Talk about a testimonial. If Auburn Mayor John Jenkins can motivate 2,166 people to support him as a write-in candidate, imagine what his professional motivation services can do for you.In hindsight, disregarding Jenkins’ chances for re-election seems silly. He’s a true trailblazer in local politics, first in about everything – first mayor of both cities, […]

We’d applaud Rumford’s lumberjacks for their altruism, if we thought they had some. But little about their surprise pre-dawn assault on two condemned maple trees seemed related to public service; rather their very public statement on how the town should be run, and who should run it.Selectmen Frank DiConzo and Arthur Boivin, plus former Selectman […]

Defeating the racetrack/casino in Calais is a pyrrhic victory for Maine’s anti-gambling advocates, as the regulatory weaknesses trumpeted during their successful anti-racino campaign still, sadly, exist.There’s nothing pleasurable about the tribal racino’s rejection. Calais and Washington County are mired in economic depression; this facility would have helped. Its defeat didn’t stem from disagreement or ignorance […]

Lewiston’s growing number of immigrant students and No Child Left Behind are on a collision course, which could seriously damage city schools and make the federal measurements meaningless.The problem is simple: As more students cannot meet stricter benchmarks, Lewiston schools will receive more failing assessments. Meanwhile, the results produced by No Child Left Behind are […]

Kids don’t know everything after the first few months of kindergarten. Once numbers, colors and sharing are covered, a whole universe of educational opportunity still awaits.After a while, students become familiar with the educational system. They learn how to learn. This familiarity can breed contempt with the system. Yet it also drives success, and reveals […]

Most stunning about James Raymond, the 26-year-old Auburn music teacher accused of groping a female student, is that his arrest appears the least of his concerns.In court documents, Raymond reveals he’s also the subject of a federal child pornography investigation. He also professes attraction to girls, and a “little voice” erodes his preventative measures against […]

Desperate times require desperate candidates. How do you gauge national desperation? Stephen Colbert is polling in double digits. Comedian Colbert’s “The Colbert Report,” on cable’s Comedy Central, stars the real Colbert as the character Colbert in a deadpan send-up of the bumptious, righter-than-thou malarkey merchants of cable TV news.Colbert (the character) announced he would run […]

Maine government has an ethics emergency.Well, emergency ethics legislation, at least.The somewhat stingy Legislative Council has approved fresh ethics reform legislation, submitted by House Speaker Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, for the January session. It replaces a bill, LD 1008, that was drowned in the political bathtub by the Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee in May.This predecessor […]

For an agency that monitors mislabeled moose meat and carps about koi, having its leader charged with hauling short, illegal lobsters is the definition of irony.Col. Thomas Santaguida, Maine’s chief game warden, resigned suddenly this week after being charged with possessing nine undersized lobsters by the Marine Patrol, the warden service’s saltwater counterpart. For a […]

Maine has a pessimistic business climate.Tell us something we don’t know.This week, in Lewiston, yet another conference examined Maine’s non-optimistic economic atmosphere. A customary gaggle of economic developers, businesspeople and assorted officials waxed about disconnects among business, politics and education.If conferences about economic woes were an exportable commodity, Maine could boast a trade surplus as […]