Around Town 2/9/23: “To Warm a Winter’s Night” benefit

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week: Sharon Catus, Development Director at Downeast Community Partners joins us to talk about “To Warm A Winter’s Night”, a benefit concert and silent auction at The Grand in Ellsworth on Saturday, Feb 25. Performers will include Chris Ross, Caroline Cotter, Fogtown Family Band, and Smoke & Mojo. All proceeds will go to The Heating And Warmth (THAW) Fund, a donor-funded Fund through Downeast Community Partners.

FMI: To Warm a Winter’s Night

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.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 2/9/23: 23rd Anniversary Edition!

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

This month marks the 23rd anniversary of Notes from the Electronic Cottage on WERU. Let’s take a little trip down memory lane as we listen to what we think is the very first Electronic Cottage program.

About the host:
Jim Campbell has a longstanding interest in the intersection of digital technology, law, and public policy and how they affect our daily lives in our increasingly digital world. He has banged around non-commercial radio for decades and, in the little known facts department (that should probably stay that way), he was one of the readers voicing Richard Nixon’s words when NPR broadcast the entire transcript of the Watergate tapes. Like several other current WERU volunteers, he was at the station’s sign-on party on May 1, 1988 and has been a volunteer ever since doing an early stint as a Morning Maine host, and later producing WERU program series including Northern Lights, Conversations on Science and Society, Sound Portrait of the Artist, Selections from the Camden Conference, others that will probably come to him after this is is posted, and, of course, Notes from the Electronic Cottage.

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Talk of the Towns 2/8/23: The Importance of Comprehensive Planning

Producer/Hosts: Ron Beard and Liz Graves
Theme music for Talk of the Towns Theme music for Talk of the Towns is a medley from Coronach, on a Balnain House Highland Music recording.

Talk of the Towns: Local Community concerns and opportunities

This month:
Using current examples from Jonesport, Blue Hill and Bar Harbor, our guests discuss the importance of comprehensive planning to set out goals for the future, including where growth will be encouraged and where citizens hope to discourage sprawl in more rural areas. We learn how they have engaged community members in the process of creating or updating their town comprehensive plans, and how comprehensive plans also provide a foundation for land use zoning ordinances, economic development and capital investments.
What is a comprehensive plan is and how does it relate to elements of town governance (planning and zoning, infrastructure and capital investment, economic development, etc?
What is the relationship between elected officials and the planning board and the comprehensive planning process? How is comprehensive planning different from routine Planning Board work?
What are the various stages in creating a comprehensive plan?
How are community members engaged in the process?
What have you learned (or had confirmed) so far about your town?
What advice would you have for other communities as they contemplate creating or updating comprehensive plan?

Guest/s:
Harry Fish, Selectman, Jonesport
Diane Smith, Planning Board Member, Jonesport
Michele Gagnon, Town Planner, Bar Harbor
Sarah King, Comprehensive Plan Committee, Blue Hill

About the hosts:

Ron Beard is producer and host of Talk of the Towns, which first aired on WERU in 1993 as part of his community building work as an Extension professor with University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant. He took all the journalism courses he could fit in while an undergraduate student in wildlife management and served as an intern with Maine Public Television nightly newscast in the early 1970s. Ron is an adjunct faculty member at College of the Atlantic, teaching courses on community development. Ron served on the Bar Harbor Town Council for six years and is currently board chair for the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor, where he has lived since 1975. Look for him on the Allagash River in June, and whenever he can get away, in the highlands of Scotland where he was fortunate to spend two sabbaticals.

Liz Graves joined Talk of the Towns as co-producer and co-host in July 2022, having long admired public affairs programming on WERU and dreamed of getting involved in community radio. She works as the Town Clerk for the Town of Bar Harbor, and is a former editor of the Mount Desert Islander weekly newspaper. Liz grew up in California and came to Maine as a schooner sailor.

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Maine Currents 2/7/23: Multinational Corporation Requests Bucksport Reopen Problematic Landfill

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This month:

Last fall, a representative of American Iron & Metal (AIM), the multinational scrap metal company that owns part of the former mill site in Bucksport, raised the possibility of partnering with the town to reopen the mill’s old landfill to accept construction and demolition debris. Though they own the property, as a private company they are required under Maine law to partner with a municipality or the state. Since they floated the idea verbally in October, no official written proposal has been received, but the as town officials and concerned residents have explored the issue, new issues have come to light — not only about reopening the old landfill, but about the condition of that existing site, which it as it turns out, has been out of DEP compliance for years.

In January we spoke with several concerned residents and Town Manager Susan Lessard.

NOTE: The January public meeting at Brown Hall has been postponed

Guests:
Tracey Hair, Ralph Chapman, Don White, Bill Tymoczko, Hans Krichels, Susan Lessard

FMI
Bucksport Town Council
Bucksport Town Council Agendas

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 and Maine Currents, she 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 the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

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Outside the Box 2/7/23: “Outside the Box—Revisited”

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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The Nature of Phenology 2/4/23: Spruce Tips Falling

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark

One clue of a shift in dining focus for one local arboreal rodent is the scattering of spruce tips you can now find all over the forest floor.

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com

About the host/writers:
Joe Horn lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder of Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide and Carpenter. He is passionate about fishing, cooking, and making things with his hands. He has both an MBA in Sustainability and an MS focused in Environmental Education. Joe can be reached by emailing [email protected]

Hazel Stark lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder and Naturalist Educator at Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide. She loves taking a closer look at nature through the lens of her camera, napping in beds of moss, and taking hikes to high points to see what being tall is all about. She has an MS in Resource Management and Conservation and is a lifelong Maine outdoorswoman. Hazel can be reached by emailing [email protected]

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