Board Mistook Existing Motel Buildings as Proposed New Construction

By Paul Sylvain

A misread of a building permit application by the Machias Planning Board at its Sept. 3 meeting may have cost the owners of the Bluebird Motel valuable time in their effort to rebuild a 20-unit building that was destroyed by fire last Christmas Eve.

By Paul Sylvain

A special meeting of the Washington County Commissioners on Sept. 3 has left those who were there asking when is a resignation a resignation?

By Will Tuell

Peals of laughter ripped through the Elm Street School gymnasium Friday morning as Missouri-based ventriloquist Doug Mickan regaled the nearly 200 students and staff with a puppet show featuring a fourth grader dressed as a pirate, a talking rooster named Roscoe, and an animated drawing aptly named Drew. While Mickan and his puppets deftly told fairy tales, sang songs, and bantered back and forth, the message was clear — we all have unique talents and abilities that distinguish us, and it is how we use them that makes each of us special. 

Reshingles Main Building, Boat House

By David Cale

Cross Island is a hidden gem for visitors passing through our waters off Machiasport’s Bucks Harbor and Starboard districts. It offers a place to camp for the night, along with walking trails to enjoy the scenic views. 

As Machiasport’s harbormaster, my position is more than just placing moorings, helping with the upkeep, and seeing to improvements and upgrades to our working waterfront. A lot of time is spent on the phone taking calls. 

By Paul Sylvain

The Machiasport selectboard on Aug. 28 stood by its original June 4 decision denying former Machiasport resident Kenny Fass a resident clam harvesting license despite a disputed non-binding 2-1 shellfish conservation committee vote recommending that Fass be issued the license.

Fass, who owns property and resided at 55 Corn Hill Road, lost his home to a fire in 2020. The lot was cleared of debris and has remained vacant during the five years since the blaze. Fass now lives in Machias with his girlfriend.

By Nancy Beal

It has been a busy Raider summer! 

Shortly after the school year ended in June, rising seniors Lucas Cushing and Jade Gardner participated in an interactive experience at the Cohen Institute's High School Summer Leadership Program on the University of Maine's Orono campus. Throughout their years at Washington Academy, Lucas and Jade have been engaged student leaders as members of the Raider Student Council and National Honor Society. 

By Paul Sylvain

“We’re just staying afloat, and I mean just barely.”

Those words, spoken by Washington County Commissioner Billy Howard at an Aug. 21 public hearing, sum up the current state of the county’s government finances. And the situation could get worse — a lot worse — if a $11 million bond referendum being sought by the county fails in the Nov. 4 election. Among other things, the county will be unable to repay its $7.6 million tax anticipation note that comes due in full on Dec. 31.

By Nancy Beal

“It’s utterly ridiculous!” was Paul Farnsworth’s opening salvo at the Aug. 13 meeting of Jonesport selectmen. His remark was aimed at any rebuilding effort the town might undertake on behalf of the old Cummins & Norton store in front of the firehouse and adjacent to his auto repair business in the part of town that used to be considered West Jonesport.

By Will Tuell

Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, will be a solemn day for the family of slain Korean War soldier Oscar Sprague, who lost his life serving our country during the Korean War. Sprague, 22, was reported missing in action on Sept. 3, 1950, in the vicinity of Yongsan, South Korea, and, until recently, remained unaccounted for. Now, 75 years later, Sprague’s hometown of Milbridge will welcome home their fallen hero with full military honors, funeral organizers said last week. 

by Jonathan Reisman

“Don’t it always seem to go,

That you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?”

-- Joni Mitchell (Big Yellow Taxi)

Freedom Studies is going on hiatus while I ponder Joni Mitchell’s lyrics on my 69th birthday,

Including:

“I’ve looked at life from both sides now,

From up and down, and still somehow

It’s life’s illusions, I recall

I really don’t know life at all.”

-- Joni Mitchell (Both Sides Now)

By Paul Sylvain

And just like that, it was over. The 48th almost annual Machias Wild Blueberry Festival, that is. And what a festival it was.

Mother Nature even held off Sunday’s forecasted rains until after the live performances on the outdoor stage were finished and most of the festival’s vendors had packed up and were heading home or to their next festival stop away from Machias.

By Will Tuell

Twenty years ago last Friday — Aug. 15, 2005 — Maine Veterans Home in Machias opened its doors. In the two decades since, the residential care facility serving area veterans and their spouses has seen its share of ups and downs, from expansions and national awards to a worldwide pandemic and a near-closure three years ago after repeated warnings about the home’s financial woes. 

By Paul Sylvain

The Machias Selectboard voted on Aug. 13 to extend the current moratorium on new solar and wind farm applications an additional 180 days. The current moratorium, which began in March, was set to expire sometime in September.

The selectboard delegated the town’s planning board to draft the ordinances after the first moratorium was voted on nearly six months ago. Until the planning board’s meeting earlier this month, little had been done to begin work on the ordinances.

by Jonathan Reisman

By Paul Sylvain

If time is money, the long-delayed work on Sinclair Development Corporation’s self-storage facility on Dublin Street, Machias, must have cost owner Randy Sinclair a fortune in lost revenue and legal fees. 

Halted for the past nine months following the discovery of numerous critical violations to the permit originally approved by the town’s planning board on March 1, 2023, Sinclair received the planning board’s blessing on Aug. 6 to resume work on the storage facility. 

By Nancy Beal

While coastal and riverside communities were crystallizing into the state of Maine 100 years ago, artists memorialized their existence on paper and canvas. The Moosabec area was no exception; the work of artists in Beals and Jonesport is often exhibited at home and abroad. 

Last week’s Reception for the Artists at Jonesport’s Peabody Memorial Library was one of several for those who frequently show their work on the library’s walls.

A week earlier, not half a mile down Main Street from the library, there was a different sort of art

By Will Tuell

Maine’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles is warning of a deceptive new scam designed to steal your most personal data, and it is circulating locally. On Saturday, Aug. 9, both publisher Pierre Little and correspondent Paul Sylvain received the text pictured, in which unnamed officials from the “Department of Motor Vehicles” urged them to pay a supposedly outstanding traffic ticket or lose their driver’s license for 30 days, be subject to increased tolls, and have their vehicle registrations yanked. 

by Jonathan Reisman

Increasing encounters and concerns with Artificial Intelligence, robots, challenges to prove my humanity/not-a-robot, and the Trump administration’s decision to challenge the 2009 Obama era “Endangerment finding” that is the basis and foundation for our flawed, opaque, dishonest, and ultimately ineffective climate policy regulation of greenhouse gases, led me to a Baby Boomer-centric memory/meme from the 1960s sci-fi TV series “Lost in Space.”

By Nancy Beal

Well over 100 Jonesporters filled the bleachers of their elementary school gym last week to select an interim selectman and amend two building ordinances. Newspaper posting errors threatened to derail the meeting, but the crowd voted overwhelmingly to continue.

By Nancy Beal

Roads and buildings dominated the Jonesport select board’s July 30 meeting, held prior to that evening’s special town meeting to elect a new select board member to fill out the remainder of outgoing selectman Logan Alley’s term.