A bill to remove public notices from newspapers in favor of a new, online system has been wisely slowed in the Legislature. LD 1878, sponsored by Rep. Terry Hayes, D-Buckfield, was estimated to save $1.5 million annually by scrapping traditional methods of publishing upcoming government actions.(Note: Yes, newspapers receive revenue for publishing notices. Ceasing them […]

Nestlé Waters North America, the parent company of Poland Spring, made a sage decision to negotiate with its critics, who were gearing up for a second citizen campaign for a tax on commercial water extraction.Although the first campaign for the first-in-the-nation tax fell short of the ballot qualification, its success persuaded proponents that a second […]

The Androscoggin Bank Colisee has an image problem.Here it is, in a nutshell: Taxpayers of Lewiston know exactly what’s being put into the arena. This week, it was a $650,000 loan (or “bailout,” if you’re Mayor Laurent Gilbert). Up to then, taxpayers gritted through millions poured into the facility for its face-lift and management reorganization, […]

For city managers, unpopularity is part of the job.In a contradiction to the old maxim about plumbing, you-know-what always runs uphill at City Hall, as when residents turn angry, it’s not the head of some part-time clerk that’s called for, but nearly always that of the manager.Auburn’s recent survey about a new city manager illustrates […]

Another day, another multimillion dollar hotel.A few weeks after Auburn announced its major lodging development, Wednesday was Lewiston’s turn, with the revelation of a North Carolina developer having contracted to build an upscale hotel on 1.16 acres of city property overlooking the Great Falls.For an area quiet of major hotel developments until the Hilton Garden […]

Neither vigorous gun control laws nor boisterous child safety campaigns would have prevented 9-year-old Tyler Richard from shooting himself in the chest on Tuesday.Laws and warnings couldn’t have changed the source of his accident: pure, brutal negligence.“I’m a male I guess, and I do like ’em,” said Richard’s grandfather, Charles Martin, about firearms, after inexplicably […]

Good news comes in many forms. Like an unexpected greeting card in a cherry-colored envelope, conveying a brightening tidbit, or an invitation for backyard revelry.Or, it can come in an antiseptic legal brief, penned in icy language, like what the Lewiston School Department recently received. In its inimitable way, the U.S. Department of Justice gave […]

In an event like the Trek Across Maine, in which almost a couple thousand cyclists pedaled from Sunday River to to the sea this weekend, odd moments of temporary insanity will occur, as bicycles and cars uneasily share the road.Like this year, when an aggrieved motorist driving along the trek route in New Portland harassed […]

The first steps into Maine’s busy summer of school administration consolidation starts tonight, with the Department of Education’s first public information sessions. They start at 7 p.m, at Cony High School in Augusta, and the Lake Region High School in Naples.Meetings around Maine will run through July 12.In our region, the DOE will hold sessions […]

For once, the Maine Legislature may have done right by stifling bills aimed to improve its accountability, and buttress lawmakers against political pressure.In smothering LD 1550 and LD 1553, which sought to lengthen the terms of representatives and senators from two years to four, the Legislature wisely stymied a proposal that needs more information, attention, […]