Breaking News: Ashley Bryan dead at 98
Other news: How MDI's rich and powerful effect their influence outside of Maine
Dear Friends and Family,
The world has lost a wonderful person. It is with gratitude and love for the life he shared with us that we announce the passing of Ashley Bryan, renowned artist, writer, storyteller, on February 4, 2022. He was 98 years old.
In our lives there have been few people as special. His joy of discovery, invention, learning and community has had a profound impact on us all.
A complete obituary and detailed biography can be found at the Ashley Bryan Center’s website, ashleybryancenter.org. There is also a link where you are most welcome to share your thoughts and memories of Ashley.
There will be a Memorial Celebration held on Islesford, Maine on July 13, 2022, which would have been Ashley’s 99th birthday. Contributions can be made to the Ashley Bryan Center in memory of Ashley. Gifts will be used for the expansion and upkeep of The Storyteller Pavilion, the centerpiece of Ashley’s legacy.
Fondly
The Family
The tributes speak for themselves:
“Sitting on the couch in his house on Islesford while he read -turned pages actually- It’s a wonderful world sung by Louis Armstrong. Grilled cheese sandwiches. Watching him make papier-mâché. Cambridge MA library. Reading Nikki Giovanni poems. So many delicious memories to live with. Thank you Ashley.”
- Axie Clark Diana
“Ashley was wonderful, beautiful human..... Salt of the Earth who brought out the goodness in others. I am so grateful to have known him and to work at the ABC honoring his work. His life and legacy will last forever! Thank you Ashley for your amazing contribution to this planet. Fly beautiful blackbird fly!”
- Kate Carroll
“Little Cranberry island will never be the same. I was able to take my Grandsons to visit with Ashley last summer. This was the high light of their vacation to be able to visit with Ashley. R.I.P”
- Evelyn Wallace Lindsey
“Ashley was a very important person in my life and someone who I consider a personal hero. I wanted my children to be around him as much as possible and his artwork that hangs in our home. I believe he has had upon them and the energy his paintings bring to be without measure. When my wife Julia was pregnant with our son, we had decided that his middle name was going to be Ashley. It would have been his first name but in the US that is more commonly a girl’s name and while that didn’t bother us…We felt it might be unfair to him make that decision. So we went with Ashley as a middle name. When visiting Ashley we told him our child will be named after him. He was delighted and pulled out his latest book and wrote a dedication to our son. He wrote welcome to the world! He then turned me and asked what his first name will be. I said Ronan. When I saw the dedication, Ashley had written-Ronin Ashley (uh-huh!) My wife and I agreed that was how it was going to be and our son is named Ronin Ashley. In the Japanese culture Ronin were basically masterless warriors. Or those who have lost their jobs through one misfortune or another. However some of the most revered figures in Japanese history were in fact independent and operated outside of that very strict social hierarchy. So what was considered a negative in their case had been turned into a positive. I couldn’t imagine the better trajectory for my son than to rise above whatever life brings him and for that (among so many other things) I will always be grateful to have known this extraordinary man and to have considered him a dear friend.”
- Aaron Green
“I hosted Ashley in 2012 at The Mather School in Dorchester, MA. Pat Keogh brought him on behalf of Wondermore. He was one of the best author/illustrator visits I have ever had. He has the kindergarten classes and the fifth grade class equally engaged and energized. Ashley had all the kids doing call and response of Langston Hughes poetry. I know Ashley lived a long and wonderful life, but his death leaves a huge hole in children's literature's heart.”
- Maura O'Toole
The QSJ wrote this in 2020 https://theqsjournal.wordpress.com/2020/10/21/.
Rich and powerful peddle influence away from their MDI summer edens
NORTHEAST HARBOR, Feb. 5, 2022 - There is a “Federalist” among us and that’s making some folks a little uneasy.
QSJ received a letter from a reader urging me to write about Leonard Leo, the pro-life operative who has been credited with placing most of the current conservative justices on the Supreme Court.
Leo and his wife bought a nice “cottage” at 46 South Shore Road here in 2018.
He is the longtime executive vice president of the Federalist Society whom the Washington Post described as Donald Trump’s “unofficial judicial advisor.”
The rich and powerful who summer here tend not to make much news on the island (not since Brooke Astor). They are low-key and almost somnolent - except Martha Stewart, or unless you get into a squabble with a neighbor. They sprinkle some largesse among the polite charities and non-profits, but not nearly what they spend back home.
And they run the full political spectrum.
The richest MDI summer resident, Thomas Peterffy (not counting Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson, whose parents own a lake house on Long Pond) spent almost $10 million of his own money buying TV ads in 2012 warning against socialism.
“If 4 years from now if more than 50% of voters are on government support… it is all done and finished,” Peterffy told the Wall Street Journal. “Citizens will lose motivation and the country will grow poorer as a result, he argues, citing his childhood in Hungary and similar scenarios that he maintains have played out in other Eastern European countries and in Cuba.”
Ten years after his treatise, the country is poorer, but not economically.
In 2017, Money Magazine wrote, “Meet the Richest Man in Florida, a Hungarian Immigrant Who Hates Socialism and Hangs Out at Mar-a-Lago.”
On MDI, Peterffy and his girl friend quietly doled out a a few bucks from his petty cash drawer for Friends of Acadia, the favorite among the summer glitterati for its political androgyny and environmental chops. (see Petterffy’s gift below).
But back home, in Palm Beach, Peterffy is embroiled in a massive controversy involving a road project which would benefit land he owns, according to press reports.
Besides being a Mar-a-Lago Club member, Peterffy is also a major donor to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as well as being a member of DeSantis’ campaign finance team, the Palm Beach Post reported.
Seven years ago, Peterffy bought 561,000 acres of developable land in the rural Lafayette, Dixie and Taylor counties. They are three of the counties affected by the proposed new toll roads.
Peterffy told the Tampa Bay Times that he had nothing to do with the state’s idea to build the toll roads in such a helpful way to his property investment.
“And I want to believe him. I do. It’s all just a coincidence,” wrote Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino sarcastically. “Peterffy can step up. He could say that for the good of Florida’s precious environmental resources — not to mention saving $1 billion in taxpayer dollars that could be spent on education, health care and other pressing needs — we should be adopting the ‘no build’ option the task force said was necessary to consider.
“Sure, it won’t add a few more crumbs to Peterffy’s $17.2 billion net worth. But somehow, he’ll get by,” Cerabino wrote in October 2020.
The project has been cut back since, but Peterffy still stands to benefit greatly with what’s remaining of the roads project in what is known as Florida’s Nature Coast, said Michael McGrath of the Florida Sierra Club.
Now meet Peterffy’s unlikely bookend on MDI, Charles Butt, the Texas supermarket titan who is fighting for voting rights in his home state.
In a homage to Butt in 2021, the Texas Monthly wrote, “After Attorney General Ken Paxton tried to limit Texans’ access to mail-in voting, Butt’s was the rare voice of opposition among Texas’s wealthy and powerful. He wielded his clout to urge the Texas Supreme Court to allow that option to all eligible voters as a public safety measure.
“Though the court ultimately ruled against the expansion, Butt’s bracing defense of our most essential right held our state’s highest-ranking officials to account. At 82, Charles Butt continues to set a civic example for business executives everywhere.”
Butt did make news here once. In 2003, he caused a 10-hour traffic jam when he had transported a massive apple tree from Ellsworth to his home in Northeast Harbor for which he apologized in ads in four newspapers. https://www.myplainview.com/news/article/Texan-to-run-ads-apologizing-for-10-hour-traffic-8873342.php
Off the rails in 2015
Another time a billionaire made the local news was in 2015 when Mitchell Rales sued descendants of Charles Eliot, who help found Acadia National Park, and other neighbors for making too much noise on his private beach. The suit was settled in 2016.
Otherwise, Rales has been quiet and private. But back in Montgomery County, MD, he was a vocal and forceful supporter of Democrats, including two-time governor Martin O’Malley. Rales’s brother Joshua ran unsuccessfully for governor as a Democrat.
Locally, Rales is the principal supporter of MDI 365, which is trying to build affordable housing in Mount Desert. Mitchell Rales has expressed a strong desire to spend his money philanthropically, saying to the Washington Post in 2018, "When we go, there's not going to be money bestowed on children and grandchildren in any meaningful way. This is about reallocating the money we had the good fortune of making to other causes."
“Reallocating wealth.” Just the sound of those words must rattle Leo and Petterffy’s inner timber.
The District of Columbia is where Leo has hung his shingle and earned the animus of Progressives.
Citizensforethics.org reported in October 2020 that Leo “is the sole trustee of a mysterious group that brought in more than $80 million in 2018, according to a previously unreported tax return.
“The filing vastly expands the amount of money known to be flowing into the growing constellation of dark money groups tied to Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo and provides new details about his role in a secretive firm that was responsible for one of the largest donations received by President Trump’s inaugural committee.”
The New Yorker wrote this profile in 2017. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-conservative-pipeline-to-the-supreme-court
So you can see the contours of this mismatch. Don’t invite Leo, Petterffy, Butt and Rales to the same garden party!
QSJ can’t imagine having a beer with Leonard Leo anytime soon. That would be fine with this Chinese immigrant with a Jewish name who was educated in a Catholic missionary school. Hard to see how I would fit into Leo’s “originalism” vision of America.
But if I get shut out of Copita on a Saturday night because he grabbed the last reservation? Now that would be reason for an uprising the likes of Jan. 6, 2021.
PPP benefitted many MDI businesses, especially the hospitality industry
BAR HARBOR, Feb. 7, 2022 - The Witham Family hotels group, which owns Bar Harbor Inn among other properties here, received 2,528,424 in Payroll Protection Loans which were forgiven in 2021.
Islesford Dock, the restaurant co-owned by billionaire Mitchell Rales, received a $335,500 loan.
Northeast Harbor Golf Club, which has many ultra wealthy members, received $102,300. (Disclosure: I am a member).
The New York Times reported Wednesday that only about a quarter of the $800 billion funding went to jobs that would have been lost. “A big chunk lined bosses’ pockets.”
Seventy-two percent of the program’s relief money ended up in the hands of those whose household income is in America’s top 20 percent, according to David Autor, an economics professor at MIT who led a 10-member team that studied the program.
“Jobs and businesses are two separate things,” said Autor. “We tried to figure out, ‘Where did the money go?’ — and it turns out it didn’t primarily go to workers who would have lost jobs. It went to business owners and their shareholders and their creditors.”
Maine Senator Susan Collins, who co-sponsored PPP, was criticized for adding an exception in the bill that allowed big hotel and restaurant chains to receive PPP money as long as they had fewer than 500 employees “per physical location.” Read the Daily Beast article.
Others on MDI which received PPP funding include Birch Bay Retirement Village, $598,441; WS Atlantic LLC, which owns the Hampton Inn, $133,389; Balance Rock Inn, $115,053; Harbor Ridge Condominiums in Southwest Harbor, $133,000; Smuggler’s Den, $123,414; The Moorings in Southwest Harbor, $67,858; A.C. Parsons Landscaping, Tremont, $181,634; F. W. Thurston Co., $69,200 in 2020 and $188,200 in 2021.
The QSJ compiled a list of every loan received by MDI employers. Not all could be found because some are either owned by companies located outside of the area or they are under corporate names. QSJ could not find data for Ocean Properties, for instance, which is the biggest hotel owner on the island.
Virtually every employer on the island received some benefits. The restaurant business was also one of the largest categories.
Here is the list:
West Tremont https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=04612
Tremont https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=04674
Hulls Cove https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=04644
Bar Harbor https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=04609
Mount Desert https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=04660
Seal Harbor https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=04675
Northeast Harbor https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=04662
Southwest Harbor https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=04679
Cranberry Isles https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=04625
Cranberry Isles https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=04646
Bass Harbor https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=04653
Change of Watch on multiple boards on MDI in 2022 will determine our next decade
Bar Harbor set for battle over ‘inclusionary zoning’
BAR HARBOR - Tom St. Germain was not having a great time Wednesday, not like the good old days when he had Erica Brooks, Basil Eleftheriou and Joe Cough rubber stamp the Planning Board’s agenda to his wishes.
St. Germain is the chairman of the Planning Board whose term expires this year, along with that of Cough. Under St. Germain, Bar Harbor has seen its biggest thrust forward for business development and its worst period for housing island workers.
On Wednesday, three new members dealt St. Germain a huge blow when they each said they supported the proposal to weaken the board’s supermajority vote over land-use ordinance changes. That’s the subject of a lawsuit against the town by Brooks after citizens approved capping vacation rentals in an overwhelming majority vote Nov. 2, 2021.
Wednesday’s was not an official action by the PB, but Elissa Chesler, Ruth Eveland and Earl Brechlin, who reversed his previous stance, all said they supported removing the supermajority requirement. That left Millard Dority - the Susan Collins of the PB - acceding as well.
Cough, who was not in attendance, and St. Germain’s expiring terms present a big opportunity for Bar Harbor residents to rearrange the chairs which have favored the tourism industry for three decades.
Also up for re-election are Town Council chair Jeff Dobbs and vice chair Matthew Hochman, both of whom have carried water for the cruise ship industry for so long that they have slooped shoulders.
But this being rural Maine, it all comes down to whether enough candidates raise their hands.
A new candidate has emerged to fill the seventh vacancy created by the town council to blunt the “supermajority” vice grip of the planning board. He is Zach Soares, who works for the library at College of the Atlantic. Dority is also a COA employee.
If he’s approved, the planning board will see a significant overturn from business owners to people who have jobs.
That would position Bar Harbor for its next big fight - workforce housing.
A hint of that came toward the end of the Wednesday meeting when St. Germain pointed to an article in Maine Biz on the decline of housing development in Portland after that city enacted a Green New Deal , which requires that developments of 10 or more units, 25 percent of those units must be affordable to people making 80 percent of the area median income.
St. German’s business partner, Stephen Coston, had already sent the same article to the Town Council in a letter last month. Coston is a former council member.
“When it comes to matters of zoning and regulation, it is important that we respect the merits of market functions,” Coston wrote. “In short, a market is generally able to produce outcomes that take advantage of a great deal more knowledge and feedback than any individual or small group of individuals can.
“This is why attempts at central planning economies or major components of economies (such as housing) have generally failed in producing the desired outcome while producing many unintended and undesirable outcomes.”
Tell that to China.
The Portland area does not and will not have a shortage of housing as Coston described. There are more than 10 towns within a 15-minute drive of Downtown Portland, such as South Portland, Scarborough, Westbrook and others. There will be plenty of housing built in that market.
There is only one town within 15 minutes of Downtown Bar Harbor - Trenton. Because we are an island with only one egress, many workers on MDI drive an hour or more to work here. We are already seeing the economic toll, as MDI Hospital must offer $10,000 signing bonuses to hire nurses, fire departments in Bar Harbor and Mount Desert had to add extra shifts to recruit fire fighters, and Acadia National Park’s summer housing for staff is in a crisis.
But Coston has reason to worry. He likely will not have his business partner St. Germain guarding his back on the planning board after July.
Coston was the beneficiary of St. Germain’s vote in 2017 to approve his Inn at Mount Desert as a “Bed and Breakfast,” a backdoor around the zoning code. St. Germain and fellow board members Basil Eleftheriou and Alf Anderson approved Coston’s proposal to demolish a motel and erect a new inn, despite town attorney Ed Bearor’s opinion that it did not fit the definition of a B&B. Eleftheriou owns the Thirsty Whale Tavern. Anderson is director of the Chamber of Commerce.
At the beginning of the pandemic Coston admitted to allowing a “non-essential” lodger into his inn, but told the Islander that the person “lied” in his documentation.
In November 2020, Coston was ousted by voters overwhelmingly and replaced by Val Peacock.
He and St. Germain are now partners in a proposal to construct a 44-room inn at 77 Cottage Street, site of an abandoned auto dealer and garage across from Jordan’s Restaurant, as a “bed and breakfast.” It is unclear whether they will proceed with the application.
Meanwhile, Coston is moving in another direction.
MDI Hospital confirmed it sold the former motel at 315 Main Street on Wednesday to Brian Shaw and Coston, DBA: Main Street Motel LLC, 38 Rodrick Street, Bar Harbor, ME 04609. They were the sole bidder, the hospital said.
Other towns at similar crossroad
The same election scenario is playing out in Tremont, Southwest Harbor and Mount Desert, which has two select board seats up for consideration.
Matt Hart and Wendy Littlefield are reasonably benign, if ineffective. Hart, for instance, continues to support MRC, the agency which has overseen the disastrous collapse of the regional recycling plant in Hampden. He doesn’t seem to have a grasp of the magnitude of the problem other than to say he supports the current strategy but probably could not explain it.
The board has been reluctant to challenge its public works director Tony Smith, who is a member of MRC’s board. The Bangor Daily News reported today that Blue Hill is moving to adopt a model which has worked well for Lamoine - burning trash at the incinerator in Orrington and recycling with Ecomaine. https://bangordailynews.com/2022/02/05/news/hancock/hancock-county-towns-begin-recycling-again-for-the-1st-time-in-nearly-2-years-joam40zk0w/
This select board has also overseen the virtual destruction of Northeast Harbor as a year-round community. It is a transactional body, taking up agenda items as they present themselves. The chair of its economic development committee is a retired partner of a law firm which represents the MRC (Municipal Review Committee), the largest hotelier in Bar Harbor, Ocean Properties, which has the biggest cruise ship business on MDI, and the developers of Acadia Wilderness Lodge in Tremont.
MD could use a little bit of Bar Harbor’s activist sensibility.
In Tremont, select chairman Jamie Thurlow is stepping down. His opening will lead to a wild guess as to who will step up. Perennial candidate Jed Campbell, if he runs, will only add to the mockery of the process. Campbell has run for every board opening in town the last five years and actually succeeded at being named as an alternate to the appeals board.
The big prize is Beth Gott’s one-year term on the planning board. If Thurlow is replaced by someone more sympathetic to the Concerned Tremont Residents, will that be enough to influence the planning board?
Lastly, the Appalachian clone known as Southwest Harbor, where select chair George Jellison and his abettors have:
Aroused a citizens revolt to pursue a grant to improve the town’s beloved skating pond, “Chris’s Pond” after Jellison’s single-handed rejection of the project, prompting previous chair Kristin Hutchins to resign in protest.
Sided with the self-serving Harbor Committee against using any town-owned property for recreational purposes as opposed to fishing interest.
Rejected the town’s support for a 60-year-old ferry - a lifeline for residents of Cranberry Isle.
And his soon-to-enact parking restrictions Tuesday night for Charlotte’s Lobster Pound, which threatens to close this 67-year-old Quietside business after Jellison’s sister who lives across the street complained to her brother.
Chad Terry and Allen “Snap” Willey are up for re-election to the select board. It’s unclear whether they will run and whether there will be other candidates. This board has been criticized for its hostility toward women.
Former select chair Lydia Goetze wrote, in a blistering letter to the Islander last year:
“When I moved back here in 2005, women were active on most town boards and committees. As public discussion of town affairs became increasingly hostile, they dropped out. I ran for the Select Board in 2014 and served for six years to try to improve the climate and increase women’s participation in our town’s governance. It worked for a while, but I am very concerned that we are sliding back into a culture that makes volunteering for town service hostile to half our population.
“We - the residents of Southwest Harbor - need to clean up our act, to have civil discussions that place the town’s welfare front and center, and to have women as well as men run for office and volunteer for service on town boards and committees. All residents have a right to be heard and a responsibility to speak out with respect. The public servants on our town boards and committees need to put the welfare of the town as a whole ahead of personal preferences, and they should give the residents a chance to vote on important matters.”
Lincoln’s Log
QSJ’s usage report
SOMESVILLE - The Quietside Journal surpassed 7,000 views this week. (It was 7,084 his morning.) My previous high was 6,165 views three weeks ago. They are the result of readership from 1,385 email subscribers and those on social media.
TRIBUTE: William L. "Bill" Hodgkins
1951 - 2022
NORTHEAST HARBOR - William “Bill” Ludolph Hodgkins, 71, died peacefully, on January 19, 2022, at Woodlands Senior Living Center in Rockland after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. He was born January 19, 1951, in Bangor the son of Earl L. and Martha (Page) Hodgkins.
Bill was educated at Orrington Schools in Orrington, Brewer High in Brewer, ME, and graduated from Newburg Free Academy in Newburg, NY in 1969. While in New York he earned his pilot’s license in 1968. Bill graduated in 1974 from the University of Maine with a BS in education. In 1981 he received an Associate Degree and FFC licenses from Washington County Vocational/Technical Institute.
Bill was a teacher at the K-8 Longfellow School on Great Cranberry Island. He also taught at several other schools including the 7&8 grade and later 5th grade at Mt. Desert Elementary School. Bill returned in later years as a Groundskeeper/ custodian at the Mt. Desert Elementary School.
After teaching, Bill was an electronics technician who owned and operated Curved Tree Communications/Hodgkins Marine for 33 years. Bill also worked as Assistant to the Harbormaster in Northeast Harbor.
In the early years Bill was involved with Boy Scout troop 44, Orrington, and went from bobcat to Eagle Scout. He was a Ham Radio Operator WB0YSU.
Bill served as treasurer of the Audubon Society in Southwest Harbor, a Board member at the Mt. Desert Nursery School and a member of the Northeast Harbor Fire Company and Northeast Harbor Fire Rescue Association, where Bill was a trained EMT, Bill also served as their treasurer for years. Bill enjoyed sports and was the score/timekeeper for the following: Soccer, basketball, baseball, (MDES) and softball (Adult Women’s and Co-ed leagues). Bill dearly loved his time keeping time/score at the Great Harbor Shootout every year.
He is survived by his wife of 36 years, Susan Parnell Hodgkins, Northeast Harbor; daughter Elean J. Mitchell and husband John of Bass Harbor, his three sons Christopher L. Hodgkins of Frenchboro, Daniel A. Hodgkins and wife Mary Buffler, of Trenton, and Corey J. Hodgkins and wife Katie, of Ellsworth, his sister Ann Rice and husband Richard and family, in Prescott Valley, AZ and Florida grandchildren Jake and Ryan Mitchell, Hannah and Heidi Hodgkins, and Braden and Caspar Hodgkins. He was predeceased by his parents.
Services will be announced in the spring with burial at Forest Hill in Northeast Harbor.
Those who desire may make contributions in Bill’s memory to the Northeast Harbor Ambulance Service, P.O. Box 122, Northeast Harbor, 04662, the Mount Desert Fire Rescue Department or the Mt. Desert Police Department, P.O. Box 248, Northeast Harbor, 04662.
Arrangements in care of Jordan-Fernald, 1139 Main St. Mt. Desert. Condolences may be expressed at www.jordanfernald.com
Terrific investigation and reporting.
Thanks Lincoln for monitoring the Dark Money crowd on MDI