Dover-Foxcroft voters elected Tuesday to maintain the town’s dam on the Piscatquis River and forgo plans for its removal, ending one of the most immediate paths to removing the deteriorating structure and instead obligating the town to spend millions on repairs. The decision was more than a year in the making and necessitated by the Mayo Mill Dam’s years-long noncompliance with federal standards.  Residents were given the option to authorize a town plan to remove the dam (paid with grant funding and collaboration with environmental nonprofits) or reject the plan and spend upwards of $8 m ..read more

Former Maine Monitor government accountability reporter Samantha Hogan was awarded the Livingston Award for Local Reporting this week for her investigation into Maine’s probate court system.  “Samantha Hogan's multi-year investigation into an alarming lack of oversight within Maine's probate courts is a shining example of local journalism at its finest,” said Kara Swisher, an award-winning tech journalist at New York Magazine and a Livingston judge.  “Her efforts were creative and meticulous,” Swisher said. “Her reporting catalyzed grassroots change and strengthened civic engagement ..read more

Inside Safe Harbor Recovery Home in Machias, 6-year-old Anna* bopped around the living room, playing with a wooden toy and munching on smiley face french fries. “You are doing so good. You are awesome,” said Lauren Sachs, who provides support and navigation services for residents at the house. Anna lives at Safe Harbor with her mom, Caroline*, who is in her mid-40s. About 15 years ago, Caroline was studying to be a nurse when she broke her ankle. She started taking prescription painkillers and soon developed an addiction. (The Maine Monitor is using pseudonyms to identify Caroline and her dau ..read more

In a shift several years in the making, voters will elect a new board of Franklin County commissioners this November, as the county's three districts are divided into five. With two members of the current board not seeking reelection, residents will have the unusual opportunity to set a largely new slate of leaders for their changing county, which has seen significant growth in recent years. In Franklin County, county commissioners oversee a $10.6 million annual budget that funds 87 full-time, part-time and elected officials providing an array of services, including the offices of the sheriff ..read more

Editor’s Note: The following story first appeared in The Maine Monitor’s free environmental newsletter, Climate Monitor, that is delivered to inboxes every Friday morning. Sign up for the free newsletter to stay informed of Maine environmental news. Last spring around this time, I was in my driveway with my dad, wrestling with the barrel of a massive steel compost tumbler I’d bought on the advice of Wirecutter. It was far too large for our tiny, in-town lot, and I didn’t yet have an answer for where we were going to put all of the actual compost it generated. (Friends want peri ..read more

The Maine Monitor and its publisher, The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, are pleased to welcome three new additions to the independent, nonprofit news organization. Alexa Foust has joined The Monitor for the summer via the Institute for Nonprofit News and Columbia Journalism School Fellowship Program. She will focus her reporting on criminal justice and mental health. Foust worked in the corrections system and as a paralegal for three years before graduating this spring from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where she focused on New York City's detention centers ..read more

As part of a yearlong project with ProPublica, The Maine Monitor recently published an investigation that found the state rarely sanctions residential care facilities in cases of elopement, in which older Mainers unsafely wander out of their facilities — a particular risk for people with dementia.  From 2020 to 2022, residents wandered away from Maine’s Level IV residential care facilities (which are generally known as assisted living facilities) at least 115 times. In the vast majority of those cases, the state never inspected the facilities, conducting only a desk review or no investig ..read more

As Mainers prepare to head to the polls for the June 11 state primary, The Maine Monitor is committed to shedding light on the election process, and the people and issues on the ballot. We are committed to providing accurate, nuanced and nonpartisan journalism. Rather than reporting on the latest presidential polls or campaign stops — which will get plenty of coverage in the national press — we plan to focus on what’s happening here in Maine.  Both of Maine’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and one of its U.S. Senate seats are on the ballot this year. All 151 state representat ..read more

A couple weeks ago, I sat with Secretary of State Shenna Bellows for a conversation about elections in Maine. The goal was to understand more about the work that goes into organizing and overseeing elections — where the ballot machines come from, how they’re tested and secured, how votes are counted, and how officials are preparing for threats to election security. It was a fascinating, wide-ranging conversation, and I urge you to watch it in full. In the meantime, here are a few excerpts from our discussion, edited and condensed for clarity. Kate: Tell us a bit about your role and how it re ..read more

About a quarter of the electricity generated in Maine comes from hydropower, and most of that is produced by Brookfield Renewable, which owns dozens of dams in the state, from Saco to Millinocket. In all, Brookfield generates about 87 percent of the hydropower and 21 percent of the wind power in Maine. It has also begun generating a growing amount of solar power, as well as some from biomass.  Brookfield’s parent company is a sprawling investment firm based in Canada that claims more than $925 billion in assets, with real estate, energy and infrastructure projects across the globe.  ..read more