Dear Editor:

To the citizens of Wiscasset:

My partner and I have worked hard seven days a week for more than six years to build a definitive antiques shop in this town. There are many other antiques shops and other types of shops here, largely in the single block of downtown that houses us. We pay income taxes, property taxes, employees. We pay  permit fees for the right to do business. We order improvements to the buildings. We buy supplies from other shops in town. We bring in business income from out of the area. Our particular shop, Showcase Antiques Gallery, has been called the greatest antiques mall in the state by many shoppers who come in. It probably is true, too. Lots of work has gone into it.

Thanks to years of ineptitude, the select board, especially Judy Colby and Judy Flanagan, and the indifference of most other selectmen occupying those taxpayer supported select seats, it will all go away. Our business and Wiscasset’s vital downtown will be lost. It isn’t coming back. The removal of Main Street parking by MDOT will kill downtown while our selectmen look the other way. This town is dying of neglect. MDOT is the disease from which we all suffer.

MDOT’s own research has stated that their efforts will make very little, if any, improvement in the summer traffic situation. Stop lights, crosswalks, cutsey little tables, raised flower beds, bollards, and lights will not help anything. The historic aspect of this beloved town will be irretrievably lost forever. And rather than trying to save it, the select board is trying to do away with the Historic Preservation Commission. What’s next? I think we should do away with the select board. They are elected and paid to do whatever is in the best interests of the town. We are not being well cared for. Act now, before it is too late. Stop MDOT and everything they want to do. If they proceed with this plan and it fails, as it surely will,  then this will just have been a destructive exercise.

Ted Talbert

Wiscasset