The city of Auburn’s deadline for returning municipal petitions is 90 days, not 30 days as stated in this column yesterday. The 30-day deadline is for referendum affidavits; we regret the error.

You definitely can’t fight city hall if the rules are stacked against you.Such is the case in Lewiston, where an overly restrictive ordinance prohibits the circulation of citizen petitions (relating to municipal affairs) outside the city clerk’s office. Voters must appear at city hall during “business hours” of 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. to sign […]

In hindsight, perhaps the one computer more unreliable and malevolent than Maine’s Medicaid billing software – the MaineCare Management Information System – was the eerily human HAL-9000 from Stanley Kubrick’s landmark 1968 film, “2001: A Space Odyssey.”And, as irony has it, Maine’s computing odyssey also began in 2001, when a Maryland computing company, CNSI, inexperienced […]

As one daughter read, and the other fidgeted, Suzette and Peter Cyr of New Auburn patiently waited for their turn to speak. Suzette rose to voice concerns about the condition of neighborhood sidewalks, while Peter, speaking after, called New Auburn a “sleeping giant” primed for revitalization.The Cyrs were two of the 50 or so people […]

Mythologically speaking, the god Mercury screamed along from place to place, his speed secured from winged footwear. The element named for the fleet Roman deity of trade and travel also moves swiftly, cutting a swath through the atmosphere, rivers, lakes and bloodstreams of Maine, its people, and its wildlife.Yet while mercury moves with haste, the […]

Friday’s editorial requires a clarification. In describing Gov. John Baldacci’s equation of education reform to the state’s “technology centers,” we referred to Maine’s Applied Technology Development Centers, specifically the two-year-old River Valley Technology Center in Rumford.The governor’s analogy, it became clear on Friday, actually referred to the state’s regional vocational educational centers, such as the […]

Norm Croteau is a respected lawyer, a responsible district attorney and a decent guy. We strongly disagree with his decision, though, not to release the accident report on the deadly Dec. 24 wreck in Poland.That day, Steven Walton, Laura Caron, Michael Cournoyer, Jacob Roy, Matthew Manley and Robert Bruce died. We know that Cournoyer lost […]

An asset for jazz musicians and stand-up comics, improvisation has little place in the halls of government, especially the secluded corridor where the Androscoggin County commissioners hold court.Yet, on Wednesday, commissioners nimbly “improved” a meeting to review the budget prepared by Sheriff Guy Desjardins. After adjourning their scheduled budget meeting with the new sheriff, the […]

Gov. John Baldacci seems to have listened.During his inauguration speech Wednesday, Baldacci said many right things: school administration spending is excessive and must be reduced through efficiency; state education aid must be legislatively earmarked for taxpayer relief, or be smote by his veto; valuations must freeze until a property sells.Hooray for all. But architects design, […]