN THESE COMPLAINERS TRAVEL TO THE NORTH WOODS TO VIEW ALL THIS BEAUTY. WITH THE PRICE OF OIL, IT'S GOING TO BE FEWER AND FEWER VIEWERS.