Summer school heats up

LEWISTON — Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. the outside temperature was already 88 degrees and rising. Inside Longley Elementary School summer school classes were warm, but still bearable. Youngsters seemed engaged, teachers wearing flip flops were still smiling.

Fans were humming, but there is no air conditioning.

Lewiston Superintendent Bill Webster wants to expand summer programs, but the heat is an issue, he said. Most summer programs run in the morning before the buildings reach their warmest. Longley students are dismissed at noon.

The heat bothers adults more than students, said administrator Susan Martin. “Getting quality staff in the summer is a challenge; the reason we’re able to be successful is because we offer experienced-based programs. I had a teacher who took a bunch of kids to the ocean who have never seen the ocean. That did not seem like work to her.”

Getting air conditioning in school buildings is expensive, but it needs to be considered, Webster said. “Increasingly as we renovate or build we need to think about it, maybe not air conditioning the whole building, but key elements.” — Bonnie Washuk

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U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine, weighed in on a recent closed-door meeting in the Old Senate Chamber earlier this week, held in an effort to avoid the so-called “nuclear option.”

The meeting was closed to the public and the press, Collins’ colleagues said Maine’s senior senator was “especially eloquent,” according to a report in the New York Times.

After the meeting, where senators reached a deal to avoid changing long-standing Senate rules that require a three-fifths vote to end vote-blocking filibusters, Collins said her colleagues made the right decision.

The agreement Monday, which Collins called a stepping stone toward greater progress meant the Senate was able to move ahead with a confirmation on President Obama’s nominee to head the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Still the American people remained concerned, Collins said in a prepared statement.

“The fact remains that our constituents are disappointed in the bitter partisanship that too often prevents us from addressing many of the serious issues facing the nation,” Collins said. “All of us who serve in the Senate are but temporary stewards of this great institution, and I have been a part of several recent bipartisan efforts to address gridlock in the Senate without changing its fundamental rules and traditions. This agreement allows us to move forward in a way that continues to protect minority rights.”

King said he too was pleased with the accord reached Monday, which avoided the disruption a majority-only rules change would have set off.

“The agreement is a positive step forward for the country and for the institution, and it was forged as a direct result of (Monday’s) meeting in the Old Senate Chamber where Senators on both sides of the aisle expressed a sincere desire to make this body work again,” King said. “This type of open and candid dialogue is how the Senate should function.”

— Scott Thistle

FARMINGTON – Dispatchers were busy this week alerting emergency responders to complaints around Franklin County, several of them unique.

Maybe the heat and humidity got the best of people.

On Wednesday, the police scanner seemed to be going off more frequently.

From a manhole cover hitting a windshield of a car traveling on routes 2 and 4 in Farmington to people fighting with bats at an apartment complex to a lamp post struck by lightening and blown out of the ground.

There were also some lighter complaints like the camels visiting for a circus, eating leaves on trees.

On Thursday, police from around the area responded to the hospital to deal with an emotionally unstable person who was holding a metal pole in a threatening manner. Police warned the person to put the pole used to hold intravenous medication down or be Tased. The Taser was used.

It was just a mix of life’s goings on in rural Maine.

It leaves one wondering what next week will bring. The full moon is just around the corner.