I am extremely disturbed by the citizens of  Lincolnville following the misguided lead of the select board and voting to allow the town to sell the the Schoolhouse Museum building at the beach.

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This building is the home for the town’s Historical Society and the Lincolnville Improvement Association. All this was done, it seems, with little consideration of the importance of the town’s historical collections and the significant contributions by the Improvement Association. It was a purely financial decision based on extravagant cost projections by a consulting firm with little consideration for the building’s tenants, and no obvious thought on how to preserve the historical collections or activities of the Improvement Society should the building be sold.

 

The select board’s offer to sell the building to the two organizations would have been wonderful if these two groups were younger, and capable of generating large amounts of funds and volunteers to manage such activities. They are not! They are run by volunteers with an average age of close to 80 years of age and operating on minimal budgets with few organizational assets.

 

The Historical Society currently provides  a safe and secure place within the museum  to display and store our towns historical artifacts. If the members were younger finding, funding, and moving collections to new homes might be possible.

 

The town fathers and voters in their infinite wisdom have left these two important organizations without any immediate means of survival if their home is sold.

 

If the Historical society board members, for example, were to resign which is an option available to them, how would the town protect  the collections, many of which belong to the town?

 

I’m certain solutions are available but not without the town’s assistance and perhaps the kindness of individual citizens.

 

Sincerely,