Got something on your mind? Call me at 207-596-0028,
or email lizzie.dickerson@gmail.com
Thanks for all the letters and feedback you guys are always sending my way. Please remember that if you have a concern or question, it is also a good idea to forward it to our city manager, Rosemary Kulow, just so we can keep everyone on the same page.
Thanks for continuing to participate in the goings on around this great city!
Gateway One..Rockland Signs On!
Curious about what Gateway 1 is? www.gateway1.org
About seven or eight years ago, a bunch of people climbed into trees in Warren and had to be removed forcibly and taken to jail.
I was there, with my guitar, keeping spirits up with my song "Green Legacy".
So what is up with that?
Okay. The Maine Department of Transportation was bound and determined to widen Route One in Warren, through the scenic strip of land known as the Atlantic Highway, that runs past Schoolhouse Farm. Many people who lived there did not want widening to happen, because they felt that their local control was being eroded by continual state decisions made without them.
One casualty in this battle over local versus centralized control was a tree known to us as The Elephant Tree. A Horse Chestnut, legend has it that a circus had stopped to rest for the night beneath its boughs, and the resident circus elephant, in need of an evening snack, munched the tree so severely that from that time on, it grew in the shape in which it had been so pruned.
Local artist Susan Beebe became a champion of this tree and its local history, and painted a beautiful picture. She vowed to protect the tree. In fact, many people were willing to work with MDOT on the road project if MDOT would back down on the removal of many such large and historically significant trees. However, citing a chance that motorists could hit the trees and die if exiting the road uncontrollably, the tees were destined to be felled.
A very large battle soon ensued, and egos and willpower ran rampant. No one wanted to back down or compromise. I wrote my song in desperation, and spent many hours singing at radio stations, and trying to convince the parties involved to negotiate and compromise. Unfortunately, it was too late, and the collision of will that was the Warren Route One Widening became inevitable. We lost the Elephant Tree.
However, as a result of the grassroots action in Warren and other communities who found themselves in the same position, new thought evolved at MDOT. The importance of community in land use decision making could no longer be denied, especially as our communities continue to grow and depend on one another. People at MDOT began to realize that population pressures and land use pressures are going to increase to such a capacity in the next 30 years that if we don't take proactive action NOW, we will be stuck with a continuing pattern of development and land use planning that erodes local involvement, ruins the natural beauty of our home, and makes our transportation experience one of continual gridlock and traffic.
A Steering Committee was formed of representatives from the Midcoast Towns, from the Bath area up to the Searsport region. For seven years, they have met with MDOT paying nearly 1.8 million dollars for incredibly valuable consulting, studies, and community facilitation. Something like this HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. This has been a regional land use planning effort that has been guided by the people of the communities, and paid for by MDOT. So, you could say, MDOT finally listened.
I am a member of the Rockland Response Panel. Each community has a panel that responded to and voted on the Steering Committee recommendations. Now that the final study has been voted on and approved by the Steering Committee/Response Panels, the official Gateway One Entity is coming to the communities to ask the local governments to sign on to a memorandum joing Gateway One. A a result, the communities will have access to planning and project dollars from MDOT, and the communities will be able to avail themselves of significant planning help from the Gateway One Entity that has identified, and continues to develop, measures to assist in sutainableland use planning and transportation planning.
This kind of work is at the heart of everything I stand for and all I am about: cutting down on carbon emissions due to sensible transportation planning, working to build bike paths and foot trails, and working to develop our economy in ways that do not hinder the natural beauty of our place, which in fact is one of the greatest economic tools we have.