“That ALDHA supports the most comprehensive protective zone for the Appalachian Trail corridor on Saddleback Mountain in Maine, including all environmentally fragile subalpine areas in and around the corridor, the Eddy Pond watershed, and the area known as the Bowl.”

National Park Service
Appalachian National Scenic Trail
Harpers Ferry Center
Harpers Ferry, WV 25425

Gov. Angus King 1 Statehouse Station Room 2236 Augusta, ME 04333 e-mail: governor@state.me.us	The Hon. John Baldacci U.S. House of Representatives 1740 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 e-mail: baldacci@me02.house.gov
The Hon. Olympia Snowe U.S. Senate 250 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 e-mail: olympia@snowe.senate.gov	The Hon. Susan Collins U.S. Senate 172 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 e-mail: senator@collins.senate.gov

News stories from
the Bangor Daily News

RANGELEY, Maine — The long-standing impasse between the National Park Service and Saddleback Ski Area seemed no closer to a resolution Tuesday night after a three-hour debate between the two parties.

More than 100 area residents attended an informational hearing held by the Franklin County commissioners at The Rangeley Inn. The hearing was held at the request of the Rangeley Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce. Many elected officials or their representatives attended.

“The biggest gain was the show of support from the community for [U.S.] Sen. [Olympia] Snowe and [U.S.] Sen. [Susan] Collins to see,” Tom McAllister, general manager for the ski area, said later. Aides for both senators and U.S. Rep. John Baldacci attended the session.

Since 1984, the park service has negotiated unsuccessfully with the owners of the ski area to acquire land along the Appalachian Trail, which crosses the mountain on its 2,000-mile journey from Georgia to Mount Katahdin. The 2,160 miles of trail is the last unprotected portion of the AT in Maine, and only 26 miles of the entire trail remain in private ownership.

In April, the owners of Saddleback proposed to donate 660 acres to the park service, but in a deed accompanying the proposal, they would have retained the right to build structures and ski trails within the donated land. The offer is more than twice the maximum amount of land that the law allows the park service to take by eminent domain.

But because the ski area would retain so many development rights, the park service said, the offer was unacceptable as written.

The Breen family, which owns the ski area, has decided to forgo expansion of Saddleback until negotiations with the park service are completed.

In Tuesday’s debate, the ski area’s panel consisted of Robert Greene, director of skier services at Saddleback; Katherine Breen, daughter of ski area owner and president Donald Breen; and Chuck Cushman, property rights activist for American Land Rights Association of Battle Ground, Wash. It was Cushman’s third appearance in Rangeley in two months.

The park service’s panel comprised Pamela Underhill, superintendent of the Appalachian Trail for the NPS; David Field, chairman of the board of the Appalachian Trail Conference and an investor in the original Saddleback ski area; and Mark Simpson, newly elected president of the Appalachian Trail Club of Maine.

At times the debate became so heated with rebuttals to rebuttals that commissioners had trouble keeping track of which speaker had the floor. Late in the evening, commissioners told one person in the audience to settle down or leave.

Nancy Perlson, executive director of the Rangeley Lakes Heritage Trust, a nonprofit organization that conserves more than 10,000 acres in the area, came as close as anyone in summing up the issue:

“We have urged a speedy and fair resolution,” she said. “The issue has become a poster child for private property rights groups. Economic diversity is needed in this community.”

Katherine Breen in her opening statement said her family had owned the ski area since 1978.

“Our offer was made in the spirit of compromise,” she said.

“The trail corridor that we would donate — the park service has called a publicity stunt,” she added, saying that the offer exceeds the requirements laid down by Congress in the National Trail System Act.

Greene said development of the ski area would result in lower property taxes and a higher standard of living in the area with more jobs created.

“For the last 14 years, we have been threatened by eminent domain,” he said of the impasse with the park service. “The Breen family will not be the owner. Mr. Breen at 70 would like to retire.

“But it will not matter who owns the mountain if it is not settled,” he said, calling on the park service to accept the offer “to allow Franklin County to grow and prosper.”

Underhill was put on the defensive several times during the evening as she spoke mainly to an audience interested in seeing the ski area developed commercially. She said she had never expected her name to become a household word, referring to the consensus by local residents who hold her responsible for the impasse.

“I try to be honest and straightforward,” she said during an exchange with Cushman.

“There are reasons that good, decent people disagree,” she said of the philosophical differences between the parties, pointing out that the federal court system exists to settle disagreements. “We don’t have to debate this,” she said. “It can be resolved.”

However, representatives of both sides of the issue conceded small points to one another when the hearing was over.

“I heard Bob Greene say that he knows that we had reservations about the reserved uses in the donation, and that those were negotiable,” Underhill said.

“They did finally acknowledge that the Appalachian Trail is not a wilderness trail,” Katherine Breen said after the debate.

Madrid resident Bud Richmond brought a chuckle from the audience when he invited both parties to stop in at his convenience store along Route 4 in Phillips.

“We’ve got to come to some agreement,” Richmond said. “Everybody’s got to give a little to resolve this issue.”

The park service will complete an environmental assessment of five trail protection proposals by the park service and Saddleback by June 30. The public will be able to comment on the assessment in July and August, when two public hearings will be held, including one in Rangeley in August.

After the hearings, the park service and Saddleback will continue negotiations toward an acceptable amount of land to be donated or purchased. If the impasse continues, the parties may move to nonbinding mediation, a recommendation made by Baldacci.

The park service has agreed to mediation, but the ski area would consider it only if that option is legal, McAllister said Thursday.

Robert Stanton, park service director, has set a timetable to try to end negotiations by the end of the year.

RANGELEY, Maine — An open-house-style hearing over the protection of the Appalachian Trail at Saddleback Mountain in western Maine turned into a free-for-all Tuesday night, as residents and property rights activists, unhappy with the meeting’s format, took control for nearly two hours.

Pamela Underhill, Appalachian Trail superintendent for the National Park Service, was interrupted during her opening comments. She explained the format of the session for the environmental assessment plan to protect the Appalachian Trail corridor at the mountain.

The plan presents five options for protecting the 2,160-mile-long trail, comprising a park service acquisition of 2,860 acres; a park service acquisition of 893 acres; Saddleback Ski Area’s offer of 660 acres; a ski area development scenario that would increase the area’s capacity tenfold; or no action.

“This is not set up as a formal hearing, and there is no opportunity for formal presentations to the group,” Underhill said. “Instead, a court reporter will be here to take oral comments that will become part of the official record.”

The moment she paused, however, a man stood on a chair and started speaking in a loud voice to the room containing about 150 people.

“Thank you, Pam. I’m Chuck Cushman from the American Land Rights Association,” he said to a smattering of applause. “We feel that this process is a deliberate attempt to divide and conquer you by not allowing a public process.”

Cushman, a nationally known property rights activist, asked people to turn the tables in the room to face his way. About 100 people followed his direction.

A man in the back of the room followed with a complaint to Underhill.

“Since I’m a taxpayer, I think I have helped you rent this space,” said the unidentifed man. “I think that we should be able to make our own comments to the group.”

Underhill said later that the park service had paid $150 for the conference room rental at the Rangeley Inn, where the meeting was held.

Park service officials refused to participate in Cushman’s takeover.

One resident making an official comment to the court reporter complained that four or five park service officials were snickering among themselves in the back of the room while Cushman and others spoke.

Rangeley resident Stephen Bean, a former Franklin County commissioner, urged people to make their comments to the court reporter for the record.

“This is a joke,” one man said of the gathering and left.

At one point, when Underhill tried to restore order, a man leaned close to her face and pushed her while he read from an article that spoke in negative terms about the park service.

“You’re being very rude,” Underhill said to the man, but she was drowned out by laughter and applause.

She subsequently sat out the meeting in a corner of the room. Afterward, she described the interruption as an act of “civil disobedience,” although someone else characterized the takeover by Cushman as a filibuster.

Around 8 p.m., Dan Demeritt, aide to U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, suggested that the court reporter move to a screened house behind the inn so that those who wanted to testify for the record could do so privately. The reporter then moved, and eventually about 20 people testified.

Meanwhile, on Main Street for two days before the open house, advocates for Saddleback had been stopping people aggressively on the sidewalk to ask them to support Alternative 3 of the environmental assessment, the option favored by the ski area.

Tensions over the issue have been mounting since 1984, when the park service first got in touch with Massachusetts resident Donald Breen, owner of Saddleback Ski Area, to protect a 3.1-mile section of the Appalachian Trail that crosses the mountain.

In April, Breen proposed to donate 660 acres to the park service, but in a deed accompanying the proposal, he would have retained the right to build structures and ski trails on the donated land. The offer is more than twice the maximum amount of land the law allows the park service to take by eminent domain.

But because the ski area would retain so many development rights, the park service said the offer was unacceptable as written.

Although people on both sides of the issue have said they would like to resolve the matter by the end of the year, both have conceded that the matter could go to court.

“I really can’t answer this question at this point,” Underhill said to a question about possible litigation.

“I mean, that authority is there, and we have always said that it would have to be an absolutely last resort to have to resolve this issue in this way,” Underhill said.

She added that the park service is “fully willing and believes that there would be merit and benefit to sitting down to a facilitated discussion,” as proposed by U.S. Rep. John Baldacci, who had offered to mediate a resolution for the park service and Breen.

“The National Park Service is more than willing to do that,” Underhill added. “But so far, from my understanding, Saddleback is not.”

Katherine Breen, whose father remained in Massachusetts for the open house, said that while her family is prepared to go to court, they also would be willing to mediate “as long as there’s a common understanding of the law.”

“Basically, we’re hoping to negotiate a fair settlement,” she said. “Unfortunately, all of the alternatives in the environmental assessment are not legal alternatives.”

This story has been posted separately.

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