Roy Gardner: Handling Flood Was ‘Highlight’

When Roy Gardner of Allagash began his service as the town’s first selectman in 1958, teachers were earning $21 a week and the town did not have the money to pay them.

“Wally Albert had a store, and he would hold the teachers’ checks until we had the funds to cover them,” Gardner said. “He might have to hold the checks a month.”

A year later, things were different in the Town of Allagash. As first selectman, Gardner established a school trust fund that assured Wally Albert could bank the teachers’ paychecks. And after a big fire that boosted the town’s insurance premiums, he established a fire trust fund that eliminated the need for insurance.

In the next few years, he approached the town’s two biggest employers and landowners – International and Great Northern paper companies – for advances on their taxes and received $20,000 from each company. J.D. Irving, another timber company, owed the town money. Gardner talked to the firm’s Bangor office and the taxes were paid.

“After that, we were in pretty good shape,” he said. But his fund-raising initiatives did not end.

The town was owed 2.5 percent of revenues from the Allagash Wilderness Waterway but had not received payment for a number of years. That payment of accumulated funds added $21,000 to the town coffers.

With 72,000 acres in forest land, Allagash was the biggest payer of Forest District taxes ($30,000). Allagash managed to get a bill through the state legislature to relieve the town of that tax burden, legislation that eventually was adopted for all municipalities.

FOREST FIRES BIG CONCERNS

Forest fires are a major concern for towns like Allagash. During Gardner’s service, the town paid up to 1.5 percent of its valuation for firefighting, after which the state picked up the cost.

“Our last big fire was in May 1992,” Gardner said. “The Maine Forest Service took over. They know where all the equipment is – spray planes, helicopters – and who to call.”

If not a fire, it might well be a flood demanding action from the three-member board of selectmen in Allagash. Gardner has always kept his eye on the St. John River outside his door, and he has been an official monitor for the Water Resources Branch of the Department of Environment in Fredericton, N.B., for more than 30 years. When the ice begins to break up in the spring, the potential for ice jams threatens bridges and towns throughout the St. John River Valley.

In 1991, an ice jam on the St. John River took out two bridges and seven homes, sending water over the shores and roads of Allagash. The Army Corps of Engineers estimated the cost for recovery at $15.5 million.

“FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) had no money,” Gardner recalled, beginning to recount the series of events that led to a meeting with the President of the United States. Gardner received a call from the office of New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, inviting him to Washington, D.C., to present the case for the Town of Allagash to the committee.

MEETING THE PRESIDENT

“Senator Mitchell met me and we were talking in his office when two guys came in and stood on either side (of the room). Then in comes the President of the United States.” There were greetings and introductions and Gardner was able to tell President George H. W. Bush what had happened to Allagash.

“We were talking just like you and I here,” he said, as his wife, Maude, brought in a photograph of the gathering (including the two Secret Service men) autographed by the president. “He said he enjoyed Maine and would be in the state soon. It was right out of the blue. One (member of Sen. Mitchell’s staff) said ‘I’ve been here six years and this is the first time I’ve seen the President come in.’ ”

From there, Mitchell took Gardner to a meeting of the Senate Finance Committee, where Moynihan questioned him about conditions in Allagash. He detailed the damage and reported that FEMA needed $15.5 million to help the town recover.

“Then Senator Mitchell asked the committee, ‘And when might Mr. Gardner have an answer to his request?’ ”

“Could you give us five minutes?” the chairman replied.

Gardner said it took just about five minutes for the committee to confer and approve his request.

“That was the highlight of my career,” he said unequivocally.

“There were good days and bad days,” he said of his 43 years of service, “but it was a good experience. I liked the job, liked the challenge. I like to wheel and deal a little.”

In the early years, the selectmen counted everything – cows, hens, horses. They weren’t taxed, but they were counted. Taxes were levied for items like chainsaws and television sets.

MOVING TO CONNECTICUT

Since those days, the population of Allagash has shrunk from 700 to less than 200 residents, one of the biggest changes Gardner has observed.

“There were people living all along the river. There’s nobody here now. The town is shrinking up.”

Acknowledging that out-migration also occurs elsewhere, he said so many townspeople moved to New Milford, Conn., they call it “Little Allagash.”

“There was a time when no one could get a job. They sold their property for little or nothing,” and moved to Connecticut where they made good money, Gardner said. “Some of them are making their way back.”

Gardner said the last year he assessed (2002), 52 percent of the landowners were non-resident, most from down-river towns like St. Agatha and Madawaska. Ten percent were from out of state.

“One year, there were 216 school children. Now there are 12 or 14 and they are hauled to Fort Kent. Times have changed a lot.”

One of 14 children, all born at home, Gardner remembers when local families all had cows, horses, hens and vegetable gardens.

“I was born right there in that room,” he says, pointing to a door in the living room furnished with comfortable overstuffed chairs. “You are sitting in the oldest house in Allagash.”

GARDNER FAMILY HOMESTEAD

The historic home was also his office when he was first selectman. Now owned by his son, who lives in Connecticut, the house has been passed down through six generations of Gardners. It provided overnight accommodations for travelers in the 1800s and was a stop for the stagecoach that came through once a week.

“All 10 boys were in the service,” he said of his siblings, adding that of the six boys and two girls still living, all but two live in the Bangor area. Roy and Maude have four children, two in Connecticut, one in Rhode Island and one in Indiana.

From 1963 to 1967, Gardner worked for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and, as a federal employee, could not hold public office. As soon as he was available again, he was re-elected first selectman.

In 1969, the Corps enlisted his service as the local liaison for the controversial Dickey-Lincoln hydroelectric project to harness the power of the St. John River with a pair of dams. Since the job was part-time, Gardner was allowed to continue in his municipal role.

“I tried to keep a low profile,” he said. Townspeople did not want the project that would have put their community and 76,000 acres of the river valley under water.

“I stayed away from meetings” and there were plenty of them, as Sen. Mitchell led the ultimately unsuccessful effort to win Congressional support for the project.

‘PEN PALS’

Gardner maintained a local office for the Corps and did primarily water quality work. Nonetheless, he became a target for angry letters from opponents of the project.

“The Corps called them my pen pals,” he said with a grin. He left the Corps in 1984, at age 62 and focused once again on his work as selectman.

“It was an everyday routine, a way of life,” he said. Among the challenges was his effort to persuade the town to purchase its own equipment to plow the 12 miles of town roads. Fires and floods are unpredictable, but snow is a certainty and removing it is a major expense in northern towns.

Gardner had figured out the long-term cost benefit of buying used equipment from the state but townspeople turned it down. He had to yield to their preference for contracting the job.

He also had to yield to their preference for him as first selectman. Townspeople might have disagreed with some of his ideas, but they valued his leadership.

A year after he retired in 2000, he was working as election clerk. His name was not on the ballot, but his presence must have served as a reminder of his competence.

“They elected me on a write-in ballot and I didn’t even know it,” he said. He served two more years before retiring again in 2003.

Kathryn Olmstead is a freelance writer from Caribou. Kathryn_Olmstead@umit.maine.edu.