Snowsled trail costs may be shared

MILLINOCKET – Town Manager Eugene Conlogue wants the town trails committee to find an equitable way to distribute some snowmobile trail maintenance costs among town businesses next year, officials said Tuesday.

Conlogue has requested that the committee tackle this problem once the snowmobile season ends.

“The premise is that perhaps [the businesses] might consider making a donation to help pay an additional local share of the costs,” Conlogue said. “It is an investment for them for their own businesses and it is not fair for a single businessman to have to shoulder that burden entirely for himself.”

According to Conlogue, the cost of the town’s total snowmobile trail grooming program this year is $90,104. Of this, a state snowmobile trail grant will pay $63,073, the town will pay $15,000, and the additional $12,031 local share will be guaranteed by businessman Matthew Polstein.

Polstein, a white-water rafting and snowmobile rental entrepreneur, owns Twin Pines Camps and a restaurant, and grooms trails as part of a snowmobile club he helped form. He is also a Town Council member.

Although it benefits Polstein’s businesses to have trails groomed, he likely incurs greater costs than the $12,000, and it is unfair, Conlogue said, to have so much cost borne by one business.

“It’s time that he be helped by other businesses in the area,” Conlogue said.

Polstein could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

But Brian Wiley, who is a member of the trails committee and president of the Katahdin Area Chamber of Commerce, said Tuesday that high fuel costs likely would push Polstein’s personal expenses to near the $30,000 mark.

“Some trail grooming programs around the state stopped, but Matt, recognizing the value of this to this area, just kept right on going. But he incurred significant costs while doing it,” Wiley said.

He said that during a Chamber meeting Tuesday, he asked directors to approve a $500 seed grant for trail grooming next year to help attract donations from other Millinocket and Katahdin businesses before next winter.

“I want to put it in the face of other businesses in town and see them match it,” Wiley said of the proposed grant.

Wiley expressed chagrin that town businesses have not yet embraced the idea of contributing more to trail groomers and their clubs.

“I just wish they would step up and say, ‘You know what? I had a great year,'” Wiley said.

The Chamber directors put off a vote on Wiley’s request until a later meeting.

Town Council Chairman Wallace Paul thought Conlogue’s proposal fair-minded.

“It has been a burden on Matt and anything we can do to make it more equitable is fine with me,” Paul said Tuesday. Snowmobiling is “an important business for the area for all of our businesses and we want to ensure that it is as equitable and sustainable as we need it to be.”

The Katahdin region’s fine snowmobiling climate and trails are nationally, if not internationally, recognized. Millinocket was ranked sixth among the Top 10 Hot U.S. Travel Destinations for 2007 by the travel Web site TripAdvisor.com.

It was the only locale in New England to make the list, beating out larger and better-known tourist havens across the country. Prime among the reasons it made the list was its snowmobiling, from which many local businesses earn much of their livelihood, Conlogue said.

The committee won’t likely move on Conlogue’s request anytime soon, Paul said. Panel members Jimmy Busque, David Cyr and Bruce McLean are also councilors working on the town’s 2008-09 budget.

“Budget concerns will be job number one until at least next month,” Paul said.

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