The Smith family are good people, good neighbors here in Knox County
We write in support of the new hotel in Rockport’s harbor village. It is very clear that the overwhelming majority of Rockport residents are in support of the Rockport Harbor Hotel, despite the very expensive clamor created by the “Friends of Rockport.”
It is our hope that the “Friends” obsession with blocking this new business causes no further acrimony in our town and not cost our town’s taxpayers more than the $130,000 already incurred in legal fees or the estimated additional $100,000 the town may incur if the “Friends” legal maneuvers continue.
Let’s take a closer look at the much-vilified Smith family. Among other things, the “Friends” website calls them out of town oligarchs. They have been doing business here (Rockport, Camden and Rockland) since 1975. Since then they have employed over 3000 people. Their businesses currently employ 120 people and the start-to-finish total of people employed in the construction of the hotel will be approximately 110. The Smith family owned businesses put a lot of money into the local economy.
Their business acquisitions have kept three major commercial properties in the hands of caring locals as opposed to these properties slipping onto the ledgers of non-local commercial developers with little if any community-based interest; the old Hoboken Gardens site (was being considered by Family Dollar Store), the old Sears Building in Rockland and the old Van Baalen factory in Rockland, now home to a University of Maine branch and the Breakwater Marketplace.
Speaking of local interest….here are only a few of the many things that the Smith family has been involved with over the past four decades, and by involved we don’t mean just writing checks, we mean rolled-up sleeves and deep commitment in partnership with many others of like-minded, positive community spirit:
- leadership roles with the Camden-Rockport School Board and the creation/building of the new high school, leadership role with the old and new YMCA, Youth Arts Program, leadership role in creating the Midcoast Recreation Center, leadership role at the Children’s House Montessori School, board of the Camden-Rockport Historical Society, the Camden-Rockport Middle School building vision committee, leadership role with PAWS Animal Adoption Center, board of the Camden Public Library….etc etc etc. This partial list doesn’t include the charitable donations the family and their businesses make each year.
Now let’s look at the efforts of the “Friends:”
- the “Friends” formed with the avowed sole cause of fighting the hotel. There is no apparent record of other accomplishments on their part.
- as regards the “Friend’s” rallying cry of “it’s ugly,” the Smiths have gone to great lengths to appropriately match the architectural details of the adjacent buildings. We invite any and everyone to come have a look at what they have actually built so far.
- “Friends” legal counsel has repeatedly raised questions of conflict of interest on the part of town officials and Board/Committee members, then subsequently withdrawn these inaccurate insinuations.
- due to the “Friends” unrelenting legal pursuit, work has been delayed on the hotel and the downtown can now expect construction to carry over into the 2022 summer season.
- the “Friends” have asked the court to order the hotel torn down. We believe that this reveals a deeper motivation than simply addressing parking and aesthetic issues at the expense of every taxpayer in Rockport.
The Smith family are good people and good neighbors here in Knox County. We welcome them into downtown Rockport and we welcome their latest effort to restore vitality in a village that for decades has seen the failure of one business after another. Yes, Rockport is finally going to have to confront the parking problems that were officially recognized over thirty years ago. Yes, there will be additional lights and sound in the downtown area….as well as significantly enhanced tax revenues. To us that smells like success for Rockport’s harbor village…and beyond.
Every single one of us would rally to the “defense” of Rockport were we to see inappropriate development coming to this site. That is simply not the present case and we are glad that the Smith family acquired this property and are going to help steer the harbor village in a meaningful and lastingly positive direction.
For those who now declare that they will never countenance this hotel, we’d like to remind them of the old Maine observation that “here, never is about seven years.”
Signers as of 1/24/22 :
Annemarie Ahearn
Lance and Liz Ahearn
Manaan Alexander
Taylor Allen and Martha White
Tom and Mary Amory
Erick Anderson
Gretel Anderson
Sam and Annie Appleton
Chelsea Armstrong
Rick Ash
Sue Ash
Therese Bagnardi
Heidi and Jake Baker
Andrea Barbour
Gail and John Bertuzzi
Nicole and Neal Blake
Keith Blizzard
Kip Boetsch
Carmen Bombeke
Thierry Bombeke
Kaleb Booth
Aby Booth
Rosemary and Jayson Booth
Norm Bouchard
Ann and Rick Bresnahan
Barrett Brown
Lynne Brown
Jane Buffett
Lynn Bushee
Louise and Richard Cadwgan
Kathy and Brian Cassidy
Rutledge Chalk II
Jeff Charland
Wendy Charland
George and Elizabeth Collins
Stacey and Jonas Contakos
Doug and Pat Cole
Maureen Cole
Joel Cooke
Mazie Cox and Brink Thorne
Sandy Cox
John Curry
Jen Curtis
Troy Curtis
Pamela Dalfonso
William H. Davies
Barbara Davidson
John Davidson
Chip Dewing
Tricia Dixon
Erin Donovan
Karen Doran
Jessica Duffy
Patrick B. Duffy
Michael Dufour
Nathan Dunton
Amanda and Rob Dwelley
Sarah Dwelley
Lauren and Justin Edelstein
Ben Ellison
Doug Erickson
Stuart Farnham, Jr.
Leslie and Bob Fillnow
Brian Fitzpatrick
Caitlin Fitzpatrick
Gef and Larissa Flimlin
Valarie Foster
Lisa and Gary Fowlie
Allison Fox-Glover
Carole Gartley
Chris and Janice Gates
Bill and Jill Glover
Lee and Jon Goss
Brandon Graffam
Connor Graffam
Ella Graffam
Jan Graffam
Martina Graffam
Ryan Graffam
Ted Graffam
Ruth and Steve Graham
Bruce Haffner
Debra Hall
Jeff Hamilton
Steve and Amy Hand
Valarie Harmon
Lynn Harrington
Mark and Andrea Harris
Cig Harvey
Evelina Haskell
Matthew Haskell
Debby Hornyak
Scott and Robin Horty
Michael D. Hurley
Sara Jenkins
Curtis Jensen
Eliza Jensen
- Douglas Kahn
Stephen R. Kahn
Samuel Ladley
Dale and Alyssa Landrith
Jack Lane
Sarah and Matt Lapides
Tom Laurita
Nancy and Bob Lawson
Debra and Doug Lay
Nancy and Dwight Leeper
Larry Lehmann
Bill and Gretchen Leone
Linda and Grif Lesher
Cheryl Levin
Matthew Levin
Nikki Lindsey
Drew and Mackenzie Lyman
William and Mary Maddox
Jamie and Peter Masin-Peters
Jennifer Matthews
Carolyn May
Keith May
Jim Mays
Stefanie McAllister
Alison McKellar
Marilyn McWilliams
Allen and Marge Mitchell
Maureen Montgomery
Mary Moran
Mary Morgan
Chris and Delisa Morong
William Morong
Janet Murdock
Tom Murphy
David Noble
Elizabeth Noble
Gayle Noble
Karen Nolan
Pam Holland
Deniz Ovecoglu
Mary Stevens Ovecoglu
Colin Page
January Peavey
Connie and Etienne Perret
Peter Masin Peters
Jamie Masin Peters
Larkin Post
Sarah Post
Jonathan Potter
Joe and Tina Pyne
Peter Ralston and Terri Harper
Richard Remsen
Ellen Reynolds
Chrisso Rheault
Jeffrey Runge and Lynn Rutter
Connie Russell
Juliet Russell
Nathan and Jody Russell
Kamala Sachidanandan
Rob Sebold
Raymond Goergen
Clementine Senatone
Elizabeth Senders
Sarah and Mario Serafini
Beverly and Dennis Shaugnessy
Dick and Sandy Shaw
Helen A. Shaw
Ken Shure and Liv Rockefeller
Frank Simon
Libby Simon
Curt and Fran Slater
Seamus Smith
Maurice and Robin Spear
Doug Stradley
Becca Swan
Benjamin Todd
Nathan Tolman
Mark and Louisa Van Baalen
Elizabeth and Peter Vickerman
Tracy and Randall Wakeford
Doc and Haunani Wallace
Jamie and Maria Weymouth
Nina Lynn Wheeler
Tracy Wheeler
George Wheelwright
Steven F. Wickham
Addison Whitworth
Jacob Wienges
Adda Winkes and Tim Kunkel
Kristen and Eric Winters
Thomas Wytiaz
James Wytiaz