Around Town 8/11/22: Sears Island, Graham Lacher update

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week: New info on the search for Graham Lacher; tree cutting on Sears Island begins this week, ahead of soil testing – as part of determining whether the island is suitable for an offshore wind production facility. Groups including Friends of Sears Island want the facility built on adjacent Mack Point, which is already developed.

Update 8/25/22:
A message from Tammy Lacher Scully, Graham Lacher’s mother:
“We are trying to use Facebook as a regional/nationwide Silver Alert for Graham. Please, if you are on Facebook, like & share this post”

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 8/11/22: Summer Encore 10: Neural Privacy Follow-up

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Isn’t is great to be able to think anything we want and know that what we think is safe within our own minds? Do you even wonder how long that will continue to be true? If not, you should. Here’s why.

Here is a link to the report referenced in today’s 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 8/10/22: Property Assessment & Taxes in Maine Towns

Producer/Host: Ron Beard
Theme music for Talk of the Towns is a medley from Coronach, on a Balnain House

Talk of the Towns: Local Community concerns and opportunities

This month:
We talk with town representatives from Camden, Orono and Lamoine about how they assess the value of property and how towns arrive at the bill that property owners pay each year.
-What sources of revenue do towns in Maine draw on to fund their budgets?
-What types of property make up a town’s “tax base’?
-How are the values of properties assessed? How does assessment relate to sales prices?
-What is the relationship between a town’s budget and property taxes?
tax?
-Are there forms of relief for property owners, like the homestead exemption? (homestead exemption, etc)
-What happens when a property owner disputes the assessed value of their property?

Guest/s:
Caitlin Thompson, Deputy Assessor, Town of Camden
Marc Perry, Downeast Assessing Services
Stu Marckoon, Town of Lamoine

About the host:
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.

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BoatTalk 8/9/22: boatyard report, tribute to mike joyce, maine boats and harbors symposium

Producers/Hosts: Mike Joyce, Jon Johansen

BoatTalk is the call-in show for people contemplating things naval

This month: boatyard report, tribute to mike joyce, maine boats and harbors symposium

Guest/s: john hanson maine boats homes and harbors magazine

About the hosts:

Alan Sprague is a retired boat carpenter and a volunteer at WERU for over thirty years. He and the late Mike Joyce started Boattalk in 2003 and Alan carries on.

Jon Johansen is the editor and roving reporter for the Maine Coastal News. He is Chairman of the Board of the Penobscot Marine Museum, President of Maine Built Boats, President of Maine Lobster Boat Racing, and Director of the International Maritime Library in his spare time.

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Outside the Box 8/9/22: “Supreme Prejudice”

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 Essential Rhythm 8/7/22: Sand dollars are alive

Producer/Host: Sarah O’Malley

This episode is a public service announcement reminding beach goers that sand dollars are living creatures just like snails and mussels, and should be left at the beach! Attributes of living sand dollars are described (presence of minute spines, colored dark red or purple) to help beach combers discern living animals from empty shells acceptable for collecting.

About the host:
Sarah O’Malley is an ecologist, naturalist and science communicator passionate about deepening her listeners’ experiences with the natural world. She teaches biology and sustainability at Maine Maritime Academy and is currently collaborating on a guide book to the intertidal zone in the Gulf of Maine.

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