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October 11, 2016

Giant bird sculpture: An economic investment or loony idea?

How much would you pay for a 6-foot-tall, 13-foot-long fiberglass loon? The answer for the town of Lincoln is $13,000. But not everyone in the Penobscot County community is embracing the tourist attraction that some see as a way to drive visitors into downtown.

“People are saying that it’s expensive, that the town should have spent [the funds] on something else, that the mill has gone down, and they should do different things with the money that we have,” Dot Muncie, a Lincoln resident who was visiting the loon built by the Belfast-based Fiberglass Farm, told the Bangor Daily News.

Lincoln’s economic development committee received the green light from the Town Council last spring to purchase the large loon by using the town’s tax increment financing funds, which means that it won’t affect property tax rates, according to the BDN.

Those in favor of the sculpture, many of whom are business owners, told the BDN that it’s part of a larger rebranding phase now underway in the former mill town.

“A rising tide floats all ships. As a committee, we hope this branding effort for Lincoln increases everybody’s business,” Scott Murchison, chairman of the downtown design subcommittee of the economic development board, told the BDN. “That’s what this is all about — branding.”

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