More good news than one state can stand

This was a week brimming with good news, led by this heartwarming little story out of Brunswick. Some 18 neighbors, worried sick that the 39 acres behind their homes might be cluttered up with homes for new neighbors, bought the land and now intend to sell it to a nonprofit conservation group which will preserve it as field and fen forever. In all, according to this jolly bit of journalism, some 450 acres in that southern Maine town have been saved from new neighbors in this way, a delightful practice being repeated throughout the upscale region.

Elsewhere on the upbeat beat, it appears that southern Maine’s affordable housing crisis is about to abate, provided voters approve Question 1 on Tuesday’s referendum ballot. This crisis is so real that the Maine State Housing Authority had to hire fictional working stiffs for radio ads that remind voters what a darned shame it is that people like firefighters and schoolteachers can’t afford to live in the southern Maine towns where they work.

With all the unemployed northern Mainers who’ve fled south to find work, no one is quite sure why developers haven’t responded by building new housing for them. Experts at the housing authority think it might have something to do with an inexplicable shortage of building lots.

To solve this problem, the authority proposes using some of the $10 million affordable housing part of the Question 1 bond to subsidize the purchase of whatever scraps of southern Maine land haven’t been deemed worth preserving for berry picking and bird watching. You northerners who are skeptics regarding this plan – wondering if, having been left out of the state’s economic development efforts, you are now are being asked to help pick up the tab for southerners’ aversion to new neighbors – would do well to take the longer view. Sooner or later, you’ll likely be moving south to find work, perhaps to fight fires or teach school in Brunswick, and those 450 forever empty acres are for berries and birds only. You’ll have to park the old mobile somewhere and then Question 1’s going to start looking pretty good.

The glad tidings don’t end there. I met this week with state officials and other advocates of the Machias River Project – you know, the deal where some $25 million in public and private money will buy the entire 80-mile shoreline of that Washington County river from International Paper so the 45 wild salmon who live there won’t be annoyed by development that might, in some distant century, occur. After the Machias, the same thing is planned for the four other Washington County rivers covered in the endangered species act listing.

(The same thing, however, is not planned for the Sheepscot, the only major listed river not in poor, struggling Washington County. The Sheepscot meanders around the Augusta area and provides marvelous recreational opportunities for those seeking respite from the hectic pace of Maine’s capital city. The salmon savers say it is not necessary to buy land there since they can educate landowners on how to use their property without bugging the salmon. I worry that International Paper will be hurt at being deemed uneducable on this subject and only hope that $25 mil is enough to ease the pain.)

Two thoughts may have occurred to those of you susceptible to negativity: Given the aforementioned affordable housing crisis, buying land for fish at more than $500,000 a head might seem a bit extravagant; and, given the condition of Washington County, that $25 million (perhaps $25 million times five) might do the people there a lot of good. The important thing to remember is that we’re talking about salmon here.

Besides, this plan carries a double benefit. Those who cherish salmon above all else get to prove it with large sums of taxpayer money and those who said this endangered listing was never as much about saving salmon as it was about government control of private land get to be right. Guess that’s why the advocates at the meeting kept calling it a win-win situation.

As I left that uplifting meeting – and, boy, was I buoyed – a co-worker handed me some more good news. It was information about Heifer International, an organization I’ve long known to be a truly wonderful charity. Based upon the “teach a man to fish” model, it provides farm animals – cows, goats, chickens and such – and husbandry training for people in impoverished Third World countries, helping them become self-reliant for food and income.

What I didn’t know was that Heifer International isn’t just in places like Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and Guatemala, but also right here in this state, with several projects in Northern Maine. Sure, it’s a bit troubling – maybe even humiliating – that a state able to spend fortunes on real estate for berries, birds and fish has to suck up charity that is more needed elsewhere, but overall it’s nice to know that somebody, somewhere, gives a rip about people.

To top off this account of happy current events, it is a pleasure to inform all Mainers that their government did not, a widely circulated news story to the contrary, spend $250,000 on heated steps as part of the $24 million renovation of the State Office Building. The true facts are that the massive old granite steps were severely damaged and had to be replaced from the foundation up. This cost $245,000. The additional work of running steam pipes underneath the stones to keep them ice-free increased the job by a mere $5,000. This comes as a great relief because, after all, what could be sillier than spending $250,000 on heated steps?

That’s not a rhetorical device, but an actual question. The answer is – spending $250,000 on a sound system at the State Office Building that broadcasts white noise, a kind of low static, throughout to mask conversations in hallways and offices that can distract state employees. This might seem to call for an extended rant about the money we’d save if the people holding these distracting conversations would just pipe down, but that would ignore the good news angle – at least it’s not being spent on berries, birds and salmon.

Bruce Kyle is the assistant editorial page editor for the Bangor Daily News.