Help keep Patten alive

In response to Royce Smallwood’s small-minded view (BDN letter, June 4) of serving beer and wine in licensed establishments in Patten, open up your eyes. Patten is a dying town whose death is being orchestrated by the very residents who were born here. It is a town with no sense of historical value, heritage or commitment to bettering itself.

Look around you at all of the failing businesses and closed downtown establishments. Where is the draw? The great “quality of life” Smallwood speaks about also includes aesthetics, values, upkeep, history, heritage and the promise of maintaining a measurable economic status within the community where one resides.

It has been the residents of Patten who have designed the biggest change; the sale of the Patten Primary Building, the closing of the elementary school (which just sits and rots), the tearing down of Patten Academy, what happened to the theater, the beautiful Grange Hall, or the more recent old Rogers homestead on Rogers Lane that is utilized as a practice fire drill, where it is slowly being destroyed.

It is people like me who were born and raised in this town, the oldest of 10 children who paid the price of having to leave to provide for a family because Patten so steadfastly holds its “morality” to a level beyond scrutiny. It is people like me who have returned to this dying town fighting to keep it alive; by purchasing a small piece of it’s history and working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to restore and secure it’s existence for another 100 years, that you are targeting. I’m sure if the referendum on June 5 was asking the people to approve 20 more group homes, or to sell our beautiful old library, or Methodist church, (the only two historic buildings left standing in the town), it would have passed without opposition.

The hunters come to hunt, true, and God forbid they decide to lodge in Island falls where they can have a beer with their dinner, where would Patten be then? They pump more money into this little town in one season than the residents do all year. The local hunting lodge referred to has purchased property on the Shin Pond Road and has beautified it. We should be grateful to these quality people who own these hunting lodges, and spend thousands of dollars advertising to bring people into our dying little town to spend money, and provide livings for so many families. They do nothing but improve our economy and provide us with revenue.

The idea that this community would do anything other than support and encourage this to continue is unthinkable. The town is almost dead; if you think not having a beer with your burger is what will save this pathetic community that is so quick to sell itself out, prepare yourself for what is yet to come.

Smallwood’s apathy and lack of commitment to sustain and protect that which the few are fighting for will do him in. Watch as more and more proprietors leave, and your downtown becomes even more “beautified” with empty storefronts and lost revenue. Maybe Island Falls will be the new frontier.

So, have your beer in your trucks, closets, back yards or home, and gloat in your glory of defeat. You have done so much to improve the quality of your community.

Filena Anderson Singer is the owner of the Bradford House Bed and Breakfast in Patten.