MILLINOCKET – Bruce McLean made short work Friday of the idea of the town hiring an economic development coordinator.

“It will be a huge expense, a waste of money, a slap in the face to other area communities and MAGIC, and it’s not going to get them [town officials] anywhere,” the executive director of the nonprofit Millinocket Area Growth and Investment Council said Friday.

“They complained about spending $50,000 on MAGIC, and that’s not even going to pay for the salary of the person they would hire if they’re going to do a quality job.”

Qualified economic development professionals draw an average salary of more than $100,000. Maine probably would fall under the national average in salary and living expenses, but town salary for the position still would be considerable, McLean said.

Thursday night, Councilors David Cyr, Jimmy Busque and Chairman John Davis advocated the town using some of its $3.1 million surplus to hire an economic development coordinator, buy open space for industrial parks and establish a revolving loan program that would help lure businesses.

Some took this as an attack on the town’s involvement with MAGIC, which the town pays $25,000 annually to help bring in business and create economic opportunity. The council voted 4-3 last November to follow a referendum vote and cut MAGIC’s $50,000 annual stipend in half.

Town Manager Eugene Conlogue seconded the economic development coordinator idea, but as a part-time, occasional consultant.

“The consultant can do some of the detail work, helping potential business owners with financial applications and helping to guide that person through a process to a successful conclusion,” Conlogue said Friday. “I don’t have the time to do that kind of work, so that would be a huge help to me personally,” he added. “That would be a big help to that business coming in or a business that’s already here.”

McLean expressed surprise to hear Conlogue, a MAGIC board member, advocate such a thing.

“I have helped Gene several times with exactly what he’s talking about, so it is a bit disturbing to me that he needs somebody to help him when he hasn’t talked to me on the phone at all in the last month and a half or two,” McLean said. “I think we have some problems we need to address in terms of his willingness to use MAGIC. They’re not using the services that we provide the way they should be.”

Conlogue saw no contradiction in his position. A coordinator could work with MAGIC and supplement its efforts while advocating for the town, he said.

“We are part of a cooperative regional economic development agency and some of us, including myself, are happy to be part of it,” Conlogue said, “but I am also paid by the town of Millinocket and so my primary interest has to be what happens in Millinocket.”

Millinocket’s stepping out with its own coordinator likely would alienate Medway and East Millinocket, the other towns serviced by MAGIC and the Katahdin Area Chamber of Commerce, McLean said. Millinocket has been committed to regional and local development through MAGIC for several years.

“Wanting to create jobs in Millinocket is not a bad thing, but no one should promote that in exclusion of other opportunities elsewhere. Any job created anywhere in our three communities will benefit all of them,” McLean said. “What I hear them saying is that they don’t want jobs created anywhere else, just in Millinocket. That’s a problem.”

The idea, floated by Cyr and others, that MAGIC is under the sway of environmental preservationists – or that being a gateway community is bad – is totally untrue, McLean said.

MAGIC worked with The Wilderness Society on a grant to help build an environment-friendly industrial park in town last year. It has no more ties to that organization, McLean said.

Conlogue agreed.

“They [MAGIC] are trying to do a number of different types of development here. They are working on the creation of jobs but there is that sidetracking with the issue of The Wilderness Society that hurt the organization,” he said. “We need now to move forward from that place and get back on the track of economic development, which is MAGIC and the town of Millinocket.”

“The accusations that they are floating around are just so completely false, and I don’t know what more I can say about it,” McLean said. “They are just throwing darts and not bothering to check the facts or talk to me about what we’re doing.”

He denied claims that Millinocket is land-poor, saying it has at least 400 developable acres.

MAGIC is working on several projects, including bringing an ethanol production facility to Millinocket, helping a business move into the Shell building in East Millinocket, and finishing a survey aimed at helping former Mainers return to Millinocket.

The controversy is not helping create opportunity in Millinocket, McLean said.

“It’s all about creating an environment that we want to live in, first and foremost, and right now the Town Council is not creating an environment that people want to live in,” McLean said. “It certainly isn’t helping, I guarantee that. From as far away as Florida, people have told me they wouldn’t touch this area with a 10-foot pole.”