How Grohoski ran the table in special senate race (hint: you can't outwork her)
Other News: Vendors sue to bar sale of MRC plant; new BH chair Val Peacock; SWH harbor committee strikes at select board; Sawyer's Market redux
TREMONT, June 18, 2022 - The woman heard a knock on her door, a rare occurrence in these parts.
As she opened it, Nicole Grohoski greeted her with a wide smile.
“Oh my gosh, you are down here on the last house on the last road on MDI, like I can’t believe you're really here,” Grohoski recounted the woman saying. “I was like, of course. I want to talk with you.”
MDI went full house for the traveling Nicole Grohoski show, AKA Maine Senate District 7 special election, in which the four island towns gave her one third of her winning 6,415 votes. Republic candidate Brian Langley received 3,538 votes.
Bar Harbor voted almost 80 percent in her favor and even gave her more votes than her hometown Ellsworth. The only MDI town not to exceed 70 percent was Tremont at 60.8 percent.
“She had a great campaign organization, lots of volunteers calling from throughout eastern Maine to get out the vote,” Bar Harbor council member Gary Friedmann said. “In Ellsworth she knocked on every door, sometimes up to three times.”
Grohoski estimated she knocked on 1,300 doors since April. “Of course our volunteers did even more!” she stated.
Friedmann added, “And Maine's Senate Dems pulled out all the stops.”
Meanwhile, Langley was busy opening his restaurant in Ellsworth for the tourist season. There were no reported sightings of him on MDI.
Even without those encumbrances, he would not have been able to compete with Grohoski’s ground game.
The Maine Democratic party’s expert advisors were also an important factor. No doubt they will study the Grohoski win as a model for statewide races in the fall.
Her ground game also informed people that there was a special election.
”You know that turnout was driven by this election. That's definitely clear because if you look at adjacent towns outside of this district, the numbers of people actually turned out are way lower,” she said.
“I was actually surprised that a special election to the state legislature would garner as much attention as it did, which I think is encouraging,” Grohoski said. The special election came about after Louis Luchini resigned to take a job with the Small Business Administration.
Grohoski will need to stretch her canvas to emphasize issues pertaining to the coastal towns which supported her in large percentages.
She cited housing, aquaculture, broadband access, lobstering and protecting natural resources.
“People see us campaigning hard to win, but I see it as the best opportunity to find out what's on people's minds. And I have a whole list of bills that I want to think about putting in based on conversations, people who are willing to come testify to talk about their experience with things that they feel like the legislature doesn't know about. So it's like a big information gathering exercise.
“People are so concerned about the Aquafarm. That's there's no question about that,” she said, referring the the proposed salmon farm for Frenchman Bay by a Norwegian company. “Our regulations are maybe not up to snuff, to deal with a threat like that to our ecosystems and our heritage industries.
“Housing is a huge problem across this district. And really has become a big problem since when I first ran in 2018. It's not something that used to come up with campaigning so much, and now it's forefront on a lot of people's minds.
“I think there's plenty of other ideas on the table. The funny thing about the off session in the second year of the legislative term is that it would be nice to be able to use a lot of this time to study policies and plan for the next year but you also have the demands of campaigning at the same time. So I think we lose efficacy in our legislature every other year because of this, but there are people we are meeting on some of these topics and trying to prepare for next year.
“People worried about the natural resource-based economies made you think the housing situation is exacerbated on the coasts more so than inland. People are worried about transportation and infrastructure, the quality of roads, like through Southwest Harbor, for instance.
“I heard about that quite a bit. We're inviting guests from all over the world to come and see our National Park and that's how they're greeted. So things like our infrastructure isn't up to snuff to handle the influx of people.
Grohoski also said she needs to understand the continued closing of the Hampden recycling plant which served all four MDI towns, plus Surry and Blue Hill. Ellsworth is not a member town of the Municipal Review Committee consortium of 115 towns.
“Waste management is definitely a priority for me. Digging into the MRC situation is on my list.”
Here are the results from area towns Tuesday:
BAR HARBOR - Grohoski 1,168 (78.18%), Langley 326 (21.82%)
TREMONT - Grohoski 211 (60.8%), Langley 130 (37.5%)
SWH - Grohoski 287 (70.52%), Langley 120 (29.48%)
MOUNT DESERT - Grohoski 468 (77.10%), Langley 125 (20.59%)
BLUE HILL - Grohoski 618 (78.53%), Langley 167 (21.22%)
ELLSWORTH - Grohoski 1,037 (54.95%), Langley 850 (45.05%)
HANCOCK - Grohoski 239 (52.88%), Langley 213 (47.12%)
Unpaid vendors sue to prevent Hampden plant sale until they get paid
SOMESVILLE - What else is there the MRC isn’t telling us?
The Penobscot Superior Court has scheduled a hearing next week from companies trying to block the sale of the Hampden recycling plant until they are paid at least $3.7 million for services they provided the defunct operator Coastal Resources of Maine.
The MRC did not disclose this material fact to its members, the public and the press in its updates last week. Instead the MRC chair publicly stated on Zoom on she is pleased the closing date for acquisition of the plant is on schedule for June 30.
On Friday, MRC director Michal Carroll sent an email stating, “We will now be moving forward on the sale to MRC under the terms of our ‘stalking horse’ bid, with the Receiver seeking final approval of the sale from the Court with a target to close on or before June 30.
“We will be busy finalizing closing documents as well as reopening plans for the Hampden Facility after MRC's acquisition. This will involve outreach to multiple stakeholders and potential partners including operators and financial partners.”
“MRC will keep Members updated on the status of the closing and reopening plans in the coming days and weeks, including at a MRC Board of Directors meeting scheduled for Friday, June 24 at 9 AM via Zoom.
“We appreciate all of our Members support as we close out this chapter and work diligently to get the Hampden Facility up and running - soon under MRC ownership and direction to better position it to serve our Members' solid waste and recycling needs.
“In the meantime, should you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out to MRC Executive Director Michael Carroll at (207) 664-1700 or execdirector@mrcmaine.org or a MRC Board Member.”
The “Notice of a Hearing” obtained by the QSJ lists SNC-Lavalin, CP Manufacturing, Bangor Natural Gas and NAES Corporation, the original operator of the plant, as lien holders.
The QSJ previously reported two bidders BP Energy Partners of Dallas and Revere Merchant Capital of New York expressing interest. But the receiver of the CRM bondholders declared that no one qualified to prove it had the financial and operating wherewithal required to conduct an auction, leaving MRC as the sole buyer under its “stalking horse” plan.
The MRC is not being held to the same standards. It has never operated anything. It has not proven it can raise the financing. If a judge decides that the lien holders must be paid, it will come close to draining MRC’s capital as it must may $1.5 million for the plant in addition to the unpaid claims.
The QSJ asked Carroll the following questions and did not get a reply:
1. Does the MRC have the necessary funds to purchase the plant assets (at least $1 million)?
2. Does the MRC have, by its own words, $20 million to restart the plant?
3. Does the MRC have the funding to make the necessary improvements in the plant to ensure profitability?
5. Does the MRC have the necessary funds to settle open amounts due lien holders who have already filed objections with the court to the sale process?
6. Does the MRC have sufficient working capital to run the plant for at least the next 12 months?
7. Does the MRC have the technical competence and ability to operate the plant, or if not, have they made contractual arrangements with a competent third party to operate the plant?
8. Is the MRC, by its own terms, a qualified bidder and will it be a qualified owner, of the advanced recycling plant located in Hampden?
Meanwhile, Nicole Grohoski, who was elected state senator Tuesday in a special election and now represents Hancock County, said Friday she will “dig into” the history of the MRC as she is very interested in waste management. She previously was state rep of Ellsworth, which dodged the MRC bullet. It operates its own recycling program and has a “pay as you throw” program for trash. Homeowners pay $3 to dispose a bag of garbage. Such programs have greatly reduced garbage at the source, whereas the Hampden plant is volume based and has the opposite effect.
The MRC towns are now entering its third year without the Hampden plant. Individual towns have begun nascent recycling efforts. Will “pay as you throw” follow?
The QSJ has asked the attorney general’s office to investigate the MRC’s withholding of materials information and its exclusive use of executive sessions to conduct public business.
Sawyer’s Market seeks to juggle service for seasonals and year-rounders
SOUTHWEST HARBOR - How will Sawyer’s Market, the beloved village agora which was the anchor of the quietside community for three quarters of a century until it closed in April 2020, serve a disparate customer base with different demands and different net worth?
The Pine Tree Market in Northeast Harbor, which has earned the scorn of many year-round residents, has no such ambivalence. One reviewer on Yelp wrote in 2019, “This market is most likely THE MOST EXPENSIVE grocery store in the entirety of Maine. The granola was double the price at $17, basically $1 per ounce. But you have no other option unless you bus to Bar Harbor.”
Lio Cook, the new owner of Sawyer’s who plans a re-opening the week of July 9, said, “As we move into the fall. I intend to be really reaching out and trying to learn as much as I can about how I can serve that community. But I want folks to know that its my priority. It's on my list of top priorities, to try to make Sawyer’s a place where people really feel like they can find what they need.”
“I'm going to be very responsive to folks throughout the development months. I want people to think of 2022 very much as a practice year. So we'll be working on finding our footing … growing together into the thriving market that Sawyer’s used to be.”
The retail grocery sector is brutal and ruthless, especially for a quixotic, earnest young man who has no experience. How will he deal with the granola problem?
So here is an unsolicited idea for his listening tour:
Charge a seasonal tax from Memorial Day to Veteran’s Day.
I would be happy to contribute a 1 to 5 percent markup on my bag of granola to support a program where qualified members receive a discount. There is precedent for such tiered pricing. Northeast Harbor Golf Club is such a place. The challenge there is getting in as a member.
No doubt Lio Cook will pick up other ideas soon. The affection for Sawyer’s is strong and deep. But it doesn’t mask the transition of the store from a true local grocer which provided essential needs to all households in 1946, when Ralph Sawyer first opened shop, to an upscale shop by 2020.
I witnessed that transition from 1984, when I first started to shop there. Perhaps that’s inevitable. The Claremont dining room, for instance, is now beyond the reach of many year-round locals, with a steak priced at more than that in Manhattan.
Beyond the romance of recapturing the past, Sawyer’s Market faces daunting challenges, especially after losing a sizable chunk of space which formerly housed the wine, cheese and deli, to Little Notch Bakery next door.
In late January 2020, during the evening hours while the store was unattended, the building’s furnace malfunctioned and covered the store with soot, according to the Islander.
“Anything that wasn’t totally sealed had to be thrown away,” said Scott Worcester of the family which has owned Sawyer’s since 1959. There was a significant amount of inventory lost. “Everything else had to be wiped down by hand,” Scott added.
The incident was the proverbial last straw for owner Brian Worcester, Scott’s brother, who put the store up for sale.
Their father, Donald Worcester, purchased the store from the original owner, Ralph Sawyer, in 1959. According to family lore, their father was offered the store by Sawyer or he was going to shutter it.
David Milliken, the artist and longtime summer resident whose father Roger Milliken was the patriarch of the Milliken fortune and textile business estimated in the billions, took an interest in the store, as many such rich denizens have done so with various favorite projects on the island.
He bought the store and had it renovated to the highest standards with the equipment that the Worcesters could only dream of.
Enter Lio Cook who applied to work in the store.
“Like everybody else, I wanted to know what was going on and I just kept pestering people until I found out. So last summer, I did enough digging to find out kind of who to contact and sort of put my name out there as someone who is interested in helping out and initially I was just sort of saying, you know, I'd like to be available as an employee. Because I knew I was going to be graduating in June and I wanted to work there and then in January they reached out to me and said essentially, do you want to run the thing? And I said well, okay.”
Lio Cook came to Maine for the first time in 2016, to attend a fiddle camp, and spent a few months in 2018 on a small farm near Freeport. He got the Maine bug and transferred to COA from Georgia Tech.
He plans to start in increments, first with with grocery and produce. The meat counter and fish counter will follow. The store will be closed Sundays.
How will Val Peacock comport herself as town council chair?
BAR HARBOR - When I was 22, I had the most demanding and enervating job in my life. I was a reporter/copy editor on the State Desk of the Hartford Courant where the teletype machine would start firing up about 2 p.m. from our 17 local news bureaus as we hunkered down to edit the stories on paper. For the next nine hours we pushed copy non-stop.
Our usual complement was eight editors. But there were days when we experienced an extreme shortage - mostly because of illness or hangover - kinda like what MDI restaurants go though.
On those days we assigned the weakest editor to the “slot” - the distributor of stories to the various editors around the desk. One night, I edited and wrote “heds” for 75 stories. I was exhausted but washed down the pain at the press bar down the street.
The Town Council this week put member Val Peacock into the position of chair - a brilliant move elevating a largely ineffective and loquacious member into a job where she has to regulate the flow and manage the agenda with the town manager. I can’t remember a single motion she proposed and passed.
Peacock is easily intimidated. She broke with the anti cruise ship bloc after the new town manager posed all sorts of scary legal scenarios.
She will need to manage the clock, which Jeff Dobbs never was able to do as meetings ran as long as five hours.
She will need to be strategic, listening and guiding the council toward an end place which benefits a majority of citizens.
And she will need to be disciplined, controlling her opinions without going off one of her long-winded oratories. “In many ways the chair is the most restrictive job,” one member said.
Member Joe Minutolo said he was ambivalent and could have gone either way - Peacock or Matt Hochman. Peacock nominated herself and received support from Minutolo, Jill Goldthwait and Gary Friedmann. Hochman was nominated by Dobbs and received support from Erin Cough.
Minutolo said the council needs to start taking on big, serious issues facing the town, a job it really hasn’t done in the four years he served. He cited cruise ships as one such issue.
This council has been emitting bluster for some time. Let’s see if Val Peacock can get through her first meeting unscathed and leave the hard stuff to citizens like Charles Sidman, whose petition will curb cruise ship tourism at the ballot box in November.
The QSJ asked Peacock why she sought the position. She did not reply.
SWH Harbor Committee to Select Board: ‘We need better communications!’
SOUTHWEST HARBOR - The Harbor Committee vented its frustration with the Select Board in a full throated griping session Tuesday about its deteriorating relationship.
Members felt marginalized by the Select Board especially after Select Chair George Jellison eliminated the liaison position with the Harbor Committee.
“We have to maintain communication with the select board,” member Corey Pettegrow said.
“Yes, I agree,” said chair Nicholas Madeira. “The left hand and the right hand have not known what is happening, but I feel like I, as the chairman, have made a lot of efforts to present information to the Select Board and I feel like the Select Board is backed away from this committee.
“There used to be an opportunity in the Select Board meeting for a harbormaster’s report and there was representation from Ken Hutchins when he was on the Harbor Committee to present to the Select Board.
“And all that stuff has gone away. There's no liaison, there's no questioning of what the Harbor Committee is doing or what direction the Select Board would like us to go. There's some concerns that the Harbor Committee has willy nilly going off on our own and, specifically, I think parking meters rubbed some people the wrong way.
“Well, that directive and that communication, and that connection, came directly from Dana Reed to me.”
Madeira was referring to consideration of installing parking meters in lots at the town docks to remedy overcrowding, and that interim town manager Dana Reed had offered his insights from his years as town manager in Bar Harbor.
“And so there is a disconnect. But it's not from this committee. They (select members) don't have interest. They don't care.”
As Lowell began to explain that there are no liaisons on any of the committees, Madeira interrupted and said, “That’s only because GG downed it,” using Jellison’s local nickname.
“Ryan Donahue used to come in here. Lydia used to come in, but GG being the Select Board leader has taken that all that away.” Donahue and Lydia Goetze were select members.
Madeira then raised his voice. “That is not on us. We are communicative. We are not going out on our own. We are not making decisions without presenting it to the Select Board and we are not making these rules.”
Member Anne Napier said, “I also think that the lack of the liaison has been a huge loss. I mean, they they gave us lots of information, which was useful from the perspective of the select board, they were able to take our recommendations and our ideas and our concerns back. And I really strongly recommend that the harbor committee ask for more of a liaison from the Select Board again.”
Madeira added, “On Anne's point, I want to briefly point out that in the Stonington Harbor Committee, they actually have an annual representative of the Select Board on the Harbor Committee of seven members. One person from the Select Board is actually a member of the Harbor Committee in their bylaws. That's in Stonington, which is forward thinking.”
Lowell said the committee may reach out to her at any time if it wanted to present to the select board and she would add it to the agenda.
The protestations were triggered by a request by the Select Board for the committee to review its bylaws - to remove gender language, align its nomination schedule with other boards and remove redundancies with the harbor ordinance.
Pettegrow mocked the gender language change as ”woke” but voted for it anyway. The committee did not change anything else.
Pettegrow made an oblique comment toward Lowell without explanation, “There is an agenda here and you’re the pawn.”
The blowback by this committee is a deep notch on the debit side of George Jellison’s political balance sheet, because these are his people - locals who claim strong Maine cred and who mistrust outsiders.
The full complement of the committee is 12 members, but it’s down to seven. Three members are fishermen. The members are, according to the town’s website:
Nicholas Madeira- Chair 2022 Donald Sullivan 2022
Anne Napier, 2023 Ronald Weiner 2022
Corey Pettegrow 2023 John C. Stanley 2023
Michael Brzezowski 2025
Common Good Soup Kitchen installs tent for rainy days
SOUTHWEST HARBOR - The Common Good Soup Kitchen has successfully raised enough donations to install its tent for rainy days when it loses revenue.
“Although the Common Good Soup Kitchen applies for and receives grant money each year, over 80 percent of our operating expenses come from our summer popover fundraiser,” said manager Laurie Higgins Ward in her gofundme post.
“We need a tent to cover our courtyard in anticipation of an upcoming busy season. We regret having to cancel days for rain last year. Unfortunately, we disappointed many folks on rainy days and lost valuable revenue for our programs.
The soup kitchen will open June 23. A free ice cream social is scheduled for Tuesday June 22.
Letter from Alaska: An appreciation of Paul Haertel
SOUTHWEST HARBOR - An admirer from Port Alsworth, Alaska, John Branson wrote in the Islander:
Paul Haertel was a great friend and role model for me. I met him in Alaska about 1980 when he was Ranger-In-Charge at Lake Clark National Monument. After the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Carter, Paul became the first park superintendent at Lake Clark National Park and Preserve.
Paul was an excellent park superintendent, administrating a new 4-million-acre national park in the uplands of the pristine Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska, including 90 miles of the Cook Inlet coastline.
He and his wife, Margot, built long-lasting friendships with local Indigenous and non-Native people alike. Paul hired top quality NPS rangers to staff the new park and he also was responsible for hiring the first Native Alaskan park ranger in the NPS, the Dena’ina elder Andrew Balluta. Paul believed in hiring qualified local park staff as he built his team at Lake Clark.
I treasure the times I spent with Paul and Margo, including the last time in late April 2022.
OBITUARY:
Paul Haertel, 81, of Southwest Harbor, Maine passed away on June 5, 2022. He leaves behind a legacy of land stewardship, environmental conservation, and heritage preservation. Paul received his bachelor’s degree in forestry from Michigan Tech in Houghton. He began his career with the National Park Service as a seasonal ranger at Isle Royale National Park.
These seasonal positions lead to a career that spanned 40 years and varied from trail crew to climbing ranger to superintendent. He enjoyed collaborating with communities and tribes in the development of new parks as much as he enjoyed patrolling trails, climbing, diving, and skiing. In retirement Paul continued his love of the outdoors by camping, canoeing, hiking, birding, and carving decoys. He also continued advocating for the preservation of public lands and sat on many boards, including the Wendell Gilley Museum.
He was a kind soul and considerate mentor.
Paul is survived by his wife, Margot, three children and their families. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to the Wendell Gilley Museum, the Maine Woods Forever, or the Frenchman Bay Conservancy.
Private services will be held by the family. A celebration of Paul’s life will be held from 1-3pm, Sunday, July 17, 2022, at the Wendell Gilley Museum, 4 Herrick Road, Southwest Harbor.