Property rights activists find debate lacking

BREWER — Property rights proponents want an open, statewide discussion on public ownership of Maine’s lands, but on Saturday, they had to talk among themselves.

Keep Maine Free, an organization that believes public land ownership is a form of socialism, had invited state Sen. Chellie Pingree, D-North Haven, and representatives from the environmental groups RESTORE: The North Woods and the Natural Resources Council “to make [their] case and listen to ours.” None of the invited guests appeared.

“I think it’s very unfortunate we’re not having a dialogue today,” said Jon Reisman, former Republican congressional candidate and a Keep Maine Free member. “We need a dialogue in the state. You make peace by talking to your enemies.”

One invited participant had considered attending. But a Keep Maine Free announcement of the event caused him to change his mind Thursday.

James A. St. Pierre of RESTORE: The North Woods said he was told the event would be an open forum on public vs. private land ownership in Maine. “It’s not going to be a lynch mob,” St. Pierre said a forum organizer told him.

At first, St. Pierre said, he was encouraged that a group was setting the stage for an objective discussion on land ownership. Then he said he saw an advertisement Keep Maine Free passed out at the State House Thursday. On it were words equating state land ownership with socialism, he said.

“It’s obvious it was a setup,” St. Pierre said Sunday. “If they’re just going to set me up like that, I’m not going to do it.”

Senate Majority Leader Pingree’s absence did dishearten Reisman, who just a month ago slammed down a machete on a watermelon at a press conference to emphasize his opinion of legislative proposals to purchase private land for “public access.”

“If you crossed the forestry compact with Karl Marx, these government land proposals are what you would get,” Reisman said Jan. 20. “They are watermelons: large, full of sugar water, green on the outside and red on the inside.”

To get Pingree’s attention, Keep Maine Free recently spent $300 for advertisements in three coastal newspapers after she apparently did not respond to repeated invitations, Reisman said. Pingree eventually called to decline, he said.

Pingree said Sunday she did not attend the forum because of a previously scheduled event “from a long time ago.” She said she had sent Reisman a letter declining the invitation. “We were trying to be communicative with them,” she said.

An open discussion is a good idea, Pingree said, noting she would be happy to meet with Reisman. “If we talked, he’d find out we’re a lot closer than he thinks,” she said.

The Natural Resources Council office was closed Saturday.

The machete and watermelon were absent Saturday, the only props being two television sets on which Keep Maine Free presented a music-style video titled “Big Park” that carried its political message.

In the video, a mother sits on her porch steps playing with her two children. At another home, an older couple also is on their porch. All look up, shocked and terrified, when four National Park Service special officers drive up, remove guns from their holsters, strike a pose and begin singing about wanting the land for a national park and the houses for a hotel. “Oh give us your home so the buffalo can roam,” the officers sing.

The video shows the couple being tied to chairs as the rangers overtake their home. Eventually, the couple, mother and children are driven off the land in a livestock trailer.

At the end of the video, a man states that the national government’s plan to spend $1 billion a year to purchase lands for parks is reckless and unconstitutional.

A few people who spoke at the meeting Saturday said the government’s expressed intent to buy up land in efforts to protect the environment and allow public access is not what actually is happening. Public access to the land generally is denied, they said.

The 2-month-old Keep Maine Free claims 1,000 members. About 45 people attended Saturday’s meeting. The group supports a legislative measure that limits publicly owned land to no more than 7 percent of the total land area in the state or 10 percent of the land area in any county. Currently, 5.3 percent of Maine is designated as the public’s property.

That initiative runs counter to public opinion, St. Pierre said Sunday. His organization supports land purchases, whether they are by businesses, individuals or governments.

“The cap idea is undemocratic because it seeks to pre-empt the legislative process,” he said in a statement in January. “An artificial cap would prevent legislators and administrators from making sound decisions about which lands are more important to return to public ownership. It would slam the brakes on efforts to address the long-standing imbalance on land ownership in Maine.”