I know the people of Wiscasset are caring people. I know this from personal experience. That’s why I’m urging you to vote yes on April 17 to continue the lawsuit and protect our town. The lawsuit will be 100 percent paid for by private citizens and not cost taxpayers a dime.

When my wife, Ann, and I moved our gallery here seven years ago from Connecticut, I wanted to give back to our newly adopted town and joined the Wiscasset Waterfront Committee. It wasn’t long though before I started experiencing a weakness in one arm and then soon started having trouble climbing the stairs to our second floor apartment. I was diagnosed with ALS.

Things quickly went from bad to worse. In March of 2016, I had an emergency trachestomy procedure. During the next 2.5 months that I was in rehab, our amazing landlords renovated a ground floor studio apartment for us so that when we returned, I would still have access to the outdoors.

This incredible community jumped in and organized volunteers to keep the gallery open while we were away. The progression of ALS was relentless though, and I am now completely paralyzed and communicate by eye movements using a special computer.

Ann is only able to continue operating the gallery because of its proximity to me. She can close up briefly each day and run across the street to our apartment to assist the nurse when necessary. Neither of us can imagine another situation in which she can still work, be near me during the day and have the support of so many people.

That’s just our situation, but we hope that voters will understand that while losing parking on Route 1 and the side streets will make an almost insignificant difference to the traffic flow, it will devastate the business community and eventually affect property taxes and home valuation, too.

Is it worth having extra wide sidewalks if Wiscasset becomes a ghost town? Who will the sidewalks be serving?
Please vote yes in support of your downtown businesses and for the next generation of entrepreneurs, too. Please keep Wiscasset open for business.

Rick Scanlan
Wiscasset