Dear Editor:

Is it just my eyesight, or has anyone else noticed houses disappearing around Boothbay Common? Could there be some kind of a giant gopher, gobbling up old homes?

Not long ago, there were several houses and a cafe. Then, one day, Ka-boom! One of them disappeared. Ka-boom! There goes another one. The old inn? It’s out. The cafe? Closed! Ka-boom! The wooded hillside? Ka-boom!

Would the selectmen ever ask the developer to stop? No, they wouldn’t dare. But the selectmen never put the changes around the Common up for a vote. They didn’t need to. It’s all being done privately.

Major changes to the town’s central intersection are in the works, to the tune of $3 million. They plan to re-route Corey Lane with a “roundabout” at a new intersection of Common Drive, Corey Lane and Route 27.

Yes, the traffic at the Civil War monument is tricky. But it is more of an inconvenience than a hazard.

A couple of years ago, there was a vote taken on shifting new tax money into a TIF fund. The news coverage before the vote had included a conceptual sketch from an earlier Route 27 corridor study, which had nothing to do with the question. But many people voted against the TIF because of the sketch. They voted no, wanting to keep the center as it was. The sentiment expressed was against changes at the Common.

Later, the selectmen again asked the TIF question, without the sketch. The second time, it passed, and the town the TIF funds, presently $109,000 a year .

The developer has indicated he’s trying to improve the town and and is generous. He will put up a new ambulance building. Of the $3 million for road changes, he would put up one-third. The town would pick up a third, bonded for 20 years, paying $72,0000 a year from the TIF money. The state would also put up a third.

Only after much of the work around the Common is done do the selectmen ask for a vote on the roundabout.

Or is that a run-around?

Larz Neilson

East Boothbay