Harpswell meeting calm after LNG vote

HARPSWELL – There was little cause for disagreement and no need for metal detectors as residents who were bitterly divided over a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal met four days later at the annual town meeting.

About 300 residents gathered Saturday in the same room at Harpswell Islands School where sheriff’s deputies provided security Tuesday while voters rejected a plan to lease land at a former Navy fuel depot for the $350 million gas project.

While the LNG campaign was punctuated by personal attacks, acts of vandalism and a bomb threat, the town meeting was the picture of polite, informed local democracy.

“There are many people from both sides, and we’re agreeing on just about everything so far,” said Jim Merryman, who led a group of fishermen opposed to the LNG project. “I think it’s very encouraging.”

Richard Gelwick, who was on the opposite side of the LNG debate, agreed.

“The town meeting today’s not an adversarial meeting,” Gelwick said. “The very act of working together is a healing process.”

All of the 50 articles up for public vote were unrelated to the LNG project. A special town meeting on the future of its proposed site is tentatively scheduled for April 17.

The discussion Saturday was dominated by town expenditures, which last year totaled $10.6 million. If voters had approved the LNG terminal, such budget discussions would have taken a sharp turn, since the partners in the Fairwinds project promised to pay the town $8 million per year.

Voters who earlier in the week were subjected to a metal detector were not greeted by the same tight security.

Cumberland County Chief Deputy Kevin Joyce said authorities are still investigating a number of leads on the bomb threat, which was called in from a pay phone at the Wal-Mart in Brunswick.

Overcoming the ill will of the last few months will not be easy. And not surprisingly, it was those on the winning side of Tuesday’s vote who seemed more eager to bury the hatchet.

John Bear, who’s unhappy with the referendum’s outcome, suggested that the town would remain divided. “It’s not going to come back together for a while.”

Selectman Gordon Weil, who pushed for the LNG vote and was seen as a project advocate, said the meeting’s turnout was lower than normal. He said lingering bad feelings might have been a factor.

“The winners won and have presumably decided they have to participate in town affairs,” Weil said. “And the others we will have to see.”