Thomaston voters Wednesday will decide at a town meeting whether portions of the Thomaston Green — the former state prison property — can be redeveloped into a healthcare clinic and fire station, but some residents are concerned the open vote will limit voting.
The town acquired the 15-acre property on Route 1 from the state in 2005 with plans to redevelop the property, but so far voters turned down all the proposals brought to them — including one to keep it undeveloped.
This time, voters will decide in three separate questions whether to keep a portion of the property as park space, to build a new public safety building for fire and ambulance departments and to sell up to an acre and a half to the Knox Clinic for a community health center. But some residents argue that the town meeting vote will disenfranchise votes.
Local resident Kathleen Norton said she is concerned that by requiring residents to appear in person at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the local municipal building, rather than allowing voters to cast or mail in ballots, fewer people will vote and the proposals to develop parts of the green will be more likely to pass.
“The cards are stacked against us,” Norton said of residents who want to preserve all 15 acres as open space. “They are essentially suppressing the vote.”
Diane Giese, chair of the town’s selectboard, said the reason the board decided to put the matter forward at open town meeting, rather than by a ballot vote, was not to disenfranchise anyone. She said it would have been tight timing to get it on the June ballot, and the board didn’t want to wait until November because the need for a new fire station is fairly urgent.
She also said that the practice of holding in-person, open town meetings in Maine is centuries old, and that Thomaston officials feel it is important to preserve that tradition.
“It’s become really contentious,” Giese said. “We don’t feel like waiting. We’ve been working on this for a long time.”
Last year, residents voted by ballot against a measure to preserve the entire property as green space. The latter, brought forth as a citizen’s initiative, lost by a mere 22 votes. There were 750 ballots cast in that election.
Prior development proposals for the green were also rejected. In 2016, the town’s planning board denied an application by Dollar General to build a store on the site while in 2020, voters shot down two proposals to develop housing for older adults and for adults with disabilities.
Giese said that proposals to develop the site go back to the 2000s. She said one developer wanted to put high density housing on the site but dropped the idea shortly after the 2008 housing market crash.
This time voters will decide on three articles concerning the property.
One question asks whether voters want to adopt a conceptual plan that calls for the southern half of the property, away from Route 1, to be kept as park space. Another asks if up to 2.7 acres of the property along Route 1 can be redeveloped into a new building for the town’s fire and ambulance departments.
A third question asks if voters will authorize the town’s select board to sell up to 1.5 acres of land to Knox Clinic for the purpose of building a community health center. The minimum sale price of the land would be $52,655 per acre, or nearly $79,000 for 1.5 acres, according to the town meeting warrant.
Giese said that the location of the green, on Route 1 in the middle of town, is a good one because it is centrally located, and that the fire station and community health center are sorely needed.
The current fire station is horrible, she said, and the current nearest health care facility is Pen Bay Medical Center in Rockport, more than 7 miles away on the other side of Rockland. The clinic also would benefit people who live in nearby towns that are even further from Pen Bay such as St. George, Cushing, Friendship and Warren, she said.
“I don’t really see a downside to it,” Giese said of the development proposals. “This whole thing is pretty innocent.”
