The Maine political deal (continued) BY LANCE TAPLEY

PEOPLE YOU CAN DO BUSINESS WITH

A few days later, I met with McGowan in his downtown Augusta office. I told him that if Warren’s hut could be moved farther up the lake, if the trail could be built on Penobscot land, and if LD 926 were killed, there wouldn’t be a controversy, although I knew some of our members objected to a trail system anywhere in the Bigelow region.

I also told him that, as a new appointee, he faced a philosophical choice: Was he going to be commissioner of conservation or of development? Would he choose to side with the likes of Severin Beliveau, the notorious spokesman for every corporate interest? Or would he choose to represent conservationists and environmentalists within the administration? If he began his tenure by allowing development in the Bigelow Preserve, he would be signaling his choice.

I pointed out the political consequences involved. He, of all people, should understand this point. He had narrowly lost the 1992 Second District congressional race to Olympia Snowe, the Republican, because Jonathan Carter, the Green candidate, got nine percent of the vote. There were reasons many voters were abandoning the Democratic Party for the Greens. A lot felt the party had abandoned them on environmental issues. His and Baldacci’s choice on Bigelow and similar questions would have an impact on the Democrats’ future in Maine.

We had a lengthy, amiable talk. I liked his directness and political sophistication. Like Warren, he was especially attentive to our threat to hold up Maine Huts and Trails in the courts. He didn’t try to argue with me. Despite his boss’s support for Warren’s bill, he clearly wanted a compromise. He said he’d speak with Baldacci, and he’d try to get the legislative committee to postpone its vote on the bill. He mentioned he had an appointment to see Ruth Jewell and the Penobscots.

"But if this doesn’t work out," he stated matter-of-factly, "we’ll just have to get the bill passed."

The next day, he called to say that the legislators had agreed to put off consideration of the bill for a few weeks and that he had the "full support of the governor" to seek a compromise. I felt McGowan was a guy I could do business with.

Immediately, I set up another meeting with Warren at the Barnes and Noble café. There, on March 26, I presented him with a rough written draft of an agreement between Friends of Bigelow and WMF. In exchange for our not opposing the huts-and-trail system, for not opposing a hut on Flagstaff’s shore built outside the designated boundaries of the preserve, and for not opposing a ski trail constructed outside the preserve, I wanted WMF to drop its contrary plans and kill LD 926.

Even though Friends of Bigelow didn’t have much say, theoretically, in what went on outside the preserve, we could argue in various forums that the huts and trail could have a deleterious effect on it because of their proximity. This argument is what, under my proposal, we would be giving up.

Warren responded positively. He agreed not to push for the bill’s passage while a deal was worked out.

He, too, was making plans to meet with the Penobscots. They were crucial players. They wanted to lease their land for money, but they weren’t demanding a fortune. If a trail on Penobscot land didn’t work out, Warren and I agreed, a lightly groomed trail in the preserve was an alternative.

Despite all the bad things I had heard about Larry Warren, he, also, seemed like someone I could do business with.

PEOPLE I CAN'T DO BUSINESS WITH

But could I work with my own group? The clouds gathered.

At a Friends meeting that evening, there was much grumbling about my negotiations. A member sent me an email the next day: "If we are to negotiate, there needs to be clarity and agreement among the FOB board beforehand." Another member circulated an email suggesting we try to convince the legislative committee to set up a special group to study the bill until the next session.

The legislature frequently chooses to study controversial issues. However, after running into Severin Beliveau in a State House corridor, I was certain a study wasn’t an option.

He was not his usual smooth self.

"We’re going to get this passed. We’ve got the votes on it," he assured me brusquely.

"There are committee members who have objections," I countered.

"Oh, it won’t be unanimous," he said, "but it’ll be ‘ought to pass.’ "

From my conversations with legislators and environmental lobbyists, I knew he was right. Baldacci firmly controlled the legislature.

The cloudburst for me — or on me — occurred April 9 at a Friends legal committee meeting in Farmington with lawyer Prodan. She and others were excited by the prospects of convincing LURC not to approve Warren’s hut on Flagstaff Lake. They had come from a LURC meeting in Millinocket and reported that Warren was running into technical troubles with his application.

Maybe my view of life is excessively political. I was dismissive of pinning our hopes on technicalities. State regulatory boards are essentially pro-business because pro-business governors appoint their members. Technicalities rarely get in the way of development proposals. If Warren had not produced some required facts and figures, he’d be given extra time. Without even knowing LURC’s membership, I saw it as a weak reed on which to lean.

Our big stick in this war, I felt, was our threat to start lengthy legal battles. Our other weapon was bad publicity for the other side. How could one create a big trail system in the Maine mountains with much of the environmentalist community riled up against you?

This Friends core group did not agree with me about anything. They even had hopes of defeating LD 926 in the legislature. They were hardening their opposition to Warren building a hut anywhere on Flagstaff Lake.

Not too tactfully, I let them understand I thought they were naïve.

"I know, Lance, that you consider Bigelow your own private property," one member sneeringly replied.

Here was a man who had camp property that was practically surrounded by the preserve.

I felt lonely on my drive back to Augusta.

THINGS GET BETTER AND WORSE

But I kept trying to pull a compromise together, even when I was far out on a limb. Would I have backing from the group as a whole if we had a membership meeting? I felt certain most people in the state would agree with me, though that agreement would hardly provide immediate benefits.

Now continued this bizarre mixture of progress toward compromise with Warren and worsening relations between me and the organization I had so long ago created.

I talked with the assistant attorney general, Jeff Pidot, who had questioned whether trail grooming could be allowed in the preserve. He conceded that a narrow, "unengineered" trail (no road-like construction) groomed with a small machine might be acceptable. The upshot was that Warren proposed, at another Barnes and Noble meeting, to use the smallest groomer he could find (he showed me a photo) in order to maintain a narrow, unengineered trail, if it had to go through the preserve. He also proposed to place the hut a short ways up the lake off the land designated for the preserve.

Additionally, WMF would make a "best effort" to buy from CMP this lakeshore land designated for the preserve and donate it to the state. And he would try to secure property easements preventing development on the rest of the lake’s eastern shore. Of course, he would kill the bill in the legislature

When I got back home from the meeting, Ruth Jewell of the Penobscots called to say that they were "more than interested" in having the trail on their land and that their tribe’s lengthy approval process might be speeded up.

The offer from Warren was close to what I had been hoping for, although I was uneasy with his greater enthusiasm for a "light" trail through the preserve than for a trail on the Penobscot land. And he seemed now in an unpleasant "take it or leave it" mood, though I guessed this tone was just political posturing. But what upset me most was that I knew my group would not accept the deal.

If I couldn’t get an agreement through the organization, somebody else would have to, I concluded. In a group email reporting on my meeting with Warren, I asked Fecteau to take over negotiations. I also asked for a full membership meeting to consider Warren’s proposal.

"I feel estranged from the unrealistic thinking that only accepts getting 100 percent of what we want," I wrote Fecteau privately. "I find it bizarre to be estranged from FOB, except that I doubt if I am estranged from the whole membership. We are not an East End of Flagstaff Lake Landowners Group."

Our most uncompromising member — the one who had nearly screamed at the legislators during LD 926’s public hearing, but who was influential — circulated an email accusing me of irresponsibility and accusing Warren of being "unethical" (no evidence presented). He appeared to be flatly opposed to a hut system in the mountains.

I was extremely glad Fecteau agreed to carry on negotiations. I knew he was capable, although I wasn’t sure how far his commitment to making a deal extended. I figured I could monitor what was going on.

CHANGE OF TACTICS

The membership meeting was held on the evening of April 23. During the day, I made my monitoring calls. Warren told me, disturbingly, that, since I had resolved the grooming problem for him, he mainly wanted to look at the trail possibility through the preserve. McGowan said the Senate committee chair had assured him there would be a majority-ought-to-pass report on the bill if it went to the floor. He said he’d keep trying to postpone the committee’s action.

That evening, Fecteau graciously and publicly thanked me for "being willing to take the heat" from other members. But it was icily clear that of the 20 people present, only my wife, my adult son, and I were willing to look favorably on Warren’s compromise, although I felt we still had to try harder to get him to move the trail out of the preserve and onto the Penobscot land.

I took a deep breath. I had questions about the membership notification, and many of the old Bigelow hands had fallen off the list, but those who had showed up were not clamoring for this deal, that’s for sure. A number of them appeared opposed to any deal. So much for my assumption that the larger group supported me. This hard core either felt threatened personally by Warren’s development or didn’t give a hoot about it. I looked around. There wasn’t a Southern-Maine yuppie in the room! These folks would never use the huts. I was awkwardly astride a cultural divide.

My political instincts told me to step back onto one side. There would be no huge risk in us veering toward a stiffer tack with Warren, at least temporarily. In addition to being unhappy with his emphasis on putting the trail in the preserve, I wasn’t pleased with the nearness to the preserve of his new hut site on the lake. If I promoted getting tough, it also would be a way to re-establish credibility with the group.

Surprising everybody including myself, I moved for us to take a hard line, listing several demands. The motion passed unanimously.

When — for Friends of Bigelow — I emailed Warren the next day (copies to the state, et al), I told him "the group concluded that you were pushing us — and the state — much too aggressively." We wanted the trail on Penobscot land, not in the preserve. And I threatened lawsuits against the Western Mountains Foundation or the state on four points.

The next day Warren and I talked briefly on the phone. He was mild. He said he’d be "open to negotiations." In other words, he blinked.

Fecteau kept him blinking. He taught me a few things about negotiations; he had learned a lot from his real-estate dealing. At one major session, I found stunning his repeated statement to Warren and the state officials present: "I’m not afraid of LD 926 passing." By doing that, he took away the other side’s biggest club. (If you are ever in a difficult negotiation, try this line: "I’m not afraid of ________." Fill in the blank with what you’re most afraid of.) But I feared Fecteau was not properly appreciative of what it meant if the bill did pass!

In any case, his approach worked, up to a point. Warren kept backing off. Developments came fast: WMF asked for a postponement of LURC’s consideration of the Flagstaff hut, which made us feel more in the driver’s seat. The state seemed to be leaning on Warren. The legislators began assuming a deal was going to be made. "I’m with you guys," Barry Dana, the Penobscots’ chief, told me when I encountered him in the State House. A lawyer for Beliveau’s firm kept shoving a written settlement agreement in front of Fecteau, and he kept finding things wrong with it and getting it improved. Warren was soon saying he’d move the Flagstaff hut site miles up the lake. We were down to hassling over whether a preserve ski trail, if it had to be created, would be six or eight feet wide.

But here was the sticking point. WMF agreed to try to locate the ski trail on Penobscot land, and the state agreed to help accomplish this goal. But success obviously was not entirely dependent on WMF, and so, if negotiations failed after good-faith efforts, then the preserve trail was to be an option. At this stage, the state and Warren signed the agreement.

For the hard-core Friends, though — including chairman Fecteau — this option was deeply troubling. Fecteau claimed harshly that Warren and the conservation department had misled him. "My understanding was that if the Penobscots could not accommodate Larry, then the deal was off," he wrote the department. Nevertheless, he slowly appeared to be coming around to accept the agreement.

Then, on May 12, Warren issued a press release announcing the compromise — that the accord was "substantially complete" and "ends the controversy." The same day, he asked the legislative committee to kill LD 926, and it did. The next day, the newspapers were full of stories proclaiming and, basically, applauding that the controversy was over. Warren got considerable positive attention.

If he had pondered for 10 years to find the best way to piss off Fecteau and the Friends of Bigelow, he couldn’t have done better. The conservation department was annoyed with him, but that was all; with the Friends, it was far from all. Fecteau fired off a message to the key legislators condemning Warren — the announcement was "premature and contains false information," he said — and he threatened not to sign the agreement.

The department begged Fecteau to sign. Legislators made noises about bringing LD 926 back to life if he didn’t. But, among many Friends, according to the acrimonious emails I observed, all that counted was Warren’s "treachery." He couldn’t be trusted! It confirmed the worst fears people had about him. He was Satan!

DEFEAT/VICTORY

I felt Warren’s announcement was a stupid thing. Was getting a little newspaper ink so important? Had he thought he could put pressure on Fecteau to sign? But the anger of Fecteau and others was off the point. The point was the deal. Why were the Friends so hyperbolic in their reaction? It was mystifying. How could there be such hatred of someone they barely knew? In Warren’s dealings with me, I had seen no evidence he was an ogre. He was just a political opponent who sometimes did things you didn’t like.

With a leaden heart, I trudged alone across Augusta on the soft spring night of May 14 to the Friends of Bigelow meeting at the state arboretum building. On Bigelow, the snows finally would be melting, but I felt a glacier on top of me. I knew exactly what was going to happen. The Friends were set to reject the deal. And I knew exactly what I would have to do to shock the group into not rejecting it. I, the founder, would have to resign from Friends of Bigelow.

Of course, I couldn’t be sure of the result of my resignation. In any case, I couldn’t associate myself with the group’s rejection of the deal when it was so close to fulfillment and when the long-term consequences of the legislative bill’s passage could be so damaging to the preserve and the state.

Although I had an ancient commitment to the group, my first loyalty was to the mountain. On a canoe trip on Flagstaff Lake, I had fallen in love with my future wife as we gazed at Bigelow’s peaks while the campfire died. I have written a book about Bigelow that I can’t get published because it is too intimate.

I prepared the words I would have to utter: "Thirty years ago I founded Friends of Bigelow, but I am resigning from it now."

At the arboretum, I crawled into a snake pit. The hissing against Warren and the conservation department was deafening: They were all liars and thieves. Several members sputtered with anger against me for urging Fecteau to sign. They fully transferred to me their hatred of the dreaded enemy.

Fecteau was among those angry with me. When he and I exchanged some sharp words, several members, their faces contorted, shouted insults at me, defending him.

I got up.

"Thirty years ago I founded Friends of Bigelow, but I am resigning from it now!" I declared.

As I walked out, a number of people broke into loud applause.

My ears hurt for a long time. I walked down to the Kennebec River and sat for a while on a stone bench and watched the water flow.

I had known in advance what I would have to say, but I wasn’t being manipulative. I simply had played a necessary part. It was like fate. It was like being given a vision of a depressing future, and there was nothing I could do about it. In this case, my particular fate resembled a ritual sacrifice.

Three hours later, one of the members telephoned me and said the group had been so shocked by my resignation and by the "shameful" applause for it that a lengthy soul-searching had taken place — and that Friends of Bigelow had voted to have Fecteau sign the agreement.

He wanted me to reconsider my resignation.

EPILOGUE

So far, things have worked out pretty well for Friends of Bigelow. In August, as hikers crawled over the mountain, Western Mountains Foundation was making progress, by all reports, on an agreement with the Penobscot Nation to allow, not only a trail across their property, but also a hut that would feature lessons in Native American woodcraft and history. With a hut on their land, Warren may need to space out his lodging differently, so he may not build — at least, immediately — the hut planned for just south of the preserve on the sanitary-district land. Much planning, negotiating, financing, and constructing remain. There is no assurance yet that the hut system will become a reality.

Looking back, I see my role was as a go-between, an emissary from each side to the other, even though I belonged to one side. Although I was a protector of Bigelow, I wanted to help make a hut-and-trail system a reality, a goal for Maine not shared with others in the leadership of my group. For a compromise to be achieved, it is useful to have somebody in the discussions who shares interests with both sides.

For a compromise to be realized, too, it is useful for both sides to have a vivid perception of what can be lost. Despite the abhorrence of Warren and the scorn for state officials that some members of my group exhibited, Fecteau and other Friends acted realistically in the end because of a sane awareness of what was at stake. And Warren must have grasped what we had over him. And McGowan could make political calculations quite well.

Still, political compromise is difficult to accomplish and can have many costs, especially when emotions play a big part, as they often do in environmental issues. Emotions played a part on both sides of this dispute. Throughout, Warren should have been less aggressive and more inclusive with environmental groups. His attitude may have come from the single-mindedness of the entrepreneur. But his goal will not be reached without a broad coalition with him.

He was open to compromise, though, as was McGowan and, ultimately, John Baldacci, and this receptivity is to their credit. To Governor Baldacci’s credit, especially, I think. During this period, I wrote a few Phoenix political articles to which he must have had a negative response, to put it gently. But he didn’t let them get in the way of his administration’s dealings with me.

Of course, Baldacci may not have noticed that I was involved. This spring, he had bigger issues on his mind. I can only guess how all of them — Fecteau included — look at this controversy. This is a first-person narrative. I have not interviewed others. Maybe others will add dimensions to this story with letters to the editor. As a journalist, I long ago learned there are many facets to every story.

Friends of Bigelow remains querulous and suspicious, nipping at the state’s and Warren’s heels, trusting no one. To an extent, that’s as it should be. It is a watchdog group for the mountain.

But, in the end, the Friends have been generous to me. Several members asked me to rejoin. "I was dismayed at what happened between us at our last meeting," Fecteau emailed me, requesting that I remain on the board of directors.

I responded that I couldn’t stay on the board — that applause still rang in my ears — but I would be happy to remain a member . . . if they could accept such a compromising devil, I almost added.

Lance Tapley can be reached at ltapley@prexar.com