… and all through the land, nothing was stirring, not even trucks weighted with sand. The first snowfall had come and before it went, it dumped three and a half feet on Eustis, where the mountainous snowbanks must now pay rent. (Wouldn’t that be nice?)Of course, that’s just fancy, snowbanks don’t pay. (Unless you’re an […]

A letter from David Heikkinen published Saturday, Dec. 20, contained two editing errors. In the first sentence, the loan to automakers was incorrectly described as a “bailout loan.” In the seventh sentence, the word “pundits” was inadvertently omitted from the beginning.We regret the errors.

Two trips to Home Depot in Auburn in one week, twice finding piles of money laying on the floor, twice reporting it to the store to locate its rightful owners.Gil Steward’s wife thinks somebody upstairs was testing her honest husband.If so, “Honest Gil” passed with distinction. It seems the test is now for everyone who […]

An $838 million budget shortfall is only half of Maine’s problem. Boosting the economy is the other, more complicated, half. Augusta can cut programs and services to trim spending and balance the budget, but a sour business climate will feed into a relentless downturn.Maine needs both spending cuts and economic stimulus. But given the example […]

Call him Ahab?Just as Herman Melville’s literary captain of the Pequod vowed to chase Moby-Dick “’round the horn, hope and Norway maelstrom,” wind developer Harley Lee is pursuing turbine plans in Redington Township with a similiar tenacity.Lee’s new gambit is having Carrabassett Valley annex mountaintop land his company, Maine Mountain Power, owns in Redington, which […]

Cheers and jeers from around the news:• Cheers to Lewiston Mayor Laurent Gilbert, for casting the deciding vote to reject a continuation of the senseless moratorium on downtown business. The moratorium was unneeded; it neither saved downtown from hasty projects or afforded time for new strategies.In the midst of an historic economic crisis, with interest […]

What’s best for Androscoggin County is for commissioner Helen Poulin to abandon efforts to retain her seat and let the new board start fresh. The business of the county has suffered under distraction of her residency dispute.Superior Court Justice Joyce Wheeler, in ruling Wednesday against an injunction to stop Poulin’s replacement, Elaine Makas, from being […]

With the strong support of Sen. Susan Collins, the U.S. Senate on Dec. 12 passed a bill suspending the required payout retirees must take from their IRAs or 401(k)s after reaching their 70th birthdays. The deferment is for 2009.Sen. Collins has also asked the U.S. Treasury to suspend these payments for 2008 as well, under […]

In a recent editorial about recalling elected officials, we should have mentioned that Maine allows its supreme court to remove governors, on petition by the Legislature or secretary of state.For lawmakers to ask the court, the House and Senate must pass a joint resolution requesting removal. The secretary of state “may so certify” the governor […]

Auburn City Council’s decision to exempt warehouse-sized buildings from the city’s 23-year-old sprinkler ordinance is quizzical, because the reason the ordinance was written remains relevant, and remains a problem.In 1982, Auburn enacted its sprinkler policy to curb fires, obviously, and because hydrants only covered 22 percent of the city. By comparison, Lewiston hydrants cover 90 […]