Maine is in the midst of a housing crisis that’s not going to fix itself. Extremely low-income households like mine face emergencies every day. Housing costs have outpaced income for far too long. Voucher programs like Section 8 have a years-long waitlist of over 15,000 households. Those waitlists are much longer for those without children. […]

Having worked as a building and plumbing inspector for the city of Lewiston for 31 years prior to my retirement, I had the pleasure of working with David Hediger for nearly 20 of those and saw him develop into one of the best in his field. In my opinion, his knowledge of code and planning […]

It’s nice that Gov. Janet Mills will use some of our surplus to help immigrants and the homeless. However, we have no serious plan for here or at the border. I would suggest we find underutilized government facilities and use them as a staging area for temporary orientation, including food and shelter. Other functions could […]

I write to encourage the Legislature to pass the Maine Trails Bond (L.D. 1156). Trail use has increased significantly over the past few years, resulting in wear and damage. This, combined with recent extreme weather events, makes the $30 million investment the bond would provide even more important for addressing maintenance and repair needs. Very […]

I write in response to Joe Mailey’s letter (“Renters are taxpayers and deserve same notifications,” Jan. 27). Rarely do I agree with Joe, but in this instance I am totally in agreement. Renters should be given written notice like property taxpayers when a project is built in the neighborhood, since they ultimately do pay property […]

On Jan. 30, the Sun Journal ran an article about the Maine Housing proposal to grant $1.4 million to open a warming shelter that would permit homeless residents to get warm. Although this proposal seems a step in the right direction, the state has a long way to go to adequately address Maine’s housing crisis. […]

The Maine Department of Transportation reports online annual statistics on motor vehicle crashes with bicycles, including those resulting in fatalities, serious injuries or no apparent injuries. The five-year average cyclist crashes resulting in serious injuries was 150.6 cyclists between 2019 and at the time of this letter. Additionally, an average of 1.6 fatalities resulted in […]