MILLINOCKET (AP) – Town officials are expressing concerns about a proposed land swap that would add more than 6,000 acres to Baxter State Park.

Councilors will vote at their next meeting on a resolution that says the proposal would hurt the area’s economy and recreational opportunities, including hunting, snowmobiling, trapping, float-plane traffic and other tourist draws. The deal would also take the parcel off the county and state tax rolls.

“We cannot continue to shut the forest down as we have been,” Councilor Jimmy Busque said last week during a council meeting. “We keep moving the breadbasket away from our community and making our community less attractive.”

Gov. John Baldacci and environmental groups last month announced a $14 million land-purchase agreement for 6,015 acres that border seven miles of the eastern boundary of Baxter State Park, site of mile-high Mount Katahdin at the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.

The agreement, which still awaits private funding and legislative approval, was negotiated by the nonprofit conservation group Trust for Public Land and includes Katahdin Lake, which the state has long sought.

The deal involves the state Bureau of Public Lands selling roughly 7,400 acres of state-managed lots to the Trust for Public Lands if the conservation group raises the money by July.

The land trust would then give the acreage to Gardner Land Co., which would harvest some of the wood in exchange for the 700-acre Katahdin Lake and surrounding acres that the private timber company owns.

Town officials are joining a small chorus of state legislators, businessmen and recreation advocates who have begun to fault the plan for lacking recreational access.

Baxter officials prohibit hunting, trapping and motorized recreational vehicles such as snowmobiles and ATVs in most of the park, councilors said.

There have been a number of transactions in recent years that are reducing the lands that loggers and sportsmen can use and that new businesses can build on in the Katahdin region, they said.

With conservationists slowly buying land around Millinocket, town officials must try to be heard on all such purchases so that town wishes can be heeded, Councilor Matthew Polstein said.

If it can be raised, the $14 million “is a staggering price to pay for this land,” Polstein said.

“It shows you that there are a lot of people out there who have a lot of money who don’t necessarily agree with us,” he said. “If we are willing to be part of a discussion, I think we have a lot to gain.”

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Information from: Bangor Daily News, http://www.bangornews.com