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 Nancy Beal

The Jonesport Elementary School Board met last week with one agenda item: Adjust the 2025-2026 school budget that voters rejected May 21 and send it back to voters in hopes of achieving a change of heart.

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:

Polls to Open June 10 to Elect Municipal Officers

By Paul Sylvain

For the first time in three years, Machias is holding its annual election of municipal officers and town meeting in June. As is customary in Machias, these two events are scheduled for successive days, with the elections scheduled from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, June 10, at the Machias Memorial High School gymnasium, and the town meeting to act on a 47-article warrant, commencing at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 11, at the MMHS gym.

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

After a gloomy week of rain and clouds, followed by more rain and clouds, the sun finally made an appearance just in time for the annual Memorial Day parade in Machias.

And while cheers greeted parade participants from parade-goers lining the route – Machias Memorial High School down Court Street to Free Street, onto Colonial Way before proceeding down Main Street – veterans from American Legion Post 9 in Machias stopped to lay a wreath at the grave of Ephriam H. Johnson, which is who the Machias Legion post is named after.

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.

Nationwide Decline in Opioid Overdoses Tied to Less Lethal Supplies

By Paul Sylvain

Despite a more than 50-year “war on drugs,” the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future’s Opioid Response Director, Gordon Smith, admitted the obvious last week: “We’re never going to stop everybody from using drugs.”

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.