I think the Katahdin Region is worth fighting for, and if you want to have anything there besides Matt's so called eco-resort, on the otherwise pristine Hammond Ridge, or growing pressure for a 3.2 million acre National Park in your backyard then you may very well have to fight for it too. If you don't care enough about the way of life that has been the Katahdin Region then you'll likely lose it, and the history of all the hard work that went into creating it too. I can assure you, the political and economic pressure is too great for your life, your homes, your school, and your businesses to sustain themselves without a fight. Period.

Bringing back the hey day of the former but bankrupted Great Northern Paper Company is quite a task. The possibility of bringing back that kind of population base, and economic output won't happen without the same kind of visionary leadership, and effort that caused this incredible Magic City to come out of the Wilderness in the first place.

In order to maintain what we already have, or even improve on it we're going to need jobs. We need a new economic engine, as well as strong effort and leadership to maintain the existing one that has already been successful for the last one-hundred plus years. We can't give up now. I know the average age is of the currently employed paper mill workers and trade union members is 59 1/2, so is the average age of the lobsterman on the coast of Maine, and in fact throughout large segments of the high wage earning US population. You are only years away from retiring, but without your effort the lifestyle that sustained you and your family without recession for the last one hundred years will be lost.

Not so long ago, our Senators and Congressmen secured large grants for Magic to spend finding out whether or not people would come home if there was work in the Katahdin Region only to find results that we all knew long before that money was ever wasted. Of course people want to come home, and if we get rid of MAGIC, the so-called Millinocket Growth and Investment Corporation, as representative for economic development for anyone or any municipality in the area we will greatly increase our chances of working together and creating a real result that without that old adage which tore these communities apart more than they ever have been before. It isn't too late. The time is now.

In my opinion MAGIC is broken, and has been from the beginning, because the leadership used the company as a decoy for enriching themselves, and getting us to pay for their own pet projects, all the while doing everything in there power to stifle people, personalities, and projects that did not agree with their own private agenda. Where is the evidence that MaGIC or it's founders did anything to help the Paper Industry since MAGIC was founded, the same industry that made this region what it is today; what it has been to so many people for so many years? The evidence is quite clear that the leadership of MAGIC holds animosity toward the Paper Industry, and withheld their best efforts for real economic development for our area. I can assure you that up to it's very pinnacle large land stewards and the paper industry as a whole have few fans of the conservationists, and the preservationist tree-huggers that ever cooked up the idea of MAGIC as a decoy from the very beginning.

There's been a lot of talk of change lately around the country. We in Northerm Maine need some changes too. The current political forces might not be friendly toward any kind of industry in Northern Maine. There hasn't even been any talk of re-tooling our mill, or retraining our workers for another type of manufacturing in the Katahdin Region. We have all the infrastructure right here, an entire town, and a ready workforce. It will be interesting to see how the incoming administration may try to balance it's love for the union worker verses the wealthy minority in the Democratic Party who think they are helping you out by creating a park in the middle of Maine's Tree Farm. In reality they might just be helping you out of a job. The Republicans already made off with your health care, and pensions.

Now they are trying to phase out our entire town, and I think every young person who was ever born in the Katahdin Region, went to school here, or worked in the area for any amount of time long or short, would love to make families, bring them up here, and grow old enjoying the lifestyle that you've known for your entire life.

But if you give up, and think that you're old, and that's it's too late. It will all be gone, and it won't take very long. There are options, but whether or not we exert the political pressure to get those interests noticed is going to be up to you, and decided by you, house to house, dinner table to dinner table, backyard barb-e-que, to neighbors fence. I hope you pull as hard as the other side in this tug of war for the future of the life you've always known. It is worth fighting for. Lord knows the other side is fighting quite the battle to pull it out from underneath all of us.