Scott Thistle is the regional editor for the Sun Journal.
Thistle supervises the Sun Journal reporters in the Oxford and Franklin county bureaus and oversees coverage of municipal and education news in Lewiston-Auburn. He is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and writes on natural resources, outdoor recreation, education, energy and government. He is a long-time member of the National Ski Patrol and volunteers his free time at Lost Valley in Auburn and Mt. Abram in Greenwood. He also volunteers as a Little League and youth soccer coach.
Email Scott at: sthistle@sunjournal.com or call 207-689-2849.
Recent Comments
Good point
We didn't calculate graphics for Poliquin, Pollard and Plowman -- while Poliquin has filed an initial statement there were no finance reports available at the time of this report. Plowman and Pollard did have reports but there were neither enough donations nor expenditures to make it worthwhile to calculate. Plowman and Pollard are mentioned above Poliquin should have been as well. Poliquin was unintentionally omitted. I've added a paragraph above. Also a sidebar with hyperlinks back to all the quarterly reports we used in this analysis.
Thanks for your comments
Licia,
We didn't note in this story that we did try to contact Mrs. Morse in Nova Scotia to get her response or reaction to this report. We were unsuccessful in those attempts. We should have included a line in this report to that effect.
Way off base and just flat-out wrong.
Dan,
The majority of this current board are Democratic appointees.
http://www.maine.gov/dps/ems/boards/ems_board/index.html
There are 17 spots on the board and only 7 are LePage appointees.
There are two vacant spots - including the public representative.
But as you will also notice - several board members have been re-nominated to serve by seceding governors of varying political affiliations.
I think it's very unfair of you to ascribe political motives to all of these individuals carte blanche -- most on this board have chosen careers working towards saving the lives of others and have volunteered much time to that ends in their respective communities. Show some civility, appreciation and respect instead of trying to cast everything in a political light, especially when you are so far off the mark.
It's a cheap, easy political shot to rip off your cuff, but check your facts first. All of the folks on this board deserve a little appreciation and they have not ALL been appointed by any single governor.
Donors have stepped forward to help
Hi all,
We have had several kind folks call to offer to donate a wheelchair for Mr. Huard. He is going to be in the hospital for the next few days but his family is going to go and check out a nice, relatively new, electric wheelchair that is similar to the one he had this Saturday. The family also has the contacts for the other folks who were offering to help. It's awesome you guys thought about and offered to take up a collection for Mr. Huard. At this point it looks like he will be all set.
Scott
Was Tibbetts escorted out of the meeting last night or not?
We fixed the mistake in this story Dan. If you want to email me a copy of your proposed ordinance for Dixfield and I'll put a copy of it up with the story so people can read it themselves. I think peoples should get to see the proposed ordinance for themselves, that would be great. Also if people are discouraged by the selectmen, they should run for those seats when the terms are up. If the majority of voters in Dixfield are opposed to the actions of this board you would think they would be voted out. That's usually how it works.
Thanks,
Scott
sthistle@sunjournal.com
You are right Dan.
The story is in error. At town meeting last May townspeople voted against doing any ordinance at all and to go with state regulations. We will correct this story and note the error. So they didn't vote down an ordinance, they voted down ever doing an ordinance. We will get the story corrected. Dan we are told you were not at the meeting Monday night -- were you there?
The town voted on an ordinance
The story notes the town already voted down an ordinance at an earlier town meeting Dan. How many votes on wind power does the town have to take?
"Town Manager Eugene Skibitksy said Tuesday that the board has no responsibility to place another ordinance before townspeople because the last one was voted down at a town meeting. With that action, the town has agreed to follow the state Department of Environmental Protection regulations for wind development"
Citizens' initiative
I'm surprised there has not been a petition drive started on this one already for a statewide referendum on reducing the size of the Maine Legislature. Just saying. I'm guessing they could get the signatures for that pretty quickly.
good questions, good comments
A lot of good questions and comments on this story. I too was surprised this AP report did not tell us why they need to be exempt from this law? As it has been shown it can be as dangerous as driving under the influence and I can't honestly think of any reason why these emergency responders would need to be texting while on the job. If anyone knows the rationale behind this bill please let us know. Clearly the points made here, like - shouldn't they be setting the good example -- make a lot of sense, while this exemption, so far does not.
Thank you
Pirate and parrot,
Thanks for staying with us through it all. Your sense of humor is always appreciated. And while I don't always like everything you write -- I'm sure you don't like everything I write either -- I do like your loyalty to our community and your style and you do make us laugh. You're a case study in the transition from the land of the unknown to this thing we have now. Your notoriety and wit have long prevailed. "There are good ships and wood ships and ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are friendships and may ours always be." That's probably not an acceptable pirate toast, but nautical at least. Cheers.
Good suggestions, good ideas
Martha,
I like your thoughts and ideas. And wonder if there is a common ground we can get to. But we worry that, as you point out, the people who are prone to abuse the rules and the system would only be more inclined to do so if they could mask their identity from the other members in the conversation. We will chew on your idea. It's a good one.
Scott
You have a good point
Scott,
I think you summed it up fairly. People who really, really want to have their voices heard can. But the question is always do we want to hear the same old songs all the time again and again. It's a difficult choice to open it up and return to a sewer-like environment that the SJ staff is tasked with cleaning up and policing. I do like the idea of allowing users to block the comments they don't want to see and a positive ranking system that would move popular or at least well-liked comments higher. We are in the midst of a grand experiment with how we interact with our audience and how they interact with each other. These are fun and interesting times for journalists and we love our work. Especially when we KNOW there are smart, thoughtful and considerate people who are interested and concerned about our communities and each other.
Latest Maine poll is interesting.
It shows 86 percent of Mainers actually support wind power. There's a full copy of the poll results at the bottom of this story on the poll. I just thought it was an interesting result given there is so much anecdotal evidence referenced in the comments on any wind power story. According to nearly every poll I've seen Mainers are largely in favor of renewable energy projects.
http://www.sunjournal.com/news/state/2011/12/06/latest-maine-poll-featur...
updates
This story will be updated with additional information within the next few hours. This is largely the information the Attorney General's office has supplied. We have had a reporter out at the scene most of the day and will be updating with some additional details as we have them. Thanks for your interest in this story.
Duh. I'm looking stupider and stupider
I meant Mill Street sorry... and yes South Main goes up over the hill as you come over the bridge Mill swings to the left where Rolly's is...
You are right Dan -- it is Main Street
Hey Dan,
You're right about the fact it is Main Street and not South Main. That was my mistake.I thought about it twice and meant to go back and check it again, but didn't. So apologies for any who were offended that we got South Main confused with Main. Mill Street is the street after the bridge over the Little Androscoggin River. And just for your information, as you criticize the newspaper for not having editors who live in the city -- I do live in Auburn on Shepley Street, do you know where that is? I do drive, walk, run and ride my bike on the city streets regularly in both Lewiston and Auburn. Of the the seven people that work in the newsroom during the day in what would be called editors five of us live in Auburn and one lives in Lewiston. Another lives in our Oxford Hills coverage area. I could give you a break down of the entire staff but most of our newsroom people are live locally in the Sun Journal's coverage area. Only a handful do not.
Hope that helps you correct your mispreceptions about the Sun Journal and its staffers. The South Main Street error is all my fault, brain cramp, dumb mistake, I'll own it and apologize for getting it wrong.
Cheers,
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor
You should count again.
If you count carefully there are eight Maine jobs listed in the story. There are only three out-of-state people named. Count them yourself from the principal of the wind power company to the folks on the port. In the story there are workers from Woodstock, Moscow, Maine; Lewiston, Auburn, Brunswick, Farmington, and so on. We spoke to three people that were not from Maine in this story, they were from Vermont, Wisconsin and Texas. Please read the story and keep the facts straight, before you make a comment that is dependent on them.
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor
Sun Journal
thanks for the catch Tony.
We will fix the Senator's home state affiliation post haste.
Exactly.
Mr. Reed,
I agree with you 100 percent on this position. It's precisely the point in fewer words.
How we measure miles for regulation in Maine.
Mr. Reed,
This issue is simply about how we measure distances in Maine for regulatory purposes. Would you propose a better way instead of impuning the motives of the writer -- making the the case at hand? Debate, discuss but the topic isn't the profitability of the newspaper. It's how shall we measure distance between regulated industry? This bill is quite simple, it's not a trick question.
"Putting trees in front of fast-moving skiers ...
Come on Bob. Stop misconstruing the statements and the facts. Seriously, nobody every said it was "extremely safe" nobody said driving to work each day is "extremely safe" but skiing and snowboard riding is, in fact, as safe or safer than riding a bike or swimming at a public beach. Those are the statistical FACTS. IT was also quite serene up there in the trees, we stopped a lot and chatted and soaked in the view and saw other people doing that too. It's a meander through the forest, different skiers and riders moving at different speeds and paces. Just so you know - skiing and riding in a snow-covered forest on a mountain in Maine is not the death wish you have it cracked up to be -- not even close.
You're wrong sir -- don't guess just ask..
No I did not say that death or any tragic one is OK. That's putting words in my mouth or in my writing. I'm asking you to look at the facts Woody, skiing and snowboard riding are statistically very safe sports comparatively, with or without trees. Safer than swimming, safer than riding your bike even. That's all I am saying. Our hearts ache for anybody who loses somebody in a tragic sporting accident, on the ski slopes or elsewhere. So you are very wrong to say that we are condoning or writing off that person's live, very wrong to say that.
Your criticism is 1. not accurate and 2. very mean-spirited.
Scott
For perspective skiing is far safer than people believe it to be
Bob, FYI:
"STATISTICS ON SKIING/SNOWBOARDING via: http://www.nsaa.org/nsaa/press/facts-ski-snbd-safety.asp
Fatalities - According to the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA): During the past 10 years, about 40.6 people have died skiing/snowboarding per year on average. During the 2009/10 season, 38 fatalities occurred out of the 59.8 million skier/snowboarder days reported for the season. Twenty-five of the fatalities were skiers (18 male, 7 female) and 13 of the fatalities were snowboarders, (12 male, 1 female). Among the fatalities, 19 of those involved were reported as wearing a helmet at the time of the incident. The rate of fatality converts to .64 per million skier/snowboarder visits.
Serious Injuries - Serious injuries (paralysis, serious head, and other serious injuries) occur at the rate of about 43 per year, according to the NSAA. In the 2009/10 season, there were 39 serious injuries. Sixteen of these serious injuries were skiers (11 male, 5 female) and 23 were snowboarders, (16 male, 7 female). Among the serious injuries, 18 of those involved were reported as wearing a helmet at the time of the incident. The rate of serious injury in 2009/10 was .65 per million skier/snowboarder visits.
AN ADDITIONAL PERSPECTIVE
To place skiing and snowboarding safety into context (and keeping in mind that this is not statistically significant) it helps to offer a perspective: The National Safety Council (Injury Facts, 2010 edition) points out that in 2008:
* 39,000 Americans died in motor-vehicle accidents;
* 6,162 pedestrians were killed;
* 6,700 died from unintentional public falls;
* 3,800 died from unintentional public poisoning;
* 3,600 people drowned while swimming in public areas;
* 900 died while bicycle riding;
* 129 died from tornadoes;
* and 25 died from lightning.
Skier fatality did not involve glade skiing...
Bob,
The fatal accident at Sugarloaf this season was not in Brackett Basin. That accident, involving a teen-aged skier was on Hayburner, a black-diamond trail that is not a glade but an open run off the SuperQuad lift on the other side of the resort. That tragic accident involved the skier going off the trail striking some snow-making equipment that is installed along the treeline there. See: http://www.sunjournal.com/franklin/story/972503
What is the other fatality you are mentioning? I don't recall two ski or snowboard-related deaths this year Maine. There were two deaths in one week at Sunday River in 2010 both were on open runs, both involved adult men.
I think there's a misconception that you go fast when you are glade skiing, you can go fast, like anywhere on the hill but by in large the skiing is slower in the forest as you must turn more and really don't pick up as much speed as you can on an opened run. I'm not sure you have all your information correct regarding skiing deaths this year in Maine but am willing to look at any information you have.
Thanks for the comment.
Scott
The process of consolidating
This is a great idea by these school administrators. Glad to see the students will have a voice in their new joint identity.
Fixed
Good observation Lorrie,
Russ had attached the photos for the print edition page-designers to have options to work with. I've removed four of the photos online. But we all agree we did not need five shots online of the same person.
Thanks for speaking up.
Scott Thistle
Awesome event every year
This is an awesome event for the athletes and volunteers every year. Congrats to all!
Mind the rules, remember the day
Tron,
You are verified but you still need to follow the rules of engagement and that includes no name calling. Fat and Happy should not be calling names either.
This is a warning to both of you. Chat about the issues, disagree as you will, but use facts and reason to support your point and not insults against each other. The conversation on race and the governor's comments is a touchy one so you need to tread carefully.
There's a large number of people who feel he was speaking his mind and good for him -- another large number of people found the comment tasteless and insensitive. That said if you want to talk about it here don't be tasteless and insensitive.
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day -- he said "We must learn to live together as brothers or we shall perish together as fools."
I think there's a lot to that.
Thanks,
Scott
Federal subsidies for energy sector
In 2007, the most current data, I can find. The U.S. government subsidies for coal, gas and oil totaled $6.7 billion. The total for renewable energy including wind and solar was $4.9 billion. Source. U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration.
Borderline comments
Folks,
Some of the comments are getting a little borderline. Not all of them, but some. So please refrain from name-calling. If you want to talk about politics keep it civil.
There's been a lot of speculation on this incident and it's not even 24 hours old yet.
It very likely appears the individual, suspect, in this case had some serious issues beyond any political beliefs -- which we do not know are a factor in this tragic incident -- this story will be developing for weeks, if not months.
Our hearts and prayers, thoughts and condolences go out to all the victims and their families in this case. We wish a speedy recovery to those who have survived, although this is the kind of incident you can never really recover from fully. :(
In my opinion, this is not the time for political hysteria. Or time to start sniping at others or assigning political blame.
That said, some in the media have pointed out the Congresswoman's district was one of several that appeared on a map in a cross-hair, rifle scope sight graphic as part of a political ad and her name was listed with other lawmakers whose district's were also in cross hairs. Keep in mind this did not keep her from being re-elected and likely many in the left, the right and the middle found those ads offensive.
Giffords also made note of this in a public statement saying she was disturbed by the ad. By its very nature people are going to want to turn this into a political issue but by all respects Giffords, a Democrat, is a very conservative Democrat. She votes party line on key issues and supported the controversial health care reform but by all other accounts she is very well-respected on both sides of the aisle.
All the major political party leaders and the leaders of Tea Party movement nationally have strongly denounced this vicious attack in the most resounding terms.
There are going to be significantly more details coming from this incident in the next several days.
Thanks for your consideration.
For the sake of clarity
I find it entertaining that those making comments below news stories can make the astonishing leap that they are just like the founding fathers of the U.S. or the like the anonymous authors of the Federalist Papers.
My guess is few making this point could even site a single sentence from any of those documents or would even know that the authors of those documents were, in fact, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay.
The debate over the formation of the Constitution of the United States and what form of government we would adopt in those early stages was the substance an important and defining debate. I seldom find the comments of the anonymous comments here rising to that level of sophistication.
Instead, the anonymous commentary we often see on the internet has no resemblance at all, either in style or substance, to the content of the Federalist Papers.
Those who have argued the most vigorously on this point are usually not using their anonymity to elevate the conversation to a higher standard but as a means to avoid embarrassment for posting absurd statements not based in fact or as a means to utter - online - often foul and demeaning insults against their fellow posters.
Anonymity here is used largely to be snarky and snippy and to seek a degree of retaliation against those who have provided fact-based commentary that you find disagreeable.
These behaviors are further compounded by the well-known practice of establishing multiple accounts and a plethora of online identities all belonging to a single individual.
This practice is especially prevalent among political operatives, who cannot establish grassroots support for their causes or their candidates - instead they turn to the fabricated support of their alter egos in a practice known as astro-turfing.
In some instances we have found a single person to have as many as 5 different accounts, appearing to respond to each other, all posted from the same computer and same distinct ISP address.
To all those who argue American democracy is based largely in anonymity, you are forgetting one our most cherished and important historical correspondences with the British Government, signed by its authors at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.
The last line reading: "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."
Below the signatures of 56 men appear including Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, John Penn and Benjamin Harrison among other American luminaries of the day. Many equate this document to America's birth certificate.
Taking just the parts of American history -- out of context -- that support your case or snippets of the Constitution, also out of context, to bolster your ability to continue the practice of lying online or make false accusations against each other while assigning false motives to those who gather and create the content, provided to you free, on this site is far more troubling, more problematic, more of a slippery slope towards supporting a discourse that is increasingly uncivil and inflammatory than any result of having your real name beside what you write is.
To that end for decades writers of letters to the editor of this publication and others have signed their names to their opinions, including their criticism of this publication and those too are openly published.
We are not afraid of criticism nor are we quashing anybody's ability to have free speech, you are free to even have anonymous speech, we are just not going to use our resources to support it in our space online.
Nobody is stopping you from starting your own blog or web site written under your varying, multiple and assumed identities. Have at it. You are free to do that -- we, however, believe credibility depends on accountability.
Some here are angry because they are being denied the ability to make false statements or statements they cannot substantiate with evidence and fact.
So now they assign false motives to the Sun Journal's decision to clean up its commenting sections and our attempts to ensure a more civil and meaningful discussion that is more accessible, respectful and welcoming to others in our community.
They say we are quashing their rights to free speech - on the contrary we are enabling others to speak freely knowing those who join the conversation here will have the honor of their names and personal reputations on the line. We believe that creates a higher standard and will lead to a more enriching discussion.
Those so outraged by our attempts to do this are welcome to move on, start your own blogs, spend the time, money and resources it takes to collect, process, verify and present accurately the information we call news.
You can seek advertisers in the free market economy to support your online products, as we do, including your own online commenting swamp and you are welcome and invited to compete against us for eyes on your pages.
We believe in the competition of the marketplace but based on the quality of the comments we see from those hiding behind anonymity here, I sense we have little to worry about.
For all the others who are taking the time and making the effort to verify their status we thank you for supporting us in our goals.
We thank you for being readers and for understanding our intent on our commenting changes has nothing to do with quashing free speech or advancing any specific political agenda.
We thank you for not prejudging our motives and for not jumping to unfounded conclusions or making unsubstantiated allegations so distant from the truth they would be laughable if not so fantastic in their fabrication.
Absolutely agree
Troutlily,
Forgive me, for harping on our time line with ArmyMom, she is angry about the commenting changes we are making so is critical even unethically critical and grossly inaccurate and unkind in her anonymous criticism -- especially of the Sun Journal -- but as somebody on the inside I wanted to keep the record straight for our readers.
All of our thoughts are with 3 people who remain hospitalized and we are hoping for a speedy recovery for them. The Sun Journal and it's staff will continue to follow this story and will update with new information as it becomes available. But as some of you pointed out above we are doing our best to verify our information and make sure we are accurate in what we report.
Thanks for reading and supporting us. My invitation to armymom, above, applies to any people in our online community my lines of communication are open for your feedback.
Thanks,
Scott
The story was updated from about 11:20 a.m. on Tuesday 12/28
Armymom,
The first version of this story went up live at 11:22 a.m. Tuesday Dec. 28. http://www.sunjournal.com/franklin/story/962630.
The story was the first actual report out there, ahead of AP, ahead of television. They did have tweets and facebook posts about the same time as we did -- one-liners but when we posted our first tweet or FB post we had a report available. Throughout the day Tuesday until about 4 p.m. the story was updated with information, quotes, maps and photos as our staff was able to produce them or they became available. CNN had a reporter riding the chairlift that day, by sheer coincidence and that's why they got the story. CNN did not send anybody to report on this story directly to Sugarloaf, they were already there. Your criticism is misguided here and I will stand by our staff's response to this, we reported it first, got there as quickly as any of the other media in Maine -- barring Rob Atkinson, a former WGME staffer, who was the CNN correspondent riding the lift when this went down.
This version is the story that you see above we ran in the a.m. paper's on Wednesday morning. It went live at 12 a.m. Wednesday, 12-29, 2010.
If you have any questions about our coverage decisions or the timeliness of our reporting please don't hesitate to e-mail me directly or call me.
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor
sthistle@sunjournal.com
207-689-2849
mobile 207-713-6720
P.S.
You are welcome for all the FREE news we provide to you online everyday. I'm glad you appreciate that because our staff is one of the hardest working news staffs in Maine and I daresay the country and I've worked at bigger and smaller papers.
The dog has been reunited with its owner
Just a quick update. The dog was not dropped, it was lost. It had run off from its owner who was working in Oxford. The owner has been looking for the dog for a week now. We will be updating the story but just so folks know, the dog was not abandoned, based on what we have learned since last night.
Cheers all,
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor
sthistle@sunjournal.com
I don't think Putin really wants it
Pirate,
Just when I was ready to poke you in your one good eye. You write something I think is probably correct. :) Putin's saber rattling sure won't help sell this to on-the-fence conservatives and especially will do little good to push those opposing ratification to Obama's side.
A colleague and I were just saying the same thing. Be nice, in my opinion, if Snowe and Collins, would come out one way or the other on this. I think that would be quite telling as to how this will go.
Cheers,
Scott
Missiles carry multiple warheads
This is a bit confusing but the number of warheads is more than the number of missiles as the missiles can carry multiple warheads.
The figures are 90 percent of the world's nuclear arsenal and the reduction in delivery systems i.e. missiles -- online -- is the figure we are referring to here. Thanks for understanding the general point of not stalling on this treaty ratification.
Regards,
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor
click-through link to video added
There's a short clip from this interview on You Tube now, we've added a link above.
Keep the sniping down
Talk about the story, not each other. It's getting a little borderline on this. Please don't make us turn the comments off on a story about new lawmaker orientation.
Be civil, respectful and adult.
Thanks
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor
A few more background stories added
Good morning,
I've added a few links to some previous reports on this case. That may help answer any background questions. They appear just below the photo above. Thanks for the comments.
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor
sthistle@sunjournal.com
That's bull
We always identify lawmakers by their party affiliation in our stories. That's our style.
But nice conspiracy theory.
Means of identifying somebody...
Rusty,
You obviously cared enough to click on this story and then make an irreverent comment about it.
We say who people are or if they hold a elected office as way of identifying them. Also you might care if it were your family member or a friend who was involved in an accident.
We say what a person does or their relationship to government, if we know, for same reason we say somebody's age - it helps identify them to readers. Also when elected officials are involved in public events or mishaps it could impact their ability to do their public work.
There are a lot of reasons to identify a state elected official when they are involved in a car accident or other spot news event not in the political arena. If you would like more information on what we report and how we do that please feel free to contact me any time.
Regards,
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor
What do you mean?
Clearly there WILL be a follow up. This is the information we have at present and will update it again as soon as we have more.
Thanks for your interest.
If you have any other questions feel free to e-mail or call me.
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor
sthistle@sunjournal.com
207-689-2849
Make that a Ford Explorer and Lepage witness
Hey folks,
Thank you for catching our mistake. Of course Ford doesn't make the Blazer, that would be a Bronco, but they don't make those any more either -- so we've fixed that to read Ford Explorer, which our local automotive experts agree the vehicle is.
As to the Paul Lepage witness issue -- indeed and oddly coincidental this person has the same name as the Governor-elect. The one small difference is they spell it with a lower-case p vs. the upper case P in Gov.-elect Paul LePage's name. The witness in the story is also a bit younger than the new governor. We appreciate the feedback.
Thank you.
Are you sure it is Scott vs. Matt? I did recheck my notes and you are correct on his last name I spelled his last name incorrectly. I've fixed it above. My apologies.
Photos
Hi there Eyeroll,
We have another photo we will put up there. These are the photos the police give us from the store's video cameras. I think they give us the best images they have available to them. Just a little background and FYI.
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor
sthistle@sunjournal.com
Check out what Merriam-Webster says about "propaganda"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/propaganda?show=0&t=1285876120
Thanks.
"the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person."
Hmmm "political propaganda" seems to fit well. Plus it's nice alliteration. http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112392/alliteration.html
Poll added
Hi All,
We've added a simple, non-scientific, poll above on this ballot question. Please feel free to vote.
Scott
Which Wight is right
Wendy,
Thanks for the correction. I believe we have it corrected above now.
Scott
If you want to participate
If you want to participate in a non-scientific poll on this issue please do so. I'm curious to what L-A folks and others in Maine are thinking.
http://twtpoll.com/kuaxol
Thanks,
Scott
I set up a non-scientific
I set up a non-scientific poll for folks who would like to vote.
http://twtpoll.com/kuaxol
Scott Thistle Hal, We
Scott Thistle
Hal,
We have follow up story coming regarding more information that came out from the court records today. Just FYI. I think some of your questions will be answered.
Scott Thistle We just
Scott Thistle
We just thought it would make sense to have a conversation for people who want to give and how they can do so with the confidence to know their donation will go to a legitimate cause. Hopefully some people will find that informative and useful. We have guests from the Salvation Army and the United Way joining us.
Please join the conversation at noon.
http://www.sunjournal.com/node/427483
Thanks T, we've changed that
Thanks T, we've changed that headline online. It should have read Roxbury.
Regards,
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor
Sun Journal
sthistle@sunjournal.com
Hey sorry folks, We had
Hey sorry folks,
We had the charter up there but it was causing a technical problem on our site so you couldn't comment. We will put a link to the charter in the story so you can find it. It's on the City Clerk's section of the City of Lewiston's Web site.
Hey Folks, We added the
Hey Folks,
We added the charter as PDF you can peruse here. Hope that helps folks answer some of there questions.
Scott Thistle
sthistle@sunjournal.com
Regional Editor
Sun Journal
Scott Thistle Dear Mr.
Scott Thistle
Dear Mr. Stone,
We've added the full text of the MMA opinion here as a sidebar element to this story for readers' perusal. We also have provided a link to the related story on Mr. Bennett's dismissal by the council.
I further, would like to correct some misinformation that's being distributed by means of this forum and provide you with some source material so readers can review for themselves the laws in Maine regarding open meetings and public access.
Mr. Reed's reference to three elected officials is inaccurate. Three is the magic number for the Legislature. If any three State Legislators from the same legislative committee are gathered it may be considered a sub-committee meeting under Maine's Open Meeting laws.
For other elected bodies including councils the threshold or standard is a quorum of the particular body (it may be three with a body of five but it would be four with a council of seven and so forth) but again that quorum has to be discussing official business of the entity they are elected to serve. If they are at the high school football game cheering on the Red Eddies or the Blue Devils, that's not official business. Although some would beg to differ, I suspect. :)
It is also inaccurate to imply a city councilor can or should individually seek an opinion of the City's attorney. The city's attorney is prohibited by the city's charter from providing an individual councilor any legal advice or opinion, this would seem especially important in any possible legal dispute between two sitting members of the council. The city's attorney represents the interests of the city, not the interests of a particular councilor.
At the direction of the council president, a majority vote of the council or the mayor, in the absence of the council president, can request the attorney to provide a legal opinion.
Several of Lewiston's councilors have been informed of this by the City's Attorney on multiple occasions. There's not getting it and then there's just not wanting to get it.
Self interests versus public interests?
Meanwhile, our so-called "Sunshine Laws" are in place to protect the public's interests not to enable elected officials to hide what they are doing or to conduct the public's business in secret without discussion or relevant justification for their votes.
The very use of the term sunshine is meant to indicate official business, especially the voting business of elected officials, needs to be done in the light of day and not hidden behind closed doors or done covertly via secretive forums or electronic mail that is not open for public review and scrutiny.
There is a fairly good summary of the state's open meeting and public information laws at the Maine Press Association's Web site. http://www.mainepress.org/free.php
Lewiston's City Charter is also available as a PDF document on the Lewiston City Clerk's page http://www.ci.lewiston.me.us/clerk/index.htm
Finally, the Sun Journal has no hidden agenda, no desire to "smear" anybody -- elected officials often do a good enough job of that themselves -- and no real reason or motive for doing so.
Our primary interest lies in giving our readers online and in print accurate and insightful information relevant to the news of the day.
There's often a pattern that emerges when elected officials, fearing for a loss of power, find themselves in a difficult situation -- they blame the media for reporting on their actions and comments. This is known commonly as, the "shoot-the-messenger" effect.
There is also a great Shakespearean line that comes to mind, in reference to the prolific rebuttals or the blaming of the media by certain political figures for the problems they likely created themselves: "Me thinks thou dost protest too much." Hamlet, I believe.
(I see now Veritas beat me to this punchline.) :)
Please feel free to contact me any time with your questions, comments or concerns.
Sincerely,
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor, Sun Journal
sthistle@sunjournal.com
207-956-0849
Scott Thistle We added the
Scott Thistle
We added the video by Barry Donovan to this story. After the first comment was made.
Cheers,
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor
Dear MaineLitigator, Are you
Dear MaineLitigator,
Are you kidding me? Look at the PPH site? http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=268393&ac=PHnws. They have a brief AP report and nothing else. The AP photo is an SJ photo that moved on the AP wire early on. The PPH is a great Maine newspaper, with a great staff and good people and they cover their area very well, but I hope you never become a judge because you aren't really looking at the evidence in the case of this story.
Our coverage of this story will continue for several more days and as an editor here I promise you we will have more staff assigned to this story, which is important to our community, than any other news outlet in New England. If you click on our live blog coverage above you would also see we kept a conversation going with readers for several hours this p.m. Real editors and reporters answering questions on the fire, traffic, the history of the building and so forth. More than 1,600 people joined that conversation today. The PPH has a total of 5 reader comments, two from the same reader, at this time, about 10:30 p.m.
I'd be happy to answer any coverage questions you have any time. E-mail me at sthistle@sunjournal.com call me with your suggestions, ideas and comments.
My kindest regards,
Scott Thistle
Regional Editor
207-689-2849