Parking lot gets blank-check approval

To the editor:
    At its March 6 meeting, the Caribou Planning Board unfortunately squandered an excellent opportunity to advance the work being done on Caribou’s downtown. That work has led to a master plan which calls for making the downtown a more attractive, vibrant area, and one specific goal calls for using even small green spaces where possible, and pedestrian-friendly improvements.     However, the Planning Board gave a blank-check approval to the U.S. Postal Service’s plan for constructing a parking lot on the location of the current Corey Building, and the three majority Board members refused to even ask the developers to offer even the most minimal improvements to that area of downtown, beyond just building a “same old, same old” parking lot.
    At its previous meeting, the Board had asked the developers to at least come back with some ideas as to how the plan could be “tweaked” to incorporate a few minimal aesthetic improvements (which might also increased the area’s functionality). The developers said they would do so. But in fact, they failed to even show up for the March 6 meeting, and they apparently did no work at all on the request made by the Planning Board! (This is evidenced by their failure to even use the telephone or e-mail to send any further information to the city’s code enforcement officer related to the request, in the two weeks between the Feb. 21 and March 6 meetings).
    But this unwillingness to even “play ball” with the city evidently didn’t matter to the three majority members of the Board. At the March 6 meeting, two members of the Board pointed out that not a soul is against the project, or wants to put major impediments in the way of the Postal Service. They pointed out that demolition can actually begin immediately, with or without the Board’s specific approval; thus the developers clearly don’t need to lose any time at all. But they then pointed out that it might be a good idea to ask the developers to simply do the previously-requested homework (as minimal as it was) as they said they would, and then come back to the Board so that this issue could be sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction.
    However, one member replied that the city should simply approve the plan as offered immediately, and “hope for the best”. This is bad public policy. It’s the kind that almost always leads to problems which could be avoided. To punctuate his opposition to taking a measured, “win-win” approach, this Board member rather rudely characterized the expressed concerns as an attempt to derail the project for “a flower pot”. Please! This statement was not only a red herring, but a double one at that. It begs an apology.
    First, no one — no one — wants to slow down the project, much less derail it. That’s something which simply need not happen at all. Secondly, the interest expressed in having the project add to Caribou’s downtown is not exactly a “flower pot” type deal, as I hope the Board member would know. He is, after all, on the Planning Board. (If he doesn’t know, I suggest he simply go read the downtown revitalization master plan, and he’ll be more up to speed).
    It’s a little disturbing to see a member of a body which has a significant say over Caribou’s future resort to such tactics, and also have so little interest in steering development projects toward a positive outcome for the community. That’s not true community-building. I hope the three members who refused to even try to get a slightly different outcome for the community will rethink their approach to projects like this. The squeaky wheel doesn’t always get the grease, but it usually does.
    Finally, kudos to Shawn Manter and David Sokolich for showing some real leadership and standing up for Caribou’s best interests, in their vote to not approve the plan as presented without a little “tweaking” being done first.
Jim Cyr
Caribou