Parties agree on format for March 16 LNG forum

PERRY – The liquefied natural gas project proposed for Pleasant Point may be all about gas, but Tuesday the focus was on the nuts and bolts of an upcoming public hearing.

Quoddy Bay LLC and the Passamaquoddy Tribe have proposed construction of a $400 million LNG terminal at Pleasant Point, and they want to get their message out to the people.

And now they will have 30 minutes to do so.

Proponents and opponents sat down Tuesday at the Perry Municipal Building and amicably ironed out the details of the public hearing scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 16 at the Perry Elementary School.

The Quoddy Bay folks want to talk about such issues as safety and the environment.

Opponents of the project also will have 30 minutes to present their side. Each side will have a five-minute rebuttal. After that it will be up to voters to ask questions. A vote on whether the Passamaquoddy Tribe can build a terminal on land over which the town has some control goes before Perry voters on Monday, March 28. It took two meetings and two days to reach an agreement on the format.

Although Tuesday’s meeting was about setting times, Monday’s meeting was about exchanging barbs, with Quoddy Bay people upset that the original format would have limited them to three minutes. Quoddy Bay needs a yes vote from Perry voters for the project to move forward.

In March 1986, the tribe gave the town power over its land, when Perry voters approved Article 40 to allow the Passamaquoddy to annex 390 acres on Route 190 where the liquefied natural gas terminal is expected to be built.

When they did so, there was one major proviso: that the town would have a say over any future commercial development. The 42 acres in question at Gleason Cove are part of that parcel.

Earlier this year, opponents pushed to have a town vote on the project.

At Monday’s meeting, opponent Jeanne Guisinger explained how the opponents arrived at the three-minute rule. She said on Dec. 13, a committee presented a petition to the selectmen requesting the vote. She said the selectmen gave the committee permission to set up the format.

“Not only were we given involvement in the setup, we were given the responsibility of setting up the format,” she said. “I made sure they were kept fully advised of the project”

She said when Quoddy Bay spokesman Don Smith arrived in town a few weeks ago, he complained that the three minutes would limit his ability to inform the public.

“Don Smith had ample opportunity to address the voters of Perry,” she said. “He chose to spend that time in clandestine meetings with small groups of people in Perry and surrounding communities.”

Smith disagreed. “We really want to be sure that we don’t personalize this,” Smith told Guisinger Monday night, “and get into personal attacks or statements about clandestine secrecy.”

He said he believed a limited presentation would not serve the voters.

“I know we would not be able to inform them being limited to three-minute microbursts by different people,” he said. “We would probably need 40 or 50 minutes to present the big picture.”

State Sen. Kevin Raye, R-Perry, via speaker telephone, helped the two sides reach a compromise.

In addition to the expanded presentation time, the meeting, which begins at 7 p.m., has been extended by one hour to 10 p.m.

Perry residents will be given two minutes to ask their questions, and the person the question is directed to will have two minutes to answer.