Millinocket councilor to bow out

MILLINOCKET – Saying he needs to devote more time to his proposed $65 million ecotourist resort, town businessman Matthew Polstein will finish his third term but not run again for his Town Council seat in November.

“There’s a variety of reasons for it,” Polstein said late Thursday afternoon. “I eventually plan to move out of Millinocket during what would constitute my next term, and I certainly have a lot to do with the resort.”

A restaurant owner and outdoor recreation entrepreneur, Polstein, 47, has been a councilor for nine years. He plans to move to Hammond Ridge, the site of his proposed resort outside town lines. Polstein’s decision didn’t surprise Chairman Wallace Paul, who predicted other councilors would decline to run again.

“With the bite he has taken on Hammond Ridge, that is going to be a massive undertaking,” Paul said Friday. “I am actually surprised he has held on as long as he has with the council and probably most things.”

The council will miss Polstein’s knowledge of business, particularly insurance, contracts and budgeting, Paul said.

Voluble and sometimes controversial, Polstein has been targeted by a continuous barrage of criticism from residents whose campaign has spanned the Internet – with unflattering portrayals of him on youtube.com taken from council videos, and written accounts on several smaller sites – local radio and, occasionally, print media.

They, and others, have criticized Polstein for his pro-environmental, pro-tourism stances, and for his occasional hardball political tactics and scathing broadsides on his political opponents. Some criticism has been brutal, but none has stopped him from being re-elected by large margins.

But since early 2007, the criticism and Polstein’s council activism have dwindled. He has gone from a majority to minority council member, largely mellowed – as has the council itself – and has found himself absorbed by the resort.

“I think that in the past year we have pulled together in a fairly cohesive and effective group,” Paul said of the council. “Everybody has contributed very well and you’re seeing people working together that might have surprised you to see working together three years ago.”

As approved by the Land Use Regulation Commission and other agencies, the Ktaadn Resorts plan includes the addition or remodeling of 11 buildings at his existing Twin Pines Camps and a residential and mixed-use subdivision of more than 25 residential lots and close to a dozen mixed-use town houses on 1,450 acres of Township 1 Range 8 along Millinocket Lake and Hammond Ridge.

Polstein has estimated it would create at least 100 full-time jobs and spur at least 60,000 visitor-days in the Katahdin region, meaning 17,000 tourists would visit his resort for about 31/2 days each. Polstein is awaiting a building permit for Twin Pines and has yet to raise the $65 million.

“I think my resort work will do more for the community than I could do banging my head against the wall as a councilor,” Polstein said, admitting to frustration at being in the minority. “My entrepreneurial spirit can be better applied to my business than to the government of this town.”

nsambides@bangordailynews.net

794-8215