Rebuild district with resources and people

As a candidate for Congress in Maine’s 2nd District, I am writing to disagree with your April 29 editorial, “2nd District, one issue,” which promotes candidate Tim Woodcock’s east-west highway plan as the key to the economic success of the 2nd Congressional District.

I believe such a plan has several flaws that prevent it from being the most important issue in this congressional race and certainly from being the most important issue in the lives of my neighbors in the 2nd Congressional District.

I have great concern for the future of northern Maine should the highway materialize. A major thoroughfare cutting a swath through central Maine could only serve to further isolate Aroostook County and northern Penobscot, Piscataquis and Washington counties.

The citizens of western Maine are reluctant to embrace a new highway. They fear the highway would bypass many of the small communities that are now heavily traveled. This could cause the traditional Maine towns that line U.S. Route 2 to evaporate, towns like Skowhegan, Farmington and Rumford.

This decades-old idea could turn into a mere connector for eastern and central Canada where drivers only speed through our state to get to another destination. At best, we may gain a few low-paying jobs as gas stations spring up along the roadside. Of course, they won’t even get the benefits of Canadians’ money if our Legislature continues to increase the gasoline tax every year. Canadian truckers will fuel up in New Brunswick and again on the other side of Maine.

Mainers alone can’t develop this project. New Hampshire, Vermont and New York must agree and, so far, Vermont’s legislators have refused to sign on to this highway. As a member of legislative leadership from Maine, I was in conferences with Vermont’s legislators who emphatically stated, “a divided east-west highway will not be built in Vermont.”

The design and funding of the highway though difficult and extensive will actually be the easy part. The most difficult and ultimately fatal problem will be the approval process. Remember the years of delay in the turnpike widening? That will seem like nothing. Environmental groups can and will use intervenorship status permitted under the Endangered Species Act to prolong and destroy any attempt to build an east-west divided highway.

Maine people need immediate action before our whole economy evaporates before our eyes. There have been years of study on this highway with no action in sight. If we gamble our economic future solely on the east-west highway, we are certain to lose. I believe there are other steps we can take that are more feasible and can be implemented more quickly.

We have thousands of miles of highway that haven’t been repaired since the 1960s. We have roads with trees literally growing up through the cracks in the pavement. We need to improve the roads we already have before undertaking such a massive project as the east-west highway.

Route 9 soon will be improved to federal highway standards and the rest of our existing corridors such as coastal Route 1 from Lincolnville to Calais and north to Houlton, U.S. Route 2 in western Maine, Route 26 in Oxford County and Route 196 from Lewiston to Bath must reach that goal as well. In addition, we need to extend the I-95 corridor through the St. John Valley.

We must change the weight limit on Interstate 95 to 100,000 pounds and get the large trucks off U.S. Route 2, U.S. Route 9 and other parallel corridors. After all, the Interstate system was designed to carry our heaviest military defense equipment. Certainly, then, it should be used for our basic commercial transport needs.

In addition to transportation, there are many other initiatives that can be used to reverse Maine’s economic decline and poor business climate. I believe strongly that Maine’s congressman must be an economic developer.

I will use the power of the office and my experience as a developer to assist entrepreneurs in starting a business. I will bring the industry leaders I contact in Washington to Maine every weekend, showing them how they can do business here. I would connect them with our businesses and our resources-including our workers and our excellent quality of life. These initiatives don’t cost money but they do take creativity.

I have been creating jobs for more than 30 years as a builder, developer and hotel owner; and I know the difficulties business owners face every day. I have been constructing solar and energy efficient designs since the 1970s. Many of the citizens of the 2nd Congressional District live, work or recreate in buildings I built.

I want to rebuild this district using Maine resources and Maine people. It is time to expect more from your congressman. I want you to expect an economic developer with creative, cost-efficient, environmentally sound ideas to facilitate issues and facilitate jobs.

Dick Campbell, of Orrington, is a Republican candidate for Congress in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District and a former state representative.