March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Chamber director reviews rosy year> Merriam touts Rockland’s `quality of life’

ROCKLAND — It was a perfect way to celebrate the conclusion of one of the greatest years in the city’s history. Chamber of Commerce Director Gil Merriam had a chance to crow before the Rotary Club on Friday at the Samoset Resort Inn.

So much has occurred during the year that Merriam was in danger of violating the speaker’s time limit. The honor of placing among the top 100 small towns in the nation, at least in the mind of one author, was “another feather in our cap,” which is sure to generate even more positive reaction, Merriam said.

The year’s Schooner Festival and Maine Lobster Festival generated national and international acclaim. It was a year when the moribund harbor sprang to life and was quickly adopted as the new home of the Friendship Sloop Society. It was the busiest tourism year that the city has ever had. Spurred by Merriam’s work, the city has been the recipient of countless positive profiles in newspaper travel sections across the country.

Rockland appears to go through 70-year cycles since it seceded from Thomaston 148 years ago, said Merriam, a retired history professor. The city was the lime, shipping and shipbuilding center for 70 to 80 years until the railroad industry, the internal combustion engine and other developments made the industries economically unfeasible. For the next 70 years, the city was the center of the fishing industry and often topped Portland in annual landings. Now that the fishing resources have been badly depleted, the city seems to be embarking on a new course, a combination of small business and tourism.

Tourists coming by land or sea used to avoid the city like the plague. A fish rendering plant polluted both air and water. Once that firm was closed, even the myopic could see the benefits of Rockland’s expansive, undeveloped harbor. The “quality of life” offered by this scenic and recreational resource is now bringing crowds that were only seen in Camden until very recently.

“Our economy is quite strong. Unemployment is among the lowest in the state, lower than Portland. Only York County is lower,” Merriam said.

Like Maine, Rockland is “on the move” with good people with a strong work ethic, plus a variety of citizen volunteer groups ready and willing to get involved. “We are a community of doers, both natives and newcomers. There is a new spirit of optimism, a can-do attitude,” Merriam said.

For too many decades, Rockland waited for a “savior” industry to come along and establish a few hundred jobs. But the area has learned in recent years that “we have to save ourselves. It is up to us.” That new philosophy has been instrumental in the rebirth of the lobster festival, schooner festival, the Midcoast Development Corp. and the founding of the Share the Pride, Quality Main Street and Harbor Trail Coalition, he said.

“We now have a diverse community, which is not dominated by a single shipyard or mill. It is said that every time BIW sneezes the city of Bath gets a cold. Every time the Brunswick Naval Air Station sneezes, Brunswick gets the flu,” Merriam said.

The harbor, where tourism, industrial and recreational uses exist side by side, is a perfect model for the area’s economy, he said. He praised Harbor Master Ken Rich for the “foresight and hard work” to protect and develop the waterfront.

Merriam expects to see even more downtown development and expansion of the area’s cultural attractions, which already include the Farnsworth Museum, Shore Village Museum, Montpelier and the Watercraft Museum in Thomaston, plus a surprising number of smaller art galleries. The expansion of the Farnsworth’s Wyeth family collection will only spark more development, he said.

“Like it or not, tourism will become an even more important part of our economy. Tourism will continue to grow,” he said.

Rockland’s greatest asset and the key to its future is the obvious quality of life benefit, the director said. An “environmentalist but not a tree-hugger,” Merriam said the city should not seek “growth for growth’s sake,” but manageable growth, which will protect the area’s environment. In Maine, 40 percent of all jobs are provided by “micro businesses” with 5 employees or less. Those firms will be the sought after “savior” as small firms continue to choose the midcoast area because of the quality of life, he said.

The keys for the future are control of serious odor problems at the downtown treatment plant, improvement of Route 1 from Warren to Lincolnville, improved education, retention of the manufacturing base, and expansion of the tourism industry through regional cooperation and planning, Merriam said.


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