Announcements christening the new Waldo-Hancock Bridge the “Downeast Gateway” were apparently premature. Legislation to make it official in Augusta has stalled because some people now say they don’t like the name.
Partisan politics appears to be the culprit, although nobody wants to admit it.
Turns out the two senators whose districts are on either side of the bridge – Sen. Carol Weston of Waldo and Sen. Richard Rosen of Hancock – are Republican, and they organized the naming process along with Republican Rep. Kenneth Lindell of Frankfort. His district also touches both ends in Prospect and Verona Island.
Word of a possible controversy with Democrats surfaced after what most assumed was a perfunctory vote to assign the bridge-naming proposal to the Transportation Committee stalled in the Senate.
Sen. Dennis Damon, a Democrat also of Hancock County and chairman of the Transportation Committee, said Tuesday he actually supports the name, but wanted to give legislators a chance to weigh in before moving the recommendation to his committee for a vote.
“I think the Downeast Gateway is a good name for that bridge,” Damon said, explaining he was holding onto the bill “at the request of my fellow legislators, who need a little more time to get their public opinion coalesced.”
Sen. Weston said Monday a meeting had been scheduled for Wednesday in Stockton Springs to hear from those who don’t like the Downeast Gateway name.
“I think there are some people who would like a different name,” Weston said. The issue appears to be that some people in the district don’t like the idea of being a gateway, but rather “they are the destination themselves.”
Sen. Rosen said the name had been vetted with the state historian and “Down East means more than a point on the coast.”
“Since the 1800s, Down East has been a part of Maine literature, not only as a region, but describing a way of life,” he said.
The public was asked to participate in the naming process, and hundreds of suggestions came into the Department of Transportation Web site devoted to the bridge project. That Web site – waldohancockbridge.com – announced the new name in a press release dated Jan. 6, pending legislative approval.
“We asked for broad public input,” Rosen said, and tried to have some fun with it.
He said once the bill is referred to committee the public hearing process would unearth any opposition to the proposed name.
Rosen did agree one thing needs to be changed, even if the originally proposed name is kept. Down East Magazine called to tell him it is spelled “Down East, not Downeast. They would know,” Rosen said.
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