Nov. 5, 2013 Elections: Municipal and state referendums, ordinance changes, candidates

BELFAST - From the hills of San Francisco, the verdant landscape of northern Vermont, the concrete Coltrane district of Philadelphia; from these and other far-flung places, Toussaint St. Negritude has come to Maine — seeking refuge from the gridded, concrete jungle here in naturally-exquisite northern New England.

If you are a Belfast native, or have been around town in the past several months, you may have noticed Toussaint's presence around the city. He is easily one of…

Even though I live a couple of towns away from Camden I still follow what goes on because it is my home town and it’s fun to watch the struggles that people create when they take themselves way too seriously.  Whenever some big subject comes up, a person or persons from away will strongly advocate for their view because “we” don’t know what could happen if the natives, locals, lesser humans don’t take immediate action.

I’ve listened to this for 40 years or more.  Thank God everyone…

PENOBSCOT BAY — The 70-foot sailing yacht Archangel, a charter boat with a homeport of Newport, R.I., hit East Goose Rock in the early afternoon, Aug. 7, went aground, dismasted and rolled onto its side. On Aug. 8, few involved with its rescue and salvage were talking about the recovery, given its status as a marine casualty.

The…

KNOX - To look at it, the East Knox School — a one-room school house built in 1898 — hadn’t received much attention in recent years. The paint was peeling and stained, and the clapboards were ragged in places. An addition had been unceremoniously removed, as had the roof. On Monday, however, all eyes were on the historic building as it rolled through town aboard a hydraulic trailer. 

The century-old school…

SEARSPORT - The beachcombers had come expecting to see signs of pollution, but the first one — a bright yellow object, the size and shape of a date — seemed to catch most of them off guard.

They formed a circle around it. The cameras came out. Someone asked the inevitable question.

Ron Huber, who organized the walk under the banner of Friends of Penobscot Bay…

June 28

According to the small television screen attached to the cabin ceiling, we are somewhere over Germany, but out the window I see only a thick carpet of clouds. The goodbyes in Belgium have left me physically and emotionally fatigued, but I am nevertheless happy to be with my fellow Scouts en route to Romania for the final installment in my grand European adventure.

…

CAMDEN – Local doctors and friends of Fox Hill Real Estate LLC told the Camden Planning Board Thursday evening they endorsed an alcohol and substance abuse rehabilitation center on Bay View Street, but one neighbor has hired a Portland law firm, along with a Camden lawyer, to fight the proposal.

“It is a flawed proposal for this area,” said Matthew Manahan, an attorney with Pierce Atwood. “It is not appropriate in the Bay View neighborhood.”…

Voters from the eight towns of Regional School Unit 20 rejected the district’s proposed school budget for the second time in a referendum on Tuesday.

Turnout at the polls was low across the district, and the margin of defeat in most towns was decisive. Beyond that, school district officials will have to guess as to what went wrong this time.

The $33.8 million budget would have raised the local share by an average of 12.4 percent over last year. Distirct officials have attributed…

CAMDEN — A rear-end accident on Elm Street Wednesday afternoon totaled a car and injured a 13-year-old passenger.

Camden Police Officer Allen Weaver Jr. said that Gail Vincent, 72, of Warren, was driving a 2002 Subaru Outback when she had to stop for someone in front of her making a turn.

Vincent was traveling south on Elm Street (Route 1) in front of Party Fundamentals. Traveling behind her was Patty Freeman, 37, of Searsport, in a 1996 Toyota Corolla sedan.

Freeman…

BELFAST – Voters in the eight towns of Regional School Unit 20 will take a second shot at the district's 2013-14 budget in a referendum Tuesday, July 30. The $33.8 million bottom line is lower than the figure rejected at a referendum in June, but would still carry a sizeable tax increase for some towns, and include staff cuts that have been contentious in past debates.

In short, it’s not a slam dunk for…

GLOUCESTER, Mass. - Howard Blackburn set a high bar for endurance rowing. While fishing off the coast of Newfoundland in 1883, his dory became separated from from his schooner. Over the next five days, he rowed 60 miles across the North Atlantic until he reached land. Blackburn's crewmate Thomas Welch died in the boat, but what arguably makes the story memorable is the description of Blackburn letting his hands…

SEARSPORT - Regional School Unit 20 voters trimmed the district's draft 2013-14 budget by just over $360,000 at a public budget meeting at Searsport District High School, July 22.

Monday night's meeting was the second public review of the budget — a costlier version approved at a meeting in May was rejected at a referendum in June. The revisions made on Monday go before voters for final approval July 30.

Over the past two months, the budget debate has swung between opposing…

BELFAST – After a fraught loss at the polls in June, activists from six Waldo County municipalities are launching a second campaign to withdraw from Regional School Unit 20.

A bill in the Maine Legislature may also eliminate the clause that killed the last withdrawal bid.

Town officials in Belfast, Belmont and Northport received valid petitions…

BELFAST - City officials this week reviewed a list of ideas aimed at boosting the number of parking spaces downtown. A multi-level garage was not one of them.

Instead the wide-ranging plan would reorient on-street parking on the blocks surrounding Main and High Streets, set aside zones within areas that are currently in flux, expand existing lots, and employ a host of other bite-sized adjustments in order to…

CAMDEN -- Unanimously, Camden's Select Board voted Monday evening to prohibit smoking within 20 feet of a town-owned building, park, beach, playground, picnic area, trail or athletic facility. This new policy applies to the Camden Public Library, amphitheatre and Harbor Park.

Smoking means "inhaling, exhaling, burning, carrying or having in one’s possession any lit cigarette, cigar, pipe, plant or other combustible substance in any manner or any form," the policy reads.

There is…

BELFAST - In the years before Belfast's celebrated downtown revival, a common refrain among longtime residents was that what the city really needed was a bowling alley.

Several years and one downtown revival later, the city may be about to get one.

Belfast officials recently got word that ALL PLaY Family Entertainment Center in Waldoboro has taken a…

BELFAST – “Are we having a baby boom in Belfast that no one’s told us about,” Elizabeth Minor asked fellow Planning Board members Thursday in response to an agenda with requests from three preschools.

The board granted Toki Oshima and Jes Anthonis a permit to convert part of the Edgecomb Road farmhouse that was once the home base for the Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage development into a the…

KNOX - Drivers traveling on Route 220 during the past week may have noticed a ring of unusual steel structures and a lot of displaced dirt on a rise just south of Knox Ridge Baptist Church. But what is it?

After toying with the idea of a missle silo or a sculptural mash-up of Stonehenge and the Eiffel Tower, PenBay Pilot asked around and found the site is about to be home to a new communications tower.

On closer inspection, the cluster of metal cross-bracing turns out to include…

THORNDIKE - A July 4 car crash in Thorndike killed one person and seriously injured two others, according to Waldo County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Jeff Trafton.

Trafton said the single-car accident was reported at 7:22 p.m., Thursday.

The car, driven by Alvaro Soares, 27, of Unity was traveling southbound on Route 220 into Thorndike Village with two passengers, his sister Kelley Soares, 22, of Cranston, RI and her boyfriend Oscar Tizon Brito, 23, of Providence, RI, when it…

BURNHAM - The pilot and passenger of a helicopter that crashed on July 3 suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries, according to a release from the Waldo County Sheriff's Office.

The Waldo County Dispatch Center, reportedly, received a call at 6:39 p.m. Wednesday that a helicopter had crashed into a heavily wooded area in Burnham approximately a quarter mile from Winnecook Road.

According to the release, the pilot, a 58-year-old man from Bowdoinham reported experiencing…

BELFAST - In a split vote, the Regional School Unit 20 board of directors approved a revised 2013-14 budget that goes lighter on staff cuts than those that prompted a backlash in May, and easier on taxes than the staff-friendly version voters rejected in June.

The $33,823,542 bottom line approved on Tuesday night represents an increase of just over 1 percent from last year's budget. The district's eight towns, however, will see their local share go up an average of 12.4 percent, due…

BELFAST - A series of deals struck this week has apparently cemented the future role of City Point Station as a shared hub for excursion train rides and a recreational rail trail.

Joe Feero, executive director of Brooks Preservation Society on Tuesday confirmed a purchase and sale agreement with Mack Page Sr. for the City Point Station property.

Brooks-based BPS has operated its excursion rail service out of City Point Station since May, and talk of a sale had been circulating…

BELFAST - The Regional School Unit 20 finance committee on Wednesday approved revisions to the 2013-14 budget, settling on a bottom line midway between the board's original austere budget and a costlier version approved a public budget meeting in May, then…

SEARSPORT - Voters at a special town meeting Wednesday rejected a proposal to build a new North Searsport fire station. They also declined to keep the land on which the station would have been built.

Residents had been scheduled to vote on the new building at the annual town meeting in March, but the article was postponed after firefighters were called away mid-meeting to respond to a reported fire.

The new fire station, which was to be located on Mt. Ephraim Road, originally…

BELFAST – A local blogger was on hand when Maynard Haslett launched his boat Shanty at the public landing in February. Later a few photos appeared online under the slightly befuddled headline "Junk in Maine Waters??"

Shanty's striking look — her cabin painted in bright yellow and vermilion,…

BELFAST – After seeing the Belfast Harbor Walk through several years of planning, residents could be forgiven for thinking the project was nothing more than a Planning Office pipe dream.

But in the two months since workers pulled back the curtain on the project — literally, cutting down a screen of arbor vitae between Belfast Common and Steamboat Landing — a major section of the walkway has gone from concept to reality in short order.

Today the Harbor Walk cuts an uninterrupted…

BELFAST – Motorcyclists cruising down sidewalks, jackasses joyriding the grade on wheeled office chairs, motorists picking roadkill out of their tire treads, and law-abiding lads toting laundry baskets on longboards.

These were a few of the images put forward in a debate Tuesday night by the City Council over what rules and penalties should apply to skateboarding downtown. 

City Manager Joe…

STOCKTON SPRINGS – Residents at the annual town meeting Saturday voted 82-19 to keep their police department. The decision went against the recommendation of the town's budget committee, which had proposed eliminating the force in response to a loss of state revenue sharing.

The department, composed of three Waldo County Sheriff's Office deputies and a department supervisor working a rotating 40-hour-per-week schedule, typically costs the town $35,000 - $40,000 according to Town…

I have had two pets in my lifetime. The first was a rare African frog that arrived in the mail, a surprise present from my grandparents. The second was a red-backed salamander (that I christened "Salamandy" if I recall correctly) that I had found under a log in my friend's backyard. Salamandy passed on long ago. We gave Sanchez the frog to a friend, after finding him resiliently alive after nearly 8 years.

It was not until I moved in with my third…

BELFAST – The Regional School Unit 20 Board of Directors met on Thursday for the first time since the district's 2013-14 budget was rejected by voters in all of its eight municipalities. Several members of the public addressed the board with their opinions about the budget and at least one director brought up the topic, but there was no discussion by the board.

Chairman Anthony Bagley stopped the conversation noting that the budget revisions would have to follow the same steps as the…

BELFAST — A bid by six towns to withdraw from Regional School Unit 20 failed in Tuesday's referendum on a technicality requiring a minimum voter turnout. But it may not be off the table for two years as supporters initially believed.  

Voters in Belfast, Belmont, Morrill, Northport, Searsmont and Swanville cast their ballots June 11 on a plan to collectively withdraw from the school district. If successful, the vote would have been the first step in a plan supporters hoped would…

BELFAST - An ambitious bid by six Waldo County towns to secede from Regional School Unit 20 was approved by an overwheming majority of voters in a June 11 referendum. The vote won't count, however, because numbers for overall turnout in most towns failed to meet the statutory minimum.

Voters also rejected the proposed 2013-14 budget for RSU 20 by a wide margin all eight towns.

The total number of voters for the withdrawal to be valid needed to be equal to or more than 50-percent…

BELFAST - Steve Boguen recently finished digitizing the roughly 8,000 handwritten burial records of Grove Cemetery where he has served as superintendent for 34 years. He started the indexing project 10 years ago. So when he appeared before the City Council last week, it seemed like an announcement might be forthcoming. Instead, Boguen asked the Council to stop the rising incidences of…

MIDCOAST - School budgets don't typically bring voters to the polls in droves, but deep cuts coupled with tax increases in many districts may make this year an exception to the rule.

On Tuesday, June 11, voters will be asked to approve or reject their local school district's bottom line in validation referendums around the state.

They will also be asked if they want to vote by referendum on future budgets or have the public budget meeting, in which the 11 cost centers are…

NORMANDY, France – Belgium has a complicated relationship with France. On one hand, France offers sunny beaches, snow-capped mountains, picturesque countrysides, and vibrant cities to visit, while at the same time supporting the cultural foundation of the Francophone world. However, most Walloons find the French insufferably haughty. Fortunately, the inn that we had booked for a long-weekend in Normandy was owned by a Belgian couple.

…

THORNDIKE - Imaginary pets and fantasy warfare aren't explicitly addressed in the rules of Regional School Unit 3, and role playing probably falls under the broad category of “acting out.” But since last fall students at The Mount View School in Thorndike, have been encouraged to eviscerate trolls and trade legendary beasts with impunity — and diplomatic immunity — under the umbrella of a weekly program hosted by the Belfast-based Game Loft.…

BELFAST – I can feel the paint creeping in between my toes. It’s cold and wet and borderline uncomfortable, but I know if I move I will mess up the shot. It’s crawling over my big toe now, but my camera and I remain focused while Eric splashes, drips and spreads paint all over his canvas.

In Eric Leppanen’s basement, paint in between your toes is just a hazard of the job. The local artist seems to pride himself on his paint splattered domain, his multicolored shoes, and his acrylic…

BELFAST – The shaded lanes of Grove Cemetery have long invited visitors looking for peaceful place to walk, but according to cemetery superintendent Steve Boguen, an increasing number have brought their dogs along, which has led to complaints from citizens with loved ones buried there.

Speaking to the City Council on Tuesday night, Boguen mostly left the details of the “issue with dogs” to his audience's…

ROCKLAND — On Saturday, June 1, the Society for Creative Anachronism’s Shire of Hadchester held a Renaissance Festival in Harbor Park in Rockland. Lords and ladies, squires, surfs and vassals alike all bade thee welcome to view demonstrations of cooking, leather craft, sewing and swordsmanship in a day-long celebration of work, play and socializing.

If you live in Appleton, Camden, Damariscotta, Islesboro, Jefferson, Monhegan, North Haven, Rockport, Rockland, Thomaston, Vinalhaven,…

BELFAST - Voters from the eight towns of Regional School Unit 20 on Thursday added almost $1 million back into the district's proposed 2013-14 budget in an attempt to restore staff positions and program funding the school board had slated for elimination.

Without the amendments, the draft budget — a lose-lose compromise drawn up in response to dwindling state aid and the loss of Frankfort from the district — would not have negated a tax increase. The bottom line approved on Wednesday…

ROCKPORT — Ken Dodge, of Rockport, is no stranger to early mornings. He lobsters out of Rockport Harbor, but Thursday he was getting ready to go out for halibut on his boat the Becca & Meagan. Halibut started running May 1. The season for fishermen is from May 1 to June 30.

“Sometimes we get one, sometimes we get two and sometimes, we don’t get anything,” he said. “We don’t really like to say how many we catch. The fish has to be 41 inches to be legal and we have a stick…

ROCKLAND - Today is Memorial Day and though it will be a chilly one, the sun will shine and allow the many parades and ceremonies to take place. My Memorial Day began yesterday with a breakfast at the American Legion Post 1 in Rockland. There I spoke to veterans, and visited the memorial. The land Winslow Holbrook, Merritt American Legion Post 1 sits on was at one time the post for the Fourth Maine Regiment during the Civil War. The original flag holder that the regiment used is still in…

CAMDEN — Rockport Dance Conservatory will present its sixth spring showcase this evening, May 24 and 25 atthe Camden Opera House. Director Kari Cameron and assistant director Sally Leighton have strived to combine creativity with RDC’s dance styles. According to Cameron and Leighton the have held passionately to their original mission to inspire your imagination and help you to discover the joy of dance. RDC is a registered 501C-3 non-profit organization.

Cameron said she got the…

BELFAST - If summer residents of Belfast share one thing aside from a love of their adoptive city, it might be a subscription to Down East Magazine. For those who don't, there was an article last December about City Councilor and tireless Belfast booster Mike Hurley's attempt to embrace a label used for years to deride Belfast's left-leaning, art-forward residents.

…

ROCKLAND — Bartlett Woods Retirement Community hosted an open house Saturday, May 19, inviting the public to see recent changes. The open house was to showcase 24 new apartments in a wing that is now part of the main building. Other new features included a game room, media room, conference room and renovations to the dining area. The new wing represents a major…

BELFAST - Some time back, Captain John Worth overheard a woman who was touring her visiting friend along the waterfront.  Worth had just returned from a night of work on one of the tug boats of the Penobscot Bay Tractor Tug Co. when the woman said,  “These are our tug boats. They don’t ever go anywhere, but here they are.” 

Worth recounted the story with mock exasperation from the pilot's seat one of those…

ROCKLAND — A resident on the island of Criehaven — the one year-round resident — is asking Knox County Commissioners to provide 911 service to the offshore island, which lies 1.5 miles south of Matinicus Island at the farmost eastern reaches of Penobscot Bay.

The request for 911 service from a resident of Criehaven was made to the county for purposes of addressing for Internet service. Criehaven is an alternative name for Ragged Island, an unorganized territory in Knox County. The…

BELFAST - The Regional School Unit 20 board of directors on Tuesday heard objections from district teachers and staff members to the elimination of certain positions in the district's proposed 2013-14 budget.

The meeting was the first since the board approved $1.7 million in cuts in the coming year in an effort to make up for a drop in state assistance and pending legislation that could shift a portion of teacher retirement to local school districts.

Roughly $1 million of the…

ROCKLAND — Lynn Archer, owner of the Brass Compass, a restaurant on property that abuts Rockland’s Winslow-Holbrook Park, stood before the City Council Monday evening, May 13, and asked to buy or lease from the city an eight-foot strip of land there. She referenced the recent request by another Rockland business owner to purchase four feet of land that also is part of the park, although on another side.

Last week, Robert Liberty, owner of the Trade Winds Motor Inn, asked to…

BELFAST - Plans and sketches for a proposed building at Front Street Shipyard that would be the business' largest to date have been in discussion for months, but on Thursday representatives used computer-based, three-dimensional renderings to show city officials what the building might look like on site.

"Building 6" as it is called, would be located on land currently the city-owned Front Street municipal parking lot and would be designed to work in tandem with a 485-ton mobile boat…

ROCKLAND — Rockland's proposed 2014 municipal budget of $10,674,576 shows an increase of $3,498 over this year's budget with what it intends for gross municipal expenditures. The static budget also reduces dependence on the city's undesignated fund balance of $139,601 (that safety cushion that municipalities rely on), which means it can grow, and subsequently relieve the need to borrow from the bank with tax anticipation notes.

“This budget looked carefully at our service levels and…

UNITY - On Wednesday afternoon, Tom Falicon of the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad watched as workers dismantled the old Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad turntable at Unity Station. Nearby a crane loaded passenger coaches onto flatbed rail cars bound for points south. 

"We bought them a few years back and now we've come to collect them," he said, referring to a 2010 deal in which…

BELFAST — The crossing of the former Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad at Oak Hill Road could become a outlying hub for city recreation and tourism, according to a picture painted at a meeting of the Belfast City Council, May 7.

A two-mile segment of the city-owned rail corridor is slated for conversion to a two-mile recreational trail starting at the old Upper Bridge and ending near the old City Point Station at the juncture of Oak Hill and Kaler roads. Brooks Preservation Society…

ROCKPORT – Camden Hills Regional High School presents its spring Dinner Theatre production of John Cariani's Almost, Maine beginning May 9 through May 11. Almost, Maine is a series of love stories told through vignettes that take place in the mythical town of Almost, Maine, an unorganized township in northern Aroostook County.

"We just never got around to becoming a town, but we almost did, that's why we're Almost, Maine," Director Margaux DePue told Penobscot Bay…

UNITY - In a story that has become familiar among Maine school districts this year, the proposed 2013-14 budget for Regional School Unit 3 includes a combination of deep cuts and a likely tax increase. The 11-town Western Waldo County district lowered its own costs this year but faced additional reductions in state aid.

In his budget message, school board chairman Phil Shibles said the district has been reining in its budget by more than a half-million dollars per year since 2008 — the…