Around Town 10/27/22: Building Local Anti-Racist Community

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week: The groups Resources for Organizing and Social Change and Community Change, Inc. have partnered for an online series of workshops, with the goal of building an anti-racist organizing community in New England. We got the details from one of the organizers, Sass Linneken, Executive Director of ROSC – Resources for Organizing and Social Change

FMI: [email protected]

About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Around Town 10/20/22: 3 Day Artivism Conference Coming to Belfast

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week: We’re in Belfast, checking in with Larraine Brown, one of the organizers of a 3-day Arts in Action Conference, coming up on November 4th, 5th and 6th.

The event is intended to be “A hope filled, solution focused, three day conference addressing substance use and mental health disorders, along with the effects of the COVID pandemic”.

About the host:

Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Around Town 10/13/22: Big Step Forward for Penobscot River Mercury Clean Up

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week: After decades of work on the issue, the Maine People’s Alliance (MPA)and the Natural Resources Defense Council have a big announcement this week. Jesse Graham, Co-Director of MPA fills us in..

Read more here and here

About the host:

Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Around Town 10/6/22: Update on Missing Person Graham Lacher

Producer/Host: Matt Murphy, filling in for Amy Browne

This week: We are back in Searsport, talking with Rolf Olsen, VP of the Board for Friends of Sears Island, and member of Maine’s Offshore Wind Port Advisory Group, which will advise the Governor and others as they consider location options for a new offshore wind construction and deployment facility. Friends of Sears Island, Islesboro Islands Trust and Sierra Club, Maine support offshore wind, but prefer that the facility be built on nearby Mack Point, which is already industrialized.

The Offshore Wind Port Advisory Committee is meeting today, September 29th, 2022, 9am – 4:30pm at MaineDOT Headquarters. The public is welcome and may attend by zoom. More information, the agenda, and registration for the zoom link can be found here

About the host:

Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Around Town 9/29/22: Developing Sears Island for a “Green” Project? Meeting Taking Place Today.

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week: We are back in Searsport, talking with Rolf Olsen, VP of the Board for Friends of Sears Island, and member of Maine’s Offshore Wind Port Advisory Group, which will advise the Governor and others as they consider location options for a new offshore wind construction and deployment facility. Friends of Sears Island, Islesboro Islands Trust and Sierra Club, Maine support offshore wind, but prefer that the facility be built on nearby Mack Point, which is already industrialized.

The Offshore Wind Port Advisory Committee is meeting today, September 29th, 2022, 9am – 4:30pm at MaineDOT Headquarters. The public is welcome and may attend by zoom. More information, the agenda, and registration for the zoom link can be found here

About the host:

Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Around Town 9/22/22: Maine “Clean Water Champions” Honored at Clean Water Act 50th Anniversary event

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week: 100 Maine “Clean Water Champions” will be honored at an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act on September 29th on the banks of the Androscoggin River in Lewiston— including one person whose voice you’ll recognize from WERU! Anya Fetcher, Federal Policy Advocate for the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM), one of the event organizers, joins us with all the details.

About the host:

Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Around Town 9/15/22: Defending Maine’s Dark Skies

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week: We talk with Nancy Hathaway, President of Dark Sky Maine, and “Defending the Dark: The Story of Preserving the Dark Skies in Maine” film maker Tara Roberts Zabriskie about their upcoming film tour. Also, this weekend Dark Sky Maine will host their annual “Stars Over Katahdin” in Staceyville, near the entrance to Katahdin Woods & Waters, featuring astromony educators, a campfire, and telescopes – on what is predicted to be a clear weekend. More information about that, and the Defending the Dark film tour, are available at darkskymaine.com, or by emailing [email protected]

About the host:

Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Around Town 9/8/22: Learning Forest on MDI Preserved by Community School & Maine Coast Heritage Trust

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week: We’re on Mount Desert Island talking with Jasmine Smith, Founding Director of The Community School of Mount Desert Island about a partnership with Maine Coast Heritage Trust that successfully preserved a “learning forest” for students and the wider community.

About the host:

Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.