Battle for Hancock County state senate seat: Brian Langley versus Nicole Grohoski

Other news: SWH, Tremont post-election notes; salmon farm future still blurry

ELLSWORTH - May 14, 2021 - One way to assess former Republican state senator Brian Langley is that many of his views are left of Joe Manchin’s and Janet Mills’s.

He voted against the current Maine Republican platform which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, life as starting at conception and critical race theory as as an “agenda which undermines individual accountability.”

He is a rarity - a “Bush 41” Republican who could not even be nominated today in many parts of rural Maine.

But he’s running in Hancock County, which mirrored the statewide profile of voters in 2020 when it voted 54.8 percent for Joe Biden and 42.5 percent for Donald Trump. That was the year Langley lost to Democrat Louis Luchini, whose resignation earlier this year triggered the special election June 14.

His opponent, State Rep. Nicole Grohoski, is more a Bernie Sanders Democrat than a Joe Bidden one. Like Sanders she has unlimited appetite for taxing the rich.

The special election has garnered virtually no visibility, nor media coverage. Maine state legislature races are not the stuff of great interest.

The Acadia Senior College hosted both candidates in separate online forums the past two Fridays. The candidates took questions after giving campaign pitches.

Langley is the more seasoned politician. He served in the House from 2008-2010 and was elected to the Senate in 2010. He termed out in 2018 and lost to Luchini in 2020 in a failed comeback bid.

As owner of the Union River Lobster Pot Restaurant in Ellsworth, Langley has championed many small business issues. He chaired the education committee and served on the marine resources and taxation committee, using his position to favor the seafood industry which supplies his restaurant.

He believes the playing field in Maine is no longer level for small businesses, versus large corporations, citing as an example the “Maine Retirement Savings Program,” which enables a deduction for the employee of any business.

“I remember sitting in on the taxation committee, and someone saying, well, we'll just have them fill out these forms, and I raised my hand and I said, that's me. I'm the cook every night. And then at 11, I start doing my book work, and I'm the one filling those out at 1 AM. And not really understanding all the hats that a small business person wears, when they're bootstrapping it … they don't have the money to to have an HR team.”

Langley is unafraid to tackle subjects not usually the domain of Republicans.

On the issue of workforce housing, he proposed recruiting businesses which are willing to lease housing for employees.

“When you go to the bank and you're building something for speculation, you get one kind of an interest rate. But if you go into a funding arrangement and you have signed five-year leases, it immediately puts it into a business venture and you get a better rate.

“There's a lot of building going on here in the Ellsworth area. Apartment buildings are going in like crazy. But it's $1,500, $1,600 a month and you just wonder how is anybody going to support that.”

The two candidates were asked to differentiate themselves.

Langley said, “I think the major differences come with experience in areas that are really, really important, and understanding how the system works and how to create partnerships - industry, education …

"And also I think a real difference is really about building consensus and being able to work with others to get to a common goal.” As an example, he pointed to Grohoski’s failed attempt to pass legislation limiting the number of “non-essential” utility transmission lines which was vetoed by Janet Mills.

Then he brought up his own climate record.

“I had a ranking from the League of Conservation Voters in the 70s (percent) when I was in the legislature and 85 percent by the NFIB (National Federation of Independent Business) … so I don't get 100 percent by anybody, because you have to look at each bill, and what is the best for the citizens of Maine.”

Langley said he belongs to a group of business owners that work together to collectively address the climate issues.

“So those are all issues that I have firsthand experience in … bringing in Efficiency Maine and converting every light bulb to an LED, utilizing different fuel sources and have more control over it. So all of those experiences when you bring them to Augusta, you have firsthand experience on effective solutions.”

(Just for the record, the QSJ did not need Efficiency Maine to tell me to use LED bulbs, which I did 10 years ago.)

It’s notable that Langley challenged Grohoski in her sweet spot - climate - where she is a superstar. She regularly gets 100 percent ratings from environmental groups.

She pushed through one of the most influential pieces of legislation of the past decade when Maine became the first state to require producers of packaged goods to pay for municipal recycling programs.

Shortly after its adoption in July 2021, Oregon followed suit, and lawmakers in six other states — California, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Hawaii — introduced similar legislation.

Grohoski compromised to give frozen blueberry packaging an exemption. She is a quick study on the rules of the road of the Maine House of Representatives having served only two terms. If she had problems with consensus building, it’s not obvious.

Langley also did not put into context Grohoski’s holistic campaign against Janet Mills’s utility strategy which treats Central Maine Power like a favored son. In fact CMP has been judged in numerous consumer surveys as the worst public utility company in the country.

Grohoski and State Rep. Seth Berry have been leading a fight to oust CMP and turn it into a utility owned by Maine consumers instead of a Spanish company. They are working toward a citizens referendum.

Grohoski reminded listeners that Langley opposed the expansion of MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program, which was approved in a statewide referendum in 2017 and now serves more than 90,000 Mainers.

Langley’s support enabled former Gov. Paul LaPage to veto five different pieces of legislation that attempted to tap federal funding to expand MaineCare. After expansion won at the ballot box, LePage still refused to file for expansion with the federal government, prompting a lawsuit led by anti-poverty advocacy group Maine Equal Justice.

Langley is also in line with his party on opposing unemployment benefits which he believes are too rich and discourages people from working. He equated the Jan. 6, 2021 uprising at the nation’s Capitol with the same level of illegality as the Black Lives Matter protests.

The two agreed that Maine’s abortion law is tight and well fortified. They also agreed that industrial aquaculture does not belong in Maine, although only Grohoski opposed the American Aquafarm project for Frenchman Bay by name.

American Aquafarms’s future plans still unknown, says company spokesman

SOMESVILLE - American Aquafarms’s project manager said this week he does not know what future plans are for the proposed salmon farm in Frenchman Bay.

“We have to understand what our options are, and and develop a strategy for moving forward,” said Tom Brennan at a member forum hosted by Acadia Senior College. “What that looks like? I don't know the answer.”

“I was shocked that the Department took the stance they did in terms of our application,” referring to the state marine resources department’s rejection of AA’s permit, citing the use of genetically modified fish eggs incompatible with Maine’s regulations.

“I thought that we had identified solutions to the the egg genetic issue that was pointed out last fall with USDA and AquaBounty providing the right right data that they required.”

Asked whether investors in the $300 million project are still committed, he answered, “I certainly haven’t communicated with all of them. They understand the evolving challenges of the regulatory environment. I think their willingness to invest in the project comes with a recognition that it may take time.”

Brennan spent most of the 80-minute session jousting with opponents of the project and summarily ended it after declining to be more specific about company’s claim of a net positive economic benefit to the state.

Much attention has been paid to AA’s acquisition of the former fish cannery in Gouldsboro as an indication the project is still alive.

But the sale is part of the divestiture of East Coast Seafood by its private equity owner. East Coast Seafood owned the Prospect Harbor plant and entered into the sales agreement with AA last year. The deal closed May 2.

Undercurrentnews reported that East Coast Seafood held up the sale of its assets so to take into its 2021 financials which showed a strong rebound from the pandemic inflicted 2020 year.

Two state DEP officials observed the meeting, Gregg Wood (aquaculture licensing) and Cindy Dionne (wastewater licensing).

Last month, the Town of Gouldsboro, which claims jurisdiction over all land-based aquaculture activity such as the former cannery, extended its moratorium against aquaculture permits to Nov. 15. Its planning board is in the midst of developing more stringent ordinances to regulate fish farms.

You may listen to the entire forum here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S3390EI0IMR634b3fnSsOCQfIx53f3ai/view?usp=sharing

CTR flexes its muscle in Tremont

TREMONT - The two land-use ordinances on the ballot Monday received more votes than either candidate for select board.

And the top vote-getter was Jessica Bass for school committee with 264 votes.

“I believe her winning margin while running unopposed is an indication of strong local support for our public school - for me, a key part of our democracy,” said Jayne Ashworth, who received 149 votes for select board. Jamie Thurlow, incumbent chair, received 181 votes.

The ordinance with tighter restriction of campgrounds received 251 votes.

“I hope all members of our Select Board take note of that fact and work to keep the quiet, residential quality of our town, as well as work to promote affordable housing, to address environmental concerns, and rising sea level concerns that seem to be a result of the environmental challenges,” Ashworth said.

That message and the fact that a virtual unknown who is a retiree “from away” could garner such a strong support the first time she ran for anything in town is a strong indication of change.

The campground ordinance was the direct result of the citizens group Concerned Tremont Residents pressuring the Planning Board and the Select Board to guard against future developments like Acadia Wilderness Lodge, which threatens to slice up a good chunk of rural West Tremont with 63 luxury glamping yurts.

Carolyn Ball emerges as select member to be reckoned with in SWH

SOUTHWEST HARBOR - There is a new sheriff in town and her name isn’t Jellison.

In a matter of weeks, select board chair George Jellison has been reduced to a cameo of his former self, no longer strident, bullying nor confident of his purpose. His cohort of enablers - Don Norwood, Chad Terry and Allen Willey - have either been voted out or resigned.

Enter Carolyn Ball, full of energy, purpose and newfound confidence (she actually reads the documents prepared for each meeting).

On Tuesday she refused to approve appointment of three harbor committee members after they “unceremoniously called for an election of a new chair without any notice” last year. She wanted to review its bylaws to see if they violated due process.

That painful memory of the Monday Night Massacre a year ago still obviously pains Ball.

That was when the harbor committee replaced Anne Napier with member Nicholas Madeira as chair and rejected by 5-3 vote Napier’s recommendation to use land purchased by the town in 2017 next to the boat launch for recreational purposes.

“I’m terribly saddened that we can’t make decisions in this town,” said Ball at the time. She, along with a large group of volunteers - mostly women, worked more than a year to devise grant proposals which would have created a small picnic area next to the town launch, expand access to the beloved Chris’s Pond, where generations of residents learned to ice skate, and to build affordable housing next to it.

One day after the harbor committee meeting, George Jellison piled on as he led the select board to deny all efforts to seek grants which would not have cost taxpayers a dime.

His mean streak forever etched, the Jellison coalition fell apart in one year.

Now what?

Will the select board follow tradition and rotate who is chair when its two new members are sworn in?

Former Chair Kristin Hutchins said that has been the practice for most boards and committees.

The harbor committee members up for re-appointment are Nicholas Madeira      Ronald Weiner and Donald Sullivan.

Madeira is considered a thoughtful and reasonable chair. Ronald Weiner also earns praise. But too often, critics say, they hew to the demands of the crass and self-interested commercial fishermen on the committee to the detriment of recreational boaters.

Ball has a PhD in political science from Purdue University and taught at the University of Southern Maine.

Aleswives return in large numbers; but lack of rain pose threat to water level

Mill Pond Fish Ladder – Photo by Natalie Springuel

SOMESVILLE - The rain in Maine has recently been on the wane.

And that could pose a problem for my favorite village activity - counting the alewives at Mill Pond, next to the library, as they beat against the current to reach fresh water to spawn.

The circle of life is in its full Darwinistic display here, savage and primitive, and resplendent and majestic at the same time.

“The usual predators have been taking advantage of the arrival: harbor seals, osprey, eagles, mergansers,” reported Billy Helprin of the Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary, which operates the fish ladder assisting the alewives to swim upstream.

“The migration is underway in a big way!” Billy reported Friday. “Yesterday we started out slowly with 25 fish entering the Mill Pond and many alewife below the spillway, but today we had a total of 6,890 in four long counts... and there are still many hundreds or more down below.

“The disconcerting thing is how low our water levels are for this time of year. The sun, warmth, and no rain in about three weeks has contributed to the temporarily high flows of three weeks ago to disappear rapidly.

“In order to set the fish trap at Long Pond we also have to close the ladder side down to just one open door - the one leading to the trap. The Long Pond water level is down significantly so we need to be in conservation mode there until we get more substantial rain.

The good news is the count is already at 12.8 percent of of last year's decades-long record of 53,811 and 91 percent of 2019's paltry run of 7,608.

Volunteers may contact Billy at the Somes-Meynell website.

2014 count

Alewives, sometimes called river herring, are diadromous fish that spend most of their lives at sea and come back to freshwater in the spring to reproduce. Early New Englanders relied on alewives as an important food source. In a lesson learned from Native Americans, the corn that the Pilgrims ate at the first Thanksgiving was fertilized with alewives. 

It’s believed that of all the migratory fish that came up Maine’s rivers, alewives were the most abundant. But today, alewives are harvested in only about 30 Maine towns, and most historical runs have disappeared due to overfishing, pollution of river waters, and by the erection of dams creating a barrier to fish passage.

In the Mill Pond watershed, several dams were constructed by the late 1700s to support saw, grist and woolen mills, important structures for the areas’ economic growth at the time.  With the establishment of these dams subsequent runs diminished to negligible numbers.

In 2005 the Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary began to support the restoration of diadromous fish species in Mill Pond to restore native sea-run fish populations, such as Alewife, American eel and Sea lamprey, to historic spawning and nursery habitat in one of MDI’s largest watersheds. 

QSJ on panel exploring impact of ‘news deserts’

BLUE HILL - The QSJ will discuss local news as part of The Democracy Forum, sponsored by The League of Women Voters-Downeast, in cooperation with WERU FM.

I will be joined by a former colleague from the New York Times, Penelope Abernathy, visiting professor at the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and my friend, Dan MacLeod, Managing Editor, Bangor Daily News.

Some of the questions posed:

What is a "news desert"? Does Maine have them? What happens in towns that have no institutional news coverage? Does it affect self-governance at the local level?  Can citizen or grass-roots journalism fill the gap? Even if we have plenty of citizen journalists, do we lose cohesion without an institutional resource that provides a collective understanding?

Broadcasts may be heard from 4 - 5 p.m. on the third Friday of the month at WERU Community Radio, 89.9 FM Blue Hill. Listen on the web at WERU.org. The show can also be heard in the Portland area at 11:30 a.m., the first Sunday of the following month, at WMPG Community Radio, 90.9 FM Portland, streaming at WMPG.org.

In September, 2018, the Democracy Forum won top honors from the Maine Association of Broadcasting for public affairs radio.

https://www.lwvme.org/democracyforum

FOOTNOTE: Luckily we do not live in a news desert.

For the fifth time in six years, the Islander took home the top prize at the New England Newspaper & Press Association’s annual Better Newspaper Competition for newspapers of its circulation size. 

The first-place finish in the General Excellence category was awarded to the paper due to its “exceptional” looks and overall content. “Smart layout. Sharp color in excellent photos. High page one story count. Good mix of features with valuable community news with lots of ‘news you can use,’” wrote the judge for the category, adding that the paper is “top notch in all respects important to the readers of community weeklies.” 

The newspaper edged out the Inquirer and Mirror of Nantucket, Mass., the Vermont Standard of Woodstock, Vt., and the Provincetown Independent of Provincetown, Mass., in the New England-wide competition.  

The newspaper also received accolades for its digital presence, grabbing a third-place finish for best overall website.   

Former reporter Sarah Hinckley took third place in the health reporting category for a story she wrote about a local cold-water swimming effort that served as a fundraiser.  

Congratulations to all!