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

BELFAST - A recreational rail trail along the Passagassawakeag River continued to take shape on Tuesday night as the City Council reviewed a feasibility study and ruled out several of the more expensive options. Watching closely were representatives of Coastal Mountains Land Trust, the Camden-based conservancy that hatched the idea and has pledged money to to the project, and representatives of two railroad groups for whom the trail means being pushed,…

MIDCOAST - Gusty winds and and a fallen tree were to blame for power outages in four towns in Knox County this morning, according to Central Maine Power Spokeswoman Gail Rice.

Rice said 5,600 CMP customers in the region lost power shortly before 7 a.m. when a tree came down on transmission lines between Camden and Rockport. The incident resulted in power outages in Camden, Rockport, Hope and Lincolnville.

Work crews repaired the damaged lines and power was restored at 9:47, Rice…

BELFAST - At the end of his first year on the job, Harrie D. Eckler, Belfast's first city manager, summed up the perennial public relations puzzle of government officials in a single sentence, which was printed in the city's 1930-31 annual report. It read:

During the time that taxes are being paid, the question usually arises as to why the tax is so high, and what the money raised by taxation is used for.

The statement wouldn't have been news to anyone. But the…

WATERTOWN, Mass. - Athenahealth, the web-based medical billing services provider, announced today an agreement to acquire Epocrates Inc., maker of mobile physicians' applications, for $11.75 per share, or roughly $293 million.

The closing is expected to happen in the second…

ISLESBORO - Islesboro hunters killed 49 deer during a three-week, special deer reduction hunt in December according to figures tallied by the town and presented to officials from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Jan. 3.

Both town and state officials saw the results as promising and somewhat ambiguous.

The hunt came as the result of five years worth of studies aimed at reducing Lyme Disease on the island, which spiked in 2011 with 29 confirmed cases. In prior…

BELFAST - Should the city give tax breaks to big businesses that want to open shop in Belfast, or to established ones hoping to expand? The question was the topic of a City Council work session on Tuesday night, and the answer from the Council was something like "it depends."

At issue were the proceeds from tax increment financing districts, or TIFs, which allow municipalities to shelter tax revenue from the state and use it for public improvements, or in a more a controversial version…

BELFAST - New Year's by the Bay, the city's alcohol-free first night celebration, marked its sixteenth year last night. Judging from packed houses at the dozens of concerts and performances downtown the event is as popular as it's ever been.

Many acts from past years returned in 2013 including the Blue Hill Brass Band, Katahdin Valley Boys, Hawk Henries and OdLaW. As in past years, the program played to the character of the venues, four of which were in churches. Minimally-amplified…

Same sex marriage becomes a legal option for Maine residents Saturday, Dec. 29. And while Midcoast towns are unlikely to be issuing them at midnight as is planned in Portland, some Waldo County municipalities will be open on Saturday for business as usual. In Knox County, there are no regular Saturday town office hours and no special openings this Saturday.

Others, like Belfast have made special arrangements to be open when they wouldn't otherwise. 

A full list of municipalities…

MIDCOAST - County government expenses, including the sheriff's department, corrections facilities, emergency management and 911 dispatch centers, account for around 10 percent of property tax bills in the Midcoast. This month officials in Knox and Waldo counties signed off their respective budgets for the upcoming year.

Knox County commissioners and budget committee approved a $6.6 million bottom line for 2013, up 4.3 percent, or roughly $281,000, from the current year.

Most of…

CAMDEN — Camden's Select Board tended to a slew of business at its Dec. 18 meeting, including the acceptance, with regret, of longtime volunteer Sidney Lindsley's resignation from the Planning Board. The board also held a moment of silence for the community of Newtown, Conn.; approved placement of another group business sign, this one on Mechanic Street near a tree that some referred to that night as the “Roger Moody Tree”; and entered executive session to talk…

(Editor's note: Questions from residents about building numbers referred to at the Shipyard led City Councilor Mike Hurley and BEL-TV's Ned Lightner to film a short video tour of the property, embedded here with Hurley's permission.)

BELFAST - A major expansion proposed by Front Street Shipyard got a warm enough welcome when it was unveiled earlier this month that the city has set out an expedited timeline for approvals.

The plan, which would allow the Shipyard to finish…

Twenty eight million deliveries in one day. Even Santa Claus would be impressed.

This week alone, United Parcel Service shipped 135 million packages around the globe. On Thursday, Dec. 20, UPS estimated it will deliver 28 million packages, making it the busiest day of the holiday season.

“That’s about 300 packages per second,” said a UPS corporate spokesperson.

To help with the holiday rush, UPS added 55,000 part time employees to work through the season.  And it doesn…

BELFAST - The thought of adding seats and lighting to the footbridge (a.k.a. Armistice Bridge) brought an angry contingent of veterans to City Hall last month. When the topic came up again on Dec. 18, the tone had mellowed but some disagreements remained about what amenities the bridge should have, if any.

"First of all, we're not angry," said Friends of the Bridge organizer Tammy Lacher Scully, who, along with American Legion Commander Tim Parker, spoke on behalf of a newly-formed…

CAMDEN — The steady bang, bang, bang you hear as you walk around Hannaford Supermarket, just off of Route 1 at the Camden-Rockport town line, is not recorded music; rather, it is the sound of progress.

The Scarborough-based company is expanding its Camden store into the plaza’s former Movie Gallery space, increasing square footage from 28,000 square feet to 32.500 square feet. The additional space will house the Hannaford’s produce section and a new entrance to the store. Additional…

BELFAST — The city manager, in his Dec. 18 report, said he expects to be advertising soon for the vacant park director's position.

The move would be standard procedure were it not for the three months it took to get there, a period of time during which the volunteer Parks and Recreation Commission set aside its grand ambitions and went into survival mode — with some members wondering to what degree the department would even continue to exist.

The story mostly unfolded between the…

ISLESBORO - Outside Laura and Cliff Houle's auto garage, junkyard and oil delivery service, five deer lay in the back of a refrigerated truck. They were all does. And all of them had been killed with guns, which, depending upon who you ask, is a new thing on Islesboro. 

Laura had removed one tooth from each, measured antlers of those that had them and logged numerous other details about the circumstances of their death. The teeth will be sent to a lab in Montana for tests that will…

WATERTOWN, Mass - Last week, athenahealth, a provider of web-based billing services for independent physicians' practices, made headlines after inking an agreement to buy the 29-acre Arsenal on the Charles office park complex from Harvard University for $168.5 million.

But what effect, if any, will the purchase have on the company's offices in Belfast? 

Athenahealth has been headquartered at the Arsenal since 2005 and currently occupies 245,000 square feet of office space there,…

BELFAST - A group of artists traveling by boat to the Arctic today could be blithely overlooked as a facet of the eco-tourism industry, but in 1869, the year nautical painter William Bradford set sail with two photographers for the west coast of Greenland, it was pretty much unheard of.

Much of the area remains relatively uncharted today, according to Karen Miles of Wanderbird Expedition Cruises, who along with her husband and co-captain, Rick, sailed with a group of photographers,…

ROCKLAND — The Rockland Coast Guard City Committee Nov. 30 hosted its second annual Chili Challenge at the Maine Lighthouse Museum. Entries were received from U.S. Coast Guard Station Rockland, and cutters Thunder Bay, Abbie Burgess and Tackle.

Judges for the event were Tim Carroll, president of the Maine Lobster Festival; William Clayton, executive meetings and wedding coordinator at the Samoset Resort; Mike Woods, owner of Trackside Restaurant in Rockland;…

SEARSPORT -  Selling handmade Christmas wreaths for $5 a pop out of the back of a truck parked alongside Route 1 could be a real grind, but for Larry Carrozzo of Searsport it's relaxing — fun, even — and it turns a decent profit.

Carrozzo used to contract with the big wreath companies, getting around $35 for a dozen wreaths that might retail at a supermarket for $20 apiece. They were good wreaths — double-sided and of a certain weight — but as Carrozzo came to realize, a lot of people…

(Editor's note: This is an edited version of the article to correct the location for the New Year's Eve inauguration of the new poet laureate. The ceremony will be held at the Playhouse Theater on Church Street, starting at 6 p.m.)

BELFAST - Everybody has a heyday of sorts. But not often does someone momentarily embody the zeitgeist as completely as Ellen Sander, who was appointed Belfast's newest poet laureate this week.

As a young journalist she rubbed shoulders…

BELFAST - Front Street Shipyard detailed a major proposed expansion of its waterfront complex to the City Council on Tuesday night. The plan, which would call for the construction of the largest building yet on the property and most likely require use of city land, drew some strident criticism after it was announced last week. But an explanation by the Shipyard's soft-spoken president J.B. Turner seemed to have mellowing effect, reducing deal breakers to details, with several councilors…

BELFAST - Front Street Shipyard will be laying out a proposal for a major expansion of its waterfront complex at the Belfast City Council meeting tonight. Below is a brief preview of this and other agenda items. The City Council meets at 7 p.m. tonight in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 131 Church Street.

More of a good thing, or too much? - The Shipyard's pitch for its largest addition to date is likely to include requests to use or build on top of one or more of…

BELFAST - Do you really have to drive an hour to find decent holiday shopping? According to Jean Watts of Glenburn, who came from the Bangor suburb with a friend to shop for stocking stuffers in downtown Belfast on Thursday, the answer is "yes."  

"The stores here are so fun," she said. "They go out of their way to have quirky things and they greet you personally and explain the goods."

At Bella Books she picked up a copy of Les Misérables in anticipation of the upcoming…

BELFAST - Following recent closed-door discussions with city officials, Front Street Shipyard went public Wednesday with a proposed expansion of its waterfront complex that would include a new pier, a larger mobile boat lift, and a new workshop that would be the largest building on the property.

Shipyard President J.B. Turner said the expansion is needed to accomodate larger vessels, some of which the business has had to turn away because of the 160-ton limit of the current travel lift…

BELFAST - In an episode reminiscent of last summer's boycott of downtown businesses by motorcyclists, a passing comment at City Hall provoked another proud group. This time it was military veterans, who packed the Council Chambers to protest changes to the footbridge, or Armistice Bridge.

At issue was the Council's recent support of a request by the economic development group Our Town Belfast to pursue a $132,000 grant from …

BELFAST - Creative conversions of 100-plus-year-old buildings is nothing new. The spacious, character-filled factories of the second industrial revolution, chicken barns and even big box stores have subjects of what is broadly termed "adaptive reuse." But other types of properties have been harder pressed to move beyond the circumstances of their times.

In Belfast, three historically-valuable but commercially tricky properties — products of expansive 19th and early 20th Century…

CAMDEN — The first time Camden firefighters were sent to 26 High St. (Route 1) Thursday morning for a reported structure fire, at 9:09, Fire Chief Chris Farley said the homeowner reported smelling "something warm upstairs."

A check of the area around the woodstove and the chimney included taking readings with a thermal imaging camera, from the stove up through the roof. Farley said the camera indicated a small area of the chimney showing a reading of 120 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit.…

AUGUSTA - Their votes may not have counted in the traditional sense, but the students of Maine have spoken at the polls. Results from the 2012 Maine Student Mock Election were released by The Maine Secretary of State's Office on Wednesday and many of the figures were surprisingly similar to those turned in by registered voters on Election Day. There were also notable exceptions.

Student and adult voters agreed on the candidates for the four national offices and on all but one of the…

AUGUSTA - Recounts have been requested in the Maine House District 45 and Senate District 20 races, according to Megan Sanborn, a spokeswoman for the Secretary of State's Office, who said 14 recounts had been requested statewide as of 9 a.m. Wednesday.

In House District 45, including Burnham, Freedom, Knox, Montville, Palermo, Thorndike, Troy and Unity, incumbent Rep. Ryan Harmon (R-Palermo) lost his seat to challenger Brian Jones (D-Freedom) by 26 votes in Election Night tallies.

BELFAST - With the parades and other public celebrations of Veterans Day passed, the Monday holiday offered some in Belfast — veterans and nonvets alike — a chance to quietly be with their people.

The Belfast Chapter of Veterans of Foreign Wars held a parade on Sunday, so by Monday the scene at Post 3108 was, according to longtime member Lenny Harvey, typical of many days.

Johnny Cash played from speakers in the stairway leading to the upstairs cantina that Harvey manages for the…

BELFAST - At the close of polls on Election Night, workers at the city's three polling places printed out tallies from the optical ballot readers, posting those unofficial results for the benefit of those keeping a close eye on local races. Several days later, however, the city had yet to release official results. 

So why did it take so long?

The issue was not one of "hanging chads," but it did involve odd voting machine behavior in which ballots were apparently read but then…

PARIS - Roadside plaques are all that delineate national borders within the EU. Thus, we were in France for about an hour before I realized we had left Belgium. This was two Saturdays ago, and I was on a bus with the 70 other exchange students and who had signed up for the Rotary-organized trip to Paris.

In fairness to myself, the French countryside looks an awful like that of its smaller northern neighbor. Small hamlets and tidy stands of forest punctuate rolling fields of green and…

BELFAST – From downtown revitalization, to transportation-related projects, the city of Belfast has been increasingly successful at getting grant money. But in a somewhat ironic turn of events, one of the city's quieter grant-funded projects, offering environmental assessments to owners of potentially polluted former industrial properties, has put a damper on its most expansive public works effort in years, the Belfast Harbor Walk.

Construction on the pedestrian and hiking promenade,…

MIDCOAST - Several Maine Legislature races were close enough that they could be subject to recounts should the losing candidate choose to challenge the results.

As of noon Friday, Nov. 9, Megan Sanborn, a spokeswoman for the Maine Secretary of State’s Office, said five recounts had been requested in state legislative races, but none in the Midcoast where two House races and one Senate race were decided by very small margins in the unofficial election night tallies.

Sanborn said…

MIDCOAST - Does money win elections in Maine? It's a broad question, so let's say "maybe." We've all heard of candidates who spent a personal fortune trying to get elected to only to lose. But those tales, if not apocryphal, must be the exception to the rule. And campaign money — whether privately raised, given through Maine's Clean Elections system or funneled through one of the roughly 200 party affiliated and political action committees registered with the Maine Commission on Governmental…

BELFAST - Mary Mortier edged out Chris Knight in the only contested Belfast City Council race, winning the Ward 1 seat vacated by two-term Councilor Marina Delune.

Delune opted not to run for re-election. Councilors Roger Lee and Nancy Hamilton, from Wards 2 and 5 respectively, were each re-elected in uncontested races.

By an unofficial count on Tuesday night, the Ward 1 contest was decided by 188 votes. Mortier's opponent Chris Knight took Ward 5 by a decent margin and was…

THOMASTON —Stanley Paris is 76, a physical therapist by trade but racing yachtsman at heart, and he has all intentions of beating the single-handed circumnavigation record set in 1986 by Dodge Morgan.

Those are big boots to fill, but Paris has innovative design and technology on his side. His 63-foot yacht, Kiwi Spirit, was set effortlessly into the St. George River at Lyman Morse Boatbuilding Company in Thomaston Nov. 1, following a christening that bathed the afternoon…

BELFAST - Outside the office of the transfer station it was raining. Inside, Steve Roberts was talking about which kind of trash goes to PERC. 

"MSW," he said.

PERC is Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. The Orrington-based company serves 178 communities and generates energy from burning MSW.

Sandy Carey, the transfer station's newly hired manager was standing on a milk crate in front of the siding glass window where residents pay sticker fees of $2.50 per bag to offload their…

THORNDIKE - Grievances filed by two Mount View Middle School teachers on the basis of working conditions both described as "hostile" were quietly resolved in mid-September according to the district, a teachers union negotiator and one of the teachers involved.

Eileen Ellis and Ron Simmons, teachers of sixth grade language arts and physical education respectively, filed formal grievances with the district in April. The teachers independently told the PenBayPilot.com that these were…

ROCKLAND — Clifford (Kip) Burkett, Jr., of Rockland, born in 1928, turned 84 on Oct. 22. And that is where our story ends. Well, sort of. To get to the end, we need to have a beginning, so a little background information is in order before we tell you a spine tingling tale of mystery, intrigue, and espionage.

Okay, I made that last part up, but I was rolling with it. PenBayPilot.com spent a few minutes with Kip at his home on Talbot Avenue.  I will tell you a very interesting…

BELFAST – Maine's Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Economic Development Program has awarded the City of Belfast and Front Street Shipyard a grant of $200,000.

The money will be used for improvements at the former Belfast Boatyard waterfront property, recently bought by the Shipyard, and for a custom marine heated spray painting booth at the Shipyard.

Improvements to the Boatyard property will include strengthening an existing wooden dock, buying a 30-ton crane for…

BELFAST — Members of the John Birch Society were in downtown Belfast on Wednesday with banners urging residents to “Kick ICLEI Out of Town.”

Belfast is listed as one of six Maine member cities on the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives' website. But as the demonstrators…

BELFAST – Representatives of the six towns making a pitch to leave Regional School Unit 20 expect to present a plan to the school board shortly after the elections. 

Voters in Belfast, Morrill, Northport, Searsmont and Swanville have independently approved petitioning the district and the Maine Department of Education to leave the district. Belmont is set to revote on the issue on Election Day following the state's rejection of an earlier affirmative vote.

Prior to a 2008…

BELFAST – How do you know if you're within 1,000 feet of a city-operated park? And does that place have anything to do with the park itself?

Variations on these questions led city councilors to table a request recently from Belfast Police Chief Mike McFadden who asked the Council to declare the city's parks "drug-free safe zones."

Addressing the Council on Oct. 16, McFadden likened the designation to federal and state laws that increase penalties for drug sales near school, and…

PALERMO – Being a town office employee in Palermo in 2012 is a lot like holding the same job in a town with similar demographics, geography, population and government structure. Which is to say, it's not what it used to be.

In March, residents here voted to cut funding for town office staff nearly in half, extend office hours and reduced the number of employees. The decision was based on findings by the town's Compensation Committee, a 12-member group that looked at town office…

ROCKLAND — The following cases were closed in Knox County Superior Court from Oct. 8 through Oct. 12, 2012.

Arnold A. Diana, 37, of Rockland, murder in Rockland Nov. 20, 2010, 45 years in prison and $2,747.46 restitution.

Joseph Everett, 46, of Winthrop, operating after habitual offender revocation in Rockland, 85 days in jail and probation continued.

Gabriel Grover, 20, of Rockland, eluding an officer in Rockland…

BELFAST — The following cases were closed in Waldo County Superior Court from Oct. 8 through Oct. 12, 2012.

Brian E. Fogg, 22, of Thomaston, criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon in Swanville Nov. 24, 2011, dismissed.

Alan Tinker, 67, of Searsmont, closed season on trapping violation in Belmont April 3, 2011, $250 fine.

The following cases were…

BELFAST — White Pines are some of the fluffiest conifers you'll find. But as Christmas trees, they're less than ideal. The needles shed easily, and in contrast to the Balsam's ornament-ready limbs, the dense tufts of the White Pine resist pretty much anything that isn't a garland.

Though you can apparently paint them blue.

Interspersed amid the regular stock at Fishers Christmas Tree Farm on Route 3 are a handful of White Pines with a noticeably blue tint. According to owner Gary…

BELGIUM — This past Sunday I found myself standing outside my house at 7:30 in the morning, wearing a jacket and winter hat against the morning chill. I was waiting for my Rotary counselor's husband to take me to a vintage car rally organized by my host club. I was exhausted after a day of kayaking in the south of Belgium, and wanted nothing more than to climb back into my warm bed, sleep until noon, then drink tea and read for the rest of the day. However, an important lesson was soon…

ROCKLAND — It's a working coastal town, scruffy, artistic, populated by authentic people. It has fresh seafood, is just about the right size, is religiously diverse, has open vistas, a strong regard for public safety, and provides access to a broad range of services, be that banking, welfare, education and shopping. It's a practical place, and while most citizens…

ROCKLAND — At the Oct. 11 annual meeting of Friends of Midcoast Maine, three Smart Growth awards will be given to Midcoast initiatives and businesses. The annual Smart Growth Awards will be given to The Twin Villages Downtown Alliance, building and business FourTwelve in downtown Rockland and Coastal Farms and Food Processing in Belfast.

FMM Executive Director Jane Lafleur said in a press release that "the breadth and depth of this year's awards emphasizes the range of issues and…

CAMDEN — The 2013 Camden Conference topic will be "The Middle East: What Next" and the keynote speaker Friday evening will be Robin Wright, who has reported from more than 140 countries on six continents for the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, New York Times magazine, Time, The Atlantic, The Sunday Times (London), CBS News, Foreign Affairs, and many others.

This year's conference will strive, with its roster of acknowledged experts-focusing on the key countries of…