Dear Editor:

In June we had the opportunity to vote on our property taxes. We may not have noticed it but the taxes were divided into two sections. One section dealt with the town's expenses which were divided into the costs relating to the various town departments with the Select Board recommendation. We could vote for or against each item. These items only accounted for ~40% of your property taxes.

The one department not listed was the school department. The Select Board (Tax Assessors) takes a hands off approach. The school budget accounts for ~ 60% of your property taxes.

The individual

Dear Editor:

I guess for most, it was a solidarity moment when Hannah Pingree showed up to fight for Miles Hospital’s possible maternity ward closure. Isn't it funny that all the Democrats show up for a cause that they created. Are Maine voters really falling for this?

Pingree served as director of the Governor's Office of Policy Innovation and the Future from 2019 to 2025. She shares responsibility for an administration during which several rural hospitals closed or reduced services, including the closure of Northern Inland Hospital and the loss of multiple labor and delivery units around the

The cost of living in Maine is too high, and families across Lincoln County feel it every day. Whether it’s groceries, electricity bills, childcare or healthcare, too many households are finding that their paychecks don’t stretch as far as they used to.

That’s why working to address affordability was one of the Legislature’s top priorities this year.

My colleagues and I worked to pass legislation and make targeted investments that aim to lower costs, strengthen essential services and put more money back into the pockets of Maine people. Many of those new laws and budget provisions took effect

The “review.” It’s how we decide whether to watch a movie or show, dine at a new restaurant, even hike a trail we’ve never taken before.

Scientists have their own kind of review: summary of the current state of a particular field of research, often with recommendations as to how a different perspective or a new approach might yield better results.

A new review paper was recently published, the author list of which includes several of our friends and colleagues. As the title makes obvious—“Status, threats and conservation of Earth’s migratory birds”—it’s an ambitious attempt to consider the

Cheers to the Miles Delivers group and those supporting the group’s plea to MaineHealth about keeping or delaying the shuttering of its birthing facility. Not only will the closure cause mothers to travel greater distances to receive treatment and give birth, but the closure will have a dramatic effect on young families choosing not to settle here in the region. The cost of homes here in the region is high enough and adding the problem of not having convenient and safe access to a birthing facility will not be beneficial toward increasing our school population.

I’ve been “into” baseball this

One of the things wrong with an unofficial bypass is some people's driving it at nearly bypass, or highway, speeds. That is not cool, and not safe, for people who live along it.

Who wants to put themselves and their vehicle through stop and go traffic, in the summer heat, when there is a scenic workaround? But you have to follow that road's rules, i.e., the speed limit, even though surely whatever else you will be doing when you reach your destination is important; it just isn't an excuse for jeopardizing motorists, cyclists, or walkers.

It's their road to use, too, and whatever they are doing

It was just 14 years ago when MaineHealth closed Boothbay’s little St. Andrews Hospital.

MaineHealth, the Portland-based hospital conglomerate, transferred the equipment and its very valuable critical access hospital license to Miles Memorial in Damariscotta.

Sure, they held public forums for us to complain, but the decision had already been made. It was a kick in the teeth to a prideful community that spent years depending upon and supporting it. 

For the record, the little St. A. hospital was outdated, and the move to the better-equipped and better-staffed Miles unit made sense. They

Our gardens have gone rogue!

Despite efforts to win the National Garden Club golden ring, neglect has set in. We had the best of intentions but summer in Vacationland has had the final say, forcing us to abandon the green thumb portion of activity. Additionally, believe it or not, I have not mowed our lawns in over a month, hoping to allow the longer grass to catch some overnight dew for refreshment.

Things are looking a bit ratty but still holding onto a pale green scraggliness. Pretty dry out there.

The garden hoe is collecting dust as we await some rain to support a fine crop of weeds and

Dear Editor:

If you live in Wiscasset, it is time you started to pay close attention to the sewer plant relocation issue.

The town's engineering consultant reported the sewer treatment plant is in danger of being inundated by rising sea water, following which the town received a $10 million loan offer from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF), which is available only if the plant is relocated, and the Select Board has since voted unanimously to comply with the CWSRF mandate.

Article 3 of the special town meeting on Sept 1, if approved, commits the town to relocating the sewer treatment

We hate to be the ones to say this, but could you think of a bird name that’s more boring than this: broad-winged hawk? What does the non-birder imagine when they hear that? Maybe a large, eagle-sized bird with wings as wide as a door? Or do they wonder whether most hawks have narrow wings—this particular “broad-winged” species just really stands out?

The truth is, broad-winged hawks are proportioned like the others in their family, known as buteos. True, their wings are wider than hawks such as falcons and accipiters (sharp-shinned hawks, for example) but  they are not noticeably broader

We are not quite at the halfway mark of summer, according to the calendar, but despite the heat wave over the Fourth of July weekend, the weather has been nice, especially the past week. We do need rain, however, as drought conditions continue and fire hazards increase.

The Drone Show has to be one of the best events of the summer in the region so far. Thank you to Mark Gimbel and all involved in making it happen. My wife and I were lucky enough to be out on the water for the show – thanks to our neighbor and lobsterman Corey Pottle and his wife, Brandy – and it was surreal. I am sure a lot of

Our 2026 installments of six good things in and around Wiscasset have been occasional instead of monthly like 2025's five good things mostly were. We are fitting them in as we can get to them. And you are reading a midsummer morning's catchup.

First is the pair of granite benches being added to the Water Street, Wiscasset sidewalk in front of the custom house, and made from the granite steps removed in renovations to the building, which, according to Wiscasset Newspaper files, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Selectmen this month accepted what Town Manager Dennis Simmons called

Long before I came to Maine, photography interested me. I didn’t know much about the process but enjoyed the adventure. It was a cool way for me to “focus," which was always a challenge due to some crossed wires in my brain. Looking through the tiny viewfinder helped me stay on subject without distraction, and keep an eye out for fun things. I started processing my own black and white films in, around or about 1965. “Magic in a box,” I used to call it. After high school and college I continued to photograph with no particular intention other than pure enjoyment.

A bit of a tragedy while I was

Fans of Jerry Farnham’s “Red At Night” series about the Finn family will soon learn how it all works out in the end when “Last Light” is published early in the fall. This final installment picks up four years after “Red in the Morning.”

Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Jerry. We talked about how he knew it was time to end the series, and how he felt about it. His life has been intertwined with the Finn Family of Boothbay Harbor since 2015 when he began writing the first book, “Red At Night.” Six years later, it was published on Nov. 4, 2021 by Bookbaby.

He said he’d already had

There are few better places to be on a torridly hot summer day than the cool ocean waters off the Maine coast. That’s where we found ourselves a few weeks ago during one of those near record-breaking hot days.

We were on the upper deck of the Hardy Boat out of New Harbor for the annual Natural Resources Council (NRCM) of Maine puffin trip to Eastern Egg Rock. Long-time friend  Steve Kress (the “prince of puffins”) and his wife Elissa were onboard, Steve providing his colorful narrative describing his story about his half-century long project restoring puffins to Eastern Egg Rock. It was our

It seems to me, as editor of this newspaper, that ever since Donald Trump became president (both in 2016 and in 2024), people’s opinions about him, politics in general, and state and national issues became more prevalent in newspapers – this one included. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press are Constitutional rights but there are many platforms where one can express their opinions, especially on the World Wide Web.

Getting caught up in the national news is easy to do with TV, newspapers and the internet being available instantaneously.

We are guilty as charged when it comes to allowing

The entire state of Maine has seen a reduction in rural maternity services. However, in recent weeks it has been brought to light that our very own Labor & Delivery Services at MaineHealth Lincoln Hospital’s Miles Campus, is at risk of shutting down.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics conducted a study in 2025 investigating the closures of labor and delivery units across the country. The study found that from 2010 to 2022, 238 rural and 299 urban hospitals shut down their obstetric services. In this same time frame, only 138 hospitals – mainly urban –