OurTown was born on a rainy Sunday morning early in October
2005, when Eleanor Kinney and Jenny Mayher decided
the rumors about Wal-Mart’s plans to locate
in Damariscotta were too consistent to be ignored.
We sat down with a laptop at the Maine Coast Bookstore
Café and came up with an action plan. We knew
we needed a name, a lawyer, and an email address
to keep in touch with supporters. We needed to know
our recourse as citizens to pass new ordinances,
and we needed a strategy.
In nearly two months since
then OurTown has grown to include over two hundred
local residents and business-owners. With the help
of two Portland Attorneys and dozens of local people
who have volunteered their time, resources, and skill,
we are implementing a strategy to hold on to the
small-town strength of Damariscotta and preserve
the character of the town we love.
Below is a timeline
of what has happened since rumors about Wal-Mart
first surfaced in the spring of 2005.
After hearing rumors about Wal-Mart buying land north
of the Pine View Restaurant on Route 1 we circulated
a preliminary petition asking the town of Damariscotta
to take action. That petition read:
We residents and
business owners of the Damariscotta Region ask the
Board of Selectmen to control the development of
nationally-owned big box stores through either a
moratorium or a strengthening of current land use
ordinances. We support a vibrant downtown with locally-owned
businesses and encourage thoughtful planning that
preserves the character of Damariscotta.
The petition
was submitted with 1000 signatures (about 200 of which
were Damariscotta voters) to Damariscotta selectmen
at their May 11 meeting. Instead of acting immediately,
the selectmen voted to form a Land Use Planning Committee.
Members were chosen for this committee but they did
not meet until September 2005. The committee’s
top priority is to decide whether to recommend stricter
controls on large-scale commercial development in Damariscotta.
In September Wal-Mart rumor gained momentum. There
was now a selling price mentioned, and a size (109,000
square feet). More telling was the presence of a
Lawyer from a Portland law firm who attended the
Land Use Planning Committee Meetings on behalf of
an “unnamed client.” Town officials
said they now considered a development proposal to
be imminent, though still unofficial.
The Land Use Planning Committee, which had previously
decided to work towards passing a size cap of their
own, voted unanimously to let our referendum go before
Damariscotta voters without a competing ordinance.
Without endorsing our petition, they acknowledged
that if two proposals came before the voters, the “Yes” vote
would be split and both would fail.
On November 16,
a Wal-Mart representative flew to Damariscotta to
announce Wal-Mart’s official
intention to build here. He met with Selectmen, spoke
to the local papers, and appeared on the evening news.
According to this spokesman, the typical size for a
new Wal-Mart is 186,000 square feet. This size store
could not be built within the 500 foot setback already
in the land-use ordinance without a town vote. Therefore
some people are under the impression that that the
town is already protected and a size cap is unnecessary.
In truth, we won't know what size store Wal-Mart is
actually planning to build until a proposal is before
the planning board. If the town votes down our size
cap, Wal-Mart could come in the next day with a proposal
for a smaller, longer, thinner store that would fit
within the setback and the town would have limited
channels through which to stop them.
After forming OurTown
and starting an email network, we called a lawyer
to talk about strategy. We chose a Portland attorney
with experience with fighting Big Box stores in other
communities. She recommended passing a building size
cap as a proven strategy to keep Big Box stores out
of town. With her help, we wrote a petition asking
for an amendment to the zoning ordinance to put in
place a building size cap of 35,000 square feet on
new retail stores.
The petition:
On the advice of our attorney, we were very careful
this time around: only Damariscotta voters collected
signatures and signed petitions. Nearly all of the
signed petitions were notarized. On November 1 we submitted
320 signatures, 287 of which were certified by the
town clerk. Because this number was well beyond the
threshold of 105 (representing 10% of the voters who
voted in the last gubernatorial election), the petition
was certified as a referendum that would come before
town voters.
Because our petition had the legal number
of signatures, the selectmen do not have a choice about
whether or not it will be voted on. They do have a
choice, however, on when that vote will take place.
Despite recommendations from the Land Use Planning
Committee, on November 16 the Selectmen voted 4 to
1 to let our referendum wait until the June Annual
Town Meeting instead of calling a special town meeting
as was requested by petitioners.
The Selectmen’s
decision was a disappointment to many people in Damariscotta.
We hoped that signatures of nearly 30% of the voters
that voted in the last gubernatorial election would
be enough to convince the Selectmen to take swift action.
We are currently exploring our options for how to have
a vote on the size cap sooner than June. Waiting seven
months leaves the town and its businesses in limbo
and gives Wal-Mart plenty of time to run a high-priced
PR campaign and get their building proposal in order.
We will post weekly updates on this site. Thank you
for your interest and your support of OurTown. |
