Tom Saviello of Wilton is a former state senator representing Kennebec and Franklin counties. He is currently serving in his first term as a Franklin County commissioner.

I am writing in my personal capacity as a Franklin County commissioner and former mill worker in Jay — not on behalf of the developer or the town — to ask the Legislature to sustain Gov. Janet Mills’ veto of LD 307 on Wednesday.

I first reported to work at that mill in 1991. The environmental concerns were real. I worked with my fellow workers to clean up that operation, improve safety and stabilize the mill — all the way up to the point where it finally exploded, was demolished and closed for good. That history is important. This is not some pristine field we are talking about. This is a site that has already paid its price. Now, it has a real chance to rise from the ashes again.

Today, the term “data center” is charged. Across the country, we see massive AI-driven campuses springing up. Those projects are the ones that draw news coverage, anger and fear. And in many cases, that concern is entirely justified. Hyperscale facilities for companies like Google and Amazon can cover acres, demand vast amounts of energy and strain local infrastructure. 

But Jay is not one of those projects. Let us be honest about what this actually is. The Jay facility is small, and it will be housed almost entirely within the old paper machine rooms on the mill site after renovation. It is a redevelopment of an existing brownfield footprint — not a blank canvas. It is not a sprawling campus. It will serve multiple small-scale users, not a single tech-giant monopoly. This is a difference that matters.

Engineers and planners with the project tell us that it will rely on the site’s existing electrical setup and on-site generation, with little to no new impact on the wider grid. This used to be a paper mill with heavy industrial power needs. The infrastructure is already there. Water usage is projected at less than 1% of when the mill was operating. And there will be no discharge. This is not the same load on the environment, and it deserves to be treated differently.

Maine is right to be cautious about untested projects, uncertain water and power loads and the long-term impacts on rural communities. Gov. Mills understood those risks. Her decision to veto the blanket pause on AI data centers took courage, because it meant wading into a politically charged debate and defending the right of rural communities like Jay and Franklin County to have a voice at the negotiating table.

Gov. Mills knows rural Maine from the inside. Her roots are in communities where mills have closed and populations have shrunk. That is why her veto is both politically risky and morally clear: it acknowledges that a one-sided, statewide freeze can hurt the very places that need economic options the most.

The bottom line is simple: Maine is full of shuttered mills and abandoned brownfield sites. We can either let them sit there as empty symbols of a fading past, or we can support smart redevelopment that brings jobs, capital and tax base back to our communities. Jay is not offering a perfect, risk-free solution; no project is. But it is offering a real opportunity to turn a closed mill into a new chapter of work and investment — in Maine.

This project is a second chance for Jay — not a handout, not a giveaway, but a fair shot at economic revival built on an existing industrial footprint that already paid its environmental price decades ago. And that path is easier to see when a governor rooted in rural Maine is willing to stand up and defend it.

LD 307, as passed, would stop this project in Jay cold. Gov. Mills knew this, which is why she vetoed the bill. The Legislature should sustain her veto on Wednesday.