Occupy Watch: Occupation grows, expands around Maine

Published in the Portland Phoenix

With formal occupations slated to begin Augusta and Bangor this week, and impromptu ones springing up all over the state (including one so far during daylight hours only in South Portland's Legion Square), the two-week-old OccupyMaine movement really picked up steam over the weekend.

The central branch, in Monument Square, itself built huge momentum, with nearly 1300 people participating in a variety of events over three days, such as a teach-in by USM professors and marches to centers of power like City Hall and the cruise ship terminal, where a luxury cruise liner was in port, providing a stark backdrop of wealth and privilege. A decent number of female protestors went topless in the summerlike heat, too.

While negotiations with the city continue about having events in Monument Square and much remains to be seen about an extended camping presence in Lincoln Park, the events to date have been peaceful and largely without conflict (standard downtown-Portland crazy-person encounters notwithstanding).

That stands in marked contrast to the situations in New York City and even Boston, where police have moved in on peaceful protestors with pepper spray, batons, and handcuffs. Late Monday night, Boston police officers attacked a crowd on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, adjacent to the initial location in Dewey Square. The movement had expanded its area to accommodate increased numbers. There, the cops pepper-sprayed and arrested more than 100 demonstrators, including members of the local Veterans For Peace chapter.

In Portland the conflict has been of a legal sort, with letters flying back and forth between city attorney Gary Wood and OccupyMaine's lawyer, John Branson, discussing the exact nature of the city's restrictions on protests, which are protected by the First Amendment. Mass gatherings are typically required to get permits from the city for groups larger than 25 (and City Council approval is needed for events attracting more than 2000 people to public spaces). But the city code also appears to exempt from permit requirements all First Amendment-related activities.

The protestors, while demanding respect for their free-speech and other constitutional rights, are also working to respect the community surrounding Monument Square. In addition to creating a sanitation committee to minimize litter and coordinate other aspects of waste removal, over the weekend those attending a General Assembly meeting (all are welcome at the meetings; 6 pm daily) approved limits on drumming, with only hand drumming to be undertaken unless there is a march, and all drums stopping at 10 pm on weekends and 8 pm on weeknights.

From what I have seen and heard in Maine and read about from other places, this movement differs in several important ways from today's unrepresentative democracy. It's creating a functioning society based on common tenets of communication, representation, and collaboration. The movement has already proved that we as a society can, through collective action and donation, keep thousands of protestors around the country fed, clothed, sheltered, and accompanied by additional supporters. It has already proved that the people can come together in our public squares and actually meet face-to-face to civilly and productively discuss the issues of the day and what we're going to do in response. And its longevity and broad support may yet prove able to withstand pressure from the established powers in government offices and corporate boardrooms.

Several events are already planned to further the cause, including a free day-long concert featuring Sparks the Rescue, Stream Reggae, Sandbag, and Huak. Organizers had wanted to have it on October 15 in Monument Square, but city spokeswoman Nicole Clegg says the square has already been reserved for use by charity walks (benefiting the Iris Foundation and Making Strides Against Breast Cancer) both that day and the following day. (The resolution of that was not yet clear by the Phoenix's Tuesday deadline; check thePhoenix.com/AboutTown for updates as they are available.)

There's also a move afoot to organize a Halloween march on October 29, at which participants are encouraged to dress as "corporate zombies" — truly undead, and feeding on the brains of the living.

Also, SPACE Gallery has put out a call for entries in an "OccupySPACE" installation in the front window at 538 Congress Street, on the theme of "public thoughts about our financial crisis and threats to true democratic process." Anyone can enter — submit either a letter-sized piece of paper in person or by mail, or email a printable PDF of a page that size tonat@space538.org. The show will go up on October 17, and at the future (unannounced) date when it comes down, the materials will be collected in a binder for archiving.

Follow @OccupyMaine and #OccupyMaine on Twitter, OccupyMaine on Facebook, and see coverage of OccupyMaine, OccupyBoston, and occupations up and down the East Coast at thePhoenix.com.

Gubernatorial Scorecard: Consistently inconsistent

Published in the Portland Phoenix

One of Governor Paul LePage's most impressive performances, to date, has been his consistency. At times it has been without regard to reality or facts, but still, there's something impressive about a politician who stands up and says what he thinks, without caring which way the wind is blowing. No more. Herewith, our ninth Gubernatorial Scorecard, in which we score LePage on political savvy, and on whether what he's trying to do is good policy. Note the running total.

VOTING INCONSISTENCY | While LePage and his fellow activist-conservative Maine Secretary of State Charlie Summers seem determined to bar people from registering to vote on Election Day, supporters of same-day registration have discovered that LePage himself registered to vote on Election Day 1982 in Waterville, and accused LePage of wanting to bar only his political opponents from participating in democracy.
POLITICS • It's a big national GOP issue, but doesn't make much sense to regular people | 5/10
POLICY • Honestly? Making it harder for people to vote? C'mon. | 1/10

FEDERAL INCONSISTENCY | The guy who proclaimed on the campaign trail that he'd tell Obama to "go to hell" sure was grateful for the president's approval of millions of dollars in federal disaster-relief aid to clean up Franklin, Oxford, and York counties after Hurricane Irene. Declaring the damage "of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State," LePage asked for roughly $2 million in federal aid.
POLITICS • Will his party punish him for taking a government bailout? | 5/10
POLICY • Bring more cash into Maine isn't bad | 9/10

MURAL INCONSISTENCY | After giving all sorts of crazy reasons for why he ordered the labor-history mural removed from a state office, LePage topped himself last week by telling Brian Williams he did it for an all-new reason: the mural cost money that could have helped struggling Mainers. He didn't bother to note that the feds have said if the mural stays down, they want their money back — out of funds that could have helped struggling Mainers.
POLITICS • It's the economy, stupid. | 5/10
POLICY • Very clearly a lie made up for national TV, then issued a statement blaming the media for paying too little attention! | 1/10

CONSERVATION INCONSISTENCY | As recently as August, the gov apparently thought the Maine outdoors are wonderful, and is happy to take corporate donations of land for preservation (see: Indian Pond), but is now proposing merging two cabinet-level departments, Conservation and Agriculture. LePage says they have common interests, like scientific monitoring and a clean environment. Critics worry it could diminish attention on protecting Maine land in favor of business commoditization.
POLITICS • Doesn't pander or solve any real problems. What's this a smoke screen for? | 5/10
POLICY • Even the feds know parks (Dept. of the Interior) are very different from forests (Dept. of Agriculture) | 2/10

MILL INCONSISTENCY | LePage says he is a fiscal conservative, but recently allowed a private company to wash its hands of a $14-million-plus landfill cleanup in the Katahdin region — by putting Maine taxpayers on the hook instead. He says it helps get jobs back in the troubled mill industry; it may also boost state employment in the mess-removal industry.
POLITICS • Anything goes when the word "jobs" is spoken by a GOP leader | 5/10
POLICY • Seriously? Mill jobs held hostage by a landfill? What about the industry's decades-long slide? | 2/10

This month's total | Politics 25/50 | Policy 15/50 | Last month: Politics 43/50 | Policy 32/50 | Overall: Politics 299/450 | Policy 188/450

Activism Watch: OccupyMaine sets up camp

Published in the Portland Phoenix

After a rain-drenched initial weekend, the folks at OccupyMaine's area in Monument Square have settled in for the long haul, negotiating with Portland officials from a position of strength because of a provision in city ordinances that virtually guarantees them a right to stay — so long as they meld art into their other activities.

Portland police did issue a summons to one of the group's organizers, Demi Colby, for putting up a structure in Monument Square without the required city permit; the Occupy group took down two E-Z Up "instant shelters" and some tables to comply, and worked with both police and city parks staff to secure a place in Monument Square as well as sleeping quarters — with tents allowed — in nearby Lincoln Park, across from the county and federal courthouses. Demonstrators are now occupying both sites.

In their back pocket, should their ability to stay come into legal question, the OccupyMaine crew have a city law that says artists are allowed to work in public spaces, and to have a certain amount of space per artist. If need be, Colby and others say, they'll mark out space for each person and have everyone involved in the occupation create art while there.

The group is an orderly bunch, with all-hands meetings at least daily run by simple, clearly explained rules of order, and all attending welcome to speak. Their plan is to stay indefinitely, and they welcome all supporters, and are seeking donations of food and supplies, as well as cash to cover costs like printing flyers to explain what they're doing.

More events like Monday's march to the University of Southern Maine campus are planned, and there will be live music in the square from time to time, including during the First Friday Art Walk.

The demonstrators vary their approach, sometimes chanting and drumming, and other times quietly holding signs. Their demands, issued in a statement over the weekend, include national-level changes such as ending corporate personhood (the legal principle that gives companies "free speech" rights in the form of spending unlimited money on campaign advertising), eliminating tax loopholes; increased financial-market regulation and prosecution of "financial criminals." Demands on local issues are to improve affordability of heating oil, bring the Maine National Guard home, improve public transportation, and fix corporate-personhood provisions of state laws.

The group is a wildly diverse one, including Colby, who has been unemployed for more than a year, participated in the Wall Street occupation and spoke last weekend about the movement at the Harvest Ball at Harry Brown's farm in Starks.

Betsy Kaufer, a stay-at-home mom from Scarborough, also participated, saying her youth in Mississippi showed her the dangers of cronyist influences in government.

Another demonstrator held a sign saying "I'm a single mom/student loan debt=2x my salary/I am the 99%."

On Tuesday, as the Portland Phoenix went to press, rain resumed, but did not deter the efforts, which continued with several people at both locations holding signs and getting honks of support from passing traffic.

Learn more: Follow @OccupyMaine and #OccupyMaine on Twitter; visit facebook.com/OccupyMaine; live video at livestream.com/OccupyMaine.

Portland 101: Young activists explore police department

Published in the Portland Phoenix

There are three streets in Portland that police lieutenant Janine Roberts won't walk down alone, learned a group of interested citizens organized by the League of Young Voters on a visit to the Portland Police Department last Wednesday.

The 26-year veteran of the force demurred when asked to name the streets, but did impart a lot of other interesting information in a 90-minute session that was the first site visit in the League's "Portland 101" series.

Designed to familiarize people with how the city functions through visits to various departments, the series is a multi-week introduction to Portland for people who want to get more involved in civic life, whether politically or otherwise. With different tours every week from now through early November, and occasional meetings to encourage participants to use social media to spread their information, Portland 101 is also a sort of boot camp for activists. The Portland Phoenix is participating in the series to spread the information participants gather even more widely, and to encourage anyone who is interested to seek more information from city staff or the League of Young Voters.

Roberts started with a brief overview of the department, which has about 145 active officers (some are on leave for military service or medical reasons; the department maxes out at 156), with another 65 civilian (non-sworn, non-badged) staffers who handle emergency communications and assist with administrative duties. There are three branches — patrol, detective, and command bureaus — the latter two of which typically work weekday business hours. (They do get called in on nights and weekends as needed if something happens that requires their skills.)

The patrol group is split into three teams, working day, evening, and midnight shifts. They cover 11 beats: six on the peninsula side of I-295 and five north and west of the highway.

Officers rotate among the three shifts, and mostly work four 10-hour days each week. Some officers do work five eight-hour days to make sure there's enough coverage at transition times. (Many officers also participate in secondary teams, for handling situations requiring special skills or equipment, including crisis negotiation, tactical response, water emergencies, bombs, and hazardous-materials incidents.) There is also a single animal-control officer.

The department responds to between 75,000 and 80,000 calls each year. "Some months can be busier than others," Roberts said. "February can be pretty slow on the night shift."

Those result in 15,000 to 18,000 reports (plus an additional 4000 accident reports annually), most of which are assigned to detectives for followup with the victim or witnesses or other agencies.

Then the meeting turned to questions on a range of topics, some of which happened during a tour of the building.

DRUGS "We have a lot of drugs in our city," Roberts said, which leads to crime because addicts need money to buy drugs. She didn't specify — and nobody asked — which drugs were most common here.

DOGS The city has three police dogs that can search for people, and three more that can search for bombs. The latter three are funded by the Transportation Security Administration because Portland is home to the jetport, a cruise-ship terminal, and train and bus terminals.

FOOT PATROLS There are foot beats in the Old Port and along Congress Street, Roberts said. In other neighborhoods, officers often try to walk parts of their areas, but that depends on how many other officers are on duty, as well as the volume of calls coming in.

PANHANDLING "Panhandling is legal; aggressive panhandling isn't," Roberts said. When police get complaints about people begging on the streets, it can be difficult for them to take any action. "We need you, as a citizen victim, to give us a statement," or there's nothing the cops can do. Even with a statement, though, nuisance crimes can be challenging to get prosecuted; police have to actively communicate with the district attorney's office to highlight problem offenders, or the DA will often opt not to prosecute.

YOUTH RELATIONS The department has a youth services officer, sponsors an "activities league" for kids to do various things (mostly sports), and school resources officers (in coordination with the school department). A "positive-ticket" program just entered the schools, in which when officers see kids doing something good (helping a peer, using a crosswalk, wearing a bike helmet, for example), they get a certificate from the police that can be redeemed for a reward (such as an ice-cream cone, a session of swimming at a community pool, or other activity). Roberts said the officers' goal is "treating the youth with respect even when we're not getting it."

DANGER TO OFFICERS Nationally, every 53 hours an officer is killed in the line of duty, Roberts said. By contrast, in Portland, once a week there's a minor injury on duty (though in 2008 and 2009 two officers were killed in service-related incidents, but both occurred while the officers were not actually on duty). Roberts and her colleagues stay conscious of the danger. "Tell him to wear his vest," she said to an attendee who mentioned that a friend was planning to become an officer.

GANGS Most of the gang activity is centered around boys and young men ages 14 to 22, and includes the Tiny Raskal Gang and the Bloods as well as other national or international gangs. There are also local "wannabe gangs" that cause havoc in some neighborhoods, she said, as well as motorcycle gangs, including the Outlaws, the Iron Horsemen, the Mountain Men, and the Hells Angels. Most gang activity involves drugs and prostitution, Roberts said.

EVIDENCE GATHERING The crimes that occupy most of the evidence technicians' time are burglaries, Roberts said. Those analyses, reports, and diagrams that people see on television shows can take days or weeks to produce accurately.

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS Portland's building houses dispatching and 911-call answering for police, fire, and ambulance service in the Forest City as well as South Portland and Cape Elizabeth. There's a huge shelf of candy and snacks in the dispatch room.

TASERS The department is working on getting all officers certified to carry and use Tasers, after a trial run in 2009.

BECOMING AN OFFICER Candidates must pass written and physical tests, a thorough background check, a polygraph, and a medical examination, as well as complete the state's police academy. Officers must have a high-school education and a two-year college degree (a four-year degree is preferred).

GAY OFFICERS Roberts admitted she did not know every single officer well enough to give a full count, but said she knew of two openly lesbian officers and one openly lesbian civilian employee of the department; she said she knew of no openly gay men in the department.

Press Releases: Three-city news war

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The Portland Press Herald is really under the gun right now, from within and without its walls.

On the inside, PPH staffers have been working without a contract since the end of June. While there have been a couple of meetings between union and company negotiators, progress is slow, according to Kathy Munroe, the administrative officer of the Portland Newspaper Guild.

One factor may be newspaper owner Richard Connor's loud and repeated announcements that his company, which also owns the Waterville-based Morning Sentinel and the Augusta-based Kennebec Journal, is profitable, that revenue is up, that circulation is up, and web traffic is climbing.

Revenue and profit information is held closely in the private company, but Audit Bureau of Circulations numbers say the circulation decline has been accelerating for three years running (6.2 percent, 7.8 percent, and 8.7 percent for the years ending in March 2009, 2010, and 2011, respectively), with now barely above 51,000 copies daily. Web-traffic stats are notoriously hard to rely on, but the Press Herald's site is no longer the top news site in the state; it is now second to the Bangor Daily News's online presence, according to Al Diamon's reporting on Compete.com and other online trackers.

The union members, who collectively own 15 percent of the company, want raises. (They took a 10-percent pay cut as part of the deal that let Connor purchase the company in March 2010.) Connor just announced that he wants buyouts and layoffs because of declining advertising revenue.

He is an experienced union-buster (and has already been reducing union numbers by outsourcing five people's jobs to a call center in Central America; see "Calling MaineToday in Honduras," by Jeff Inglis, August 5). This could be a drawn-out fight that could include debates over what — and whether — profits actually exist at the paper. (Munroe says the union is able to see some revenue numbers, but not the full financial status of the company.)

While attempting to keep his staff on task, Connor is facing what may be an even bigger challenge from outside. For years now the company that owns the third-largest Maine daily newspaper (the Lewiston Sun Journal) has chipped away at the Press Herald's base with its group of Forecaster newspapers, which include a Portland edition as well as editions covering the northern and southern suburbs.

And a year ago the second-largest daily paper in the state siphoned from the PPH, when the Bangor Daily News hired away business reporter Matt Wickenheiser, and tasked him with reporting from Portland.

But in the past month, as initially reported by Al Diamon, the BDN has fully joined the fray, adding two more reporters covering southern areas of the state.

The coverage gap is closing; it's actually possible that by the end of 2011, the Press Herald will have fewer reporters on its home turf than its two chief competitors combined. (Add the BDN's three to the Forecaster's six, and you're just three shy of the pre-layoff 12PPH reporters — not counting sports or State House coverage.)

• As Colin Woodard reported in these pages on August 19 and the Blaine House announced officially last week, Governor Paul LePage has nominated one of his top advisors, Ann Robinson, to serve on the board of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network. LePage's conflicts with MPBN reporters have extended from the campaign through budget season, though his proposal to remove all tax funding from the organization was shot down in the legislature. With MPBN just beginning to process applications from people who want to serve as the group's president, Robinson's nomination couldn't come at a more opportune time for the governor. While hers will not be the only voice on the board, she's certainly as well connected in the halls of power as any other member.

• Chris Cinquemani, late of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, and James O'Keefe, the selective editor of his own hidden-camera "stings" of places like Acorn and Maine's Department of Health and Human Services, recently called Lewiston Sun Journal political reporter Steve Mistler's work misleading and biased. Mistler doesn't need my — or anyone's — defense for his talented, aggressive work that seeks truth beneath misinformation from all sources. O'Keefe's allegations of media bias on the part of others are transparently distractive and simply hilariously ironic.

We Told You So Dept: FairPoint layoffs were always part of the plan

Published in the Portland Phoenix

While FairPoint executives are saying that the 400 layoffs the company announced last week are related to "workload" and "competition," they're hoping everyone forgot that their business model — especially in northern New England — requires regular downsizing to have a prayer at success.

The North Carolina-based telecommunications company, which promised to create as many as 675 jobs starting in 2008 if it was allowed to buy Verizon's landline business in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, is now getting rid of 375 jobs in those three states (and 25 jobs in other states FairPoint serves).

Back in 2007, the Portland Phoenix broke the story that FairPoint's business model contained several questionable assumptions, including that the price of gas for company vehicles would not increase for seven years, and that spending on employee salaries and benefits would stay flat as well. (See "FairPoint: No Raises For Seven Years," by Jeff Inglis, November 16, 2007.)

When that story came out, FairPoint's executive vice-president for corporate development, Walt Leach, called to clarify my initial assumption that FairPoint wasn't planning raises. Rather, he said, the company predicted that as many as four percent of its workforce would leave every year, and there were no plans to replace them. The savings from having fewer workers would provide enough money to give raises to those who stayed, Leach told me. (See "No Raises: It Gets Better," by Jeff Inglis, November 30, 2007.)

That's cold comfort for the 150 people whose jobs evaporated with less than a week's notice. Pete McLaughlin, of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the union representing all of the laid-off people, says FairPoint could have let them go the day of the announcement, but agreed to keep them on for a few days. Another 75 or 80 so-called "temporary" workers, hired by FairPoint to handle the transition from Verizon, hold what McLaughlin says the company calls "critical" positions. The temporary workers holding those jobs will stay on until permanent employees — another 150 of whom are also finding their jobs eliminated — are reassigned to take their places.

Temporary workers, who occupy roughly two-thirds of the jobs being eliminated, get no severance or other compensation for being let go. Adam Fisher, at the Maine Department of Labor, said his agency would be working with FairPoint to provide services such as career-center access and information about unemployment benefits and health-care coverage. McLaughlin said the AFL-CIO's "rapid-response" team is already involved helping workers prepare for their transitions.

The move has renewed criticism of FairPoint from labor sources. McLaughlin says many workers and organizers were quiet about problems they see within FairPoint before the layoffs were announced, in hopes that the company would find its way out of its struggles.

Now that it's clear FairPoint, which needed a federal court's protection to escape bankruptcy as a result of the terms of its 2008 purchase, remains in serious trouble, the critics are raising their voices once more.

"This company's been in a downward spiral," McLaughlin says, citing a "revolving door of leadership," and expressing concern that the company may never be able to emerge from its cash-flow problems.

He attributes many of the company's difficulties to the back-end management and maintenance computer system set up as part of the purchase. (Verizon refused to transfer its actual customer, technical support, and service-call database structures to FairPoint, requiring the new buyer to build its own system from the ground up to both accommodate Verizon's data and, FairPoint hoped, streamline the company's workflows.) McLaughlin says the new computer system still doesn't work efficiently, which means that the layoffs are getting rid of productive workers. "Everybody's busy . . . working overtime every day," he says. As the staff gets smaller, the workload will increase, and the inefficiencies will multiply.

McLaughlin's criticism raises significant concerns about FairPoint's ability to provide service at the level required by state regulators. Thomas Welch, chairman of the Maine Public Utilities Commission, told the Phoenix that the commission would be watching FairPoint carefully, and is prepared to issue penalties if the company fails to meet state-mandated standards for service performance.

Welch says FairPoint has been "struggling" since the takeover, and though he has seen "significantly better" outcomes this year than in the past, the company's still not where it needs to be, in terms of providing service and maintenance. He noted that LD 1466, a law passed in the most recent session of the Maine Legislature, has somewhat limited the PUC's ability to impose penalties, but hopes the remaining threat will keep FairPoint moving in the right direction. The key, he says, is to make sure "the customers don't get caught in the backwash."

FairPoint spokespeople Jeff Nevins and Meghan Woodlief did not return multiple phone calls seeking comment for this story.

Gubernatorial scorecard: Storm clouds

Published in the Portland Phoenix

We just weathered a storm that hit harder elsewhere than it did in Maine. Along a similar line, we're finding that the Tea Party-style allegations of government waste, welfare fraud, and excessive regulation are not quite as severe here as critics claim; whether they're more real in other places remains to be seen. In any case, here are the storms facing Governor Paul LePage in our eighth Gubernatorial Scorecard, in which we score LePage on political savvy, and on whether what he's trying to do is good policy. Note the running total.

ABSENT STORM | LePage recently hosted a delegation of officials from northwestern Russia, calling international exchange "mutually beneficial." He's right, but it's hard to envision a Democratic governor engaging in the same effort without allegations of cavorting with communists (the Russians' actual politics notwithstanding).
POLITICS • Shows LePage has total control over the extreme right-wing in Maine | 10/10
POLICY • Inclusive, culturally sensitive, historically conscious. Who'd'a thunk it? | 10/10

AID STORM | Even before Hurricane Irene made landfall farther south on the East Coast last week, LePage issued an emergency declaration, which allowed state agencies to use their money and personnel to help wherever it might be needed. That's what government is for, after all. But this is a man who wants all individuals to stand up for themselves, and who wants to cut state spending?
POLITICS • Shows LePage has total control over all of his political allies, not just the extremists | 8/10
POLICY • Obviously the right thing to do, unless you're on the (political) right | 10/10

BUDGET STORM | The latest LePage attack on government spending is called "zero-based budgeting," in which every state program is allegedly reviewed as if it were being proposed for the first time, and put through a rigorous cost-benefit analysis. Maybe it's new to Augusta, but towns claim to do this all the time.
POLITICS • Shifts blame for future budget cuts away from the governor | 10/10
POLICY • Remains to be seen whether cold analysis trumps political rhetoric | 5/10

WELFARE STORM | The administration has made a lot of noise about fighting welfare fraud, including announcing prosecutions and incarcerations, and proposing hiring more investigators to ferret out more abuse. But when a partisan activist released a carefully edited video purporting to show fraud, LePage backpedaled and said state staff simply need better training.
POLITICS • Clever effort to have it both ways: demonize waste, but protect those who are supposed to prevent it | 7/10
POLICY • If welfare fraud is too complex for partisan games, why play them himself? | 2/10

REGULATION STORM | LePage is now requiring all state agencies to run new and proposed rules past his office for vetting based on their impact on "job growth or creation." Given that many government rules restrict business practices for the sake of public interest (see: no dumping dioxin in rivers), this risks handing businesses license to trample the rest of us.
POLITICS • Government rules are a popular scapegoat | 8/10
POLICY • State agencies serve the public, not businesses. Balancing interests will be vital, and difficult. | 5/10

This month's total | Politics 43/50 | Policy 32/50 | Last month: Politics 43/50 | Policy 22/50 | Overall: Politics 274/400 | Policy 173/400

Marijuana Watch: Green light for Maine’s biggest dispensary company

Published in the Portland Phoenix

It'll be a while before Portlanders with doctor's orders for medical marijuana have a local dispensary, but Northeast Patients Group may open its first facility in Thomaston in the next couple of weeks.

NPG, which holds four of Maine's first eight dispensary licenses, is still embroiled in a legal battle with Berkeley Patients Group, its original financing partner (see "Keep Patients Waiting," by Deirdre Fulton, July 22) — a fight that now involves not just the original lawsuit, claiming breach of contract and other problems, but a countersuit seeking lots of money NPG claims BPG should have paid out but never did.

But NPG cleared a major hurdle resulting from its rift, getting state approval last week for its revised financing deal, backed now by former NBA player Cuttino Mobley and the California-based Farmacy Institute for Wellness.

A letter from Catherine Cobb, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services official in charge of medical-marijuana licensing, said the new deal was substantially similar to the previous arrangement with BPG, which had won state approval. Cobb noted that there was potential concern over NPG's ability to funnel "excessive profits" to the Farmacy Institute through paid consultants' fees, but said NPG's list of fees allayed those worries.

Where the Portland dispensary will go — and when it will open — remain to be seen, though NPG says it's shooting for October. Complicating issues abound (see "Smoke Local," by Deirdre Fulton, February 18 and "Where to Put the Pot," by Kegan Zema, June 11, 2010, for examples of economic and logistical concerns), and the Portland City Council has yet to weigh in.

Press Releases: Declare yourself

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The 8000-plus-word play-by-play of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, written by freelancer Nicholas Schmidle and published in the New Yorker recently, is a fascinating read, with lots of juicy details (example: the plan was always to kill bin Laden, not capture him) delivered in the rapid-fire pace of a military thriller novel.

It has spawned a large set of after-the-fact writings too, speculating about how Schmidle got the information and how reliable it really is, given the bombshell revelation that Schmidle's account, written from the perspective of the Navy Seals who conducted the mission, was based on secondhand interviews and not a single interview with a Seal who participated in the raid.

Russ Baker of WhoWhatWhy, in a column republished on Salon, laid out the most detailed critique, noting contradictions in previous accounts by government officials (including President Obama's counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, who was quoted by name in the New Yorker piece), questions about the lack of supporting evidence for the account, and shortcomings of logic within the piece itself that call its veracity into question.

New Yorker editor David Remnick has defended the piece, saying the sources are known to company executives and were fact-checked according to the magazine's standards.

The episode shows that we are in a new media-consumption environment, in which it is not just conspiracy theorists and backwoods kooks who are concerned about being manipulated by the media. The general public is rightly worried about both motivations and national security, and the only cure is transparency — a feature sorely lacking in that article.

Accusations have already flown about whether Schmidle (and the New Yorker, by extension) is being used by government officials, either to cheerlead for Obama's handling of the fight against terrorism, or to whitewash a mission muddied by legal and moral quandaries.

But over the weekend, another important issue became clear to me, during an extensive conversation with a friend's father. A long-retired captain in the US Navy, who worked both aboard ship and in the Pentagon, this man is a perceptive thinker with a lot of political and media savvy.

He had a large number of concerns about the reporter's role, and the New Yorker's, in publishing material that at least at one time was classified, and may still be. His concern along this line extended to pieces in other media that identified the attackers as a special-operations force called DevGru (formerly known as Seal Team 6), and went so far as to identify the town where many of those fighters live. He suggested, as have many others, that perhaps the Taliban's shooting down of a US special-operations helicopter, killing as many as 25 members of DevGru, may have been planned as revenge specifically because the unit was publicly identified.

I dove in, defending press freedom, arguing in favor of publication of government secrets, the better to monitor our democracy with.

As our conversation deepened, it emerged that he had fewer concerns about the reporting the New York Times had done on the Bush administration's warrantless-wiretapping program, which top White House staffers objected to on the grounds that any publicity at all would endanger national security.

What made the difference? The Times included in that package information about the government's objections, as well as the Times management's assessment of those concerns, and details of the action the paper took (withholding some details that editors agreed were dangerous to make public).

That type of straight talking was what was missing from the New Yorker's bin Laden raid piece.

It turns out that transparency isn't just for the government; if journalists want to be trusted by the public, we should take similar steps as those we propose public servants take.

Stonewalling - AG’s office: ‘If I had it, I wouldn’t give it to you’

Published in the Portland Phoenix

For someone whose government job is to handle media inquiries, Brenda Kielty, special assistant to and spokeswoman for Maine Attorney General William Schneider (a Republican), sure says some strange things on the record.

For example, when I was asking her how much taxpayer money the AG's office spent prosecuting fraud cases in Maine's welfare system, she told me her agency doesn't track attorneys' work by time spent on specific cases. When I asked why this government organization didn't use an extremely common business practice (private-sector attorneys bill in fractions of an hour as small as six minutes), she told me she was no longer going to help me.

And the information I had asked for? "Even if I did have it, I wouldn't give it to you," she said. "Because right now I don't like your tone." (It was quite obvious that it wasn't my calm tone she was objecting to, but rather the content of my questioning.)

I'd been taking notes through our conversation and double-checking things she said to me to make sure I got them right. So I wrote those two startling lines down and then read them back to her. "Excuse me, that's not a quote," she said, saying she would not cooperate with my inquiry into public expenditures "if you're going to be threatening to be putting my every word in print."

As I said, very strange for a person whose assigned job is to speak to the media. For his part, Schneider did not return calls seeking comment. As for the actual information we were seeking, we'll keep asking.

Gubernatorial scorecard: Break time

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Summer's here, and everybody needs a break. Even Governor Paul LePage seems to be taking a holiday from the hard work of keeping his mouth shut in public. What a relief for him to finally be able to relax, wag his chin, flap his lips, and score those wonderful headlines again! Herewith, our seventh Gubernatorial Scorecard, in which we score LePage on political savvy, and on whether what he's trying to do is good policy. Note the running total.

PRAYER BREAK | LePage issued a proclamation saying August 6 was a "Day of Prayer," and then promptly denied it was related to Texas governor Rick Perry's call for a "National Day of Prayer and Fasting" on the same day. Perry's move has generated controversy for being closely tied to the American Family Association, a conservative evangelical Christian group. Maine GOP lawmakers are circulating a letter of support, saying "the struggles we face as a state are often beyond the power of government to solve," and calling on God's aid.
POLITICS • It's an easy pander to his base, and an easy dodge to distance himself from the like-minded Perry | 8/10 POLICY • For a party that campaigned on fixing government, this sounds like "islam" — the Arabic word for "surrender" | 1/10

CRITICISM BREAK | When Marine Resources Commissioner Norman Olsen, generally a reasonable guy, resigned, he issued a damning statement accusing LePage of boot-licking special-interest groups and having a secret agenda kept even from his cabinet members. The press leapt on that, and on LePage's dismissive response was quick, concise, and atypically vengeless. But quietly, he undermined Olsen by giving a GOP operative evidence to the contrary, and later issuing that operative's resulting blog post as an official press release.
POLITICS • He ousted a qualified cabinet member, then quietly wrecked the guy's rep | 8/10 POLICY • Politics aside, third competent cabinet member to exit | 5/10

URBAN BREAK | In Olsen's allegations was a claim that LePage refused to cooperate with Portland leaders because Maine's largest city voted against him last year. LePage met with city mayor Nick Mavodones to assure him that the business engine of the state was never far from gubernatorial thoughts, but made no apology, real promises, or statements of substance.
POLITICS • Pissing off people who already hate him? A big win in the Other Maine | 8/10 POLICY • Stupid threats, especially when retracted, weaken an already struggling leader | 3/10

MEDIA BREAK | Before the meeting with Mavodones, LePage swung wildly at his favorite piñata — the media. Singling out State House insider Mal Leary (of Capitol News Service) for rare praise, the gov claimed that the press didn't publish his side of the Olsen mess, and specifically accused MaineToday reporter Rebekah Metzler of having "never written an honest thing since I've been governor."
POLITICS • It's an old, tiresome canard for most of us, but it works for his anti-media supporters who also hate Portland | 9/10 POLICY • Is he done shooting the messenger yet? | 3/10

SCHOOL BREAK | LePage has proposed extending Maine high schools to five years, after which students would graduate with a standard diploma and an associate's degree or equivalent college credit. How much it would cost Maine taxpayers remains to be seen, but it could boost educational and income levels in our state, which is nationally low in both areas.
POLITICS • A social program couched in economic-development terms — very slick | 10/10 POLICY • An idea with real potential to put Maine among the nation's leaders | 10/10

This month's total | Politics 43/50 | Policy 22/50 | Last month: Politics 40/50 | Policy 13/50 | Overall: Politics 231/350 | Policy 141/350