BRUNSWICK — State Sen. Stan Gerzofsky would have you believe he is the best friend Amtrak ever had in the state of Maine. There is no truth to this if his words and deeds since the spring of 2011 are taken into account.

To prove my claim, it is only necessary to parse his words as they appear in a front-page article in the Portland Press Herald (“Maine DEP chief requests oversight of Amtrak plan for Brunswick layover facility,” Aug. 30).

For the record, I live in the part of Brunswick where the Downeaster layover and maintenance facility will be built, between Church and Stanwood streets. No one around here calls it “Brunswick West,” with the exception of a dozen or so vocal opponents.

The senator says that the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority “has been ‘dictatorial’ in its decision making.” This is false, and wildly so. The New England rail authority has bent over backward to listen to the concerns of others, to address their critiques and incorporate their desires into the very blueprints of the facility.

Proof for this can be found in the environmental assessment prepared by NNEPRA and its consultants, and in the “finding of no significant impact” issued by the national railroad regulatory agency, the Federal Railroad Administration.

Both documents are available online at the NNEPRA website, and both show the extent to which the public has participated meaningfully every step of the way. At least 20 public meetings have been held and thousands of pages of documents received from myriad stakeholders.

Gerzofsky’s contention that the rail authority has refused to consider other locations for the layover and maintenance facility also is false. Six sites were evaluated in the summer of 2011. Three were given a thorough vetting. This information is also available online.

Nothing has occurred to change the siting report’s conclusions: The Church-Stanwood site is excellent, far superior to the alternatives.

Yet Gerzofsky, as recently as Sept. 8, 2013, was pumping his fist in the air at a backyard meeting of the Brunswick West Neighborhood Coalition and exhorting the few in attendance that the best site was the one owned by Ted Crooker, who Gerzofsky had introduced to us as his “transportation consultant” on June 23, 2011, at the first Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority and Maine Department of Transportation public forum in Brunswick.

Forget that a layover facility at that distant site could not function as intended. Forget a host of insoluble problems associated with that site.

“But I think we really need to know the environmental impact of erecting this kind of facility in the middle of a town and the middle of a neighborhood,” Gerzofsky told the Press Herald.

Thanks to the outstanding environmental assessment prepared by the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority and accepted without qualification by the Federal Railroad Administration, we know that the environmental impact of the layover facility will not be significant.

Keep in mind that the Church-Stanwood site has been used continuously for railroad purposes since before the Civil War. It was, is and always will be the center of railroad activity for Brunswick. Thus, the layover facility will be where it belongs. If people – like me – bought homes next to a railyard, that was our decision. Pushing the consequences onto others ought to be unthinkable.

Frankly, I’m glad the site will be home to such a comparatively benign operation. For most of its history it has been a freight switching yard. A long barn where trains are parked indoors, engines turned off and the doors rolled down vs. running locomotives parked outside and cars clanking 24/7? An easy choice. Everyone is getting a great deal out of NNEPRA’s project.

Finally, the list of the senator’s anti-Downeaster deeds is long enough to fill a second commentary, but the following shows the extent to which he is willing to go. On behalf of his constituents, in 2013 he presented L.D. 28, “An Act to Reduce Air Pollution from Trains,” a measure so poorly conceived it would have killed all passenger trains in Maine. Fortunately, this wretched proposal died in committee.

The Brunswick Downtown Association and the Freeport Chamber of Commerce, Mainers living near the layover facility site and far away, are in favor of building it and having service expanded to our communities. We want ground broken now. But up in Augusta we are stuck with Stan Gerzofsky’s misrepresentation of our wishes.

Let’s be clear: The Downeaster in Maine has no greater enemy than Democratic state Sen. Stanley J. Gerzofsky, the political voice of Harpswell, Brunswick, Pownal and Freeport. Or none of the above.

— Special to the Press Herald

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