On May 19 we attended the “Eggs N’ Issues” meeting at the Northeastland Hotel in Presque Isle, sponsored by the Presque Isle Area Chamber of Commerce, the city of Presque Isle and Leaders Encouraging Aroostook Development (LEAD).

On the 6 p.m. news we watched WAGM’s Dick Palm interview John Melrose of Maine Tomorrow, who is serving as a consultant for LEAD on the transportation project. He provided a rosy view of that meeting.

Then we read Beurmond Banville’s article, “Consultant says St. John Valley should unite on highway proposal” (BDN, May 20-21). These two reports illustrate the disconnect between an image of sensible planning and the ugly realities of costly blunders and backroom political brokering behind the North-South Highway proposal. Melrose chastised the St. John Valley communities because they “have not been able to come to consensus on where a north-south highway should be located,” and advised them to “push together to send a message to decision-makers” and not to let them “off the hook.”

The implication here is that “decision-makers” will listen. Like those he represents, the only voices they hear are those that mindlessly agree with their own.

The dark side of the North-South Highway-Presque Isle Bypass story has been successfully kept out of the public eye. We are not opposed to state and federal development projects that clearly serve the greater good. However, our letters, e-mails, phone calls, participation in public venues to ask questions and express our concerns have fallen on deaf ears, gone unanswered, have been minimized and trivialized. We have been patronized with “sympathy” and “assurances” from Maine Department of Transportation officials, various commissioners and councilors.

We stand to lose our homes, our farms, our livelihoods and we are dismissed as obstructionists. In March some of those in line for destruction by the proposed “tar scar” received an unsigned form letter from Ray Foucher of the DOT notifying us “the preliminary field-engineering phase of the Presque Isle ByPass” had commenced, and that we might “observe or be contacted about” various activities, but “if it is necessary to conduct explorations on properties adjacent to the roadway, property owners will be contacted.”

This was followed a month later by a barrage of men in orange vests rutting farmland with their vehicles, entering cattle pastures with impunity, placing markers on private property, but not a whisper from the DOT that any of these invasions were going to occur on specified dates. We expect to find out when our homes will be taken the day the bulldozers arrive in the yard.

Why can’t the proponents and decision-makers produce from the “scores of studies” (BDN) one reliable study that reveals the full reach and scope of “impact”? What is really going on? Where is fiscal responsibility? Why have common-sense measures not been put

in place? For example, if Presque Isle’s Main Street is dangerous because of turning truck traffic, why has the city not placed conspicuous signage and assigned police to direct eastbound trucks to the existing alternate roads? Why do existing roads remain unrepaired, contributing more to the isolation of western Aroos-took than to northern Aroostook?

Everyone in this county who pays taxes should visit the DOT Web site (http://www.state.me.us/mdot/), read the studies they have selectively posted there, contact local municipal offices and obtain minutes from meetings, ask town councilors and LEAD members who really gains long-term from this plan.

The original four-lane highway plan has shrunk to an upgrade north of Presque Isle, yet the press is on to complete the Presque Isle Bypass because it “is the heart of all the alternatives” (minutes of the Aroostook County Transportation Study Public Advisory Committee meeting, July 12, 2005, page 7). The one alternative that is listed by the DOT and that its officials have trotted out to appease those of us who vocalized opposition to invasive surveyors is the “no build” option.

That is the only sensible option right now. The DOT’s own model reveals that this big road and bridge project will bring only temporary financial benefit to a few parties and little to none to the rest of the popu-lation over the next 35 years.

We need to fix what we have. We should not be throwing away tax dollars and taxpayers’ property on something that will not solve the problems that it pretends it will.

This commentary was signed by these Presque Isle residents: Wayne Sweetser, Stephen Sweetser, Eugene Pelkey, Ralph Steeves, Denis Simard, Steve Bell, Daniel Stewart, Michael Collins, Randy Bouchard, Stephen and Diana Higgins and Audrey Thibodeau.