Nearing 2 decades as manager, MDI man stays on an even keel

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BAR HARBOR – The road to Dana Reed’s office was a long and winding one. The town manager came to Bar Harbor in 1986 by a path through Ohio, Michigan, Oregon, Montana, Connecticut, Vermont and central Canada.

He might still have been in Canada, where a young, long-haired Reed and a hitchhiking buddy showed up at the border on foot, had it not been for a big hairy wolf spider nestled in one of their backpacks that sent them hightailing it back to the United States.

Reed laughed at the memory Thursday during a rambling interview in his Cottage Street office, where some of his staff shared holiday treats and hot, strong coffee before leaving for Christmas weekend.

A lover of the outdoors since childhood days as a Boy Scout in Shelby, Ohio, Reed was “tired of looking at corn” in Vassar, Mich., when he decided to apply for town management jobs in places where he could fish, hike, bike, ski and fish some more.

After managing Vassar for about six years, he applied in the Northeast and the Northwest and waited a month in the Midwest to find out that he, his wife and his two children were going to make a new home in the famed resort town of Bar Harbor.

“It’s a lovely place to live, a good place to raise a family, a good town to work for [where] the residents and councilors are supportive,” he said. “We have our problems, but ours are good problems to have.”

Against all odds, Reed is still in Bar Harbor. The odds were bad for two reasons: Elected officials sometimes change managers as often as their shoes, and the town of Bar Harbor, where the stakes are so high for everyone, sometimes can be the prettiest little controversial town in Maine.

“There are high stakes in all resort communities, and there is also high risk and a high profile,” Reed said. “But people are people no matter where you go, and it’s inevitable that you will have conflicts.”

In the past few years, Reed has often been at the core of a very public conflict between the town and hotel developer Thomas Walsh, who owns more than 100 hotels around the world and whose Bar Harbor properties alone are assessed at more than $35 million.

Reed’s critics have portrayed him as a vindictive and deceitful manager who lives to foul up Walsh’s projects, run up his building costs and generally harass him.

Reed doesn’t say that the accusations hurt, but the Boy Scout in him is offended by the idea of being unethical or untrustworthy.

“I am open, honest and ethical,” he said quietly. “I’m a Boy Scout and I’m proud of it.”

Reed strongly denounced the idea that he and Walsh are archenemies as “absolutely invalid.” He said he has survived so long in Bar Harbor, even after well-publicized legal fights with powerful people and companies, because he listens carefully and does what the council and town meeting tell him to do.

“The town, long before I got here, decided you needed building permits and that you have to comply with your building permits,” Reed said of the very issue that has caused so much angst between the town and Walsh in recent years.

“In most cases where you have a landowner without permits, once he’s told, he gets the permits,” Reed said. “But for some reason, [Walsh] doesn’t do that.”

Instead, the hotelier sometimes builds first and asks later, which frustrates more Bar Harbor residents than just the manager.

To be exact, Walsh has built without permits 25 times in recent years, from small jobs to luxurious ones, and asked for the required documents later.

“He does some very nice projects,” Reed said of Walsh, a self-made business giant who grew up in Bangor and Brewer, “but the Bar Harbor voters have decided there are certain rules they want followed for land development.”

Town Councilor Ken Smith, who was among the councilors who hired Reed in 1986, said the elected officials chose Reed over scores of other applicants because of his strong financial background, which included bailing Vassar out of debt in just months at the age of 29.

Reed had to lay off a third of the city staff to do it, he recalled, but that was the only time he was forced to put people out of work.

“I think the good things he does offset the bumps in the road that he’s had,” said Smith, who has served on the council off and on for 20 years since 1980.

“He’s really been an asset to the community,” Smith said, “and he is well-respected in the community and by his staff.”

But what about those public disagreements that Smith, among other officials, hate seeing in the newspaper?

“Part of [Reed’s] persona is his ability to go with the ups and downs and weather the storms that happen,” Smith said. “No matter who you get, you’re going to have some of the same things happen.”

Smith said both managers and elected officials are typically liked by half the town and disliked by the other.

“I’m 50 percent wrong when I get up in the morning,” said Smith, a longtime Bar Harbor businessman.

Smith agreed with Reed’s own theory about his longevity and success in Bar Harbor: He communicates well with councilors, he treats them all equally and he does what they ask him to do.

“As a longtime chair [of the council], I know his attitude is ‘I work for seven people, not one or two,'” Smith said.

Reed wasn’t sure Thursday whether he would finish out his career in Bar Harbor, but he did know he isn’t ready to leave.

“I have never considered moving on,” he said.