Maine News Saturday May 2

FREEPORT NEWS

Town of Freeport - Beginning Monday, July 6, the Town of Freeport will implement new Town Hall public hours to better align open hours with staff capacity and community usage patterns. Under the new schedule, Town Hall will be open: Monday: 7:30am - 5:00pm Tuesday: 7:30am - 6:00pm Wednesday: 7:30am - 5:00pm Thursday: 7:30am - 5:00pm Analyses of Town Hall activity showed very low transaction volumes during the 5:00 - 6:00pm hours, during which time multiple departments remain staffed. Adjusting hours allows the Town to focus staff coverage during times residents most frequently seek in‑person assistance. Online services such as some payments, permit information, forms, and requests are available 24/7 on our website at https://www.freeportmaine.com/184/Online-Services-Transactions The total number of hours Town employees work will be unchanged, and there is no reduction in staffing or services. The change aligns public hours with the staffing capacity approved through the Town’s budget, helping ensure that offices are routinely staffed whenever Town Hall is open. MAINE UPDATE Recent poll: Palmer leads Collns by 2%

Thom Hartmann -   Maine just handed Democrats a wake-up call that they’d damn well better actually listen to this time.

Governor Janet Mills suspended her Senate campaign yesterday, leaving Marine veteran and oyster farmer Graham Platner as the presumptive Democratic nominee to take on Republican Senator Susan Collins in November.

The message Maine voters are frankly shouting is the same one I’ve been hearing from listeners on my radio/TV show for years and the same one that pollsters across the spectrum keep picking up across the country: people are sick and tired of mealy-mouthed corporate Democrats who run on focus-grouped slogans and govern like they’re scared of their own shadow. They want fighters.

Mills was Chuck Schumer’s hand-picked candidate, recruited by Democratic Party insiders because they thought the 78-year-old two-term governor would be the safest, most “electable” option against Susan Collins. What Schumer and the “insider Democrats” got instead — and deserved — was a 30-point shellacking.

Platner, who launched his campaign last August by naming “the oligarchy” and “the billionaires who pay for it” as the enemy, outraised Mills every single quarter, packed wildly enthusiastic town halls all over the state, and even earned Bernie Sanders’s endorsement along the way. He turned Mills’s establishment alignment into a major liability and thus pushed her out of the race a full five weeks before the primary.

Press Herald - Special education rates are at an all-time high nationally. Depending on the study, Maine ranks second, sometimes third, in the nation, with just under 21% of the state’s 171,174 students qualifying for additional services in the 2023-24 school year. The national average is 15%. There is no clear reason for Maine’s high rates, though experts mention factors like the aftereffects of the COVID pandemic, an aging teacher population and state regulations.

Press Herald -  When Susan Tarpinian opened the original Morning Glory Natural Foods on Maine Street in Brunswick in 1981, her son, Toby, was just 2 years old. Now, he’s running the business, and has a brand new store for his own 2-year-old to toddle around in.

Tarpinian and his team decided to expand the business about a year ago, feeling cramped in the downtown store. The new location [in the former REAL school building in Brunswick Landing] offers the same natural food products as the Maine Street store, with the addition of a seafood counter and a butcher.  

Interview with the team behind Morning Glory here. 

How five Democrats running for governor agree and disagree with Janet Mills