FREEPORT
Patch - Freeport approves $16.5M municipal budget (pressherald.com) — Freeport’s new $16.5 million municipal budget will push property taxes up about 7% overall, adding roughly $390 to the median homeowner’s bill. After several rounds of cuts, the Town Council kept a part-time librarian, ended Silver Bullet recycling on West Street, and factored in the already-approved RSU 5 school budget increases.
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Press Herald - About 4,300 fewer Maine children are getting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits since the federal government began making cuts to the program last year, according to state statistics. While most kids weren't among those directly affected the cuts, state officials say they’re likely collateral damage resulting from increased procedural hurdles.
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 - 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.
