This week, the Raider Report is excited to share the news of Rowen Luuring's return to campus! 

Luuring is a Class of 2022 graduate and has served since September as one of the Sustainable Gardening & Agriculture AmeriCorps service members. During her years as a WA student, she was an active member of the Sustainability Club and highly engaged in her science classrooms. As a result, she created and maintained strong relationships with her science teachers, who recommended her for the open WA AmeriCorps service position last summer! 

by Nancy Beal

It took approximately 50 Jonesporters just over an hour, on March 10, to raise three-quarters of a million dollars to run their town for another year, in what many old-timers claimed was the shortest town meeting they could remember. 

As in previous years, the most expensive categories were public works — $173,900 alone for snow and ice removal — and public safety, at a cost of $100,845 for just the ambulance. 

General government/

By Paul Sylvain

Look out Dunkin’, there’s a new coffee shop in town.

Leave it to West Branch Farms in Machias to take a shed that served as the former home of Sugar and Crumbs Bakery in Milbridge, move it to Machias, enlarge it, and open it for business on March 8 as the West Branch Bakery + Café.

Other than purchasing its building, West Branch Bakery + Café is not affiliated with Sugar and Crumbs, which has since reopened in a new, larger building in Milbridge.

By Nancy Beal

Beals selectmen have been busy recently preparing the warrant for the upcoming annual town meeting, which is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, April 7, at Beals Elementary School gymnasium.

The annual report book was at the printer’s last week, and Daniel Davis, who has taken charge of the project, said on March 11 that he expected to be finished putting it together this week. 

University of Maine Cooperative Extension will offer a webinar for home gardeners titled “Becoming a Resilient Vegetable Gardener” from 6-7:15 p.m. on Wednesday, March 26. 

By Nancy Beal

The three school boards that oversee the Moosabec area’s high school and two elementary schools have been devoting the first half-hour of each meeting since January to formulating the school year 2025-26 budgets for their respective schools. 

By Jayna Smith

For residents of Washington County, access to specialized medical care often requires significant travel. Thanks to PALS SkyHope, a charitable aviation organization, patients in remote areas can receive free flights to medical facilities, providing a lifeline to those in need.

By Doss Dennison

As soon as the kids returned from February break, grades 3 through 6 were back in the gym, getting ready for the final chapter of Downeast basketball, Pee Wee season. 

Most of the teams in the county are made up of kids in grades 4 through 6. A few of the larger schools offer both a combined grades 5 and 6 team and a combined grades 3 and 4 team. Some of the smaller schools have to dip down to grade 3 to have enough kids to make up a team. 

The Sunday Afternoons at the Arts Center series will present Paul Cox and Chris Bartlett with a talk, “Scalloping in Cobscook Bay,” Sunday, March 16, at 3 p.m. The two will invite attendees into the world of the sea scallop fishery in Cobscook Bay, with a walk-through of a day on the water with Paul and his crew, detailing efforts taken to harvest scallops from the seafloor and the fishing gear that is used.

By Paul Sylvain

Town officials in Machiasport are poised to assume management and grounds maintenance of six cemeteries currently overseen by separate cemetery associations.

But as the selectboard made clear at its Feb. 24 meeting, the town is not taking over the cemeteries’ care because of mismanagement or financial issues. In fact, the cemeteries are financially sound, the board said. According to town officials, the reason is simple: The people overseeing the associations are getting older and no one is willing to step in to take their place.

By Paul Sylvain

Newly hired Machias Town Manager Sarah Craighead Dedmon is living proof that someone “from away” can move downeast and find acceptance among its people. Not convinced? Not only is Dedmon now the town manager in Machias, but she defeated long-time Selectman Jeff Davis last June to win his seat on the selectboard in neighboring Machiasport, where she lives.

By Will Tuell

As Maine’s commercial fishing industry gathered at the Samoset Resort in Rockland last weekend for the industry’s annual Fishermen’s Forum, the state’s Department of Marine Resources (DMR) released new data showing growth across the industry in 2024. Fishermen, DMR said, earned $74 million more in 2024 than in 2023, with landings valued at $709,509,984. 

by Jonathan Reisman

This month’s StoryWalk® at Porter Memorial Library features “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” by Judi Barrett. In this clever and engaging tale, hard times hit the fictional town of Swallow Falls, and a failed inventor thinks he has the answer to the town's crisis. He builds a machine that converts water into food. As might be expected, chaos and hilarity ensue. 

By Nancy Beal

After inclement weather canceled a planned demonstration of alternative lobster gear in Jonesport on Feb. 6, the event, which was the first public demonstration of that gear by the state’s Department of Marine Resources, took place on Feb. 18. Its purpose was to allow fishermen to put their hands on gear that is being tested in preparation for an expected future ban on the fixed vertical ropes that lobstermen have historically strung between their traps on the seafloor and a buoy on the water’s surface used to locate their traps.

By Paul Sylvain

Machias Valley Airport is expected to play center stage for a summer military training exercise involving an MV-22 Osprey, military air traffic controllers, a Marine security detachment, and possibly members of other military branches.

Although still in very early planning stages, Machias Selectboard Vice Chairman Ben Edwards was unable to conceal his excitement over the prospect of seeing the airport play a role in a significant military training operation. 

The exercise is tentatively scheduled for late June or early July.

By Paul Sylvain

Class was in session at the Feb. 20 County Commissioners meeting in Machias, as Sheriff Barry Curtis schooled Commissioner Billy Howard in defense of a letter Curtis wrote last month, outlining a policy of not responding to non-emergent complaints in towns with an active police department.

The undated letter sent out mid-January sparked a few moments of sometimes confused discussion between Howard and Curtis.

Selectboard Approves Hiring Third FT Paramedic

By Paul Sylvain

In recent months, Machias Ambulance Service Chief Ryan Maker has led MAS in a transition from a volunteer ambulance service, staffed by per-diem drivers and techs, to a full-time emergency medical service agency boasting three full-time paramedics.

By Paul Sylvain

Sarah Craighead Dedmon can now add “Machias Town Manager” to her growing list of accomplishments.

Dedmon, who resides in neighboring Machiasport and serves that town as an elected member of its selectboard, was offered the full-time permanent town manager’s job in Machias by the town’s selectboard at its Feb. 12 meeting. 

By Paul Sylvain

Sardines. You either love ‘em or you hate ‘em. But either way, for many people in small coastal towns like Machiasport, sardine canneries provided a much-needed source of income to families living nearby them.

According to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, there were as many as 89 sardine canneries, employing upwards of 8,000 people in Maine in the early 1900s. NOAA Fisheries, meanwhile, reports that by the mid-1950s, that number had dwindled to around 75 Maine sardine canneries. 

by Jonathan Reisman

Maine’s 2020 Climate Action Plan and 2024 Update commit Maine to:

• reducing our Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG);

• transitioning away from fossil fuels and gas-powered vehicles;

• promoting equity;

• increasing public conserved lands to 30% of the state by 2030. 

What you will not find in the Plan/Update is:

• any estimate of how much climate change will be averted by the GHG emission reductions;

By Nadine Preston