High schoolers in need

There are high school-age kids in this community in need of temporary host homes to finish their education in a supportive environment. 

Our nonprofit, Housing Resources for Youth (HRY), finds safe and secure homes for homeless teens in the Bath, Brunswick, and Topham areas. We work directly with the schools to identify at-risk students and have an excellent history of success with our client students and their hosts. These are kids who are seriously committed to getting their diplomas and moving on with their lives. They only need a safe place to live until they graduate.

We immediately need host homes for two recently homeless teens in the Bath/Brunswick/Topsham area. HRY provides complete training and follow-up for new host home applicants.

If interested in our program to help a deserving, motivated teen, contact Pam Gormley at pgormley825@gmail.com or by texting to (207) 751-8478.

Please consider opening your heart and your home.

Pam Gormley,
Program manager,
Housing Resources for Youth 

Susan Brown Stoddard,
Brunswick

Monitoring Marine Resources

It is time for the Brunswick City Council to look closely at what is happening on the Marine Resources committee.  We are both clammers and time and time again we see that the wild harvesters are left out of the conversation without even having a chance to express an opinion.

There is a palpable unwillingness to work with the clammers to help us better or our livelihood.

The latest example of having no respect for the wild harvesters came when the administration changed the once-a-month meeting time from 7 p.m. to 4 p.m. — a direct conflict with tides at a time when we make our money on the flats. After decades of meeting at that time, there was suddenly no space? Is the sudden change because the harvesters have been speaking up against various impediments to our livelihood such as large aquaculture and residency requirements in all but unaffordable town?
 
I sit on the marine resources committee and have watched clammers including the co-author of this piece, Blaine Lund, try and speak about issues we all share and get shut down repeatedly.  In fact, many of us were so upset we signed a petition about the time change in protest and gave it to both the city council and the marine resources committee.
 
There are many decisions about the future of the wild harvest that should be made by the harvesters and the town of Brunswick should ask itself if it will continue to accommodate one person or all of us.

Camden Reiss and Blaine Lund,
Brunswick

Bath’s LED decision

I completely agree with Russell Clark’s letter (June 6, 2023) regarding the higher power/bluer 2700K LED lights which are being considered for replacement of current public lighting in Bath. They are a terrible choice!! We already have a huge light pollution situation in our city (also state and country), and the blue lights will seriously exacerbate the problem.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, blue light has the strongest impact on circadian rhythms. This is why we are advised to refrain from viewing electronic devices for a block of time before bedtime so as to minimize disruption of sleep. We all know what sleep deprivation means.

Blue light causes psychological and physiological harm to both human (including macular degeneration) and non-human species (esp. adverse impact to wildlife behavior and reproduction), as well as interruption of flowering and pollination cycles of plants which produce our food. Not to mention obliteration of dark skies and ability to see the moon and stars!

In support of all our wellbeing and respect for the earth and wildlife, I urge the Bath City Councilors to select the warmer LED bulbs as replacements for city lighting, and Bath residents to speak up!

Carrie Callahan,
Bath

Stand against foreign campaign influence

This year, our legislators have a chance to take a stand against money in politics with LD 1610, “An Act to Prohibit Campaign Spending by Foreign Governments and Promote an Anticorruption Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

LD 1610 started as a citizens’ initiative from a groundswell of public interest in legislation curbing money in Maine’s political processes. Now our elected officials will weigh in with their votes on this initiative. Should they vote against it, it will be a referendum on the November ballot.

At the May 3 public hearing, legislators heard about the overwhelming support for this initiative from Democrats (90%), Republicans (87%) and Independents (90%) polled across all counties in the state last year. They heard about the expense of adding a referendum to the November ballot. And they heard citizens’ deep concerns about money damaging our democratic process nationally as well as statewide.

Several committee members then argued that the question at hand was not the merits of the bill but rather the process itself. They asked, “Why do we have to vote on this? Isn’t it better to return it to the citizens in November?”

By debating the process instead of the merits of the bill, legislators avoid the hard work of confronting powerful money influencers. As the legislature prepares to vote on this bill, please encourage your legislators to vote its positive merits and take a stand against money in politics so we don’t have to do it for them in November.

Betsy Williams,
Brunswick

Nursing ratios

Being a nurse today is hard, but mandatory staffing ratios for hospitals, as is being considered now by the Maine Legislature, are not going to make the job any easier.

High quality patient care is not about numbers or a ratio. It’s about patients, what they need and how a nurse can meet those needs. Today, we are caring for patients that are sicker than they ever have been. Our patients need more outpatient services, they need more nursing homes and rehab facilities, and, perhaps most importantly, they need more mental health resources.

When these services aren’t available, our nurses are expected to pick up the slack. Nurse ratios will not change the work that the healthcare system is asking of nurses. We do not need nurse-patient ratios. We need help getting our nurses back to being nurses!

Mandating nurse ratios does not lead to improved quality of care or increased job satisfaction. It will however require more nurses that Maine does not have. Hospitals may need to close inpatient beds, limiting access to care for all Maine people. We need real solutions that will make a hard job easier and solutions that leave all options for care open!

Nurses today face serious challenges, including the threat of workplace violence, scarce support services, complex work environment and job demands, and an overall shortage of qualified nurses. Mandated ratios won’t fix any of these problems.

Jana Drake, RN
Woolwich

Citizens’ Climate Lobby

We are three Brunswick area citizens heading to Washington DC this weekend, joined by 34 highschoolers and adults from across the State of Maine and almost a thousand others from every Congressional District in the country. After attending a three-day Citizens’ Climate Lobby conference, most of us will stay to lobby our members of Congress next Tuesday. What do we want? Effective climate change mitigation legislation.

As important as Maine’s environmental policies are to slow the global heating that’s negatively affecting the Pine Tree State and the entire world, federal policy reform is even more critical if we are to preserve a livable climate.

With the recent passage of The Inflation Reduction Act, the United States finally can reduce its carbon pollution 40% over 2005 levels. But that’s not enough. Without rapidly tripling the capacity of transmission lines that will deliver clean energy from where it’s produced to where it’s consumed, the IRA could lose 80% of its effectiveness.

We need permitting legislation that speeds up the lengthy process of getting new clean energy infrastructure approved. This will help protect local communities, especially disadvantaged communities, from the ravages of a climate gone awry.

We will also lobby our Members of Congress to put a steadily rising fee on carbon that finally forces polluters to pay for the damage to the climate and human health they are responsible for. We want the revenue collected to be returned monthly as “carbon cashback” to American citizens to spend as they wish, easing the transition to clean energy.

By taxing carbon pollution and implementing a border adjustment that protects American businesses, we can reach our climate goals without needlessly increasing the size of government or choosing winners and losers using cumbersome and inefficient regulation.

If you agree with the purpose of our trip, you can help. Call or write Sens. King and Collins, Reps. Pingree and Golden, and tell them you want clean energy permitting reform and passage of a strong and effective carbon fee and dividend bill. It’s easy to do, and it’s a generous gift to Mother Earth and her children.

Nancy Hasenfus, Laurie Manos and Sam Saltonstall

Girls on the run

Yesterday I stood in the pouring rain to watch 700 third, fourth and fifth graders complete their 5K challenge for Girls on the Run.

Wearing tutus, and sporting face-painted flowers, they whizzed by cheering friends and families. It was the last event in a 10-week period designed to give all girls confidence in themselves and skills to deal with everyday difficulties.

They ran with someone else, mostly moms, but some dads, grandparents and friends as well. A few obviously had a lot of experience in running. But most worked hard at it, pushing themselves to support their daughters.

It was not a race in the conventional sense of the word, with winners and losers. Everyone who finished the challenge was given an Olympic style medal. But it was the beginning of an organized effort to give girls support as they face a world with many challenges: climate warming, sexism, stereotypes and artificial intelligence.

As one girl said, “I like Girls on the Run” because if you’re in a situation that you can’t figure out yourself, you can go to GOTR and get tips. At the end of the race was a rain bedraggled sign that said, “Run like a girl.”

I stood with other grandmas, others who were born in the ’50s. Our only possibilities then were teaching, nursing, secretarial work, and housework. How different are the futures of these girls who raced today. How open and how challenging. My biggest hope for these girls is when they get to that place when everything seems too hard, that they will have ringing in their ears, the cheers of the crowd today. “You’re doing great, Keep at it. You can do it!!”

Jill Standish,
Brunswick