The Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission plans to ask the state to air all its alternatives for Wiscasset’s downtown and riverfront, Lincoln County Planner Robert Faunce said Feb. 25.

Those options include one the commission looked at Feb. 24 that features a boardwalk and pedestrian underpass.

That option is no longer being considered because Red’s Eats did not agree that moving was in its best interests, a Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) engineer has said. But Faunce called the boardwalk and underpass option exciting, for Wiscasset and the region.

In his work around Lincoln County, he is often asked what’s going to be done about the traffic in Wiscasset, Faunce said. The state put work into the boardwalk and underpass option and should not close the door on it as a way to address the summer tie-ups, he said. Faunce said he did not know if that option could still work with Red’s Eats staying where it is.

The Wiscasset Newspaper on Feb. 25 left a phone message for MDOT Spokesman Ted Talbot and sent him an email that asked him that question and others. The newspaper has continued to seek responses to those questions. In recent interviews, he and engineer Gerry Audibert said the state would seek a workshop with Wiscasset selectmen about a different option with possible pieces including traffic pattern changes, traffic controls, and sidewalk and parking work. The concept does not involve moving Red’s Eats, they said.

Regional Planning Commission Chairman Dick McLean states in a Feb. 25 email that the commission approved having him submit a letter to MDOT on the commission’s behalf. 

“Leading up to the actual vote it seemed to be agreed by all that the (commission) is not taking a position at this time on what project plan is to be implemented. We are simply speaking on behalf of those several towns we represent in our feeling that all project conceptions be presented in broad public forum before the DOT decides what project course to follow,” McLean writes.

“(That) is the opinion I am authorized to convey,” the email states. The letter was not written yet, according to the email.

McLean, of Damariscotta, voted in favor of a letter, along with Vice Chairman Stuart Smith of Edgecomb; Secretary Mike Tomko of Boothbay Harbor; Treasurer Les Fossel of Alna; and other panelists Mal Carey of Newcastle, Rob Davidson of Bristol, Gordon Davis of Alna, Frank Hample of Somerville and Nancy Prisk of Southport, the commission’s executive director Mary Ellen Barnes states in a Feb. 25 email response to the Wiscasset Newspaper’s request for the voting breakdown.

Wiscasset Town Planner Jamel Torres abstained from voting, according to Barnes’ email. Torres recently declined comment on concepts MDOT has developed for Wiscasset’s downtown. Reached Monday, he declined comment when asked why he abstained from the commission’s Feb. 24 vote.

Torres also continued to decline to comment on MDOT’s alternatives for the downtown, saying he will wait until MDOT has presented its latest one.

In an email Feb. 25, Smith, an Edgecomb selectman, explains that in taking the vote, the commission members wanted the public to have an opportunity to comment on the potential projects.

“Public input is critical to most MDOT projects and it is hopeful any resolution or improvement has the blessing of the communities effected,” Smith writes.

 Adding to the mix of ideas

The series of concepts that have drawn local interest lately are not confined to ones the state has developed. On his own, resident and boat owner Paul Parks has been designing a marina that he said the town could build for about $1.5 million next to the fishermen’s pier and then have a yearly income of $135,000 or more in fuel sales and slip rentals.

Parks, a Wiscasset Yacht Club member who has worked as a private yacht captain, has begun sharing the marina concept with the Wiscasset Waterfront Committee. In a telephone interview March 2, he said he is not working with the state on his idea, and that the marina would not depend on MDOT doing a Wiscasset riverfront project.

However, if MDOT did a project, that might help the town secure funding toward a marina, Parks said. He is designing it to be year-round, have 72 slips and to accommodate boats ranging from 20 feet to 100-plus feet, he said.

Waterfront Committee Chairman Susan Robson on March 3 said Parks was continuing to meet with the committee about his idea. She did not know if or when it will develop into a proposal for the committee to take to Wiscasset selectmen. But she is encouraged by all the recent interest that people in and around Wiscasset have been showing for something to be done downtown and along the river.

“I really think something better is going to come from all this than we even know,” she said. “The ideas are floating around .... It really is about evolution.”