Around Town 10/2/24: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Grace Johnson Fennell, Power and Belonging Program Director at Out in the Open with details of their event on 10/27 at MOFGA.

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.

Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License

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Outside the Box 10/1/24: “Hitler’s Ghost”

Producer/Host: Larry Dansinger

About the host:
Larry Dansinger (no pronouns) of Bangor came to Maine in 1974 and has been here ever since. Some of Larry’s activities since then: Done community organizing on numerous issues through INVERT and then Resources for Organizing and Social Change (ROSC), committed civil disobedience several times, grown a garden yearly since 1977, joined various food cooperatives and two men’s groups, refused to pay federal income taxes for war, lived on a community land trust for 23 years, and met a wonderful partner whom Larry has loved for over 40 years. Larry has produced Outside the Box features on WERU since 2007 and continues to look for unique ways of seeing almost any problem or situation.

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Around Town 10/1/24: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Maine Department of Marine Resources has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the 2024-2025 Scallop season, and the deadline for public comment is Friday.  The DMR’s proposed changes impact draggers and divers, the dates that the season will start and end by zone,  and targeted closures.   Lower Sheepscot and Damariscotta Rivers in Zone 1 along with Upper Machias Bay, Moosabec Reach and Upper Cranberries in Zone 2 are new proposed targeted closures for recovery and rebuilding. Gouldsboro and Dyers Bay along with Upper Blue Hill Bay are proposed as new limited access areas. FMI: www.maine.gov/dmr – on the Proposed Rulemaking page.  
 
The League of Women Voters, Downeast Chapter, is holding a weekly series of  Hancock County Candidates Nights starting next Monday, October 7th.  The meetings will be held via zoom and there will be a chance to ask questions.  Details about the schedule and candidates — and how to register to attend– can be found at www.lwvme.org and on the League of Women Voters Maine chapter’s facebook page.
 
At the Witherle Memorial Library in Castine this week, the Foreign Affairs Discussion group will look at the foreign policy views of the Presidential candidates from the Democratic, Republican, Green and Libertarian parties, as well as the candidates’ key foreign policy advisers.  All are welcome to join them on Wednesday, October 2nd at 5pm.  You can register for the zoom link — and find links to suggested reading — at  www.witherlelibrary.net.
 
Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry in Ellsworth and Darling’s Chevrolet invite the public to their  Darling’s Drives Out Hunger auction and fundraiser this week.  The event will feature live and silent auction items, raffles, live music, cash bar and heavy hors d’oeuvres. Loaves & Fishes is counting on the auction and celebration to help raise operating funds, build and nourish community partnerships, and spread the word about the pantry’s mission.  Thursday evening, 5-7pm at Darling’s in Ellsworth.  Details and tickets at loavesandfishesellworth.org.

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.

Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License

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Around Town 9/30/24: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Editor Kate Cough joins us with a sneak peek at the October episode of the Maine Monitor Radio Hour which focuses on Josh Keefe’s in-depth report The hornet’s nest’: How seven wealthy summer residents halted workforce housing on Mount Desert Island.

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.

Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License

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A Word in Edgewise 9/30/24: A Skeleton Crew & Comet Tsuchinshan . . .

Producer/Host: R.W. Estela

Hi, I’m RW Estela: Since 1991, I’ve been presenting A Word in Edgewise, WERU’s longest-running short feature, a veritable almanac of worldly and heavenly happenings, a confluence of 21st-century life in its myriad manifestations, international and domestic, cosmopolitan and rural, often revealing, as the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same — though not always! Sometimes in addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives, in this age of vagary and ambiguity, when chronological time is punctuated elliptically, things can quickly turn edgy and controversial, as we search for understanding amid our dialectic. Tune in Monday mornings at 7:30 a.m. for an exciting journey through space and time with a few notable birthdays thrown in for good measure during A Word in Edgewise . . .

About the host:
RW Estela was raised as a first-generation American in Colorado by a German mother and a Corsican-Basque father who would become a three-war veteran for the US Army, so RW was naturally a military brat and later engaged in various Vietnam-era civil-service adventures before paying his way through college by skiing for the University of Colorado, playing Boulder coffeehouses, and teaching. He has climbed all of Colorado’s Fourteeners; found work as an FAA-certificated commercial pilot, a California-licensed building contractor, a publishing editor, a practitioner of Aikido, and a college professor of English; among his many interdisciplinary pursuits are the design and building of Terrell Residence Library (recently renamed the Terrell House Permaculture Living & Learning Center at the University of Maine), writing Building It In Two Languages (a bilingual dictionary of construction terminology), aerial photo documentation of two dam removals (Great Works and Veazie) on the Penobscot River, and once a week since 1991 drafting an installment of A Word In Edgewise, his essay series addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives — and WERU’s oldest continuous short feature. When pandemics do not interfere, he does the Triple Crown of Maine open-water ocean swims (Peaks to Portland, Islesboro Crossing, and Nubble Light Challenge) and the Whitewater Downriver Point Series of the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization. RW is the father of two and the grandfather of three and lives with his partner Kathleen of 37 years and their two Maine Coons in Orono.

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Power for the People 9/27/24: ISO New England Grid Update Plan

Producer/Host: Steve Kahl

Power for the People: Energy education and solutions for Mainers and Maine communities

This month:
Reliability and upgrade planning by ISO-New England, the Maine grid operator.

Guest/s:
Anya Poplavska of the Acadia Center, Boston.
Claire Lang-Ree of National Resource Defense Council, NYC.

FMI:
2050 Transmission Study: Further Analysis to Address Comments on Study

About the host:

Steve Kahl is Professor of Science at Thomas College where he teaches environmental and energy courses and advises the student sustainability club. He writes the monthly ‘Sustainability Minute’ email which is distributed to over 1,200 readers. He is a member of the Quarry Road Recreational Area board of directors where he is advocating for a net-zero energy new welcome center. He has advised the board of WERU on the current plan for the station to become 100% solar powered in 2020. Steve is a member of the Green Campus Coalition of Maine, the working group of sustainability directors at Maine college campuses.

Steve’s past positions include Sustainability Director at Unity College where he developed a plan for the college to become 100% solar powered and earned the college the prestigious STARS Gold ranking with the American Association of Sustainability in Higher Education. Before that, he was Director of Environmental and Energy Strategies for the James Sewall Company of Old Town where he led a Maine Technology Institute research project that found that Maine could be 79% solar powered if all suitably-oriented rooftops had solar PV panels.

Prior to moving home to Maine, he was a member of the Energy Commission in Plymouth NH where he was obtained funding for the renovation of a town office building to net-zero energy and the installation of 160 KW of solar PV panels on town properties included a major PV array at the sewage treatment plant that offsets 40% of its electrical costs.

In his own home, he has installed two air-source heat pumps to completely eliminate heating oil, a hybrid hot water heater to reduce his water heating costs by 70%, and insulated the basement and attic to further reduce energy consumption and increase comfort. He would like to install rooftop solar panels but so far his shade trees that also produce maple syrup each year have convinced him otherwise. However, he has solar panels on his summer place at the lake and hasn’t paid for any electricity there since 2011.

Steve has a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the University of Maine.

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Coastal Conversations 9/27/24: Marine Debris

Host: Natalie Springuel
Other Credits: Keri Kaczor

Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program.

This month:
Everyone can make a difference to address the issue of marine debris (or trash) that enters our oceans! Keri Kaczor of Maine Sea Grant hosts a conversation with members of a Community Action Coalition who’ve come together to help tackle marine debris pollution in the Gulf of Maine. Coalition members from Maine Marine Trades Association, Maine Island Trail Association, and Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association will share some impacts of marine debris on communities, wildlife and ecosystems in the Gulf of Maine, and simple steps we all can take to help prevent trash from entering our shared waterways. The work of this Marine Debris Community Action Coalition is funded by NOAA Sea Grant through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Join us, and tune in on Friday, September 27th at 4PM for this month’s Coastal Conversation – only on WERU community radio at 89.9 FM and streaming online at WERU.org. Coastal Conversations is supported by Maine Sea Grant in partnership with Schoodic Institute and The First Coast.

Guest/s:

Keri Kaczor, Maine Sea Grant
Stacey Keefer, Maine Marine Trades Association
Brian Marcaurelle, Maine Island Trail Association
Monique Coombs, Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association

FMI: Lovemainewaters.org 

About the hosts:

Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

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