RE: “Creating a new and transparent process” [News, Sept. 25]:
Ray Shadis, technical consultant to the New England Coalition, “noted that although property taxes have increased in Wiscasset (population 3,732 as of the 2010 census) absent the buffer of Maine Yankee's tax contributions, they've remained relatively moderate.”
That's interesting, because on Sept. 18, 2013, The Boston Globe published “Its nuclear plant shut, Maine town full of regret/Wiscasset, Maine, long in economic depths.”
That article states: “In the 17 years since Maine Yankee began dismantling its reactors and shedding its 600 workers, this small, coastal town north of Portland has experienced drastic changes: property taxes have spiked by more than 10 times for the town's 3,700 residents, the number living in poverty has more than doubled as many professionals left, and town services and jobs have been cut.”
Additionally, the article points out other economic results: “The residents of Vernon now face mass unemployment and the loss of about half the town's tax revenues. Compounding their challenges will be the difficulty of doing anything with the valuable property."
Interesting that the folks who actually lived through the closing of Maine Yankee and the aftermath have experienced exactly the opposite of what Shadis presents.
One might get the impression that Shadis is nothing more than a pointy-headed theorist without any real-world data. And one would be correct.