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Preparing to launch the Maine Coast Memorial Hospital employee fund drive in July 1973 as a part of the advance phase of the hospital’s $750,000 expansion and modernization are Employee Committee Co-Chairmen Frank Boyle, Mrs. Alden Leach and Mrs. Jack Scott.
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Hello Bulletinpeepers: It's Thursday, May 6. This will sound familiar I'm sure: you're tractoring about on a lovely afternoon in Belgium, minding your own business, when you come across a stone in your path. Not wanting to gum up your tractor business, you move it, about 7.5 feet or so, thereby enlarging your country's border and making France just a teeny bit smaller. OOPS.
Anyway.
In the weather: Drier over the weekend, with highs around 60. Yay!
High tide on the Union River is at 7:25 p.m.; low tide is at 1:08 p.m.
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CASTINE TO CONSIDER NEGRO ISLAND NAME CHANGE
Voters headed to the May 8 Town Meeting will decide if they want to initiate the process of changing the name of Negro Island. The island has borne the name for hundreds of years and is actually two small islands connected by a sandbar in the mouth of the Bagaduce River off Castine. Upper Negro Island is in private hands while Lower Negro Island is owned by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust. It’s not clear how the island got its name, but the local lore that it was part of the Underground Railroad is a myth, said Lisa Simpson Lutts, the executive director of the Castine Historical Society. The possibility of renaming the island came up last year and Lutts has been trying to track down the origin of the name ever since.
GRAVEL PIT PERMIT RENEWAL DRAWS PUBLIC CRITICISM
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CITY AMBULANCE SERVICE DISCUSSED
At what cost comes safety? A May 3 City Council workshop on the police and fire departments’ budgets for fiscal year 2022 was sidetracked, in part, by a discussion on creating a city-operated emergency medical response service. This is not a new topic. The city’s Emergency Services Committee floated the idea back in 2018 when County Ambulance, which had served the city and surrounding towns for 45 years, closed its doors, and the topic never really went away. It may well come up again when the Emergency Services Committee meets in council chambers on Thursday, May 6, at 6 p.m.
DISPATCHER ON THE JOB FOR 40 YEARS
Hancock County Regional Communications Center (RCC) dispatcher David Brady has been answering 911 calls, calming panicked callers and dispatching deputies, firefighters and EMTs for longer than some people have been married. On Tuesday, the Hancock County Commissioners recognized Brady for 40 years of service to the county. The recognition was held during the board’s regular monthly meeting held via online conference platform Zoom. “I don’t know if the building was built around him,” quipped RCC Director Bob Conary. “I know I rely on David way more than he wants me to for many things.”
BILL SEEKS CODE EXEMPTIONS FOR AQUACULTURE SITES
A bill filed last month on behalf of Governor Janet Mills would exempt land-based aquaculture facilities from certain state building and energy codes, as is afforded to buildings that house livestock or harvested crops. The bill, LD 1473, was filed on April 14, and aims to bring the land-based aquaculture industry, including Whole Oceans, a land-based Atlantic salmon farm that is currently in the design stages, in line with the agricultural regulations. The company is revamping the former Verso paper mill site in Bucksport and planned to install several large salmon tanks inside of a metal building on the site. The $180 million project could eventually produce as much as 20,000 metric tons of salmon annually.
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BAY SCHOOL HEADS OUTDOORS TO DEAL WITH THE PANDEMIC
While many schools have been doing a mix of in-school and remote learning during the pandemic, class has been in session on the Bay School campus since the first day of school last September. Instruction for the school’s 83 students has been a mix of inside and outside — mainly outside, according to Headmaster Marcia Diamond. The school owns a 70-acre parcel off South Street, which has trails and gardens in addition to the school buildings. Diamond credits the families of students for getting creative with how to stay in school while complying with the state’s social distancing mandates.
TEACHERS GO "ABOVE AND BEYOND" IN PANDEMIC YEAR
When Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Hancock native, became the first woman elected to the job in December, she told The American how much of an impact her teachers had on her political career. “Mrs. Johnson was my kindergarten teacher,” she remembered, adding that without the speech therapy she received as a young student at Hancock Grammar School, “I wouldn’t be in politics today.” The support she received was monumental in “normal” times. Now, the call to appreciate teachers has reached an all-new level, especially after educators, parents and students navigated virtual learning from within the confines of shared home and workspaces.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF JOE PHELAN/KENNEBEC JOURNAL
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FISHING COMMUNITY SOUNDS OFF ON OFFSHORE WIND, MORATORIUM
Hundreds of fishermen gathered in Augusta on April 28 to protest offshore wind development in Maine. Several local lobstermen who attended the rally said they have felt left out of a rushed process to get wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine, particularly when it comes to a research array proposed by the Governor in federal waters. “We are in favor of renewable technologies, but we don’t feel this is the answer,” said Virginia Olsen, a Stonington lobsterman who organized the rally at the Augusta Civic Center.
GOULDSBORO BUDGET UP 8.45 PERCENT
It took an untold number of peppermints, microphone malfunctions, mask-hampered discourse and 16 hours of number crunching on often bitter-cold nights for the town’s Budget Committee to finalize and present a 2021-22 municipal budget of $1.992 million to selectmen last Wednesday night. The spending plan is up 8.54 percent over the $1.835 million budgeted for this fiscal year. The proposal, which does not include school or county costs, was delivered a month early and will be voted on at the annual Town Meeting June 9.
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TATTOO ARTS FINDS HOME ON MAIN STREET
After a year-long absence, the buzz is back on Main Street. A spirit of renewal is in the air. Empty storefronts bustle with activity. Artful window displays are going up on both sides of the street. Born and raised in Ellsworth, Jaime Parent is part of the post-pandemic recharge and new beginnings happening in the city’s historic shopping district. The tattoo artist has departed State Street and taken up residence fittingly under the stylish Luchini Building’s pink arches at 112 Main St. Across the street, a whirlwind of activity has been taking place at 97 Main, where Poppy & Polka Dot maven Amanda Beals has moved from farther down the street.
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EHS SOFTBALL CAPS OFF BIG WEEK WITH DOUBLEHEADER SWWP OF CARIBOU
The first full week of action for the Ellsworth softball team ended with two very different victories on the diamond. Ellsworth won both games of a doubleheader against Caribou on Saturday at Ellsworth High School. The Eagles won in blowout fashion in Game 1 and mounted a late rally in Game 2 to secure an improbable victory and a sweep of the visiting Vikings. Ellsworth began Saturday’s doubleheader with a blowout win in the opening contest. The Eagles reached base a whopping 20 times and got a dominant performance in the circle from pitcher Tyler Hellum in an 11-0 victory.
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Heard Around Town: For about seven years, neither snow, nor rain, nor heat has kept the Brenner-Simpson family from delivering The Ellsworth American in downtown Ellsworth. Then a middle-schooler, Ian Brenner-Simpson was the first in his family to come after school, bundle copies of the freshly printed issue into a newspaper bag, sling it across his chest and head out on the street.
For over three years, Ian was a familiar face in downtown Ellsworth — even then he was better known as a pianist, composer and swimmer — delivering the EA on Water, Main, State and Franklin streets. Then, his sister Heather took on the job and devoted her Wednesday afternoons to getting the week’s issues to customers on the 19-stop route. After three and a half years, Heather officially passed the canvas bag to a highly capable fifth-grader, Maeve Breeden of Ellsworth. For a few weeks now, Maeve has accompanied Heather on her rounds and the transition has been seamless. Many thanks to Maeve, Heather, Ian and all the other newspaper boys and girls who have handled The EA’s downtown deliveries downtown and represented the newspaper so well over the years.
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