Samoset Resort General Manager Connie Russell on April 5 said the resort has not engaged in a quid pro quo with Central Maine Power, including after the October 2017 windstorm.

Russell said CMP arborists stayed there, and the Samoset provides rooms to CMP and out-of-state workers when CMP asks for them, but the Samoset does not reach out to lineworkers or CMP to incentivize them to bring power back on line early. “If they need rooms, CMP calls us,” Russell said. “In this particular case, the arborists who were in the area working on trees on power lines had to move to another Rockport inn because CMP made a mistake and didn’t book them for the night of Nov. 4, and we were fully booked. They had been there the night before while working in the area.”

The Legislature’s Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee recently reviewed a letter from Heather Wyman of Appleton stating a desk clerk at the Samoset “said it was common practice for them to incentivize out-of-state utility workers to respond in the event of a power outage by offering such perks.”

Russell said he was surprised about the letter, especially since he is the manager for several hotels in the Midcoast, and in at least one case, at the Residence Inn in Bath, CMP workers who had been scheduled to check in discovered the hotel had no power, and left. Bath did not regain power until Thursday evening following the storm.

CMP responded by letter about the Samoset issue, as requested by the Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee. According to CMP's director of electric distribution Kevin Elwell, the Samoset had a partial outage Oct. 30. Local CMP crews responded and restored power Oct. 31. The outage involved two primary phases on the circuit and the Samoset was not the only property affected. The Samoset is on the Rockland Service Center, which had nearly 600 customers still without power at 11:58 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4. Restoration was complete in the center on Tuesday, Nov. 7.

Three sets of crews CMP hired, including the arborists Russell mentioned, stayed at the Samoset, but none worked on the lines to the Samoset.