MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • September 19, 2021
One of the recurring problems hampering Maine’s economic development over the years has been a pervasive hostility of locals towards any kind of project that has even the slightest potential to negatively affect them directly. This provincial, short-sighted attitude – commonly referred to as NIMBYism, for Not In My Backyard – has derailed projects large and small across the state for decades. It’s not just small projects that are threatened by NIMBYism, but large ones as well – especially utilities projects that could have helped the entire state. We’ve seen this with the repeated attempts to establish a site for offshore wind energy. Those who oppose development projects in their backyard are a metaphor for why our current political system is so dysfunctional. It’s long past time that we recognize that, and realize that in order to get things done, sacrifices are going to have to be made. ~ Jim Fossel