Our readers speak: Take economic development seriously and capitalize on local resources

Send by email

To the editor:

LEADING BY EXAMPLE - Joey Ouellette stands with his son Gabriel Ouellette, age 4, in this Fiddlehead Focus photo. Ouellette is running for an upcoming seat on the town council. — Andrew Birden image

My name is Joey Ouellette and I am running for a seat on the Fort Kent town council. Over the past few years, I have been disappointed to see the town experiencing population and economic decline, but I have been pleased to see new and energetic faces on the town council. I think there have been some good ideas put forward and some progress is being made. I feel, however, that there is a lot more that could be done.

For those who do not know me, I was born in Fort Kent and raised in St. Francis. Ten days after graduating from FKCHS in 1994, I joined the United States Marine Corps. Four years later, I was honorably discharged and I moved back home to go to college at UMFK. While attending college, I worked at Gas-N-Go and MBNA. I also enlisted in the Army National Guard and was awarded the Sergeant Major’s award in the Maine State Solider of the Year competition. Despite working two jobs and being in the National Guard, I was able to maintain a grade average of over 3.0. I graduated from UMFK in 2002 with a B.S. in Business Management. In 2003 I got married and moved away to Portland because I was unable to find a good paying job in Fort Kent. In 2007, I was offered a work-from-home job with MetLife. As a long-term disability case manager, I manage millions of dollars worth of disability benefits for people who are unable to work due to a disability. When I accepted this position with MetLife, it provided the perfect opportunity to move back home. Since leaving Fort Kent in 2003, I had wanted to return home. I wanted our kids to be closer to their memeres, peperes, mononcles, and matantes. I wanted them to have the same type of upbringing I did. When we moved back to Fort Kent in 2007, I was sad to see how much our town population had decreased. Until now, my focus has been on my children and restoring our century-old house on Pleasant Street. Now that my children are in school, I have decided to take a more active role in our town. After Nadeau’s House of Furniture burned down, I joined the Fort Kent Fire Department. I was discouraged again to hear that Nadeau’s wasn’t going to rebuild. I then had the unfortunate opportunity to be one of the first to respond to the Valley Auto Fire. It was shortly thereafter that I was approached by friends and family to run for town council. I could not think of a better way to get involved and help our town. Over the past few weeks I have been visiting businesses, professionals, and educators in town and the consensus is that our town should be capitalizing on our local resources and taking economic development more seriously. Attracting people to our town to experience our resources (culture, hunting, fishing, snowmobile/ATV trails, Lonesome Pine Trails, 10th Mountain, etc.) and attracting businesses to our town are just a couple ways to help offset the increasing cost of running our town. I trust you will take the time to vet all candidates. I believe you won’t find another candidate more committed to helping our town. I would appreciate your vote on March 25.

Sincerely,

Joey Ouellette

Fort Kent