Katahdin Area Fears More Job Losses
Hard times stemming from the shutdown of Great Northern Paper mills in Millinocket and East Millinocket is expected to extend far beyond those Katahdin area towns.
“It’s a blow we didn’t need,” said Debra O’Roak, town manager for the town of Sherman, Maine. We were able to absorb the closing of Sherman Lumber four years ago, she said, “but I’m not so sure we’ll be able to absorb this.”
A similar story is told in others of the small towns along north Maine’s Route 11, an area that historically relied on the wood products industry for a livelihood.
“The Maine woods is working less and less,” said a Patten resident. “Nothing like it used to be.”
Patten town manager, Rhonday Harvey, said that the town intends to be “extra cautious” in preparing for the 2003 budget. “The potential loss of the GNP mills is going to have a tremendous impact on the area’s economy,” she said.
John Ellis, owner of the Ellis Family Market in Patten, said that he has already had to cut back on employee hours at the store because of a drop in customers. He is also putting a planned expansion of the store on hold.
Stacyville, a town of fewer than 500 people, has been hit particularly hard, affected by the closure of Great Northern and Sherman Lumber, which just last month was served notice of bank foreclusure on its lumber mill, putting its last dozen employees out of work. At one time, Sherman Lumber employed a hundred people.
“People are scared,” said Maryanne Guiggey, Stacyville’s town clerk. “You just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
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