Barn sale a real giveaway

As every good Mainer knows, the first rule of holding a barn sale is don’t sell the barn. The second rule is don’t give anything away – ever. Pittsfield is holding a barn sale of sorts. That’s the bad news. The worse news is that although the entire barn is not for sale, you can buy enough pieces of the foundation to get the structure to lean in the direction of Massachusetts.

Pittsfield once had a proud agricultural heritage, back when tilling a Bangor silt loam meant something. The town’s proposed sale of the publicly owned Spring Road land – with its prime farmland soils – plows under that heritage, despite the 1997 Comprehensive Plan’s policy to “recognize Pittsfield’s prime agricultural soils as a precious and limited resource that must be preserved for food-producing uses.

Not all of the 73 acres up for sale is farmland. There are woods too. One week after advertising the land in the Bangor Daily News, the Pittsfield Town Council accepted a $400,000 economic development grant to assist an in-town manufacturer of cedar furniture.

Cedar furniture, interestingly enough, is made from cedar trees that are in abundance at the Spring Road property, a sustainable wood lot that could be managed to support this business.

The highest bidder, however, may instead choose to water the cedar saplings with RoundUp Weed & Grass Killer and leave just enough trees to mark the out-of-bounds on Hole 17.

At least those displaced by the land sale will be treated fairly. Although hunters may be excluded from the property, their quarry of grouse, deer and woodcock will also be driven away.

The land sale will finally mow down some long-standing questions in Pittsfield.

For example, where does the town-owned trail along the old railroad lead? The trail will apparently not lead to 73 acres of publicly owned field and forest, nature trails, arboretum, ball fields or picnic areas. Citizens, including teachers and students, who dream about getting on the trail in downtown Pittsfield or at the middle school – and hiking or biking to a picnic spot with beautiful views of the Sebasticook River valley and eastern hills – are encouraged to stay on the trail to Hartland. Beyond the east end of the Spring Road property the trail crosses three busy stretches of state highway (speed limit 55) before dead-ending in a parking lot. Enjoy your hike.

In August 2002 I requested that the town council and town manager facilitate public discussion about the fate of tax-acquired and foreclosed lien properties, especially the Spring Road land. Community groups, including Voices in Action, Healthy Living-Sebasticook River Watershed Association had just printed a popular area recreation map, and community interest in expanding recreational opportunities took off. Both the council and town manager made encouraging noises that the public would be consulted about the property.

On July 20, 2004, the Pittsfield Town Council voted to put the Spring Road land out to bid without a formal public heating, ostensibly to raise money for the town. However, for the two parcels compromising the 73 acres the minimum bid requirements are such that one piece of land could be sold for as little as 25 percent of its 1998 assessed value. Combined, both parcels could sell for only $600 more than their 1998 assessed value, a whopping 0.2 percent per annum increase in land valuation. My interest-free checking account gets a better annual rate-of-return when I factor in the free lollipops from the bank.

How come a town that sponsored a “community visioning meeting,” task force and public hearings for two acres of land on Pittsfield’s Mill Pond couldn’t be bothered to seek public input on the fate of 73 acres of municipally-owned land with natural resource, economic and recreational value? Will Pittsfield let the Spring Road land go for less than it is worth without a public hearing?

I encourage people to speak up and request a public hearing on the sale of the property, perhaps even rejecting all of the bids until the public hearing is invited to participate in the decision-making.

Maine communities have a proud tradition of barn raising, not barn razing, and it’s time we learned the difference.

According to Pittsfield’s 1997 Comprehensive Plan: “It is the policy of the town to support traditional rural land uses such a agriculture and forestry in the Rural District, encourage the retention of open space, and discourage residential and commercial sprawl.” Let’s not replace that policy with land giveaway.

Matt Bernier, a resident of Pittsfield, is president of the Sebasticook River Watershed Association.