MAINE NEWS FRIDAY JUNE 19

Maine Morning Star -    Hannah Pingree was pronounced the Democratic nominee for governor, emerging victorious from a crowded field after the five-day ranked-choice voting tabulations concluded at roughly 1:45 a.m. Friday morning. 

Pingree will now face Republican Bobby Charles candidate and independent candidate Rick Bennett, a former Republican, in the Nov. 3 general election.

“This campaign is about housing that allows young people to stay in Maine, quality health care we can afford, no matter where you live,” she said. “And this campaign is about standing up against Donald Trump’s reckless attacks, his wars and economic choices that are making life harder for Mainers.”

News Center Maine -   Peaks Island residents and the Office of the Public Advocate challenge a survey and assistance program tied to vehicle ferry rate increases


A part-time Peaks Island resident who uses the ferry to commute is asking the Public Utilities Commission to reject the ticket prices the ferry's board approved.

Author: Pearl Small

Published: 2:47 PM EDT June 17, 2026

Updated: 2:48 PM EDT June 17, 2026

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PORTLAND, Maine — A dispute over ferry rates serving Peaks Island is continuing, with Maine's consumer advocate calling for a formal investigation into whether Casco Bay Island Transit District  has done enough to address affordability concerns created by its vehicle rate increases.

In a petition submitted to the Maine Public Utilities Commission (MPUC), the Office of the Public Advocate argued the transit district failed to satisfy directives issued by regulators after approving a controversial rate restructuring last year.

.... The commission previously found that some year-round Peaks Island residents who transport vehicles only occasionally could face rate increases ranging from 91% to 173%, while certain Wednesday travelers could see increases exceeding 300% under the new pricing structure. In December 2025, the MPUC ordered CBITd to further address the impact of the rates and report back on the steps it is taking to address the concern.

In response, Casco Bay Island Transit District conducted a survey of island residents and partnered with Peaks Island Tax and Energy Assistance, or PITEA, to establish a ferry affordability program funded initially with $4,000. The district said its research found only a small number of residents are experiencing hardship and argued it had met the commission's requirements.

Maine Morning Star -   Bobby Charles is the Republican nominee for governor in Maine. The Department of the Secretary of State announced Charles, an attorney from Leeds and former federal government official, won the crowded race after concluding ranked-choice voting tabulations in Augusta after 1:30 a.m. Friday. Charles will face Democratic nominee Hannah Pingree and independent candidate Rick Bennett, a state senator who was formerly a Republican, in the Nov. 3 general election. 

During a press conference outside the tabulation room ahead of the results, Charles criticized ranked-choice voting and said he thinks it gave Bennett a free pass. “While the two major parties are locked in a drawn-out process, out of their control, waiting for results, unable to pivot to the general, the third-party candidate — today Rick Bennett, tomorrow someone else — is out there running around Maine, completely unencumbered,” Charles said.

Maine Morning Star -   State Auditor Matt Dunlap has won the Democratic primary in Maine’s 2nd congressional district after three rounds of ranked choice tabulation, the Secretary of State’s Office announced just before 2 a.m. on Friday. 


State Sen. Joe Baldacci (D-Penobscot) led in the first and second rounds, but ultimately fell behind Dunlap in the final round of tabulations by less than three thousand votes. 


Jordan Wood was eliminated in the second round, despite trailing Dunlap by just over 200 votes in the first round, and then by less than 300 votes in the second round.

Down East Magazine -    Canoeing has been intrinsic to life down east for a long while. This is especially true around Grand Lake Stream Plantation, in Washington County, where a sparkling-blue chain of lakes wends its way along evergreen shores. For 13,000 years, give or take, the Passamaquoddy have paddled the local waterways, and one of their villages was at the south end of West Grand Lake, near where there’s now a dam and a general store. It was a seasonal hub for the tribe, a place for harvesting runs of fish and hunting caribou and deer. 

With the arrival of white settlers, the Passamaquoddy increasingly lost access to their traditional lands and waters. In the early 1800s, logging got to be big business around Grand Lake Stream, with lumber camps strewn throughout the forest and trees felled in great swaths. Later that century, a tannery started processing hides shipped from all over the world — the American West, Brazil, China, Zanzibar. For a time, the tannery was the largest in the world, and the town often stank of rotting hides. “Work, smell, and confusion were ever-present realities,” one local historian wrote in 1920, two decades after mismanagement, a fire, and broader economic forces conspired to shutter the business. 

....The local corps of Registered Maine Guides — the state began requiring guide certification in 1897 — counted men of European descent as well as several members of the Passamaquoddy tribe among their ranks. Their clientele was largely urban and affluent and, over the years, included the likes of President Warren Harding, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio. Canoes were the vessel of choice for fishing expeditions, and in the early 1900s, their hulls were still usually made of birch bark, in keeping with age-old Passamaquoddy practice, or canvas. 

 UPCOMING

Friday, June 19

Library & Recycling/Transfer Facility Closed

Rooted Together: Cultivating Community, Culture, and Collective Freedom... Wolfe's Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment, 184 Burnett Rd, Freeport  12pm

Sat, Jun 20 
Discovery Park, LL Bean, Freeport: Andi Fawcett, 7 pm
Social Goose Restaurant & Bar, 94 Maine St., Brunswick: Superchild, 7 pm

Sun, Jun 21,
10AM - 11:30AM - Ecology Walk with Deborah Perkins. 95 Desert Road, Freeport.  www.eventbrite.com  An educational walk focusing on local ecology, hosted by the Center for Arts & Ecology at Desert of Maine.

Tues June 23
American Promise CEO and co-founder Jeff Clements will be on Peaks Island on Tuesday, June 23, for a conversation about the growing movement to restore voter authority over money in elections through the For Our Freedom Amendment.  Please join us. No RSVP is needed.

Conversation with American Promise CEO Jeff Clements
Tuesday, June 23 from 6:15-8:15 p.m.
New Brackett Church
25 Church Ave
Peaks Island
*5:35pm ferry from Portland, 8:45pm return ferry from Peaks

MAINE NEWS THURSDAY JUNE 18

Press Herald - Maine will not be attending the “Great American State Fair” in Washington D.C, a 16-day exposition celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. The Maine Office of Tourism cited the state's busy tourism season in its decision not to send a delegation. A number of other state organizations and headlining performers opting out of the fair have pointed to politicization of the festivities and the high cost of attending. 

JOBS

  • Maine Beer Company posted a job opening for Part Time Dishwasher in Freeport. Apply here.
  • Domino's Pizza, Inc. posted a job opening for Assistant Manager(03091) - 8 School St. in Freeport. Apply here. 
  • You can search for other jobs near Freeport here.



Maine News Wednesday June 17

📊 Maine Senate Poll: Wick Research Overall 🟦Platner 48% 🟥Collins 45% Independents 🟦Platner 52% 🟥Collins 38% Women 🟦Platner 49% 🟥Collins 42% Men 🟦Platner 46% 🟥Collins 49% More In Touch With Working Class Mainers? 🟦Platner 50% 🟥Collins 41%

Maine Biz  -   Portland will not ask tax-exempt organizations to make property tax payments, ending months of debate and strong opposition from nonprofits and the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce. By a 2-7 vote Monday night, the City Council defeated a proposed payment-in-lieu-of-taxes ordinance, which had been floated as a potential revenue stream to offset rising residential property taxes that some councilors said are driving homeowners to leave the city.

Maine Monitor  State library officials are tightening behavior rules, soon requiring all Maine public libraries to ensure children and vulnerable adults are supervised and to call police if they’re left unattended. Freeport Community Library director and commissioner Wynter Giddings raised concerns about whether the commission can mandate annual training for all boards, as the panel also debated staffing levels, hours, and standards that could affect services statewide.

Press Herald - The Republican primary races in House District 58 and Senate District 4 have gone to ranked-choice tabulation, state officials said Tuesday. The ranked-choice count is expected to take days. Three legislative races will also be recounted.

MaineHealth received a $1.1 million federal grant to study whether childhood exposure to certain synthetic chemicals could influence obesity, diabetes risk and cardiovascular health later in life. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are linked to numerous health risks, including cancer high cholesterol and pregnancy complications.

 Attorneys for the seven school districts being sued by the Maine Human Rights Commission over their policies related to transgender students delivered oral arguments in Kennebec County Superior Court on Tuesday.  It was the first hearing in a case that’s occurring amid a shifting legal landscape for those policies in Maine and the country.  The commission, a quasi-state agency tasked with enforcing the Maine Human Rights Act, sued five school districts last November that adopted new policies in alignment with an executive order from President Donald Trump about the federal discrimination law Title IX. Two more districts were later added.  The president’s order interpreted that 1972 law to say that school districts that allow transgender students to compete on sports teams or use locker facilities in alignment with their gender identity are discriminating on the basis of sex. But the policies adopted by Maine districts directly violate the state’s Human Rights Act, which allows students to participate in school activities on the basis of their gender identity. Six of the districts filed a motion to dismiss, arguing the commission’s case isn’t valid, while a seventh district filed a separate motion, arguing its policies don’t actually violate state law. 

Brunswick’s town councilors Monday night approved an ordinance to curb rent increases at the town’s mobile home parks. Residents have long said that the price of living in Brunswick’s parks is becoming unsustainable, while services provided by landlords are falling behind. The new ordinance prohibits annual rent increases that exceed a certain affordability threshold, determined by the Northeast urban Consumer Price Index, without prior approval by a newly established five-member rent review board.

Maine Morning Star -   A petition to put publicly funded universal healthcare on the ballot next year is gaining traction with voters.

During last week’s primary election, supporters of the initiative — which filed with the Maine Secretary of State last year — collected more than 20,000 signatures, about a third of the amount a citizen-led referendum needs to get the question on the 2027 ballot.

Federal cuts to Medicaid passed under President Donald Trump’s sweeping budget overhaul, HR1, and increasing marketplace health insurance costs have helped catalyze the effort. The more than 120 volunteers who collected signatures at polling places across the state reported overwhelming support for the initiative, according to Healthcare for All Maine field director Sophie Garner, one of the field directors for Healthcare for All Maine, the group leading the citizen initiative.

“The deteriorating healthcare in the United States and particularly rural America, and now with HR 1… it’s sort of a stress test on what’s left of the healthcare system,” said Henk Goorhuis, board chair for Healthcare for All Maine. “People are definitely hurting, and looking for something better.”

The proposal would direct the Maine Legislature to develop a healthcare system that would ensure that all Mainers have “comprehensive, publicly funded healthcare coverage.” It should lower healthcare costs, ensure access for everyone to public and private providers of their choice, and codify payments to providers at prevailing rates. It would also direct the Legislature to establish a supervisory board to oversee the system that is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Maine Senate.

If passed, Maine would be the first state in the country to develop such legislation. Other states have considered universal healthcare, but none have successfully passed a comprehensive plan.

JOBS

  • Wolfe's Neck Center posted a job opening for Revenue & Payroll Specialist in Freeport. Apply here.
  • The Gap posted a job opening for Retail Sales Associate - Freeport Vlg Station in Freeport. Apply here. 
  • You can search for other jobs near Freeport here.


Maine News Tuesday June 16

Newsweek -   Senator Susan Collins, a five-term Republican, trails her Democratic challenger Graham Platner by only two points, according to a new survey—the latest sign of a tightening race in a must-win state for Democrat hopes in taking control of the upper chamber.

Among the NY Times annual restaurant awards was this: Outstanding Restaurateur: Dana Street; Fore Street, Scales and Standard Baking Company, Portland, Maine

Maine Morning Star -  A report found Maine 14th out of all states on a number of factors that impact life satisfaction, ranking high on the environment and civil liberties but low on measures such as children and families, economic output and mental health. 

As the country approaches its 250th anniversary, the nonpartisan State of the Nation Project created the State of States report to assess each of the 50 states and Washington D.C. on 31 measures — such as income inequality, social isolation, youth depression, etc. — created by a board of academics and advisers to the last five presidents. 

Some of the overall takeaways include: states are becoming more alike in many ways but growing apart on issues that can drive feelings of division; only a small handful of states showed improvement on any measure of self-reported well-being; and a stronger economy does not seem to improve personal well-being, but it may build social trust.

Specifically, Maine received the top ranking for net greenhouse gas emissions and ranked third for air quality. Maine also ranked first for civil liberties, which the report calculated based on the rate of press freedom violations, such as assaults of reporters and restricting coverage, per 1 million residents.

On the other hand, Maine ranked low for fatal overdoses (43rd) and youth depression (42nd). Maine’s lowest rank of 44th was for economic output, which is based on real gross domestic product. 

WCYY -   For nearly six years, the old Sears location in Brunswick, Maine, has sat vacant. On a busy stretch of road in the city, it became a bit of an eyesore.  But back in March, it was announced that eyesore would be getting a makeover. Retail giant Hobby Lobby had leased out a portion of the more than 82,000 square feet that was once Sears and would open their fifth location in Maine.

Construction estimates suggested the new Hobby Lobby location would open sometime in September.   Now, it appears the store is going to open much, much sooner.  While no firm grand opening date has been set yet, all of the signs point towards a Hobby Lobby grand opening in Brunswick, Maine, in the next few weeks.

Press Herald -   A federal judge gave the Trump administration until July 3 to return signs it had removed from national parks and monuments, including climate change and Wabanaki displays at Acadia National Park....The ruling on Friday requires federal officials to restore dozens of Acadia’s displays on warming oceans and Wabanaki heritage by July 3. This legal victory ensures that the millions who visit Maine’s coast this summer will receive an unvarnished look at the state’s changing environment.

For months, hikers reaching the summit of Cadillac Mountain have found spectacular views but empty pedestals. The signs that once explained the summit’s Wabanaki origins or how a warming world is changing the park were gone, replaced by a silence that critics called political censorship.  

“It was a kick in the teeth,” said former Acadia superintendent Sheridan Steele, who oversaw the park from 2003-15. “The public puts its trust in the park service. They want truth. The parks want to give it to them. It would be such a shame to lose that.”

FREEPORT

There will be an emergency outage on Prout Road in Freeport from approximately 11:45am to 2:00pm today, June 16th, to remove a large tree threatening power lines. Contact information for CMP: 1 800-696-1000 Email:

Maine Monitor - Freeport's once-leading clam flats have already seen harvests plunge about 70%, and scientists warn a strong El Niño could worsen pressures from green crabs, invasive seaweeds, and harmful algal blooms. The story explains how warming waters and changing winters may further reshape shellfish harvesting from Freeport to Lubec, while also noting a few potential upsides like faster clam growth and more nutrients from rainfall.

JOBS

Tree Stuff  - We are hiring a fully remote sales person to manage large national accounts. We are looking for an individual with experience in longer form treecare sales. If you are interested in learning about joining the biggest and best team in Treecare, email MarkB@VerticalSupplyGroup.com 

  • L.L.Bean, Inc. posted a job opening for Assistant Corporate Merchant in Freeport. Apply here.
  • Albertsons Company Inc. posted a job opening for Night Crew Stocker in Freeport. Apply here. 
  • You can search for other jobs near Freeport here.
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