Perry vote reflects division over LNG deal

PERRY – If the vote to approve a $3.6 million deal in Perry demonstrated anything Monday night it’s how divided this town is.

Voters Monday night approved a 25-year agreement with the Oklahoma-based Quoddy Bay LNG that would provide annual payments to the town along with other benefits such as $1 million to reconstruct the elementary school and $100,000 a year in scholarship money for Perry students. The vote was 229-211.

In all 442 residents out of 630 registered voters cast their ballots, meaning that about one-third of the town voted in favor of the agreement, one-third voted against it and one-third stayed home.

The plans with Quoddy Bay LNG call for building a multimillion-dollar LNG facility at Split Rock on tribal land at neighboring Pleasant Point. An underwater pipe across Half Moon Cove near Route 190 would connect the pier at Pleasant Point with a tank farm in Perry.

Although the margin was slim in Perry, Board of Selectmen Chairman David Turner, who supports LNG, said Tuesday it was a good vote. “I heard the whining today, there’s no mandate. Well, it’s like being a little bit pregnant. Well you’re still pregnant; we won,” he said.

But Selectwoman Jeanne Guisinger, who does not support LNG, said the vote demonstrated that there was no mandate. “I think that they should be really feeling bad about the results, [the company] offered all that money, and to only win by 18 votes is certainly not anything significant at all and just points out how deeply divided the whole town is,” she said. “As selectmen we need to recognize that and work together.”

Turner also said they won in spite of the fact that opponents put out misinformation before the vote including a flier – the Bangor Daily News obtained a copy – in which they talked about the 1,500 construction workers that would be moving to the area. “Perry lacks the emergency response capabilities, law enforcement, medical facilities or infrastructure to deal with an overnight tripling of its population by 1,500 testosterone-charged construction workers,” the flier said.

Guisinger said there was nothing wrong with the flier. “There is going to be a labor camp, if this thing were built, of 1,500 people,” she said.

But Guisinger also noted the misinformation being circulated by proponents. After the vote Monday night, she said that proponents stated that if a committee was formed to negotiate a future deal with the company, the agreement and any future agreements would not go before the town for approval. She said any agreement the committee had come up with would have been submitted to the town for approval.

Quoddy Bay project manager Brian Smith did not return a telephone call Tuesday.

Last week, members of the Passamaquoddy tribe at Pleasant Point and neighboring reservation Indian Township, near Princeton gave the Oklahoma developer a major endorsement when it voted to sell a 300-acre parcel to Quoddy Bay LNG for $1.5 million.

In February, voters at Indian Township overwhelmingly approved a tax agreement between the Passamaquoddy Tribe and Quoddy Bay.

In Robbinston last year voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum question that gave a Washington, D.C.-based liquefied natural gas developer the green light to move forward with plans to build a $400 million terminal and tank farm in this Washington County community. The vote was 227-83.