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| 📷 Vehicles travel toward Madawaska on East Main Street in Fort Kent on Oct. 20, 2022. (BDN photo by Linda Coan O'Kresik) |
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🛣️ Leading lawmakers want the state to honor an old road promise.
◉ When the Maine Turnpike Authority was first founded in 1941, it was given the authority to build a toll road "from a point at or near Kittery in York County to a point at or near Fort Kent in Aroostook County." Fifteen years later, the road was extended to Augusta, and federal funding precluded a toll road past there.
◉ The final stretch of Interstate 95 between Bangor and Houlton opened in 1967. This leaves just over a two-hour journey from Exit 264 in Sherman along Route 11 to Fort Kent. The town also lies roughly two hours from Houlton if you take U.S. Route 1.
◉ Rep. Roger Albert, R-Madawaska, is sponsoring a measure backed by Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, and House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, that would extend the highway to the St. John Valley. A separate bill led by Jackson and Albert seeks road upgrades between Van Buren and Fort Kent.
◉ Both have public hearings before the transportation panel at 10:30 a.m. today. Watch it.
🏹 Sunday hunting supporters eye this as a compromise.
◉ Maine's blue-law ban on Sunday hunting is before the Legislature yet again in 2023. Supporters are holding a Wednesday news conference on a new bill from Rep. Sophie Warren, D-Scarborough, that looks to break the long-standing stalemate on the ban.
◉ The new measure would allow bow and crossbow hunting on Sundays. That breaks with past approaches to close the divide, including an approach that would have allowed Sunday hunting with landowner approval in a northern section of the state and barring it south of there.
◉ Sunday hunting overall is opposed by most Mainers, though most hunters support it and support rises when it is based on landowner approval, according to a state survey conducted in 2021 and 2022. Notable opponents have included southern Maine landowners and paper interests.
◉ Warren's bill is backed by the group leading a lawsuit heading to the state's high court looking to throw out the Sunday hunting ban based on Maine's new right to food. |
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What we're reading
🏦 Maine's two senators split on the federal response to two bank collapses, while Mainers should not worry about their money at this point.
⭐ He used to sleep at Bangor's warming center. Now he works there.
🚰 New federal PFAS standards are stricter than ours, Maine Public reports.
💎 A couple seeking to mine lithium want state law changes, the Maine Monitor reports.
🛫 The Englishmen whose drunken behavior forced a flight to land in Bangor were sentenced to time served. Here's your soundtrack.
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