Author: Ted Cohen

Radio guy turned scribbler. University of Vermont. TedCohen875@gmail.com

A wealthy Maine philanthropist who quietly used his access and money to promote social good is being remembered by the region’s largest transportation museum. James S. Rockefeller Jr., 99, who founded the Owls Head Transportation Museum 50 years ago, died recently at his Camden home. As the museum celebrates a half-century in operation, it’s honoring Rockefeller, the famous-named New Yorker who’d adopted Maine as his home. Rockefeller donated his name, time and money to help put the antique-plane-and-car museum near his home on the map. “Jim’s involvement was very significant during the early years, from procuring the land to interactions…

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The Portland International Jetport has been ordered to stop cutting trees near the runways until authorities can determine whether the project went too far. Neighbors sounded their vehement opposition to the tree-cutting before city councilors, arguing that the airport had no right to cut down so many trees, which happen to be home to local amphibians and birds. Kevin Muse who lives near the trees being cut said he was shocked at what he saw. Muse compared the tree clearing to waking up and suddenly realizing his house had been bulldozed. “There was zero notice,” he told city councilors. Critics…

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The Maine Trust for Local News, already reeling from a string of executive resignations, is now losing the publisher of one of its largest papers. Jody Jalbert, publisher of the Lewiston Sun Journal and the Maine Trust for Local News Community News Division, said she is stepping down. A 36-year-veteran of the newspaper, including the last three years as publisher, Jalbert announced the news to her colleagues on Tuesday. Jalbert’s unexpected resignation comes on the heels of Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro vacating her position as CEO of the parent National Trust for Local News. The trust bought the Portland Press Herald,…

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Lift tickets are already expensive, but they just got a lot more so for a man who thought he was getting them for free. Skiing at Sugarloaf just cost a Massachusetts public worker $6,000. Scott Callahan, a foreman for the Auburn, Massachusetts Water District, violated conflict-of-interest laws by accepting freebie ski trips to Maine from a company that sells water meters to the town, authorities said. The Massachusetts Ethics Commission ordered Callahan to pay $6,000 in civil penalties for going on ski junkets that the meter manufacturer and distributor paid for. In his own defense, Callahan said he believes the…

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A contractor who’s suffered lengthy zoning delays on a $15 million Portland-area project is now wondering whether it’ll ever get off the ground. The Cape Elizabeth council will vote Feb. 10 whether to allow zoning amendments paving the way for Center Court, a 33-unit, senior-housing development. Bob Gaudreau of Hardypond Construction said he may never recoup the investment he’s made in the protracted project, even if it goes forward. “This will be my last development,” he said. “Just getting too old to take this type of risk anymore.” The zoning amendments up for a vote next week would allow greater…

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A string of crises facing Kennebunk schools reached a new nadir with embezzlement charges against a newly appointed drama teacher. Holly Fougere was arrested Thursday – just four days after being hired. The school board had appointed Fougere to succeed Dennis St. Pierre, former Kennebunk High School theater director. But just four days after she got the job cops grabbed Fougere – in Conway, New Hampshire – allegedly for stealing money from a Conway high school arts department. The drama following Fougere’s hiring is just the latest challenge plaguing schools in pricey Kennebunk, an oceanfront town that ranks in the…

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A Yarmouth teenager who was mowed down and killed by a drunk driver more than 30 years ago is about to have her memory honored anew with an updated public walkway bearing her name. Work is expected to begin soon to expand the Beth Condon Memorial Pathway in Yarmouth, state transportation officials said. Before doing so, they are seeking comment from area residents as to whether the project would create to possible encroachments onto historic properties. 15-year-old Yarmouth High School sophomore Elizabeth Condon was killed by drunk driver Martha Burke in 1993 as she walked along U.S. Route 1 with…

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Delinquent Maine property taxpayers just got a gift from the newly elected Democrat state treasurer. But guess who has to pick up the slack… Joe Perry of Bangor, who last month was a successful dark-horse candidate for the state money manager’s job, decided his first big act would be lowering the interest rate charged on late property taxes a full point, to 7.5 percent, from the previous 8.5 percent. That effectively means a tax increase for property owners who pay their taxes when they’re due. Municipalities rely largely on the property tax to finance taxpayer services. So when one taxpayer…

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The co-founder of the National Trust for Local News, the “nonprofit” owner of Maine’s largest newspaper chain, who quit on Wednesday, had been under fire for taking huge salary increases amid budget cuts. As The Maine Wire reported a month ago, Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro has been under fire for grabbing massive pay hikes even as she was cutting the budget for the newspapers she just bought. Shapiro conveniently ignored the issue of her controversial salary hike in her rehearsed resignation statement. “We have built something extraordinary together, she said. “I am deeply grateful to our team.” The trust bought the Portland…

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A columnist who’s among several ousted by Maine’s largest daily paper fears that the next shoe to drop may be the staff writers. “I share the worry of many that layoffs of staff writers could be next,” said Avery Yale Kamila, the first ousted freelance columnist to break her silence. Make no mistake, Kamila says – the part-time writers who recently got the boot by the National Trust for Local News did not quit – they were fired. “It was not my choice to end my column,” she said. “Rather, it was the paper’s decision, which I was told was…

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If the crash Wednesday night of a plane into the Potomac River is reminiscent to Mainers, it’s for good reason. A Cape Elizabeth woman was one of five survivors of the last plane to slam into the Potomac in 1982. Priscilla Tirado was on Air Florida Flight 90 with her husband and her baby when it crashed into the icy river Jan. 13, 1982. When Tirado lost her grip on a life ring, she was rescued by Lenny Skutnik, an employee of the Congressional Budget Office, who jumped into the river from a nearby bridge and grabbed her as she…

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