Town, Locals to Pay Tribute to Late Town Manager During Festivities

By Will Tuell

By Paul Sylvain

Already embroiled in a lengthy and costly legal battle over a road with two Starboard district homeowners, Machiasport officials could be facing yet another lawsuit over a road in the town’s Bucks Harbor district.

At issue are concerns of residents in the Pettegrow Point Road Home Owners Association (HOA) over a planned truck turnaround near the commercial fishermen’s parking lot on that road and the legal interpretation of covenants governing land and road use in the Pettegrow property deed.

By Paul Sylvain

Move over, Kirby Grant. There’s a new Sky King in town, and he’s busy constructing a $1.12 million airport terminal building in Eastport.

Unlike the main character in the television show that ran from 1951 to 1962, Northfield developer Justin King is not an airplane pilot, but his company — King Construction Services of Machias — continues to soar to new heights, it seems, with every new project it takes under its wing.

By Paul Sylvain

When the Machiasport Town Office reopens in the former hospice building on Dec. 9, residents will not only be able to pay their taxes, register vehicles, or pick up a copy of their birth or marriage certificates, but also pick up a little something crafted in one of the town’s home-based businesses.

Not that Town Clerk Marcia Hayward doesn’t already have enough to do, but she’ll now be able to add “sales clerk” to her growing resumé thanks to the new gift shop at the town office building.

By Paul Sylvain

The fourth time — or in this case meeting — was a charm for the Washington County Budget Advisory Committee, as its members voted 5-4 on Nov. 21 to approve the heftiest county budget in memory, for 2025. 

With that, Budget Committee Chairman and Milbridge Town Manager Lewis Pinkham announced, “I assume we are done,” ending what had been an especially difficult deliberation over the course of four committee meetings in the past two months.

By Will Tuell

Hundreds packed into the Elm Street School gymnasium on the evening of Nov. 16 for a potluck supper, ticket drawing, and dessert auction to benefit Arise Addiction Recovery, a Christian drug and alcohol rehab that has been serving the area for almost a decade. When all of Melanie Fergerson’s pumpkin spice donuts, Sue Grant’s masterfully designed cakes, and a delectable whoopie pie cake had been carted off, bidders had helped raise an estimated $15,000 for the rehab, Director Paul Trovarello said. 

By Meagan Tinker

by Jonathan Reisman

I left Eastern Maine a week after the election to visit my sisters in the Sierra foothills. The three-thousand-mile journey started with a meditative just-under-two-hour drive to my elder son Asher’s abode in Brewer and a next-day flight from Bangor to Sacramento via Newark. My younger son Avram, happily, romantically, and politically engaged and employed in the swamp, traveled separately and joined me in Sacramento. My boys think their 68-year-old widowed father has lost a step or two and should not travel alone, and they are probably right. 

The Lubec Community Outreach Center is pleased to offer two holiday ornament workshops at their Common Threads Studio. Both workshops will feature local arts educator and workshop facilitator Sara Myrick, Eastport artist, who will lead participants through the fun and creative process. 

By Paul Sylvain

Chris Gardner and Vinton Cassidy’s days as Washington County Commissioners are numbered, with newly elected commissioners David Burns and William “Billy” Howard set to step into their shoes when their terms expire on Dec. 31. 

Still, Gardner — the commissioners’ often pointedly outspoken chairman — had plenty to say about the ongoing 2025 budget process and the effect lack of state police coverage in Washington and other rural counties is having on the proposed budget’s bottom line at the board’s Nov. 12 meeting.

By Will Tuell

The University of Maine System released official enrollment totals for the Fall 2024 semester late last month, and, while some campuses such as the University of Maine Presque Isle (UMPI) experienced dizzying growth (112 percent) over the last five years, the University of Maine Machias, which saw a drop of 41.2 percent in that same time-frame, was not nearly as fortunate. 

by Jonathan Reisman

By Paul Sylvain

A planned bridge replacement project in Centerville, winter preparations, and a shellfish program highlighted discussions between Unorganized Territory Supervisor Heron Weston and Washington County Commissioners in Machias on Nov. 12.

“The preliminary report came back on this big bridge replacement in Centerville,” noted Weston. “The original engineering design was done in 2021. The new design is finished, so of course the price has gone up.”

By Paul Sylvain

The dust has settled and more than 95 percent of the Maine vote has been counted. While absentee ballots from United States citizens living, working, or stationed with the military overseas will be among the last ballots counted, for all intents and purposes, the 2024 presidential election is in the books.

By Will Tuell

Whitecaps were visible from the Lubec Historical Society overlooking Cobscook Bay Saturday morning as a hearty group of Lubeckers and their guests gathered to honor dozens of the town’s veterans who are featured on banners a citizens group has placed on telephone poles heading into Lubec. All told, some 65 veterans are featured as part of the “Veterans Banner Project” with another 35 banners in the works for 2025, bringing the total number of Lubec and Trescott service members recognized as part of the project to approximately 100. 

By Nancy Beal

Policy review took up much of the Moosabec CSD board meeting on Nov. 6. Revisions to the current policy on post-secondary enrollment options would permit students in all grades to take post-secondary classes and remove the one-course restriction. It would expand the institutions named in the policy where such courses could be taken (currently limited to the University of Maine System, community college system, and Maine Maritime Academy).

by Jonathan Reisman

Poll Worker Musings

I worked the polls from 9:30 a.m. to almost midnight on Nov. 5. It was a long day of recognizing graying neighbors, friends, and a few new arrivals/same-day registrants. I carefully declined asking for any ID, which was fortunate for both legal and old acquaintances I forgot/failed to recognize.

By Nadine Preston 

On Friday, Nov. 8, the students of Rose M. Gaffney Elementary School and Machias Memorial High School held their annual Veterans Day program. This program grows more every year, and all veterans and their families are encouraged to attend. Students from both schools honor our area service members in a variety of ways from choral songs and band performances to the Presentation of Colors by our Scout Pack #125.

By Paul Sylvain

Machiasport clam diggers know that, like the tides, their fortunes can rise or fall, depending on the weather and, unfortunately, the Machias wastewater treatment plant.

To that end, Machias Selectboard Chairman Jake Patryn and Vice Chairman Ben Edwards met with Machiasport Shellfish Conservation Committee members Zach Wood, Whitney Stevens, and David Cale on Oct. 30 to discuss the issue of state-mandated clam flat closures whenever a combined sewage overflow, or CSO, event occurs at the Machias plant. 

By Paul Sylvain

More than a year after beginning a search to hire a grant-funded School Resource Officer (SRO) for Machias Memorial High School, Police Chief Keith Mercier, and school principal Nicole Case have thrown in the towel on finding one.

“We can’t get anyone,” Case admitted, in spite of a search that began with the selectboard’s blessing 14 months ago.

By Nancy Beal

The Downeast Institute (DEI), located in the Black Duck Cove area of Beals’ Great Wass Island, recently hired a research scientist to oversee all internal and external research in its ocean acidification laboratory. Originally from North Carolina, Jaquan High is a graduate of the University of South Carolina, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in geology. Last June, he graduated from Oregon State University with a master’s degree in ocean, earth, and atmospheric sciences.

by Jonathan Reisman

National Popular Vote Compact Karma