BETHEL — When Christine M. Landes was hired as town manager Nov. 10, it was the culmination of more than 16 years of municipal experience. However, Landes said government was the last thing on her mind when she was in high school. “If you had told me, when I was in high school, that I […]
government
Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Reporters notebook: No school report cards this spring
LEWISTON — It may not disappoint teachers and administrators, but the Maine Department of Education’s school report cards will not go out next spring. Schools won’t get their A, B, C, D or F grades because assessments are changing. Achievement tests for elementary school students used to be given every October, which really got on […]
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Posted inRiver Valley
Rumford Community Home earns five-star ranking
RUMFORD — The Rumford Community Home received a five-star ranking from the nation’s official website for nursing home information and comparison, administrator Jeffrey Lacroix said Wednesday afternoon. Nursing Home Compare, which is a part of medicare.gov, ranks nursing homes nationwide in several categories, including health inspection, staffing and quality measures. “We’re mandated to send in […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Lewiston budget cuts claim recreation director, maintenance staff
LEWISTON — Recreation Director Maggie Chisholm was one of four city employees to lose their jobs Thursday because of budget cuts and efforts to keep property taxes from going up. City Administrator Ed Barrett said he met with the four employees Thursday morning to discuss the layoffs. “None of these are ever easy,” Barrett said. […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Len Greaney: Try managing government like a business
By now, even the least politically inclined American is frustrated with elected officials at all levels of government. It seems that the federal government, which controls tax-and-spend decisions, has legislated central control at the expense of good reason. Big government has swallowed up tax revenue from the states and made numerous wasteful decisions regarding how […]
Posted inLetters
E. Field: The way to run government
Some letters in the Sun Journal say Democrats always “want stuff.” The “stuff” Democrats really want is to strengthen Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Democrats want working women to have fair pay and all women to have the right to plan their families without government interference. We believe in a strong military. We do not […]
Posted inLetters
M. Burgess: Supporting the public
Douglas Rooks addressed for-profit insurance companies in his column Dec. 29. Those companies are only one part of the high cost of medical care. There are highly paid, efficient lobbyists for physicians, hospitals and other medical providers who donate large sums to politicians who will support their policies. Supposedly, government is there to protect consumers […]
Posted inNation / World, sj-web
House passes $1.1 trillion bill to fund government
WASHINGTON (AP) — A $1.1 trillion spending bill for operating the government until just before next fall’s election steamed through the battle-weary House on Wednesday over tepid protests from tea party conservatives, driven by a bipartisan desire to restore painful cuts in domestic and defense programs and show disaffected voters that Congress can do its […]
Posted inMaine, sj-web
Motivated by death of paving worker, Dexter man aims to save lives with ‘Ricky’s Mandate’
DEXTER — A Dexter man with 15 years of experience in the asphalt industry is working to get state lawmakers to adopt legislation he believes will save lives. Joel Costonis said recently that he came up with the concept of “Ricky’s Mandate” in response to the May 7 death of Richard E. Thibodeau Jr., who […]
Posted inLetters
D. Houghton: Cut foreign aid
Where is all the taxpayers’ money going? I would like to know when the public gave the government the right to send billions of dollars to any and all other countries that have their hands out? Did we ever vote to do that? Then the U.S. ends up borrowing money from China each year. We […]