Dear Editor:

One has to be impressed by Bill Hamblen’s handling of last week’s meeting of the Boothbay Harbor Planning Board as he tried to captain a crew suffering from “motion sickness.” The turbulence was clearly an attempt by some to find some basis to stop the East Side rezoning proposal. In fact, sitting near the front, I clearly heard one member of the committee say to an alternate, “We have to stop this,” obviously referring to the east side proposal. Approval or not is a decision for the voters, not a faction of the board.

I was also dismayed by the designation of Boothbay Harbor’s waterfront as “most endangered” by Maine Preservation, which was also brought up at the meeting. We have supported the important work of Maine Preservation, most recently by contributing 10 paintings to their gala auction this past summer. As I said at the meeting, our waterfront is threatened more by climate change than by any development proposal. In that respect, our waterfront is in the same position as every other coastal community, and is not “most endangered” by neglect or over development, as the designation implies by lumping it with a truly neglected structure like Robert Indiana’s Star of Hope building on Vinalhaven.

Having handled a number of artworks created in Boothbay Harbor in the early decades of the 20th century, it appears to me that there is little left on the East Side to merit such a designation. Surely the Captain Fish motel is not what they have in mind. Our truly historic footbridge is surely under threat, but the only proposal before the board that might do something to provide funds for its protection, through development fees and higher taxes, is the current one.

I won’t be around in 50 years, but if approved, I expect that Mr. Coulombe’s new buildings will, having taken into account the threats of climate change. Perhaps that generation will look on them fondly as the first structures built on the East Side that are designed to survive these changes and themselves become historic structures worth preserving.

Dennis J. Gleason

Boothbay Harbor