May 29, 2021

Checks to end for half of New Hampshire unemployment recipients

Much has been made of the fact that unemployment compensation checks will be reduced by $300 per week in New Hampshire on June 19 because Gov. Chris Sununu is joining other Republican governors in opting out of a federal pandemic aid program.

But what might not be so well known is that about 15,000 people – nearly half of those receiving unemployment in the state – will lose all unemployment benefits as of that day because the governor is also taking the state out of other federal programs that expand and extend unemployment benefits.

Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance is one of those programs. It covers 8,600 people in the state who would not otherwise be eligible to receive unemployment compensation, some of them self-employed.

This includes those who have COVID-19, people living in a household where someone has it, those providing care to a family member who has it, people who have become the main support for a household because the breadwinner has died of the disease and those who had to quit a job as a direct result of the disease.

Read more: https://www.concordmonitor.com/Checks-To-End-For-Half-Of-NH-Unemployment-Recipients-40694287

May 29, 2021

City of Rutland shuts down homeless hotel over code violations

RUTLAND, Vt. (WCAX) - Rutland’s mayor is shutting down the local Quality Inn, one of the hotels taking part in the state’s emergency housing program for the homeless.

City officials say they inspected the hotel and found so many violations, they are kicking everyone out by June 1. The city cites 26 violations including doors that do not latch, combustible materials stored in front of exits, leaking pipes, holes in walls, and a garden hose draining onto the carpet. The hotel has thirty days to correct all violations.

It’s the same hotel where two shooting deaths took place in the past six months and an overdose this week.

“There are a number of families that are down there --through no fault of their own -- they really are homeless, they need a place to stay. But there also was an element of folks down there that had no right, no business being there. There is very little oversight. The owners were lax and really as far as I was concerned, the state had dropped the ball on the program too,” said Rutland Mayor David Allaire.

Read more: https://www.wcax.com/2021/05/28/city-of-rutland-shuts-down-homeless-hotel-over-code-violations/

May 29, 2021

As Leahy ponders reelection, potential successors prepare for a vacancy

Sen. Patrick Leahy has a decision to make, and everyone’s waiting.

In the coming months, the 81-year-old Vermont Democrat is expected to disclose whether he will seek a ninth term in the U.S. Senate or step down. The retirement of the fifth longest-serving member in Senate history would open up at least one of the state’s three congressional seats for the first time in 16 years.

The prospect has prompted some of Vermont’s top politicians to prepare for a changing of the guards.

U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who is widely seen as an heir apparent to Leahy, has beefed up his political operation and public appearance schedule in recent months. Vermont Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham, told VTDigger she is “definitely considering” running for Congress in 2022 if there’s an opening, though she ruled out challenging Leahy or Welch.

Read more: https://vtdigger.org/2021/05/27/as-leahy-ponders-reelection-potential-successors-prepare-for-a-vacancy/

May 29, 2021

Scott lifts 10 p.m. curfew for bars, restaurants and social clubs

The full reopening of Vermont is slated for the coming weeks, but Gov. Phil Scott has jump-started one reopening measure: The lifting of a 10 p.m. curfew on Vermont businesses.

“We’ve gone from less than 30% to over 50% of the 18-to-29 age band vaccinated in the last month,” he said.

That means restaurants, bars and social clubs can operate under their normal business hours beginning Saturday, he said, unless local municipalities place additional restrictions on their area.

Scott has said he plans to drop almost all Covid restrictions when Vermont has 80% of the eligible population with at least one dose of the vaccine. Right now, the state is at roughly 77%, although the exact number is uncertain due to federal data issues.

Read more: https://vtdigger.org/2021/05/28/scott-lifts-10-p-m-curfew-for-bars-restaurants-and-social-clubs/

May 29, 2021

A $1M PPP loan, a 500-acre property in dispute and a school in limbo: The Marlboro saga continues

The plot continues to thicken in Marlboro.

A month after Seth Andrew, the man who pledged to reinvent higher education in southern Vermont, was arrested by federal authorities in New York for allegedly stealing more than $200,000 from a network of charter schools he founded, little remains settled at the now-defunct Marlboro College.

It’s unclear what will become of Degrees of Freedom, the “higher education experience” that Democracy Builders, the nonprofit helmed by Andrew which bought the Marlboro campus last summer, promised to create.

The Marlboro Music Festival, which holds a 99-year lease with the campus, has filed suit and is asking a judge to sort out to whom it should be paying rent.

And no one appears able to account for the more than 200 people on payroll when Democracy Builders received a nearly $1 million Paycheck Protection Program loan from the federal government in spring 2020.

Read more: https://vtdigger.org/2021/05/28/a-1m-ppp-loan-a-500-acre-property-in-dispute-and-a-school-in-limbo-the-marlboro-saga-continues/

May 29, 2021

State House speaker zings Auburn's Laurel Libby

Ryan Fecteau said he 'won't tolerate' Laurel Libby's treatment of State House as "a Hollywood set' to raise money for her reelection.


Stripped of her committee assignments after refusing to obey the Legislature’s requirement to wear masks in the State House, first-term Auburn Republican Laurel Libby is using the flap she created this week to raise money for her reelection.

“Help me fight to defend my seat in the House,” Libby says on social media with a link to a fundraising site where she claims Democratic leaders are “going to try to expel” her from her post representing Minot and a portion of Auburn.

The fundraising aspect to Libby’s stunt Monday did not escape House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, a Biddeford Democrat.

Taking note of Libby’s bid for campaign cash on social media, Fecteau posted on his personal Facebook page, “Ooooooohhhhhhhh. I get it now. Treat the State House like a Hollywood set. Capture video of being asked to follow the Legislature’s COVID-19 prevention policy regarding mask wearing. And then act outraged.”

Read more: https://www.sunjournal.com/2021/05/26/state-house-speaker-zings-auburns-laurel-libby/
(Lewiston Sun Journal)



Related article:

Maine House speaker stands ground on COVID mask mandate


AUGUSTA — An ongoing dispute between a group of conservative legislators and Democratic leaders in the Maine Legislature over whether lawmakers should have to wear face coverings when they return to the State House next week was no closer to resolution following a meeting of the Legislative Council on Thursday.

The council, which includes the leaders of both the minority and majority caucuses in the House and the Senate and the speaker of the House and the Senate president – in all, six Democrats and four Republicans – took no additional action on a policy they set last week leaving in effect a mask mandate for lawmakers and the public entering the State House or conducting business there in public areas, including the House and Senate chambers.

House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, who earlier this week removed seven House members, including six Republicans and one Libertarian, from their committee assignments after they defied the rule and entered the State House without face coverings, said he intends to have orderly proceedings when the Legislature returns to the Capitol on Tuesday for the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Maine last year.

“We will not have a House that is not in order,” Fecteau said, referencing a common order of the House speaker, the presiding officer of the chamber. “The House will be in order and we will find a way to make sure that’s the case — that’s the bottom line for me.”

More at https://www.sunjournal.com/2021/05/27/maine-house-speaker-stands-ground-on-covid-mask-mandate/ .

May 29, 2021

FBI arrests 2nd Maine resident linked to Jan. 6 Capitol riot

FBI agents charged a Gorham man this week with taking part in the deadly riot and storming of the U.S. Capitol that sent lawmakers fleeing and injured dozens of police officers on Jan. 6.

Nicholas Patrick Hendrix, 34, turned himself in to law enforcement Thursday and faces four charges in U.S. District Court in Portland for allegedly entering the Capitol along with hundreds of others who stormed the building, forcing lawmakers to flee, after former President Donald Trump urged the crowd to keep fighting to overturn the election results.

Hendrix is the third man with Maine ties, and second Maine resident, to face federal charges resulting from the riot. They are among the more than 400 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection.

FBI agents received an online tip Jan. 11 about Hendrix talking about his experience at the Capitol. The tipster said Hendrix was showing video footage he took that day and told people he had been pepper-sprayed, indicating that he was close to the building.

Read more: https://www.centralmaine.com/2021/05/27/fbi-arrests-2nd-maine-resident-linked-to-jan-6-capitol-riot/


Nicholas P. Hendrix, 34, in a photograph investigators say was found on Hendrix’s phone from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Photo courtesy of FBI

May 29, 2021

Scarborough public works union members picket at town hall

The action is the first time anyone can recall that municipal employees ever picketed in the town's history.


The action is the first time anyone can recall that municipal employees ever picketed in the town's history.

The union, which comprises 15 of the department’s 29 workers, has been negotiating a new contract since it formed in May 2020. The parties have met 11 times, once with a mediator, and still have not settled on a contract.

At midday Friday, close to a dozen workers gathered along Route 1 in front of the parking lot outside Town Hall. The union is associated with Teamsters Local 340, and its business agent, Ed Marzano, said the Teamsters arranged for an 18-wheel trailer from Massachusetts to park in the lot as a visual show of support.

“It rallies our troops and it draws attention,” Marzano said, noting that the union held similar actions in Lisbon and Auburn within the past month.

Read more: https://www.pressherald.com/2021/05/28/scarborough-public-works-union-members-picket-at-town-hall/
(Portland Press Herald)

May 29, 2021

Maine Legislative Leaders Spar Over Face Coverings

Republicans on the legislative council are once again challenging the mask requirement in place at the State House, and the issue could disrupt the session when lawmakers return next Wednesday.

For over a year, the public has been banned from the State House, and face coverings have been required for those allowed into the building. Earlier this week, seven Republican House members violated the rule and House Speaker Ryan Fecteau punished them by removing them from their committee assignments. GOP leaders Thursday brought a motion to revisit the requirement, which Fecteau ruled out of order, and warned the seven violators to follow the rules going forward.

“Those members will not be reassigned to their committees unless they decide to comply with what legislative council adopted," Fecteau said.

Republican leaders, meanwhile, predict that many in their party will not wear a face covering when the legislature convenes at the State House next week. They also object to Fecteau calling the effort a political stunt.

Read more: https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2021-05-27/maine-legislative-leaders-spar-over-face-coverings

May 29, 2021

New Brunswick plans to open border to Maine by July 1

HOULTON, Maine — The government of New Brunswick said Friday that its “Path to Green” program would see enough of its residents vaccinated to allow the international border with Maine to open on July 1.

New Brunswick’s plan to reopen calls for allowing travelers from the Canadian provinces of Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador on June 7 without need for quarantine or a negative COVID-19 test. Cross-border truckers will also no longer be required to isolate upon arrival.

On July 1, travelers from Maine who have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine will be allowed into New Brunswick with no isolation required. Those with no vaccine traveling from Maine will be allowed to enter and must go through a five-seven-day quarantine period, followed by a COVID-19 test, which must be negative in order to leave isolation.

International travel from all other states than Maine into New Brunswick will still have to follow a 14-day quarantine period upon entry on July 1. All travel restrictions will end by Aug. 2, according to the Path to Green plan.

Read more: https://bangordailynews.com/2021/05/28/news/aroostook/new-brunswick-plans-to-open-border-to-maine-by-july-1/