By Nancy Beal

Town meetings in the Moosabec area for the purpose of voting on proposed school budgets are traditionally low-key affairs, attended mainly by selectmen, school board members, a few teachers, and their families. This spring, it was different. A lot different.

Last month, the Jonesport Elementary School budget was rejected by a handful of voters and has since been reworked. It will go before voters on June 18. 

Board Rebukes Clam Committee for Recommending Approval

By Paul Sulvain

An application from Kennth Faas for a 2025 resident clamming license that was denied by Machiasport Town Clerk Marcia Hayward resulted in an emergency meeting of the town’s selectboard on June 4.

Holmes, Wood Crowned This Year’s Alewife King and Queen

By Will Tuell

Hundreds crowded into a steamy gym at Elm Street School in East Machias Friday night as the school bid adieu to its eighth grade class with ceremony, sentimentality, and, just as importantly, for those who know principal Tony Maker and his staff, levity. 

By Paul Sylvain

Coinciding on the 250th anniversary of the June 12, 1775, Battle of the Margaretta, local artist Tom Brennan and many of the town’s Revolutionary War reenactors will be on hand at Machias Savings Bank, 4 Center St., on June 12, for a 6:30 p.m. unveiling of an oil painting by local artist Tom Brennan, depicting one of the events of that historic day.

Burnham Tavern serves as the backdrop for the painting, which shows a group of Machias patriots on their way to capture the British vessel HMS Margaretta on that fateful day. “

By Paul Sylvain

Six months after the Machias Selectboard ordered an immediate stop to all work on a self-storage facility under construction on Dublin Street, work may soon resume on the project, depending on what the town’s planning board decides at its June 4 meeting.

By Paul Sylvain

Few jobs carry the responsibility school bus drivers have, ensuring they safely deliver what substitute driver Steven Tilney last week called “precious cargo” to school and back each day.

With that in mind, an unexpected wrinkle arose on May 27, during the annual town meeting vote on the 2025-‘26 Machias school budget. A seemingly routine funding article seeking approval for $170,886 for school transportation led to a 13-minute exchange about the need for a pay raise for substitute bus drivers.

By Paul Sylvain 

Officers with the Washington County Sheriff's Office (WCSO) and the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency (MDEA) arrested 11 people on drug trafficking and other charges in Roque Bluffs and Centerville following the simultaneous execution of two warrants on May 29. 

Maine’s Department of Public Safety said in a media release Friday that the arrests came as a result of a months-long drug trafficking investigation at 75 Duck Cove Road in Roque Bluffs and 43 Mitten Mountain Road in Centerville. 

Arrested at 75 Duck Cove, Roque Bluffs, were:

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has announced that five tribal communities in Maine have been awarded $6,456,253 through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Indian Housing Block Grant (IHBG). These grants support the development and maintenance of affordable housing.

Downeast Institute (DEI), Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, Maine Center for Entrepreneurs, and partners will host “Shell-ebration,” an event focused on emerging opportunities for shellfish aquaculture in Washington County, from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sunday, June 8, at Downeast Institute, 39 Wildflower Lane, in Beals, Maine. The event is free and open to the public and will take place rain or shine.

By Paul Sylvain

Putting a discussion about the Shaddagee Road Bridge under “old business” on the Washington County Commissioners’ May 22 meeting agenda could be seen as an understatement. Just ask Washington County Unorganized Territories Supervisor Heron Weston, who had to claw through 40 years of meeting minutes to ferret out whether the county or property owners are responsible for repairing the bridge.

By Nancy Beal

It has been over five years since Kingfish Maine approached the town of Jonesport about building a $100 million land-based fish farm between Route 187 and Chandler Bay on nearly 100 acres north of the town’s largest cemetery. After over a dozen sessions with the town’s planning board and several informational meetings with citizens interested in learning about the various components of the fish-rearing process, in November 2022, the town finally granted the building permit Kingfish sought.

By Will Tuell

On Wednesday, May 21, members of the Machias Ambulance Service attended a ceremony at the State House honoring one of their own. Joe Thompson, an EMT with MAS, was one of nine clinicians around the state to receive Maine EMS’s Excellence Award, MAS Chief Ryan Maker said in a social media post following the ceremony. 

Thompson, noted Maker, “has been an integral part of Washington County's emergency services for over 20 years.” 

By Paul Sylvain

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

After attempts in the 129th and 130th Legislature to split a shared District Attorney between Hancock and Washington counties came up painfully short, local lawmakers revived their push to split the district in two again this year, only to see it falter in the Democratically controlled Legislature yet again last week. 

By Paul Sylvain

The Greater Machias area lost a well-known and much-loved career educator and community member with the passing of Bill Prescott Sr. on May 15.

“I lost the love of my life … when Bill passed away,” his wife of 63 years wrote in notifying this reporter of Bill’s death last week. “He was principal at Machias Memorial High School for 13 years,” she said, noting that her husband was the longest-serving principal at MMHS. 

By Paul Sylvain

Beginning on May 27, Machias voters will be gathering twice in a two-week span to act on separate articles in a bifurcated school and town meeting warrant. 

First up is an 18-article warrant addressing Machias public school funding for fiscal year 2025, which begins July 1. That meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 27, and the Rose M. Gaffney School gymnasium. The Machias School Board, Budget Committee and Select Board support passage of all funding articles.

By Paul Sylvain

A project taken on last fall by Machias Selectboard Chairman Jake Patryn to draft the town’s first shellfish conservation ordinance is moving forward with consideration of input from clam diggers in neighboring Machiasport.

Despite nothing being offered for action by the full selectboard, Patryn used the board’s May 13 meeting to bring his colleagues and Town Manager Sarah Craighead Dedmon up to date on his work on the ordinance.

By Paul Sylvain

Business is booming at the Machias Ambulance Service, and like all successful businesses, MAS Chief Ryan Maker is laser-focused on investing in MAS’s future.

In a meeting with the town’s selectboard on May 13, Maker sought the board’s approval for a novel plan for selling off an older ambulance to a smaller, less busy ambulance service. He also asked permission to forego the competitive bid process to purchase three pieces of new state-of-the-art EMS equipment. 

By Nancy Beal

Beals’ First Selectman Glenda Beal has taken it upon herself to become the town’s grant writer. Since her election a year ago (as someone totally without previous town government experience), she has spent much of her time seeking grant money for the town for a number of causes.

By Paul Sylvain 

A pair of bills designed to reduce response times and fight crime in rural areas has made their way through the Legislature in recent weeks. On May 1, LD 477, sponsored by Madison Rep. Jack Ducharme, a Republican, cleared an early procedural vote on the House floor by a 117-26 margin. That same day, a similar proposal exclusive to Washington County, LD 461, sponsored by Calais Republican Sen. Marianne Moore and the local legislative delegation, cleared the Senate on a voice vote.

By Paul Sylvain

On March 26, a handful of Machias voters enacted separate 180-day moratoriums on solar and wind farm applications to give town officials time to draft regulatory ordinances addressing both. Seven weeks later, and with both moratoriums set to expire on Sept. 22, work has yet to begin on either.

On May 8, Sheriff Barry Curtis and Deputy Director Joshua Rolfe, along with Washington County Regional Communications Operational Supervisor Lieutenant Dennis Perry and Sergeant Michael Congelosi, attended the 27th Annual Maine NENA (National Emergency Number Association) awards ceremony in Portland. Perry was nominated and chosen for the 2024 Director/Operations Manager of the Year.