On Monday, we’re going to try to resist the urge to discuss the flurry of initiatives announced and implemented by the new Trump administration to address a more local topic: the battle in Bar Harbor over managing the number of cruise ship visitors.
It’s a battle between two local interests:
- a group of merchants who have built their businesses around the stream of cruise ship passengers visiting Bar Harbor (think ship tender owners, T-shirt/souvenir shops, downtown eateries, passenger coach companies), and
- “regular” Bar Harbor residents who are focused on the disadvantages of having thousands of visitors to their town (downtown congestion, boom/bust dynamics depending on whether a cruise ship is visiting, the municipal costs (e.g., trash disposal) of accommodating a large influx of visitors.
It’s also an instructive case study in local government in Maine, with lots of interesting elements: citizens’ petition to adopt an ordinance, town council [allegedly] refusing to implement the town’s own ordinance, backroom deals amongst interested parties, conflicts of interest, lawsuits, etc.
I’ll point you to two good sources for the back and forth of this long-running saga:
- The Quietside Journal, a Substack publication that tracks local events on MDI, which has dozens of articles on the subject and, in particular,
- the Federal circuit court ruling upholding the citizens petition-driven ordinance (I’ve attached the link to the QSJ post on the subject, so you can read Lincoln Millstein’s take on the ruling and his link to an earlier court decision).
We’ll see if we can stay on subject on Monday.
