About 100 residents and business owners from Wiscasset attended a public hearing on the referendum vote on April 17 to determine if the town will continue a lawsuit against Maine Department of Transportation. A yes vote means the voter wants the lawsuit to continue; a no vote means the voter wants the town to stop the suit.

A court hearing will take place Friday, April 13.

Tuesday night, pro-project attendees sat on one side of the aisle and the anti-project attendees on the other.  Speakers were also fairly evenly divided.

Trevor Lester, 21, of Westport Island, who works with his father at Wiscasset Village Antiques, said businesses are having a hard time in Wiscasset due to the traffic.  “People don’t stop, even if there is by some miracle a parking space, because by the time they’ve crawled down Route 1, on bad days all the way from Montsweag, they don’t want to stop here. This is a regional problem, and we happen to be the bottleneck. So we have to do something about it. Now we’ve got MDOT here, willing to spruce up our downtown, and all we have to do is let them do it.”

Lester said opponents were complaining about issues they caused, including what MDOT may end up doing on parking. “ MDOT said they’d follow the Historic Preservation Ordinance, but that wasn’t enough for the town, so the town is suing them, and then you wonder why they won’t come back to the table and negotiate. They agreed to do what the town voted for, and then a few vocal critics tried to get everything changed.”

Another supporter of the project, Will Truesdale, echoed some of that sentiment.  “We need a thriving Wiscasset that isn’t a bane on everyone else’s existence. Wiscasset is part of the Midcoast. We have a social responsibility to the rest of the Midcoast.”

Others saw the issue differently. Bill Sutter said whatever the issue may have been about before, whether it is the Haggett Building or parking on Main Street, the issue now is whether or not the town will defend its own laws. “MDOT must be made to follow the law, just like any one of us would have to do.”

Sherri Dunbar, a resident and local real estate agent, believed it was a given that MDOT was going to do the project, at least the part on Main Street. The fact it might not build the lot on Water Street worries her. “I’ve shown a building on Water Street several times; everyone was interested but no one is putting in an offer because of the uncertainty. I’ve also talked to people who are considering putting their houses on the market because of the bickering and unpleasantness that has divided the town. I hope that after April 17, we can all put this behind us and repair the damage between friends and neighbors.”

Many had questions for the legal team, Peter Murray and Sage Friedman, about whether or not the town had signed an agreement with the Doering family – Chair Judy Colby said it had not – and whether or not the town had a reasonable chance of winning. Murray said, “I can’t guarantee a win. But we do have a reasonable legal argument. MDOT has to comply with Wiscasset’s zoning ordinances and then take into account the interests of the town.”