Portland Greens

Portland Green Independents Champion Rejection of Corporate Personhood

2012-01-22T06:38:00.001-08:00

The Portland Green-Independent Party commends the Portland City Council for its passage of a resolution calling for a Constitutional amendment abolishing the concept of “corporate personhood.”

The Council passed the resolution in a 6-2 decision Wednesday night. The resolution specifically calls on Maine’s Congressional representatives to support a Constitutional amendment overturning the Supreme Court’s recent, highly controversial decision, Citizens United v. FEC. That ruling allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political advertising, thus further entrenching the influence of powerful business interests in elections. Councilor and Green Party member, David Marshall introduced the resolution, which he helped draft with members of the Portland Greens, the League of Young Voters and Occupy Maine protesters. The resolution was co-sponsored by Councilor Kevin Donoghue and Mayor Michael Brennan.

Though the resolution is largely symbolic, it nonetheless generated over an hour of public testimony from concerned citizens from in and around Portland. While Councilor Cheryl Leeman, one of the two dissenting votes, along with Councilor John Coyne, questioned whether it is the City Council’s place to take a stand on such a broad, national issue, most of the resolution’s proponents who showed up for the vote believed it is.

“It is absolutely the business of the City Council,” said Portland Green, Anna Trevorrow in her public comments. “The community has come together and asked you to make a statement.”

The Portland Greens offer their gratitude to the City Councilors who voted in favor of the resolution and to Councilor Marshall for proposing the measure. We also extend our thanks to the various local progressive groups who worked with us on crafting the language of the resolution—specifically members of Occupy Maine and the Portland branch of the League of Young Voters.

"The PGIC looks forward to taking this fight to end corporate personhood to the next level. We hope others will join us in our efforts," said Adam Marletta, Chair of the Portland Green Independent Committee.

Portland Greens run strong races in 2011

2011-11-15T16:22:00.000-08:00

During the 2011 election, the Maine Green Independent Party endorsed three candidates for municipal office in Portland. While none won their individual election, they all surely changed the debate and forced their opponents to adopt their issues. We thank and appreciate all who chose to run and look forward to the 2012 campaign!

David Marshall sought the newly created office of directly-elected mayor. Marshall, who has served on the Portland City Council since 2006, was one of the primary catalysts for the directly elected mayoral position. He ran his campaign speaking about five issues: investing in school buildings, growing population in the downtown districts, getting homes and businesses off of oil, stimulate economic development with better mass transit and creating a 24 hour pothole guarantee. He ran an extremely competitive campaign in which a number of candidates raised more money than he did, but several of them finished well below him. He finished in fourth place of 15 candidates after knocking on 20,000 doors and having thousands of conversations with people across the city. His campaign also trained many new activists to the Portland committee and established a citywide information database which will help all Greens who seek office in Portland in the future be more competitive.

Josephine Okot sought to become the first person of African birth to ever hold office in Maine by seeking the school board at-large position. A mother of two and social worker by profession, Okot ran on the promise that when elected, she would force the city’s school board to focus more on the issues of school violence and bullying. She also sought to increase city graduation rates by helping more students meet mentors. Lastly, Okot wanted to save taxpayer money and create a culture of public transportation by getting middle and high school onto public transit whenever possible. She ran a strong, Green campaign and met many people who strongly support the notion that Portland’s immigrant community needs a voice on the school board. She gained nearly 5,800 votes and won several polling precints against the incumbent while finishing with just under 40% of the vote.

Lastly, Dr. Jack (John) Safarik sought the office of Water District Trustee. Safarik, who has run as a Green Independent in the past for State Representative, pushed forward the issues of maintaining the watershed and making sure that large water companies such as Nestle and Poland Spring would not be able to compromise the regional water supply. Safarik obtained about 33% of the vote in a two-way race.

The Portland Green Independent Committee and the Maine Green Independent Party are extremely proud of our 2011 candidates and appreciate all of the hard work and dedication they put forth. The issues they supported are not forgotten and will continue to change Portland for the better. We look forward to the 2012 campaign and the struggle for a more sustainable and just future.

Greens Come Out On Top in League of Young Voters’ Endorsement Slate

2011-10-02T17:57:00.000-07:00

The Maine League of Young Voters announced their endorsements last week for Portland, municipal candidates including the historic mayor’s race. The Portland Green Party’s slate of candidates came out on top in every race in which they are running.

In the race for mayor, both Green Independent candidates, sitting city councilor David Marshall and former Green state legislator John Eder, received endorsements within the top 3 rank recommendations, with Marshall receiving the first-place endorsement.. The mayoral election will be decided by ranked-choice voting.

Josephine Okot, the Green Party candidate for at-large school board who is seeking to become the first African immigrant to win office in Maine, earned the League’s endorsement over the incumbent candidate.

John (Jack) Safarik, PhD., the Green Party candidate running for water board of trustees on protecting the local watershed from privatization and pollution, also earned the League’s endorsement.

Liberalizing drug laws not at odds with fighting poverty

2011-09-15T18:11:00.000-07:00

A columnist who called marijuana advocates 'selfish' misses the point on the war on drugs.

Thank you for Greg Kesich's recent column highlighting the issue of poverty and the mayoral campaign. It is a much-needed discussion and one I hope you will continue to bring up.

However, I take serious issue with his insinuation that reforming marijuana laws is not a means of fighting poverty. More than handouts, poor and working people need justice to escape poverty.

The federal government's unjust drug laws have kept millions impoverished by putting otherwise law-abiding citizens in prison, handing out large fines and ruinous criminal records for the minor offense of marijuana possession.

Many respected commentators, including many in law enforcement, agree that the "war on drugs" has needlessly increased our prison population and placed more in poverty.

Nicholas Kristof writes in The New York Times that the "big problem with the drug war is that it has exacerbated poverty and devastated the family structure Partly that's because drug laws are enforced inequitably."

The unfair and arbitrary enforcement of marijuana laws continues the cycle of poverty.

Had the petition directing law enforcement to make marijuana offenses the lowest possible priority been placed on the Portland ballot, it would have been a boost in fighting poverty in our city.

Selfishly, Kesich chose to ignore the facts on marijuana reform and take shots at activists who have been working to end poverty in Portland for the last decade.

The condemnation of Sensible Portland's efforts willfully ignored the facts on the benefits of marijuana reform for Portland's working and poor residents.

Thomas MacMillan

Portland

Portland Greens present strong field of candidates in 2011

2011-09-11T04:40:00.000-07:00

Four Green Independents in Portland are running for three municipal offices this coming November. John Eder and David Marshall are running to be Portland's first elected mayor since 1923, Josephine Okot is running to serve on the Portland School Board as an at-large representative and Dr. John (Jack) Safarik is running for Portland's seat on the Water District board.

John Eder was first elected to office in 2002 as the West End's state representative. He served the people of Portland in Augusta from 2002-2006. As state representative, Eder advocated for single payer health, initaited a resolution advocating against the 2003 invasion of Iraq while passing a law which protected Maine school children by limiting the chemicals which could be used in public schools. Eder also served on the Cumberland County Charter Commission which wrote the first county charter. He lives on Gray Street with his wife, Suzanne.

David Marshall was first elected to Portland's City Council representing District 2, which includes all of the West End, Parkside and Arts District. Since becoming a city councilor in 2006 at the age of 28, Marshall has pushed for numerous reforms; he lead the movement to protect and grow the art economy in downtown Portland and helped push for a taxing agreement which has spurred significant downtown growth. He lead the push to rewrite the city charter and move towards the elected mayor position. One of his biggest goals as prospective mayor is to further weatherize all public buildings and increase the city's consumption of cleaner energy and move towards a post-oil economy. He lives on Pine Street.

Josephine Okot is a longtime Portland resident and a first time candidate for office. Okot immigrated to the Maine from Sudan in 2000 and attended Portland schools, including King Middle School, Portland High School and the University of Southern Maine. The 29 year old graduated from University of Southern Maine with a degree in social work and currently works for United Somali Women advocating as a youth educator. Okot ranks ending school bullying as the top issue she will to work on while in office, while also advocating for better transportation for middle and high school students and stronger ties for mentoring programs. Okot has two children, one of whom attends Ocean Avenue School.

John Safarik (M.A., Ph.D.), a Portland homeowner, is originally from Illinois and is semi-retired. He and his wife Sharon settled in Maine 16 years ago, having lived in several other states. Safarik’s education includes studies of geology, chemical engineering, history of science, and political theory. He has written science articles, taught high-school history and university logic, participated in seismic survey, and worked for five federal agencies as a software writer. Travels in the underdeveloped world have impressed him with the vital importance of safe and plentiful water for all as something never to be taken for granted. Presently he is concerned with the ongoing property development on the Lake Sebago shores as a potential source of water pollutants. He also questions the legitimacy of unrestricted commercial extraction of water from what is properly regarded as a public asset. Safarik is a Rosemont resident.

If you would like to get in touch with any of the campaigns above, please e-mail portlandgreens@gmail.com

Ever Thought of Running for Office...?

2011-05-10T18:18:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought about running for office?

Portland Greens Want You!

2011 is an election year in Portland for municipal positions.

The Portland Green Independent Committee is seeking candidates for:

   School Board
   City Council
   Water District

As well as 2012 legislative offices in Portland and across Maine.

YOU can be part of the Green movement for transparency and a better Portland!
*Did you know...that Portland has the most elected Greens per-capita in the United States?*

If you have ever thought about running for these offices or others, contact the Portland Greens:
PortlandGreens@gmail.com
207-699-1321
http://portlandgreens.blogspot.com/

Maine Greens are more than a political party. We are Mainers who believe that values are what can save this State, her People, this Country and the World. Values are what set us apart. Values are what we place our belief in, what we raise our families on, go to our jobs with, and expect our elected
officials to uphold.

What We Stand For:
     * Grassroots Democracy
     * Social Justice And Equal Opportunity
     * Ecological Wisdom
     * Non-Violence
     * Decentralization
     * Community-based Economics And Economic Justice
     * Feminism And Gender Equity
     * Respect For Diversity
     * Personal And Global Responsibility
     * Future Focus And Sustainability

2011-03-30T14:37:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/03/29/politics/mural%E2%80%99s-planned-move-to-portland-city-hall-all-but-disintegrates/?ref=latest

As criticism of removal mounts, where will the mural go?

PORTLAND, Maine — The president of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts sent a scathing letter Tuesday to Maine Gov. Paul LePage for removing a labor-themed mural from the Department of Labor headquarters as the status of the disputed artwork remains in limbo and its location remains a secret.

The 36-foot mural was taken down over the weekend after LePage said it was too biased in favor of organized labor and wasn’t in line with his pro-business agenda. The mural was installed in 2008 and depicts Maine’s long labor history with images of millworkers, labor strikes and child laborers among its scenes.

In a letter faxed to LePage’s office, Mount Holyoke College President Lynn Pasquarella said she has “grave concerns” about the decision to remove the mural, which includes a depiction of 1902 Mount Holyoke graduate and former U.S. Labor Secretary Frances Perkins. The U.S Department of Labor in Washington is housed in the Frances Perkins Building, she said.

“I was particularly surprised to read that you were influenced by an anonymous fax comparing the 11-panel mural to North Korean political propaganda, because the act of removing images commemorating Maine’s history itself conjures thoughts of rewriting history prevalent in totalitarian regimes,” she wrote.

LePage was in Florida on Tuesday and unavailable for comment, spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett said.

Labor advocates, artists and others have protested the removal of the mural, calling it an insult to Maine’s workers. It’s now in storage, but administration officials won’t say where.
LePage said the mural could be put on display at some other place, but so far nobody has committed to taking it.

The board of directors of the Museum L-A in Lewiston met Tuesday and reiterated its position that the mural should remain at the Department of Labor. The board also said it would be willing to accept the mural on loan, but put off making a final decision until it receives more information from the Department of Labor, said Executive Director Rachel Desgrosseilliers.

The board wants answers to questions such as who would insure the mural, how would it be transported and how long an exhibit would last, Desgrosseilliers said. There’s also a bit of discomfort with all the controversy surrounding the mural, she said.

“I’m a little worried that the artwork itself and the message of the art is going to get lost in the shuffle,” she said. “It’s a major part of our history in Maine, labor history, and it’s very important to keep the memory of those stories going, both good and bad. You can learn from both.”
A Portland city councilor who had offered City Hall as a possible temporary site for the piece has now changed his mind.

“I think it’s pretty clear people want it to be rehung at the Department of Labor,” said David Marshall, who is an artist and art gallery owner.

Critics are also questioning whether the removal was legal under state law and if it breached the contract between the Department of Labor and artist Judy Taylor, who lives in Tremont and spent a year creating the piece. Officials said it was funded through a $60,000 award using mostly federal money.

Portland attorney Jon Beal said he has been meeting with artists and labor advocates and plans to file a lawsuit this week challenging the mural’s removal.

Beal said he has sent emails to the governor’s office and the Maine State Museum stating his objections. He’s also asked where the mural is now located, who removed it and how much it cost to take it down, but he hasn’t heard back.

“It’s a little disheartening,” he said.

2011-03-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

Portland Daily Sun

http://portlanddailysun.me/news/story/marshall-announce-mayoral-run

Marshall to announce mayoral run

By David Carkhuff

Mar 25, 2011 12:00 am

In a press event scheduled for Monday, City Councilor David Marshall is expecting to formally announce his candidacy for mayor of Portland.

"I'm going to explain my vision for the city and just talk about some of the accomplishments I've had on City Council," Marshall said Thursday in an interview. The announcement is scheduled at a press conference 9 a.m. Monday at City Hall.

A registered Green Independent, Marshall is the first sitting councilor to announce a run for the mayor's office.

The mayor's position, newly created by public vote, is a nonpartisan office and has attracted a diverse range of candidates. Marshall is part of a field of candidates that include Republican Erick Bennett, who announced last Monday he's running for mayor.

Other potential candidates who have picked up candidate registration forms for the mayor's race include Zouhair Bouzrara, Charles Bragdon, Jed Rathband and Christopher Vail. Rathband announced his run in recent months.

Marshall said he has shown he can get things done as an elected official.

In 2006, Marshall first won election to the City Council and won re-election in 2009, "with a platform based on the growing the creative economy, sustainability and neighborhood empowerment for the next generation of economic growth," Marshall reported in a press release.

"I'm dedicated to the city, I've been a homeowner here for over 10 years, I have a business on Congress Street downtown and I'm fully committed to seeing Portland recover from the economy and see it become competitive nationally and internationally," he said.

Asked how he would interact with new Republican Gov. Paul LePage, Marshall said he doesn't support the governor's policies, but that "as an independent person who does not have ties to the major parties," he would be able to work with either party.

In his release, Marshall ticked off a list of accomplishments, including: initiating the successful change to reinstate elections for the mayor; originating the Creative Economy Tax Increment Financing District, which received the Innovations in American Government Bright Idea Award from Harvard University; chairing the Skatepark Committee to raise funds, design and construct the Portland Skatepark; stewarding the Energy Service Contract to create green jobs and save $1.5 million in energy each year by investing $9.4 million into 45 municipal buildings; leading the defeat of a proposed moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries and authoring the zoning to permit dispensaries; advocating against locating the JFK Aircraft Carrier as a floating musuem next to the Eastern Waterfront; negotiating the relocation of West End Community Policing to the Reiche Community Center; creating Green Building Codes for municipal buildings and tax assisted developments; coordinating opposition to block an earmark that would have funded the widening of I-295 through the Portland peninsula; organizing a statewide effort to fund the Amtrak Downeaster Train and extend it to Brunswick; empowering the St. John Valley Neighborhood to plan improvements, form an association and secure funds for streetscape investments; securing investments in the Reiche Community Center; and co-chairing the Creative Economy Steering Committee, which resulted in the formation of Creative Portland, a quasi-governmental nonprofit dedicated to the creative economy.

Candidate registration forms allow hopefuls for office to record their campaign donations, in compliance with the Campaign Reports and Finances Law, according to Kathy Jones, acting city clerk.
Nomination papers are not available until July 1. When the nomination documents become available, at least 300 signatures will be needed for a candidate to successfully file for office, Jones explained. The filing period is from Aug. 15 to Aug. 29, she said.

2011-03-16T15:24:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND DAILY SUN

http://portlanddailysun.me/news/story/new-voting-system-may-require-old-counting-system

New voting system may require old counting system

By Matt Dodge

Mar 16, 2011 12:00 am

In November, Portland citizens voted to create the position of a popularly elected mayor for the first time in 88 years using a system of rank choice voting (RCV) that advocates say ensures a winner who reflects the will of the majority of the electorate. .

But the new election system, which asks voters to pick their first, second, and third choices, may force the city to use an old vote-counting practice – counting the votes by hand.

Portland’s vote tabulating machines cannot process ballots based on RCV without a major upgrade, forcing the city to either rent newer equipment or count next November’s mayoral ballots by hand.
With Linda Cohen stepping down from the job of city clerk in January, the decision will have to wait until a replacement is found as the clerk handles all election matters within the city.

“We’re in a holding pattern,” said Nicole Clegg, city spokesperson.

The clerk's office has explored a few options, but Clegg said the city will wait until a new clerk is hired to make a final decision. “There are a variety of different ways you can do this that run the gamut from $80,000 to rent ballot boxes, software, memory cards and ballots to a few thousand [dollars] for a hand count,” she said.

Currently the cost for a city-wide election is $60,000, including staff at the polling places, according to Clegg.

“We’ve contacted three different companies that offer three different approaches, two of which would involve using existing ballot boxes,” said Clegg. One company would tally votes with Portland’s existing machines and use scanners and software to read the ranked choices if there is no clear winner, at a cost of $20,000.

The city could also opt to hand-count ballots, a process which would yield results one to two days after the election.

But the vote-tallying process doesn't have to be as expensive as Clegg suggests, said John Silvestro, president of Massachusetts-based election services company LHS Associates. Depending on the number of candidates vying for the job of Portland mayor, the company could either upgrade the city’s existing equipment or rent out a set of machines for election day.

“It’s all based on the size, layout and complexity of the ballot. Machines can be upgraded for a small ballot with only a few candidates. If there are only three choices there is a chance we could upgrade the [machine’s] firmware, but if there are 10 choices, it can’t be done,” said Silvestro, citing the a lack of memory space on the city’s existing machines.

In meetings last June, Charter Commission member Nathan Smith said the machines “could be programmed to handle [ranked choice voting],” according to minutes on the city’s website, estimating that the cost of reprogramming would be $30,000.

But seeing as November’s mayoral election will be the first opportunity for a non-city councilor to hold the position in 88 years, Silvestro said a simple upgrade might not suffice.

“I can’t give an estimate until I meet with somebody in Portland, but if the information the [interim clerk] provided is correct, it could be as low as $10,000 plus cost of ballots,” said Silvestro. The cost is largely determined by the number of candidates in the race and the number and populations of the city’s voting precincts.

“If the information was incorrect, it could go as high as $30,000 plus the ballot, but I would say it would never be higher than $50,000,” said Silvestro. “The expensive part comes in that you need to print whole different set of ballots to use separate machines [and] those can run 20 to 25 cents a piece.
Some elected officials said they expect a crowded field of candidates come November, and doubt any one candidate will earn the 50 percent of the vote necessary to prevent the race from being decided on second and third place choices.

“I think it would be surprising if someone took 50 percent plus one vote in the first round, I think it’s likely we would have to go to a second of third round before we’re able to find someone with a clear majority,” said Dave Marshall, a Portland city councilor.

“I wouldn't be surprised if we have 10 to12 [candidates] on the ballot,” said Ben Chipman, District 119 state representative and a member of the Charter Commission which pushed the elected mayor/RCV voting measure.

For Portland’s first go-around with RCV, Chipman said he favors a traditional hand count of the votes — a system he said would not only save the city money, but add a air of transparency to what, for some, in an unnervingly newfangled system of voting.

“I’ve encouraged the clerk's office to do a hand count because I think it’s really important we don't have anyone suspicious about how votes are counted since it’s our first time doing it,” said Chipman.
“RCV is not an easy thing to explain or understand, so I think it’s absolutely critical that we have the first RCV that's being done anywhere in Maine be counted by hand and I think it’s the probably easiest way out of issue of costs,” he said. “The last thing we want is to have a cloud of suspicion cast over the results.”

Portland Green Party chair and former Charter Commission member Anna Trevorrow also said she supported the idea of a hand count in November to acclimate voters to the new system.

“It’s old fashioned, but it’s tried and true,” said Trevorrow, who extols the educational benefits of the hand count system. “When you go through the process, that's when you start to understand how the system works. It would get people familiar with system and help them to understand how we arrive at the outcome,” she said.

2011-03-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

PRESS HERALD

Graffiti plan calls for cleanup by property owners
Officials say it might be a challenge to pass the ordinance, which calls for $250 to $500 fines.

http://www.pressherald.com/news/graffiti-plan-calls-for-cleanup-by-property-owners_2011-03-09.html

By Dennis Hoey dhoey@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

PORTLAND — City officials are considering an anti-graffiti ordinance that's aimed at making Portland a more inviting place to live and do business.

The ordinance would require property owners who are "tagged" by graffiti vandals to remove the graffiti within 10 days after being notified by the city. Any property owner who does not could be fined $250, and $500 for subsequent violations.

Proponents say studies have shown that the faster graffiti is removed, the less likely vandals are to return.

Members of the City Council's Public Safety Committee responded favorably to the proposal Tuesday night, but acknowledged that passing it could be a challenge.

"I do feel we need to do something," said Councilor David Marshall. "But I recognize this is going to be a contentious issue."

The ordinance was proposed by the city's Community Police Advisory Board, a group made up of residents, business owners, the religious community and educators.

It was developed in conjunction with Trish McAllister, the city's neighborhood prosecutor.

"Graffiti is a visual symbol of disorder and lawlessness," McAllister wrote in a memo that was presented to the committee. "It contributes to a downward spiral of blight and decay, decreasing property values, lessening business viability, and adversely affecting tax revenues."

McAllister said the proposed ordinance is not intended to "re-victimize" property owners, but to hold negligent property owners responsible when they ignore the problem.

The proposal says the anti-graffiti law would not be enforced from Jan. 1 to April 30 because of weather considerations.

The sale of graffiti tools to anyone younger than 18 would be illegal, and parents of minors caught committing graffiti vandalism could be held responsible for removal costs.

Committee members said the ordinance needs further tuning before it can be presented to the council for consideration. They tabled the proposal until their meeting April 12.

Also Tuesday night, the Public Safety Committee considered a request from the Police Department to have the social service agency Preble Street enforce a code of conduct for its clients, saying it would make that neighborhood safer.

Police Cmdr. Vern Malloch told committee members that Preble Street "has inadvertently and unintentionally created a dangerous environment" by promoting a low-barrier policy -- which allows Preble Street to serve the destitute and homeless without requiring clients to abide by a code of conduct.

Police are seeking the City Council's support to have the low-barrier policy changed.

"Social workers do not share information with officers and frequently will not identify wanted persons, creating a sanctuary atmosphere," Malloch said in a memo to the committee. "The establishment of a code of conduct coupled with a commitment to share information with police is what is needed."

Preble Street's associate director, John Bradley, said social workers are bound by confidentiality laws. He said Preble Street welcomes a police presence and would be willing to meet with police to find common ground.

"If this were a bar, we'd have to close it down," Marshall said, referring to the 438 calls for service at Preble Street in 2010. "But it's not. It's a homeless shelter. Obviously, we have some work to do here."

Committee members told the Police Department to meet with Preble Street and work out a more effective system for rooting out behavior that could lead to drug trafficking, intimidation or violence. Malloch agreed to return April 12 with a progress report.

In another matter, the Public Safety Committee recommended that the City Council approve an ordinance that would make it easier to prosecute the owners of "disorderly houses."

City officials say the current law is ineffective.

Staff Writer Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at: dhoey@pressherald.com

Portland Greens will Meet on Second Sundays Monthly

2011-02-17T14:51:00.000-08:00

Join the PGIC every second Sunday of the month for a potluck social at noon!

The next social will follow the PGIC monthly meeting, 03/13/2011 @ the Meg Perry Center, 644 Congress St.

2011-02-05T09:57:00.000-08:00

Portland residents, progressives, activists, organizers, artists, entreprenuers, friends, families, and the politically frustrated,

Join members of the Green Independent Party in a potluck social...

Sunday, February 13th, 12:00 - 1:00 @ the Meg Perry Center, 644 Congress St., Portland

If you like the Ten Key Values and you believe party diversity is good for democracy, then you'll enjoy this community event.

For more info, email portlandgreens@gmail.com

Please note: The social will be preceded by the monthly meeting of the PGIC, and followed by the monthly meeting of the MGIP. See below for full day schedule & details.

Sunday, 02/13/2011
Meg Perry Center
644 Congress St.
Portland, ME 04101

11:00 - 12:00, Monthly meeting of the PGIC (open to all registered Green Independent Portland residents)
12:00 - 1:00, Green Social, Public Welcome!
1:00 - 2:00, Monthly meeting of the MGIP (open to all registered Green Independent Maine residents)

2011-01-17T06:15:00.000-08:00

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Don't forget to join the march this afternoon from Prebble Street to City Hall, beginning at 2:00 p.m. The march and
rally are hosted by the NAACP.

March Against Anti-Immigrant LePage Executive Order!

This Monday, Jan. 17, 1pm in Portland!
Last week, Maine became less welcoming to immigrants and refugees when Governor Lepage signed an Executive Order allowing state officials to inquire about immigration status of those who approach their agencies. Our nation and state have always been beacons of liberty and freedom. Nobody should freeze to death, starve to death or die of a treatable disease because they are afraid to approach state officials.

Let’s model a Welcoming Maine!

What: Community Conversation at 1pm followed by a March at 2pm
Where: Preble Street Resource Center, March to City Hall
Who: At City Hall at 2:15pm, come hear community leaders speak about Lepage's first action as Governor, and find out ways to take action.

Maine should be a welcoming place so our economy and communities can thrive. Join us Monday at 1pm at Preble Street for a community conversation. In the tradition of community action on Martin Luther King Day, the community conversation will be followed by a march. Join us at 2pm to march from Preble Street to City Hall. We will stand in solidarity and model a welcoming Maine.

Hope to see you there!!!

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PGIC Featured in Portland Phoenix

2011-01-03T16:52:00.000-08:00

From the Portland Phoenix:

2011 predictions: Winds of chance

By DEIRDRE FULTON | December 29, 2010

Maine Greens
For years, local and state Green Partiers have worked to raise awareness and support around two issues: bringing an elected mayor to Portland, and ranked-choice voting, the electoral system where voters indicate their candidates in order of preference. In 2011, as both those concepts become reality in Portland, Greens will take the next logical steps.

"The party will be gearing up for a Green mayor run in 2011," says Anna Trevorrow, chair of the Portland Green Independent Committee and steering committee member of the state party, for which she also serves as spokesperson. She doesn't say who, yet, but voters can expect to see a Green Party representative running this fall. "To give names at this point would be a bit premature. No one has officially declared. We can say that with the experience our members have gained over the years in elected office, we have some strong prospects from among our ranks," Trevorrow says.

The party also plans to leverage the state's first experience with ranked-choice voting (which will be used in the elected mayor campaign) to "liven the RCV buzz" around Maine, Trevorrow says in an e-mail to the Phoenix. The MGIP "is working on expanding local committee infrastructure throughout the state, focusing on key municipalities and regions," she adds, both in "key urban areas, which are prime to develop (or in some cases re-develop) strong local committees, and [in] rural areas where our membership base has been under-developed."

Read the full article

Portland Green Independent Committee Elects Officers, Sets Sights on 2011 Mayor Race

2011-01-03T16:43:00.000-08:00

Portland: The Portland Green Independent Committee held its annual meeting on Saturday, December 18^th. At the annual meeting the PGIC elected new officers and outlined party goals for the upcoming year. Newly elected officers include Anna Trevorrow, Chair; Anthony Zeli, Secretary; and Seth Berner, Treasurer.

Trevorrow has served as Chair of the Maine Green Independent Party State Steering Committee, and as an elected member of the Portland Charter Commission. Most recently, Trevorrow ran for State Representative in Portland’s 120th District. Zeli currently serves as Treasurer of the Maine Green Independent Party, and ran for Portland's District 2 School Committee seat in 2009. Berner is a longtime peace & justice activist who owns his own law practice. He recently ran for State Representative in Portland’s 115th District.

“This is an important year for the PGIC,” said Trevorrow, “The PGIC is well-known for its work to establish an elected mayoral position in Portland. That work has culminated, this year, in a mayor position to be popularly elected by a system of ranked choice voting next November. We plan to run a vigorous Green Mayor campaign, and to do public education surrounding the ranked choice system. Inspired by the near-victory on municipal Question 4 this November, we also plan to continue work on the issue of legal resident voting rights.”

Green Independent City Councilors David Marshall and Kevin Donoghue advocated for an elected mayor proposal during their first terms in office, and Marshall later became a proponent of forming the 2009 Portland Charter Commission to examine the issue. Green Independent elected Charter Commissioners Trevorrow and Ben Chipman were instrumental in shaping the elected mayor proposal put forth by the Charter Commission. The proposal passed at the polls this November.

Portland Green Independents to Hold Caucus

2010-02-10T09:43:00.000-08:00

Press Release

For Immediate Release

February 10, 2010

Contact: David Marshall, Chair

(207) 409-6617

PortlandGreens@gmail.com

Portland Green Independents to Hold Caucus

Event scheduled for Saturday at 11:00 a.m. at Portland City Hall

Portland, Maine – Heading into Saturday’s caucus, Portland Green Independents have something to be excited about. According to new figures released by the Secretary of State’s Office, the number of registered Greens in Portland has increased. There are now over 2,600 registered party members in Maine’s largest city.

“The growing registration figures are really encouraging. People continue to look to the Greens Independent Party as a viable voice for sound public policy and decision making in local government,” said David Marshall, Chair of the Portland Green Independent Committee.

At the caucus, scheduled for Saturday at 11:00 a.m. at Portland City Hall, party members will discuss candidates, platform issues, voter registration, and fundraising.

“The caucus is a great opportunity for Green Independents to discuss platform ideas and learn about upcoming elections. We are seeking candidates for this year's elections including the State Legislature and City Council. Come share your ideas with us,” said Marshall.

The caucus is open to all registered Green Independents. Staff from the City Clerk’s Office will also be attending the event. Anyone who is not registered as a Green Independent may do so at the caucus and participate. For more information, email PortlandGreens@gmail.com or call (207) 409-6617.

Support Instant Run-off (Rank Choice) Voting for Portland!

2010-01-14T08:13:00.001-08:00

PORTLAND CHARTER COMMISSION PUBLIC HEARING

When: Thursday, January 14th
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Where: Portland City Hall in Council Chambers

The Portland Charter Commission is considering Instant Run-off Voting for future local elections. Come speak out in favor of this important election reform!

What is Instant Run-off Voting?

Instant Run-off Voting is a revolutionary new way of voting. The candidate who is elected must have over 50% support and there are no "spoilers".

Here's how it works. As a voter you can rank candidates in order of preference, 1st choice, 2nd choice, etc. If no candidate receives over 50%, the 2nd choice votes of the candidate receiving the lowest percentage are re-allocated accordingly. With IRV you can vote for your favorite candidates in order of preference and never be helping elect your least favorite candidate or "throwing away your vote".

Others cities across the country have used IRV for several years, including Burlington, Vermont. Now we have a chance to implement it for future Portland elections. Hope to see you tonight!

If you can not attend tonight and would like to be updated on future events or would like more information, please feel free to call Ben Chipman at (207) 318-4961.

Tonight! Charter Commission Hearing 6pm City Hall

2009-07-16T11:11:00.001-07:00

PORTLAND CHARTER COMMISSION TO HOLD FIRST PUBLIC HEARING

Hearing will be held Thursday, July 16 at 6:00 p.m. at City Hall

Public participation is encouraged

Portland, Maine – The first of several public hearings by the Portland Charter Commission will be held on July 16, Portland City Council Chambers, starting at 6 p.m.

“At this first public hearing we want to receive input as to what the public thinks are the problems and issues that should be addressed by the Commission over the next several months,” said Pamela Plumb, Chair of the Commission.

The Portland Charter Commission was established by the voters in 2008, with the members elected in June of 2009. In addition to 9 elected members, with one from each district and 4 at-large members, there are also 3 members appointed by the City Council. State law governs the makeup and procedures for the work of the Commission. By next June, the Commission should have a final report on its recommendations for Charter changes, with the possibility of an extension of that date if needed. Those changes would then go to the voters for approval.

At least two issues spurred the desire to have a Commission review the City Charter; the call for a mayor elected by the voters, and the need to have greater City control over School budgeting. The Commission is not limited to consideration of only those issues, however; the whole Charter is open to review.

“The Commission is very interested hearing from the public. There will be several ways to impact the Commission’s work including participating in public hearings, attending or watching televised business meetings and submitting written comments and suggestions by mail and email. We hope and plan for the widest possible participation”, said Plumb.

Information on the Portland Charter Commission may be found at www.portlandmaine.gov\2009CharterCommission.

Equality Phone Banking with the Portland Greens

2009-07-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

Join the Portland Greens on Thursday in a pot luck and phone banking effort to help protect marriage equality in the State of Maine. The pot luck and phone bank will take the place of our usual business meeting. Here are the details and please RSVP by sending an email to portlandgreens@gmail.com and let me know if you will donate cell phone minutes to the effort.

5:30 Meet at Equality Maine Headquarters at 1 Pleasant Street 2nd Floor and bring food, your cell phones, and cell phone chargers
5:30 - 6:15 EQ ME Organizers will train us in the phone script for calling voters
6:15 - 8:30 Call voters
8:30 - 9:00 Debriefing

Please RSVP by sending an email to portlandgreens@gmail.com and let me know if you will donate cell phone minutes to the effort. We need your help marriage equality based on three of the Key Values of the Portland Greens!

1. GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY
Every human being deserves a say in the decisions that affect their lives and not be subject to the will of another. Therefore, we will work to increase public participation at every level of government and to ensure that our public representatives are fully accountable to the people who elect them. We will also work to create new types of political organizations which expand the process of participatory democracy by directly including citizens in the decision-making process.

2. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
All persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment. We must consciously confront in ourselves, our organizations, and society at large, barriers such as racism and class oppression, sexism and homophobia, ageism and disability, which act to deny fair treatment and equal justice under the law.

8. RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY
We believe it is important to value cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious and spiritual diversity, and to promote the development of respectful relationships across these lines.

We believe that the many diverse elements of society should be reflected in our organizations and decision-making bodies, and we support the leadership of people who have been traditionally closed out of leadership roles. We acknowledge and encourage respect for other life forms than our own and the preservation of biodiversity.

Please RSVP by sending an email to portlandgreens@gmail.com and let me know if you will donate cell phone minutes to the effort.

--
Best Wishes,

Dave Marshall
Portland Green Independent Chair
207.409.6617
portlandgreens@gmail.com
portlandgreens.blogspot.com

Donoghue and Marshall introduce Facebook and Twitter to City

2009-07-03T00:08:00.000-07:00

Social media help city reach residents

Using Facebook, Twitter and e-mail, Portland officials hope to connect with younger adults.

By TOM BELL, Staff Writer June 29, 2009

PLUG IN TO CITY NEWS

TO SIGN UP for the newsletter, visit the city's Web site, www.ci.portland.me.us.

THE CITY'S Facebook page can be viewed by searching for Portland Cityline at facebook.com.

FOLLOW CITY NEWS via Twitter; search for PortlandCitylin.

NICOLE CLEGG, the city's communication director, said she's looking for ideas from people about what to put on the sites and how often to update them. She can be reached at nicoleclegg@portlandmaine.gov.

PORTLAND — In the annals of communication breakthroughs, it was not quite up there with, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you," the words uttered by Alexander Graham Bell during the first telephone call 133 years ago.

But let it be recorded that on June 3 at 4:02 p.m., the city of Portland issued its first ever official tweet: "Bayside Trail Groundbreaking Ceremony and Festival this Saturday from 10-2 at Marginal Way and Franklin Arterial. www.tpl.org/bayside."

The city's new Twitter account is part of a larger city effort to use social networking Web sites to communicate with residents.

City residents can now check Facebook or Twitter for news from City Hall, such as traffic alerts and notices of important meetings. Residents can also sign up for an e-mail newsletter.

City officials want to reach out to younger adults who may not read newspapers or watch local television news programs, said Nicole Clegg, the city's communications director.

"The idea is to connect more people to the process and what the city is doing," she said.

As of Friday, the city had 411 Facebook fans, more than 100 Twitter followers and nearly 300 people signed up for the city's e-mail newsletter.

Clegg said she shapes the message based on the format.

On Twitter, she is limited to 140 characters, such as her tweet: "Kiwanis Pool opens in a week. Take a class, swim laps or bring the kids to the splashpark." Twitter can also be used to warn of street closures, parking bans or emergencies.

Followers can also respond. Bob O'Brien of Portland last week tweeted back to the city: "Kudos to Portland Public Works for filling that nasty pothole at Vaughn and Danforth. That was a wheel-eater!"

In an interview, O'Brien said he would never have picked up the telephone to call City Hall, but the Twitter account made it easy to give the city feedback.

"It improves access," he said.

Facebook allows for posting photos as well as plenty of text, such as Police Chief James Craig's 650-word "Letter to the Community."

Portland isn't the first southern Maine city to venture into social media. The Auburn and Westbrook police departments also have Facebook pages, for instance, as does the Gorham Recreation Department.

Clegg said the newsletter, called Cityline, will be e-mailed biweekly to avoid overwhelming people. It contains basic information, such as trash pickup changes and notices of upcoming events.

She explained that she's a novice in the use of the Internet for social networking.

She said she got the idea from Councilor Kevin Donoghue, who had asked her to include a sharing tool on the city's online press releases so he could post them on his Facebook page. (Donoghue has 1,185 friends.) She's also receiving advice from Councilor David Marshall (694 Facebook friends).

Both Donoghue and Marshall use their Facebook pages to inform their constituents about city politics and upcoming meetings and to get feedback on policy proposals.

Donoghue, for example, received 17 responses to his query this week on what people think about Tasers.

"Facebook provides a high-exposure, low-friction platform to share information," Donoghue said. "Anything we can do to open up City Hall is a good thing for the residents of Portland."

Staff Writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 791-6369 or at:

tbell@pressherald.com

Greens sprout into effective bloc in city politics

2009-06-29T07:56:00.000-07:00

Greens sprout into effective bloc in city politics

Three city councilors focus their advocacy on key issues, but critics say economic development suffers.

By TOM BELL, Staff Writer June 28, 2009

enlarge John Ewing/Staff Photographer

Portland City Council members, from left, John Anton, Kevin Donoghue and David Marshall are members of the Green Independent Party, which promotes such values as social justice and community-based economics.

WEIGHING THE GREENS

"The dynamics have changed. This council as a group generally works pretty well together." – Councilor Nicholas Mavodones

"The question is, does their success on environmental issues outweigh the Maine State Pier debacle?" – Councilor Dan Skolnik

PORTLAND — Three years after first winning seats on the Portland City Council, the Green Independent Party can claim some success in pushing its agenda through City Hall.

Political observers say the three Greens on the council have proved to be effective consensus-builders on their core issues, such as reducing the city's energy usage and revamping land-use and transportation plans to encourage more housing downtown and less reliance on automobiles.

"These are the guys who are moving and shaking," said Christopher O'Neil, the Portland Community Chamber's liaison to City Hall. "There is some question among Portlanders as to whether Portland should be moving or shaking, but the fact of the matter is ... they are the ones driving the agenda."

Critics, though, say that the Greens have put ideology ahead of economic development and that some of their ideas benefit a minority of the city's population at the expense of the majority.

The Greens on the council include Kevin Donoghue, 30, who represents the East End, and David Marshall, 31, who represents the West End. Both were elected in 2006 and plan to run for re-election this November.

The third Green member is John Anton, 44, sometimes called the "grown-up Green" because he is older and more moderate on some issues. Anton was elected two years ago to an at-large seat.

The rest of the council is made up of five Democrats and one Republican.

The Greens do have a distinct political philosophy. Founded 25 years ago, the party now claims 32,000 members statewide. Members adhere to 10 key values: grass-roots democracy; social justice and equal opportunity; ecological wisdom; nonviolence; decentralization; community-based economics and economic justice; feminism and gender equity; respect for diversity; personal and global responsibility; and future focus and sustainability.

On the Portland City Council, the Greens frequently challenge the status quo and advocate for more transparency in government and more public involvement.

On the environment, they are "urban greens," embracing the philosophy that high-density neighborhoods use land more efficiently and allow people to get around without automobiles. They believe that many of the city's policies and ordinances reflect a suburban point of view rather than the city's historic development patterns.

Many people mistakenly believe that the Greens are left of the Democrat Party, said Steven Scharf, president of the Portland Taxpayers Association and an activist in the Republican Party. But Scharf said the Greens are fiscally conservative. He noted that on the Finance Committee, Anton was a strong advocate this year for a budget with no tax increase.

He said the Greens have accomplished more in a three-year period than most city politicians have in recent history, in part because they work hard, show a willingness to compromise and have realistic goals.

"Their ideas are not so far off the wall they can't be done," he said.

The Greens' platform highlights the role of party politics on a board that is supposed to be nonpartisan. Anton, though, said the council is not as polarized by party affiliation as many people believe.

"We have a lot more in common than we are different," he said. "Plunk the City Council down in the middle of Kansas, and we'd all be seen as a bunch of left-wing freaks."

PIER PROCESS DRAWS COMPLAINTS

Critics have big complaints about the Greens' decision to back Olympia Cos. to redevelop the Maine State Pier, rather than Ocean Properties. By selecting the smaller company whose plans were in conflict with state law, over a much larger and wealthier company, the Greens assured that nothing would be done, said Councilor Dan Skolnik.

When Olympia Cos. pulled out and the council then endorsed Ocean Properties, Marshall spoke so harshly against Ocean Properties' business practices that

his comments might have caused the company to pull out of the deal, Skolnik said.

In the end, nothing was done, the city was ridiculed, and Portland lost revenue that could have kept workers employed, Skolnik said.

"What's the better benefit?" he asked. "The question is, does their success on environmental issues outweigh the Maine State Pier debacle?"

Markos Miller, former president of the Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Association, said Donoghue has worked hard to involve residents in the planning process.

He noted that the city's effort to redesign Franklin Arterial began as a neighborhood initiative.

"He made sure City Hall was aware of it and brought us into (City Manager) Joe Gray's office," Miller said.

Harold Pachios, a lawyer who sometimes represents clients who have issues with the city, said many of the Greens' ideas – such as reducing the number of parking spaces required for new development on the peninsula – will make it harder for many people who depend on vehicles to visit or commute to the city.

He said Marshall and Donoghue in particular don't seem interested in economic development and strengthening the city's tax base.

"All the good things that Donoghue and Marshall would like to do depend on money, depend on revenue," Pachios said. "Otherwise, the schools and other services are going to suffer."

The Greens say the city is better off that the Maine State Pier projects have collapsed because the council can now more thoughtfully plan the pier development. They also say that some of their accomplishments – such as an energy audit that will guide the city as it spends nearly $700,000 in federal stimulus money on energy-saving improvements – will allow Portland to spend more money on services without raising taxes.

Marshall, who owns a downtown art gallery, said the Greens support economic development. He pointed to an ordinance he crafted that directs new property revenue in the arts district toward investments that foster the creative economy.

With the Maine State Pier issue dormant, the council in recent months has been working much more as a collective group, some members say. Some proposals are now winning unanimous approval, and partisan lines are less apparent.

"The dynamics have changed," Councilor Nicholas Mavodones said. "This council as a group generally works pretty well together."

Mayor Jill Duson, who chairs the council meetings, said Anton's ability to articulate his positions has increased his influence. She said Donoghue and Marshall, like other new councilors before them, have learned how to work with the city staff and other councilors to achieve their goals.

"I think the Greens are doing well in managing to figure out how to be effective in our group of nine," she said. "Of course, I'd like to see those seats filled by Democrats, but they are doing fine."

Staff Writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 791-6369 or at:

tbell@pressherald

See Councilor Marshall's rebuttle see http://damarshall.blogspot.com/

Proposal's goal: Fewer cars in Portland

2009-06-24T12:51:00.000-07:00

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=264072&ac=PHnws

Officials' primary focus is to boost alternative transportation in the city.

By TOM BELL, Staff Writer June 24, 2009

PORTLAND — City officials want to raise money for transit projects, such as new bus shelters and bicycle racks, by charging developers a fee instead of requiring them to create parking space.

The proposal by the Portland Peninsula Transit Study Committee is intended to give developers more flexibility and at the same time aid alternative transportation in Portland.

It's all part of a broader city initiative to make it easier for residents – eventually – to get around the city without a car.

"The presumption is that most households will own a car," City Councilor Kevin Donoghue told planners at a workshop Tuesday. "But the hope is that fewer people will use them to commute and won't have to keep them at their job."

The Planning Board is examining some of the many recommendations made by the 13-member committee, which wants to reduce the number of single-occupant vehicles and promote alternative forms of transportation.

It issued a report in December, and the City Council is expected to take up its policy proposals this summer or in the early fall.

The panel's proposals include creating more bike lanes and paths; increasing the frequency of bus service and changing bus routes; encouraging car-sharing; expanding the parking lot at the Portland Transportation Center; and increasing the number of park-and-ride locations near the Maine Turnpike and in neighboring towns.

The Planning Board is looking at the proposals that address parking. Those include:

• Adopting a "park once" strategy for commercial development by requiring developers with new projects to share parking spaces with other users in the district. The increased efficiency of sharing spaces would mean fewer spaces would be required for each developer, transit committee members say.

• Separating the cost of housing from the cost of providing parking spaces. Currently, city rules on the peninsula require that developers provide one parking space for every housing unit. As a result, the cost of the housing unit is "bundled" with the cost of parking.

By separating the cost, committee members believe, the housing units and parking spaces could be marketed separately. This would lower the cost of housing for people who don't own cars, but it would give more spaces for people willing to pay for them.

• Allowing developers to pay the city a fee in lieu of providing parking spaces. The revenue would fund alternative transportation improvements or shared parking facilities in central locations.

Planning Board members on Tuesday appeared supportive of the proposals and set a public hearing for July 14.

Christopher O'Neil, the Portland Community Chamber's liaison to City Hall, said that for the most part, developers appear to be indifferent or on board with the proposals. They appreciate the additional flexibility, he said.

Planning Board member Joe Lewis, however, expressed concern that requiring people living in new developments without parking to lease parking elsewhere could make it so expensive that only affluent people will have a place to park their cars.

Senior planner William Needelman said the proposal will not affect the supply of parking spaces and is intended to make housing more affordable.

"This is a policy that puts housing in front of parking," he said.

Donoghue, who chairs the transit committee, said the new parking rules can lower the cost of development because builders won't have to provide as much parking.

Staff Writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 791-6369 or at: tbell@pressherald.com

Portland to spend stimulus for energy uses

2009-06-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

The City Council votes to hire the city's first full-time 'sustainability coordinator.'

By TOM BELL, Staff Writer June 16, 2009

PORTLAND — The City Council voted Monday to spend nearly $700,000 in federal stimulus money to hire the city's first full-time "sustainability coordinator" and invest in energy-efficiency improvements.

Such coordinators are now common in large corporations, universities and a growing number of cities, and are typically energy conservation experts.

The council approved spending $168,000 for the position – salary and benefits for three years. It agreed to spend the rest of the money, $520,700, on energy improvements such as new lights, insulation, heating system improvements and weatherization.

The improvements will be based on recommendations of an energy audit that is due to be complete by the end of this month.

The city hired Framingham, Mass.-based Ameresco Inc. earlier this year to do a $150,000 energy audit and develop options for how the city can lower its energy bill.

The city could then decide to enter into a performance contract with Ameresco, which would act as a general contractor for the project.

If that happens, the $150,000 audit cost will be rolled into the contract. If the city does not move forward on the project, it will pay Ameresco for the audit.

The concept behind performance contracts is simple: They leverage money saved on energy and operating costs to pay for building improvements.

By using the federal stimulus dollars on the energy upgrades, the city will benefit sooner from the savings generated by the investment, said Councilor David Marshall, chairman of the council's Energy and Environmental Sustainability Committee.

"What we want is the biggest reduction in our carbon footprint for our dollar," he said.

Because of the energy audit, the savings will be easy to calculate, putting Portland in a strong position to seek more money for similar programs from the federal government, he said.

The project is on the fast track. The city will receive $250,000 from the federal government by the end of this month, and the rest of the money later this year.

Councilor Cheryl Leeman expressed concern about creating a new position when the federal funding is available for only three years.

"This is a one-time infusion of money," she said. "I don't want to hire someone and have to lay them off."

The city owns 55 buildings, not including the Portland International Jetport, which is not part of the audit, and spends roughly $8 million a year on energy.

Staff Writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 791-6369 or at: tbell@pressherald.com
Copyright 2009 by The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. All rights reserved.

Portland may seek leader for all things 'green'

2009-06-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=262437&ac=PHnws

A plan calls for hiring a full-time coordinator of sustainability efforts
By JOHN RICHARDSON, Staff Writer June 3, 2009

Portland's parks and trails have helped the city earn a reputation as an earth-friendly place.

Now some city officials and others want Portland to hire its first full-time sustainability coordinator to help make it a truly "green" community.

The coordinator would be responsible for reducing energy use and other environmental impacts, and the position initially would be backed with federal stimulus funds. City Councilor David Marshall, chairman of Portland's Energy and Environmental Sustainability Committee, plans to propose the new position at the June 15 council meeting.

The idea also has the support of other city officials, and it was a top recommendation by students from the Muskie School of Public Service who recently compared Portland's environmental efforts with those in other U.S. cities.

"There's opportunities for Portland to really establish itself as a sustainable community, and if we want to do that, the sustainability coordinator is the next step," said Kristel Sheesley, a graduate student and one of the researchers.

The students found that a coordinator could help make a long list of changes, from expanding community gardens to keeping dog waste and other pollutants out of Back Cove and Casco Bay.

Sustainability coordinators are now common in large corporations, universities and a growing number of cities, and are typically energy-conservation experts.

Marshall's committee wants to hire the coordinator for three years using part of a $684,000 energy-conservation block grant that the city expects to receive over the next few months. The City Council would decide whether to keep the position at the city's expense after three years, and Marshall said he's confident that reduced energy costs and reduced waste in other areas would more than cover the annual expense of the job.

If the full council approves the proposal this month, the coordinator could be hired this summer, officials said.

"There's always room for improvement in this area. In Portland, and every other city in this country, we have a very, very long way to go," Marshall said. "The sustainability coordinator is a key ingredient."

Overseeing Portland's energy-conservation efforts and environmental programs is now part of the job of the city's solid waste director, Troy Moon, and Moon and Marshall's two-year-old sustainability committee has been making progress, advocates say.

Last month, the city adopted energy-efficiency standards for new city-owned or city-financed buildings, for example. And a contractor is due to report back to the city this month after reviewing the energy use and conservation potential in more than 50 existing city-owned buildings.

Portland also has increased investment in reducing sewage discharges during rainstorms and is trying to encourage more alternative transportation. On Tuesday, for example, the city announced the designation of 31 new downtown parking spaces for motorized scooters and motorcycles.

"There's a lot of this stuff going on – it just needs to be expanded," said Sheesley, one of the Muskie students who studied Portland's green potential as part of a Sustainable Communities Seminar last semester.

The students interviewed local experts in a variety of areas, such as alternative energy and water quality, and compared Portland with other cities. It presented its recommendations to Marshall's sustainability committee last month.

"The common thread seemed to be for a city of its size, Portland seems to be taking a lot of steps in the right direction. At the same time, there's a lot of room for improvement," Sheesley said.

The students' recommendations ranged from getting better prepared for climate change and rising sea levels, to simply providing more waste containers near walking trails so dog owners have an easier time cleaning up after their pets. Dog waste frequently finds its way into local bodies of water.

Sheesley's own research team focused on local foods and recommended that Portland turn more city land into community gardens, among other things.

"There's a strong demand for locally produced food in Portland," she said.

The Muskie students all agreed that the city needs a full-time person devoted to energy and environmental efforts.

"Other cities around the country have positions like that. It seems to work well," Sheesley said.

Fred Padula, a Portland activist, also said the city has much work to do. One official with real authority could change wasteful practices throughout government and expand the effort into the community by helping residents take advantage of energy-efficiency programs, he said.

"You give (the coordinator) a couple of years, and if he can't save as much energy costs to the city as his salary costs, then he's not doing a good job," Padula said.

Adding a new city-financed position would be a tough sell given the city's financial condition, but the availability of federal grant money makes it much more appealing, said Councilor Nicholas Mavodones Jr., chairman of the Finance Committee.

"I think it makes sense provided this grant money is available," Mavodones said. "The money's out there and I think it would be prudent for us to take advantage of it."

Mavodones said the city could then decide in three years whether to keep the coordinator. "I'd like to think the position would more than pay for itself, but we'd have to analyze that," he said.

Moon said there are plenty of ways to reduce environmental impact and save money.

The new position "would definitely be a big help," he said. "In terms of what we're trying to accomplish there'll be no lack of things to do."

Staff Writer John Richardson can be contacted at 791-6324 or at:

jrichardson@pressherald.com

Portland Passes Green Building Codes

2009-06-02T11:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.mainebiz.biz/news44574.html

Portland passes green ordinance to encourage carbon and cash savings

By Rebekah Metzler

Mainebiz Contributing Writer

05/12/09

The Portland City Council in early April approved a building ordinance that will require all city-funded new construction and major renovation projects to be built to the Silver standard of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The ordinance, which originally was met with some opposition by the local chamber of commerce, is part of a larger effort to meet goals outlined by the Architecture 2030 Challenge, according to city officials.

The ordinance applies to city renovation projects that are more than 5,000 square feet and all new city-funded private construction and renovation projects more than 10,000 square feet. Both types of projects would also need to have a total cost of more than $250,000 for the ordinance to take effect, according to the measure. It also applies to projects receiving more than $25,000 in Tax Increment Funding or municipal grants, which meet the other project criteria.

"If you are going to get a tax break for building in the city of Portland, you are going to be building for the future," David Marshall, the city councilor who introduced the proposal, told Mainebiz. "It was a huge step in the right direction."

The goal of the challenge from Architecture 2030, a Santa Fe, N.M.-based nonprofit, is to achieve carbon neutrality for all new buildings by 2030.

Marshall said he spent many months working with developers and other potential stakeholders on the ordinance's language to diffuse potential concerns

"We wanted to pass a good ordinance, because any time you tie any sort of string to an incentive, developers may see that as an obstacle," he said.

Susan Ransom, marketing director for PDT Architects, Portland-based firm that specializes in LEED-certified buildings, said even though the economy is in a recession, it's still a good time for such a measure.

"Yes, we're in a recession, but we're talking about permanent buildings -- long-term it's going to save money and save energy and make people more comfortable in buildings," she said. "This is not just about being high-minded and doing the ‘right' thing."

The point system used for obtaining LEED certifications offers options that don't necessarily cost developers more than building a non-certified building, Ransom added.

"LEED involves a checklist so development is very individualized to the building and which ‘points' the project aims to get," she said. "Ten years ago, when LEED was first invented, it was generally considered to be a much more expensive way of building. But you can get points for using a building with existing utilities or not using an irrigation system for your landscape."

The whole point of LEED is to save resources in the long term, Ransom said, which often results in monetary savings.

Some changes were made to the proposal to address concerns raised by the local Chamber of Commerce, Marshall said.

"They didn't want to see this have negative consequences that people hadn't anticipated, so we tried to think of the different projects it would have an effect on," he said. "We raised the square footage for projects receiving tax incentives from 5,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet."

"We initially objected, but we did come along," said Chris O'Neil, of Drummond Woodsum, representing the local chamber. "In general, what they did was raise the bar, so it wasn't punitive especially in smaller projects where the certification could be cost prohibitive."

The city planning director can also issue waivers in cases where the LEED certification process might impact the character of a historical renovation project, Marshall said.

Marshall called the policy a "living" ordinance.

"We might see some hurdles come up," he said. "We're largely in new frontier of policy-making, so you have to be flexible."

2009-05-31T12:47:00.000-07:00

The West End News
http://thewestendnews.com/2009LOCALELECTIONSTORIES.html

Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Marshall to Run for Re-Election in West End
City Councilor David A. Marshall announced on March 16th that he
will seek re-election to a second three-year term representing District
2, which includes the West End, Parkside, St. John-Valley, and
University Neighborhoods. Marshall, 31, is one of two members of
the Maine Green Independent Party elected to the City Council in
2006. He succeeded Karen Geraghty in the seat, and, as yet, does not
have an opponent in the race.

Marshall is a fine art painter and owner of Constellation Gallery,
located on Congress Street in the Arts District. He has utilized his
unique position as the first professional artist elected to the City
Council to champion creative economy policies.

After the City Council passed a controversial contract zone a couple
of years ago, Marshall reached out to the residents in the
neighborhood near Valley Street, which recently fell into poverty
according to the 2000 Census. Through public forums backed by the
Muskie School, the residents of the neighborhood developed plans for
improvements. Marshall and the neighbors created a neighborhood
association.

Marshall chairs the Energy and Environmental Sustainability Comm-
ittee, and initiated an Energy Service Contract to provide for energy
saving investments in all municipal buildings.

Marshall is also the Chair of the Housing Committee.

As the Secretary/Treasurer of the Greater Portland Transit District,
also known as METRO, Marshall chairs the Marketing-Operations
Committee. He lives on Pine Street in the West End.

Monday, March 16,2009
Donoghue Announces Re-Election Campaign
City Councilor Kevin Donoghue announced on March 15th that he
will seek re-election to a second three-year term representing District
One, which includes downtown, the East End, and the Portland
islands. Donoghue, 30, is the youngest member of the City Council
and is one of two members of the Maine Green Independent Party
elected to the City Council in 2006. He is expected to be challenged
by former East End Councilor Will Gorham, who he defeated for the
seat in 2006. Gorham is currently President of the Munjoy Hill
Neighborhood Organization.

Donoghue is a graduate of the community planning program at the
Muskie School of Public Service and has enlisted students to support
several community planning efforts in District One, including creation
of a redevelopment plan for the former Adams School on Munjoy Hill,
and a neighborhood reinvestment plan for Kennedy Park using
Community Development Block Grants.

Donoghue was elected following an unsuccessful secession effort on
Peaks Island and has since worked to establish the Peaks Island
Council, on which he serves as a non-voting member. Donoghue also
serves as a director of the Casco Bay Island Transit District.

Donoghue chairs the City Council Transportation Committee and is
President of the Greater Portland Transit District, also known as
METRO. Donoghue headed the Peninsula Transit Study, a policy
effort to reduce reliance on single-occupant vehicles, and introduced
U Car Share, a popular car-sharing program with vehicles at both
Monument Square and the Maine State Pier.

Donoghue has also served on the City Council Housing Committee,
and has championed reforming zoning to remove barriers to
residential development by allowing less parking and more density. He
said he intends to continue promoting affordable housing and
alternative transportation and sharpen his focus on food security and
energy efficiency issues in his second term.

Donoghue rents an apartment with his fiance, Krista Mitschele, a
social worker, on Munjoy Hill. His official business calendar is
available for public viewing at kevindonoghue.blogspot.com

2009-02-25T08:14:00.000-08:00

EXCITING NEWS! Several LOCAL GREENS were recently nominated for the 2009 Phoenix Best of Portland poll in multiple categories including:
BEST ACTIVIST, BEST POLITICIAN, BEST DANCE PERFORMER AND MORE!!!

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GREENS!!
VOTE HERE:
http://thephoenix.com/thebest/Portland/Vote/

2009-02-04T11:18:00.000-08:00

Portland Green-Independent Party announces:
Logo Design CONTEST

CALL-TO-ARTISTS to design the new logo for the Green-Independent Party!

Rules of the Contest:

1. The logo must encapsulate, in some way, the Green Party's 10 Key Values and of course it needs to be hip! See http://www.gp.org/index.php
2. Artists must be residents of Portland (NOTE: This contest is non-partisan and for all ages)
3. Deadline is April 6th

Submissions will be be voted on via Instant Run-Off Voting at the Portland Green-Independent Party Meeting, SUNDAY, APRIL 19TH.

We will have a 1st Prize (obviously this will be our NEW logo), and 2 Runners-up who will all receive prizes.

FMI, contact Tina Smith
tnsmith09@gmail.com
615-9760

2008-11-24T10:14:00.000-08:00

Contact: Tina Smith (207) 615-9760

Portland Green Independent Committee elects two new officers

Recent City Council at-large candidate, Tina Smith elected to replace Brian Chick as the new Portland Green Independent Committee Chair

Local Green Independent activist, Liz McMahon elected to fill position of Secretary vacated by Patrick Banks

Portland, Maine – Tina Smith, a well-known community organizer, youth activist and recent candidate for City Council at-large was elected Portland Green Independent Committee (PGIC) Chair at a meeting last night.

“There’s still a lot of fresh energy kicking around after the election lending us the opportunity to connect with the community, to define who we are and what we represent so clearly people are compelled to engage with issues effecting us all,” said Smith.

A couple of elected Green Independents expressed enthusiasm for Smith’s stepping into this role.

"Tina has a unique talent of reaching deeply into the community to engage and empower people who might not otherwise come to define our politics or the future of our great city," states former PGIC Chair and District 1 Councilor, Kevin Donoghue.

District 2 Councilor, Dave Marshall agrees, "It is exciting to see the Portland Green Independent Committee growing with activists. Tina Smith will be a great Chair as she has a proven track record of both engaging new voices around local issues and advocating for the key values for the Portland Green Independents."

Smith hopes to bring energy, organization, public awareness and fun to the Portland Green Independent party. She feels Liz McMahon, newly elected Secretary, has the best skills to get the party organized.

“Liz has been a highly organized force in the successes of Green Independent candidates in Portland for a while,” said Smith.

Liz McMahon is thrilled to serve as she states, "We have a vivacious and dedicated Green Party in Portland. I'm looking forward to serving on the Portland Green-Independent board, where some of the most progressive voices in our city are coming together. Let's make Portland a model for the rest of the country with a thriving Green-Independent Party!"

# # #

County Commission Write in Candidate and Citizens Initiative news!

2008-06-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

A couple of exciting news tidbits,

Captain Bill Linnell is running as a write in candidate for County Commission as a Green Independent. We currently have no candidate on the ballot for that office. He needs 150 Greens to write him in so that he will appear on the November general election ballot. Here is a message from Bill:"City Councilors Dave Marshall and Kevin Donoghue have asked me to accept the Green Independent Party nomination for County Commissioner. I have accepted the challenge, and need 150 write-in nominations this Tuesday, June 10, in order to be put on the ballot this November. I'm asking you to put this information in your wallet and make sure to write in your vote for me on Tuesday (and check off the box). We'll Take it from there!"

Thank You,
Captain Bill Linnell

A second important issue that many Greens are working on here in Portland, is a citizens municipal initiative to retain the number of polling places at the current number of 16. The city council recently passed a budget that would reduce the number of polling places to six! Citizens on Great Diamond and Cliff Islands would be forced to take a ferry to the mainland to vote on election day, an $11 round trip fare! Other Portlanders will find their travel to the poll greatly increased, as well as the probability of longer lines at the polls. We are collecting the 1500+ signatures we need to put an ordinance question on November's ballot and we need both your help and your signature! If you are available to help collect signatures on primary day this Tuesday please call Ben Chipman at 318-4961.

Thank you all

Caucus, and call to action on I-295 widening plans

2008-02-11T09:53:00.000-08:00

If you didn't know that Dan Jenkins has stepped down from the committee to run for House 119, and Brian Chick is the new chair, you know now.

We held the caucus yesterday, I'd like to thank everyone who helped and was involved. Cynthia McKinney won with 77% of the votes. Here's to good luck in her campaign!

Most importantly, please attend a meeting at The Doubletree Hotel, 1230 Congress St. at 7pm on Tuesday the 12th to have your voice heard. In short, the funding of our local transportation priorities will be discussed, and we want to let them know that mass transit comes first.

For those who want to commute there in appropriate style, there will be a #5 Bus departing 6:15 from the Elm Street Metro Pulse. Please have $1.25 exact fare, and join our 'buspool.'

Green Caucus discussion, Jan 7 at 7pm

2008-02-06T14:37:00.000-08:00

Dear Greens,

The Portland Greens will meet this Thursday, Feb the 7th, from 7-9pm, at 169 Brackett Street (across from Reiche School), to discuss the Feb. 10 Caucus, and other selected matters.

The attachment is our caucus public notice, which was printed in The Portland Press Herald today, Wednesday the 6th. Any who are interested in registering as Green Independent prior to the caucus can do so by showing up at 11:30 to the place the caucus is being held. The city clerk will be on hand to help you register.

Please RSVP, but you are all invited whether you can or not, and I hope to see you there.

Thanks,

Brian Chick

Portland Green Independent Committee Chair

PGIC December Meeting: 12/2/07

2007-11-23T21:36:00.000-08:00

Hello All,

There will be a Portland Greens business meetings on December 2nd- and there is a lot of business.
Meeting: Sunday Dec. 2nd, 5 PM, 103 Grant St. #1. (My apartment)
Tentative Agenda:

07 Election: Wins, Loses, what worked and what did not.

08 Elections: We have plenty of seats that we should field candidates for. Just a few to think over as to whether to contest of not, and if so who:
House seats: 113 (Braughtigam) 114 (Marley), 115 (Cummings *TERMED OUT*), 116 (Harlow), 117(Haskell), 118 (Hinck), 119 (Adams), 120 (Rand)

Senate: 8 (Strimling- open) 9. (Brannigan)

City Council: Suslovic's At Large seat, Leeman District 4, Cohen District 5

School Committee: Susan Hopkins At Large (Green, has stated she will not run for re-elect), District 4 (Gramlich) District 5 Coyne

Water district Trustee: Erek Gaines: Green has stated he would like to run again.

There may be more seats we want to discuss.

As Per the change in the bylaws in the spring, my term as chairman will expire with the commencement of this meeting, so we will need to decide who should take over as chair of the Portland greens. I will not seek another term as I intend to run for office in November.

Please tell any and all registered Greens about this meeting, I will attempt to call folks who have come to meetings in the past, although I unfortunately do not have a comprehensive phone list.

Dan Jenkins
Chair
233-9476
dajenkin@gmail.com

MAINE GREENS HOST CYNTHIA McKINNEY DAY AFTER ELECTIONS

2007-11-16T16:00:00.001-08:00

MAINE GREEN INDEPENDENT PARTY
http://www.mainegreens.org

For Immediate Release

November 15, 2007

Contact:
Jane Meisenbach, Chair, (207) 883-0509, (207) 841-9138 (cell);
mainejane@suscom-maine.net
Pat LaMarche, Delegate (207) 671-0190 (cell); patlamarche@hotmail.com

Cynthia McKinney Files to Run for President as a Green

McKinney in Maine raising awareness and funds in the Nation's Green
Party stronghold.

Harpswell, Maine - Cynthia McKinney, former six-term Democrat
Congresswoman from Georgia and first African-American woman to
represent Georgia in the U.S. House, was a guest at a breakfast
gathering of mostly Greens at the home of Green Independent Party
Chair, Jane Meisenbach. It was one of the first stops on McKinney's
campaign tour since filing with the Federal Elections Commission
declaring her run for president on the Green Party ticket.

McKinney, who had recently moved to California, changing her party
affiliation from Democrat to Green Party, explained to those gathered
that with the critical issues facing the country, the values and the
platform of the Green Party made the most sense and were most aligned
with her own values and platform.

"It is high time that we get down to the work that will make all
people feel included in an American society that benefits everyone,"
said McKinney. "There is so much we can do to significantly reduce
poverty, address this country's crumbling infrastructure, create
meaningful jobs, provide quality health care for all, mend foreign
relations, deal with climate change and re-prioritize dynamics of war
and conflict."

"My campaign will draw many women, people of color and disaffected
voters from every party into the Green Party," McKinney continued. "I
don't care if someone is red, black, white, brown, yellow or polka
dot," she exclaimed. "I will work with anyone."

McKinney said she had recently returned from a visit to the Austrian
Green Party where they have transformed a city into a model green
society with zero global warming. She described several primary
issues of her campaign, including creating a greatly expanded job
market to repair the infrastructure that is dangerously declining
coast to coast, rehabilitating and building new structures with green
materials and technology and developing other sustainable
technologies. Reducing war budgets and allocating funds to these and
other projects would result in a swing upward for America.

Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator of Global Network Against Weapons and
Nuclear Power in Space, attended the event. Gagnon, not a Green,
addressed the gathering and declared that he was switching to the
Green Party so he could support McKinney's campaign.

"Cynthia defines winning as helping to build the Green Party into a
viable party," said Gagnon. "That gives future generations a place to
go for political expression and change. Her ability to attract women,
people of color and disaffected Democrats and Republicans will surely
provide the Green Party the kind of boost they have long needed," he
said. "How many times have I heard activists ask, 'How do we develop
connections to the Black community so we can work together?,'" Gagnon
asked. "Now is our chance."

McKinney spent election day helping Green candidates in Portland and
attended their election night victory celebration. Green, John Anton,
won his campaign for Portland City Council, defeating long-time
incumbent, Jim Cloutier and coming in first, ahead of another
incumbent, Jill Dusan. Anton joins Greens David Marshall and Kevin
Donoghue on the City Council.

For more information:

http://www.mainegreens.org

http://www.runcynthiarun.org

* * * *

Election Returns: Big Win on Council, Lose seat on School Committee

2007-11-10T07:20:00.001-08:00

Portland Greens raised their number of elected city councilors to three in the non-partisan city council. John Anton came in first for two seats with 29% of the total vote, incumbent Jill Duson was returned to the council as well. John Anton will join district 1 Councilor Kevin Donoghue and district 2 Councilor Dave Marshall on the council. While the council is technically non partisan, party affiliation is well known. On December third, when Mr. Anton is sworn in the board will be made up of five Democrats, three Greens, and one Republican. Before the election in 2006 the board was made up of eight Democrats and one Republican.
A second Green candidate, Captain Bill Linnell, came in second of four for the open district three council seat. Bill ran a good competitive campaign garnering 24.1% to winner Dan Skolnik's 33.5%, also running was Tony Donovan (24%) and Richard Farnsworth (18.4%). Skolnik, Donovan and Farnsworth are Democrats.

School Committee races were not as kind to the Portland Green Party. Two Term incumbent Ben Meiklejohn was turned out in a race for two seats. Ben came in fifth out of five with 13% of the total vote. A second registered Green came in fourth with 14%. Greens stake on the committee, with this election has been decreased from 3 to 2 of the nine member non-partisan board. Greens Rebecca Minnick and Susan Hopkins remain on the School Committee.

Portland Greens: Competitive Elections are not Chaos

2007-11-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

11/1/07

As chair of the Portland Green Independent Committee I am proud of the Green candidates who are running for office. I reject the negative direction the campaign has taken due to the large independent expenditures of some big-name Democrats. Further I disagree with the premise of his argument: Greens do not cause chaos, we help foster democracy and competition.

Portland Greens are a diverse group, and as such often do not agree among themselves. This can be seen in any given board where there is more than one Green. Councilors Kevin Donoghue and Dave Marshall do not simply vote in lockstep, they often disagree and are sometimes quite vocal about it. A perfect example of such was the resolution for impeachment of President George W. Bush- Dave Co-Sponsored the resolution (with Democrat Jill Duson) in what he thought was a proper venue to call for impeachment, Kevin voted nay due to his belief that the people of Portland should make this known through referendum rather than a resolution. This is natural and normal, disagreement is good, debate is better, and collaboration to consensus is best. Disagreement within a party only helps that party to address issues that are important, allows for more open and honest debate and will ultimately lead to better policy decisions than fear and party line voting will. Greens are not browbeaten when they take principled stands that other Greens disagree with.

This year’s crop of municipal Greens are focused on winning due to their ideas, their enthusiasm and their vision of Portland for the future. There is nothing wrong with pointing out your differences candidly; there is everything wrong with baseless smear ads. It is a sad day when the Democratic machine can find no positive way to support their candidates. I believe, and I’d wager that most Portlanders believe that negative campaigns hinder the democratic process and fail to further a positive discourse that is healthy for our city and in the best interest of Portland’s citizens.

Perhaps the least important argument I will make here is that These Greens do not cause chaos. Greens contribute to a relatively new phenomenon in Portland- competitive elections. If that is chaos to some, perhaps it is the best kind- democracy. Democrats have nothing to fear from an open and honest dialogue. If people like what they say they will win, if people don’t they will lose, but there will always be another election, this is a city with far more registered Democrats than Greens. People in Portland are voting for Greens because they want a school committee and a city council that is not just a political rubberstamp. Further, any policies that have been advocated by Greens here in Portland have had at least some support from Democrats. Why is this? Because Democrats have held a majority (a super-majority in most cases) on every elected board in the city! With military recruitment- Greens earned the support of Democrats, using metro busses for high school students- Democrats also supported it. Creation of a business diversity task force- Tri partisan support! In that case the two Council Greens formed a voting bloc with two Democrats and the lone Republican. Instead of calling this chaos this should be called a blueprint for making good public policy- inclusion of all political opinions to create the best ordinance that suits the most people.

Portland Greens: Bringing Portland Competitive Elections since 2001

Dan Jenkins

Chair

Portland Green Independent Committee

207 233 9476

Captain Bill Linnell with his Lobster Trap Signs

2007-10-13T20:59:00.001-07:00

Featured Item: City Council

2007-10-09T07:24:00.001-07:00

Portland Greens are running competitive races in both the City Council at Large seat as well as City Council District Three in 2007.

John Anton, Former Planning Board member and longtime housing advocate is running for the At Large position. Two candidates will be elected out of four running. John has received the endorsement of the League of Young Voters. John Anton realizes how important it is to grow our housing stock, particularly on the peninsula where it is becoming increasingly mores expensive to live for working class, middle class and young people. Investing in housing stock will allow Portland to grow, while working to ensure our top notch quality of life is not whittled away. We must invest in the things that make Portland what it is: our schools, our parks and, of course, our neighborhoods. The Maine State Pier issue is one that John cares deeply about, he believes the process must be restarted to ensure Portlanders get the best development deal possible, while maintaining the integrity of our working waterfront. Finally it is crucial that all major decisions are made with community involvement, and that all business the city does is out and in the open so that we as citizens can be sure that proper protocol is being followed and taxpayers are getting the best deal possible.

Captain Bill Linnell, Former Cape Elizabeth Town Councilor and leader of the successful fight to shut down Maine Yankee nuclear power plant, and seeks to chart a new course for the open City Council district three seat. Four are running for one seat. Bill Linnell is one dynamic guy! He runs his own business, is former president of the Stroudwater Village Association, is a licensed captain where he works as a towboat operator, pumps out boats for the Friends of Casco Bay, and is a lobsterman to boot! You can bet that Captain Bill Linnell is the one candidate who really knows the working waterfront. You probably have seen his signs out in district three- those are his: the ones with the lobster traps! Captain Bill sees many problems with city hall’s 'Business as usual' model and he's particularly incensed by the way the Maine State Pier has been handled. Captain Bill wants to see a new bidding process with a much longer Request for Proposal (RFP) so that we have more competitive bidders. The pier is a city owned asset and Captain Bill wants to ensure that the taxpayers of Portland receive adequate compensation if and when we develop this piece of public property. Bill also is an advocate for citizen involvement- particularly through our neighborhood associations. Our neighborhoods are extremely important and a decision such as one to close a neighborhood school can have dire consequences for that neighborhood. These decisions are not to be made lightly and should involve many community members.

Captain Bill Linnell's Guest Column in the PPH

2007-09-28T05:22:00.000-07:00

'Full speed ahead' on pier? Not yet

The prudent course to set now is to drop back into neutral and develop a comprehensive concept.

William S. Linnell September 28, 2007

enlarge 2006 Press Herald File

The final plan for what will happen to the Maine State Pier deserves much more thought than it has so far received.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

William S. Linnell of Portland is a candidate for City Council in the 3rd District.

— I applaud the courageous, bipartisan effort of the four city councilors who put the Maine State Pier Development on pause.

It was clearly not a politically motivated move, as some suggest, but instead was directly bipartisan, as two Greens, a Democrat and a Republican combined to halt the "full speed ahead" attitude of their more excitable colleagues.

As a lobsterman and licensed towboat captain, I have some experience on the waterfront. When boaters go "full speed ahead" in unknown waters, they often call me to come get them.

Drawing on my experience in the 1980s as a contracts specialist at Bath Iron Works, dealing with the contracts for multimillion- dollar government and private sector contracts, I can say with confidence: The current effort to develop the waterfront has significant flaws.

The time allowed for the original Request for Proposal was woefully short. So short, in fact, that only two companies bid on the project.

The three-month deadline was more suited to a multifamily house project than a $100 million shorefront development.

Potential bidders for these projects are not sitting around on 5- gallon pails waiting for some business to walk in the door -- they're busy.

The three-month RFP translated into less-competitive bidding, which shortchanges Portland taxpayers.

We really don't know what the right price is for this project, because it hasn't been given proper exposure to the free market.

Hastily thrown together, the RFP didn't even contemplate the "mega-berth," the giant floating cruise ship pier that had already been planned, discussed, argued over, approved and permitted.

The current proposal would compete with the mega-berth, which we have already committed to and invested in. Imagine a fisherman building one dock, and then trying to start another one before the first one is finished. That would be numb.

Bidding on industrial contracts can and should be a very competitive process. At Bath Iron Works, it was hard to make money bidding on the hulls, so the real money was made on the change orders: There was no competition.

Once the contract was awarded, however, the game changed dramatically: Like a car up on a mechanic's lift, the shipyard had a captive audience. No one else could bid on the job.

Ocean Properties and friends are pushing hard to award the Maine State Pier contract before some of the big changes are made. They want to get this car up on the lift.

That would be a big mistake for Portland taxpayers. The city should get the RFP squared away before putting it out to bid.

That is, put in the mega-berth, along with any other big changes, in the RFP now and give a reasonable time for the bidders to react -- at least 90 days, or ideally six months, so that a couple of others could join the bidding.

What's the rush? You can always develop shorefront property in Maine.

When currents, wind, weather or rocks combine to complicate safe navigation, the prudent sailor often kicks the boat into neutral, while the more impetuous go full speed ahead.

Considering the size and potential impact of this project, the wise captain would pause, as the council just did.

— Special to the Press Herald

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=136869&ac=PHedi

Portland Greens nearly running a full slate!

2007-09-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

The Portland Green Party is running a nearly full slate for municipal elections in 2007.

Greens running:

School Committee at Large (2 seats)
Ben Meiklejohn, (incumbent) (Website!)
Leslie Minton

City Council At Large (2 Seats)
John Anton (Website!)

City Council District 3
Captain Bill Linnell (Website!)

Water District
Keith Gibson

More about these candidates soon!

See them at the League of Young Voters forum
Tuesday September 18th 5-930 at public access TV station 516 congress st.

Maine State Pier Public Forum

2007-08-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND – City Councilors, Kevin Donoghue and Dave Marshall, will
host a public forum on the current process for redeveloping the Maine
State Pier at Merrill Auditorium Rehearsal Hall on August 8th from
6pm to 8pm. Donoghue and Marshall represent the two districts which
include the waterfront.

The City Council is holding its own series of workshops to discuss
whether to select Ocean Properties of Portsmouth, N.H. or the Olympia
Companies of Portland to the private redevelopment and long term lease
of the public pier. The City Council is not expected to conduct a
public hearing until September.

Both proposals include a luxury hotel, an office building, and retail
as parts of an expanded cruise port.

Donoghue and Marshall said the forum is not intended to measure
support for either development team, but sooner to check in with
citizens on whether the city is on the right track and how it should
proceed.

"The forum will foster a wider discussion concerning the future of our
only public pier," said Marshall.

"The public has been missing from this crucial public policy debate
for nearly a year," said Donoghue. "The need for meaningful citizen
involvement in waterfront projects is no less than a civic emergency."

Donoghue is a member of the Community Development Committee which was
charged with making recommendations on whether either proposal had
merit. Both Councilors Jim Cloutier and Jill Duson voted in favor of
negotiating with Ocean Properties. Donoghue opposed the recommendation
after his amendment to send the recommendation to the voters for
approval failed with the others voting against.

Markos Miller is also helping promote the public forum and is the
recent President of the Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Organization, which
represents the interests of residents upland of the Maine State Pier.

"The pier belongs to the citizens of Portland," said Miller. "Any
discussion of changing its use should start with a community-based
process that articulates the concerns and the hopes for this unique
asset."

Portland Peace Festival!

2007-07-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

*****update: we will not be tabling, please come to the portland peace festival anyways!*****
in the hopes to keep the event non political i was recently informed that our application had been denied (after it had been approved) apparently no political parties will be allowed to table. The event should be great and I hope to see many of you there, just not at the table where i would sit.

Dan

On Saturday there will be a Peace Festival at the Eastern Prom here in Portland!

The Greens will be tabling for voter registration. I hope many of you are able to attend
The festival is from 1-4pm

If anyone would like to help me table i'd appreciate it!

more info: http://www.portlandpeacefestival.com/

Dan

Declare your Green Independence!

2007-07-03T20:09:00.000-07:00

Happy (Green) independence day!

Tomorrow, (the fourth!) will feature a green independence day party at our own Kevin Donoghue's place on 44 North St in the East end. Kevin was elected to the City Council last year and would like to introduce some other greens that are running (or are considering running) for council and other seats at his party--- after that there are explosions to watch on the eastern prom!

BYOB--- Starts at approximately 8pm --- 44 North (backyard!)

ALSO i hope that you are all aware of the ever closer looming elections. Nomination Papers can be taken out quite soon and if you know of anyone (maybe you!) who would like to run for city council district at large or district three, school board at large or district three or water district please let us know-- we hope to have a full slate of Greens for these important local posts.

Cheers and see you tomorrow!

Protest Carpooling

2007-06-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

Hey there Friends,
I know I plan on attending the protest on Sunday July 1, and I hope many of you can as well use this blog to post comments about who can provide and who needs rides to Kennebunkport.

I will be driving and have 2 seats Lemme know!

Dan
233-9476

Update on Bush/Putin Protest in Kennebunkport

2007-06-22T06:35:00.000-07:00

Here is an update regarding the planned protest of President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, both of which will be in Maine next weekend. Lets let them hear about what we think about how they are treating our world.

Forwarded to me by Jaqcui Deveneau

Dear friends,

United for Peace and Justice has endorsed this event and encourages you to attend. Please see below and www.maineimpeach.org for further details.

******************CITIZENS SUMMIT & PROTEST MARCH**********************

Sunday, July 1 -- PROTEST RALLY & MARCH when Bush meets Putin in Kennebunkport

1:00 PM: Assemble at the VILLAGE GREEN in Kennebunkport, ME

MARCH to the BUSH COMPOUND -- permits granted.

People of conscience will converge on Kennebunkport, ME, for a rally and march.

We are calling for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and the removal of permanent bases. We will also be drawing attention to the need to hold both BUSH and CHENEY accountable for the illegal war in Iraq, the mutilation of our Constitution, the evisceration of habeas corpus, torture and war crimes, warrantless surveillance of Americans, abuses of power, and the list goes on ...

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA, NATIONAL MEDIA, the WHITE HOUSE PRESS CORP and our local news media will be present, so
WE NEED TO TURN OUT THOUSANDS OF PROTESTERS FOR THIS EVENT!

**************please pass this on!!!! ******************************

**************

Speakers will include:

David Swanson from AFTER DOWNING STREET
John Kaminski, president of MAINE LAWYERS for DEMOCRACY
Peter Kellman, president of the SOUTHERN MAINE LABOR COUNCIL
Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Melida and Carlos Arredondo from MILITARY FAMILIES SPEAK OUT

MUSIC includes Pat Scanlon and band

STREET THEATER: We will be mourning the loss of LADY LIBERTY, as a 7'-tall
statue of her will be lying in a casket. People are asked to wear black and join in the funeral procession.

LOGISTICS and HOUSING: Please visit the website: www.maineimpeach.org
For more info, contact organizer Jamilla El-Shafei@yahoo.com

THIS EVENT IS BEING ORGANIZED BY:
The Kennebunk PEACE Department, Maine Lawyers for Democracy and
The Maine Campaign to Impeach

Hi friends,
Could you please send an email out to your lists in hope that I can borrow some items for the CITIZENS' SUMMIT.

I need:
a tent which can cover a stage that is 8x12'.
a smaller (pop up) tent that I can use as a media sign in tent

2 folding tables
many folding chairs, lawn chairs OK, for the elderly.

NOTE>>>> YOU ARE INVITED to a bbq/party on Saturday evening at Jamilla and Bob's house. Please let me know if any of your people will be camping at
my house or will be sleeping at the UU church in Kennebunk. If so, bring air mattresses. The UU church requesta a $5. donation per person.
Everyone needs to be out before 8:30 am on Sunday. We will pick up

church campers and bring to my house for breakfast. Donations appreciated.
THANK YOU ONE and ALL for helping make this event a big success.
peace, Jamilla

MSNA sponsoring a Premier of SiCKO

2007-06-19T13:46:00.001-07:00

COME SEE MICHAEL MORE PRESENT HIS NEW FILM SiCKO
the Maine State Nurses Association (MSNA) is sponsoring a free bus trip to Manchester NH to screen SiCKO, the new documentary about the sad state of healthcare in the United States. MSNA is on record as advocating for a universal Single-Payer Healthcare system for both the United States and the State of Maine.

Date: Friday 6/22 Bus arrives in South Portland at 9:15 am at the CYR bus lot at 184 Main St.

Cost: Nothing!!!!! Free!

Please Contact me if you would like to come!

Dan
207 233-9476

There is a rally planned for the Portland premier, on Friday June 29th as well- more details as they are available.

For those who missed it (myself included!) Maine Green Convention

2007-06-07T20:06:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Ben Meiklejohn for the update:

Hi All, For those of you who did not get to go to the MGIP Convention here
is the write up on it.
Maine Green Independent Party Holds Its Convention Honoring Great
Performances Setting the Stage for 2008
The Maine Green Independent Party Convention was held May 19-20 in
Bangor for electing officers, appointing committees, forming a Social
Action Committee, endorsing the Strategy and Goals Committee, and
clarifying Green Party By-laws for more effective operation.

Jane Meisenbach, Harpswell, was re-elected as Chair of the Board. Also
elected to the Board were Eileen Goddard, (re-elected) Yarmouth, Lynne
Williams, Mount Desert Island, Jim Freeman, Verona Island, and Ben
Chipman of Portland (filling the second year of his two-year term).
Elected Delegates to the Green Party of the United States are Jacqui
Deveneau and John Rensenbrink with Theresa Savage, Tracey Grant, Jane
Meisenbach, Pat LaMarche, Jon Olsen, and Gerald Oleson enlisted as
Alternates.

Discussion and suggestions centered around adding shellfish dragging and
shoreland zoning to the Platform, as well as contacting local committees
to identify vacant seats and post them in the newletter, and to seek out
candidates for office. Also discussed was having a major Green presence,
and perhaps an event around the August 25th Peace Rally and March in
Kennebunkport.

John Rensenbrink spoke about new Strategies and Goals for the Party, and
Pat LaMarche told about the Green campaign for a Single Payer Universal
Health Care initiative, as well as electoral politics as related to her
run for office. Ruth Gabey explained what she does to track proposed
legislation and testify at hearings, telling of the challenges she faces
in carrying out that responsibility.

This was followed by an Awards Dinner that honored those who passed away
last year, Lifetime Achievement Awards, and Green of the Year.
"Alan Philbrook was a man of action. He was a decisive force in the very
early founding of our Green Party in Maine. I miss him very much," said
John Rensenbrink, a founder of the Green Party of the United States and
a presenter at the Maine Greens awards banquet. Philbrook, using the
referendum process, gave voice to the majority to end nuclear power
generation in this state. Also honored were Lester Timofeev for his work
on Pat LaMarche's campaign, Hal Weisbein, who was actively involved with
the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, and Howard Hede, who was a long time
Maine Green at the age of 96.

Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator, and Ruth Gabey, Legislation Coordinator,
were recognized for their lifetime contributions to the Green Party. The
Maine Green of the Year award was presented to Theresa Savage who was
the treasurer for the LaMarche campaign, and managed over one million
dollars of clean election funds. She was the only Party Treasurer in the
Governor's race to not have an ethical problem.

Voter registration for the Maine Green Party grew to 30,000 this year,
which is more proportionally than any other state Green Party. According
to Chair Jane Meisenbach, "This suggests that we are a viable
alternative to the major political parties that not only offer no
initiatives for sustainable, positive change, but are tragically out of
touch with the real needs of our citizens and the global environment."
For more information go to www.mainegreens.org or www.gpus.org .

Bush/Putin Protest a two-fer!

2007-06-06T07:33:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not know President Bush will be meeting with Russian President Vladmir Putin in Kennebunkport on July 1st and 2nd. A protest has been organized so that we can show the twin administrations that we want neither of them to build missle shields, and incase hes had a change of heart to let Georgie know we want our soldiers back home with their families! Here is the information that was sent to me.

TRAVEL INFO
For those traveling from outside the area you can take the AMTRAK DownEaster to Wells on Saturday Jule 30Th. It will be arriving at the following times :
leaves North Station Boston 9:05 arrives in Wells 10:53

11:05 12:53
5:00pm 6:48pm
6:20pm 8:13pm
**please note that we will provide shuttle service from the Wells station to Kennebunk. However, you need to contact our logistics person Jamilla to let us know to expect you and your group. NO SHUTTLE SERVICE ON SUNDAY as we will be busy getting folks to Kennebunkport

HOUSING
The UU church in Kennebunk is allowing folks to sleep on their floor overnight
for a $5.00 donation. Bring your air mattress.
People who sleep at the UU church must leave at 8:30am so that they can get ready for church services. Someone will pick everyone up at 8:30am and people will go to Jamilla's house for breakfast (donations accepted) then we will shuttle people to Kennebunkport .

CAMPING
Jamilla has offered her property as a place to camp (by reservation). When that site fills up we have another site for camping near by. You may take a shower at Jamilla's but please bring towels and toiletries. We will provide a shuttle to
Kennebunkport.
CONTACT: Jamilla at jamillaelshafei@yahoo.com

PROTESTERS TRAVELING BY VEHICLE ON SUNDAY JULY !st
Please take rt#95 ether north or south and get off the Kennebunk exit.
Turn on rt#35 S towards Kennebunk. In less than a minute after getting off the exit you will see the Kennebunk High School on your left. We have permission to park there for the day. The shuttle service will start at 10:00am to Kennebunkport.
IMPORTANT** please come early and you can go into Kennebunkport and sight see. Since we only one a limited space on our shuttle if everyone comes closer to 12:00 or 1:00 we may not be able to get you to the rally on time.
LIMITED PARKING at the North Street lot, however, I would not risk getting stuck in heavy traffic so it is best to park at the High School
DO NOT ATTEMPT to enter Kennebunkport via the Wells and rt # 9 . I can promise that you will be stuck in traffic for at least 45 minutes if you do that.

RALLY will begin at 1:00pm but we will have music before hand.
Keynote speakers include:
David Swanson, founder of "After Downing Street"
John Kaminsky, president of Maine Lawyers for Democracy
Melida and Carlos Arredondo, a military family who lost their son Carlos
in Iraq on August 25,05.

If you have any questions please contact me

Dan

2007-06-01T08:05:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends!
Kevin and I were able to figure out how to hand the reins to me for this Blog and hopefully we can use it as a primary means of communication. I encourage people to make suggustions for the blog so its not just articles but also a forum for elected officials and supported candidates to let people know about what is going on in our fair city and fair state. I'll start the process by saying that yesterday, May 31st there was a great showing at Franklin Towers discussing the potential, adn changes for Franlin Arterial. Also the League of Young Voters threw a rockin party and people learned about the bonds and library issues.

As for future events- June 16th is the Annual Pride Parade here in Portland. Jacqui Devaneau has helped to organize it but needs assistance for occupying the table at the end of the parade, where all the fun goes down in Deering Oaks park.
From Jacqui: Hi All, Here is the info on the Gay Pride Day July 16th. We need to have the tabling set up in Deering Park by 11am, but the line up for the Parade is 10:30am at Monument Square, so it would be great if there were one or two folks who don't plan to march in the Parade to stay at the table 10am-1pm. So if any of you can help either table[the Fest goes 1-5pm] or plan to march please let me know so we can coordinate.

Thanks Jacqui!

Please contact me or Jacqui if you are able to help out for a bit during the parade/gathering.

Other things to keep on the radar: Green Independence Day at Councilor Kevin Donoghues place (44 North St.) Kevin and I discussed making this part of the beer bike and barbecue event- and having the bike portion the following saturday for the maine bike rally in yarmouth- what are your thoughts on this?

Thanks Folks!

Dan
dajenkin@gmail.com
233-9476

"Republicans not Exactly in the Running" by Peter Smith in the Portland Forecaster: October 11, 2006

2006-10-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND – Jeff Ferland, the Republican candidate in state House District 120, stopped knocking on doors last week.

Ferland, 21, lives with friends in an apartment on Munjoy Hill. He joined the Republican Party after attending a debate last spring with former gubernatorial candidate Peter Mills. Steven Scharf, a Republican coordinator in Portland’s Bayside neighborhood, approached Ferland about running on the GOP ticket for District 120.

Ferland, then an independent, decided the GOP’s priorities – cutting taxes and controlling government spending – were in line with his views.

But in an interview last week, Ferland admitted he was less interested in the party line than in running as a visible neighborhood representative.

“I wanted to represent the neighborhood,” he said. “The Republicans were willing to run with me and put me on the ballot.”

On Oct. 3, Ferland announced he would withdraw from the race. “There’s somebody out there that’s running a better race,” he said. “Ben (Meiklejohn) seems like a really good candidate.”

Ferland said he spoke regularly with the Green Independent Party candidate and said he had only met Anne Rand, the Democratic contender, at a recent debate.

His informal withdrawal from the race illustrates chronic problems that Republican organizers face in legislative races across the city.

“It’s emblematic,” Scharf said. “It’s a very liberal town. ...We sometimes run candidates in places that don’t stand a chance.”

Ferland summed up the challenge to his campaign in six words: “I’m a Republican on Munjoy Hill.”

In two other Portland races for state representatives, Republican contenders who replaced placeholder candidates toward the end of July, close to the filing deadline, have also called it quits on the campaign trail.

In District 115, candidate Melinda Loring, replaced Andrew Worcester.

“She’s on the ballot and running,” Scharf said, “but she’s not actively campaigning.”

District 117 candidate David Pelletier, who replaced Justin Boynton, will appear on Nov. 7 ballots, but according to Scharf, “He’s not really running a campaign either.”

In District 118, no GOP replacement was found after Benjamin Crocker withdrew.

Not every Republican candidate still running for the House of Representatives has stopped campaigning. Those still knocking on doors include Jason Lavoie (District 119), Sharon Forbis (District 114), David Elowitch (District 113) and Janette Gauger (District 116).

Scharf said placing candidates on the ballot merely to oppose candidates running unopposed is not a policy he endorses.

“We do it to put out a message,” he said, “to deliver our message.”

“Everybody’s got limited resources,” said Ron Schmidt Jr., a professor of political science at the University of Southern Maine. “The state (Republican) party definitely wants to support TABOR and Woodcock.”

Schmidt said the party likely hoped the statewide initiative and the gubernatorial challenger would draw registered Republicans to the polls to support local candidates.

“Especially in an election like this,” he said, “where the turnout is low, they’re trying to get people out for the big elephant.”

Peter Smith can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 126 or psmith@theforecaster.net.

Hill Race Narrows to Meiklejohn, Rand

2006-10-13T14:44:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND – The departure of four-term Rep. Benjamin Dudley opened up the Maine House District 120 seat, which covers Portland’s Munjoy Hill.

Three candidates filed papers, but Jeffrey Ferland, the Republican, formally announced his withdrawal from the race Tuesday, leaving Democrat Anne Rand and Green Independent Ben Meiklejohn in the race.

Rand is a former legislator, who has served in both the House and Senate. Meiklejohn is on the Portland School Committee, a position he has held since 2001.

Ben Meiklejohn

“People are really thirsty for change for something different than the established political parties,” Meiklejohn said.

Meiklejohn, 35, campaigns on the Green Independent ticket; he chaired the state party from 2000-2004. Meiklejohn has also served as president of the University of Maine student government, he volunteered for AmeriCorps at Munjoy Hill’s Community Policing Center, and he currently is an at-large member of the Portland School Committee. His previous experience has some carry-over to this campaign, he said, and he intends to complete his term on the school board if elected to the Legislature.

“Education is one of my priorities,” Meiklejohn said adding that he believes strong economies are backed by good educational systems. “We need to invest in education,” he said.

Meiklejohn said better education doesn’t necessarily mean higher taxes; comprehensive tax reform is his second priority.

“People are just beside themselves with taxes,” he said.

Given the influx of seasonal visitors who use state services, Meiklejohn hopes to enact tax reform by authorizing municipalities to develop a tax structure – additional taxes levied on hotels and lodging – that might benefit permanent residents.

“We need to do more to export the tax burden,” he said.

A house painter and a musician, Meiklejohn is single and lives on Exchange Street.

Anne Rand

“The main reason I’m running is because I believe, from my experience, that you really can make a difference,” Rand said.

Rand, 60, a Democrat, said she has seen the possibilities as a representative; she served four terms in the state House and two in the state Senate.

Rand introduced a bill to maintain affordable housing, as it related to Munjoy South, and soon found it had statewide appeal. She also co-sponsored bills on sexual harassment in the workplace and helped pass legislation recognizing the effect of video display terminals on carpal tunnel syndrome in the workplace.

This year, taxes are her top priority.

“I believe tax reform is absolutely the first thing that has to be addressed,” she said.

She hopes to send out a synopsis of taxes to each household and “get everyone on the same page” regarding how the state gets money into the treasury.

Three changes Rand would work toward include: an increase in the minimum taxable income for the state income tax, a broadened sales tax and local option taxation. She said an additional 1 percent meals and lodging tax in Portland might benefit the city and halt increases in property tax.

She also wants health care reform: “I’d like to improve and expand Dirigo,” Rand said, “and move toward universal access.”

The former nurse lives on Munjoy Hill with her husband, Dale, and their daughter, Alicia. The couple own a small business, Rand Printing,.

Peter Smith can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 126 or psmith@theforecaster.net.

"Adams Takes on Challengers from Left, Right" by Peter Smith in the Portland Forecaster: October 4, 2006

2006-10-13T14:34:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND – Two political newcomers are challenging incumbent Rep. Herbert Adams in House District 119, representing the diverse Bayside and Parkside neighborhoods of Portland.

Matt Reading, a Green Independent, and Jason Lavoie, a Republican, both newcomers to the district and politics, offer the veteran Democrat an additional reason to knock on doors this campaign season. The candidates present differing strategies on how to spur economic development.

Herb Adams

Adams, 53, the Democratic incumbent, said the “energy and enthusiasm and experience that is reflected in my past record” would aid him in seeking another term.

Adams served on Portland’s School Committee, chaired the Cumberland County Democratic Committee and served five terms as a state representative in the Legislature.

Adams said two recent legislative achievements were a bill that connected schools and libraries with the Internet, an initiative that he says eliminated “technological haves and have-nots.” Adams also supported legislation that made Casco Bay a “No-Discharge Zone” with some of the strictest environmental laws.

Adams campaigns on what he calls his “doorstep issues.”

“There would be taxes in general,” he said, “the affordability of higher education, affordability of social services, and general consumer-oriented issues, such as the cost of cable TV.”

If re-elected, three items on Adams’ upcoming legislative agenda would be a version of the Opportunity Maine initiative, which proposed tax credits to repay tuition costs (“So we can keep talent in Maine”), $25 million for affordable housing (“$25 million is barely enough”), and $50 million for land (“So we can preserve the best of Maine’s national treasures for future Mainers”).

A resident of Parkside, Adams is a history buff who also teaches as an adjunct political science faculty member at USM.

Jason Lavoie

“I’m running because I want to see Maine change its direction,” Lavioe said.

Lavoie, 22, a Republican, focuses his campaign on health care, jobs and taxes.

Lavoie wants to stimulate job growth. “It’s all about the economy,” he said. “That’s how we can make the economy work for Maine and for Portland.”

“I think that we need to get a handle on our high tax burden,” Lavioe said. “I think we need to make this a better place to do business.”

He said businesses ought to have a closer relationship with lawmakers and less involvement with social services. “Government is too far involved in health care,” Lavoie said. He envisions a privatized, “free market approach” to the state’s health care woes and hopes to offer Mainers out-of-state insurance options.

Lavoie, a student at the University of Southern Maine, serves on the USM student senate and attributes his leadership skills to coordinating a Boy Scout technology center. He lives in the dorms on Congress Street. His campaign is privately financed.

Lavoie considers himself a leader “who will stand up and want to bring jobs to Maine.”

Matt Reading

Reading, 25, graduated from Lewiston-Auburn schools. Only three of his friends from high school have remained in the area, a trend he attributes to high taxes, few technology jobs and “little in the Legislature to counteract that.”

Reading, a relative newcomer to Portland, worked as an online fund-raiser with a nonprofit organization before turning to his campaign full time on the Green Independent ticket.

Working on John Eder’s 2003 House campaign inspired Reading. “He had a real passion for change in Portland,” Reading said, “and a real passion for action in Augusta.”

Affordable housing, a student loan reimbursement, and a universal health care system top Reading’s agenda.

“All of our economic development money currently goes to Wal-Mart and Home Depot,” Reading said. Targeted tax incentives, Reading said, would “keep the Maine dollar in Maine and make it easier for small businesses and to start small businesses.”

Reading is single. He lives in Bayside, across from the Public Works Department. “I know what’s going on with city services all hours of the day,” he said.

Peter Smith can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 126 or psmith@theforecaster.net.

"House District 118: 2 Parties, 2 Progressive Agendas, 1 Race" by Peter Smith in the Portland Forecaster: October 4, 2006

2006-10-13T14:32:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND – Republican candidate Benjamin Crocker withdrew in July from the Maine House of Representatives District 118 race, leaving incumbent Green Independent Rep. John Eder and Democrat Jon Hinck to battle for the representation of Portland’s West End.

Both describe their agendas as progressive. Eder, first elected in 2002, is counting on the continued support of constituents and his voting record, while challenger Hinck maintains his record as an environmental activist bests the incumbent’s performance.

John Eder

Eder, 37, has served two terms in the state Legislature as the nation’s top-elected Green Independent.

“It’s all about accomplishments,” Eder said. “I’ve brought hundreds of thousands of dollars to Portland.”

Before he became a first-time candidate in 2002, Eder worked as a citizen activist, a massage therapist and a home health-care aide. As a representative, he said he votes with the Democrats on “98 percent of issues” and comprises part of the “working majority.”

Eder supports initiatives for a living wage, universal health care and issues of social and economic justice.

“I’ve introduced legislation on tax reform,” Eder said. He supported tax rebates for rent and property, including a check-off on the state income tax.

“I’ve passed a bill on energy efficiency,” he said. The bill provided renters with a buyer-beware form on energy use.

In the upcoming session, Eder plans work on a $50,000 initiative for a creative economy.

“To me, a creative economy means supporting artists and the arts as they are an economic driver. That brings people into Portland.” Eder said initiatives would include micro-loans for individuals. “I think we need to get creative about getting people out of poverty,” he said.

He and his wife, Suzanne, live in the West End.

Jon Hinck

“For years, I’ve been involved in the environment,” Hinck said.

Before launching a campaign focused on green (with a lower-case “g”) issues, the Democrat worked for years with Greenpeace and lobbied in Augusta with the Natural Resources Council of Maine. “I’d like to join those making positive progressive policy,” he said.

Hinck said he supported laws controlling the disposal of mercury and electronic waste. A 2004 law defers the cost of recycling TV and electronic equipment to manufacturers nationwide. “It’s one of the few times Maine has figured how to take care of an issue without raising taxes,” Hinck said.

Besides his work as an environmental activist, Hinck is a lawyer who has worked on legal settlements involving Bayer’s Baycol, the gasoline-additive MBTE, and Maine’s class action suit against tobacco companies.

Hinck also has health care and energy reform high on his agenda. He supports the concept of Dirigo health plan and said he would make sure the Legislature devotes the attention needed in hopes of ultimately achieving universal care.

“I’d like to become one of the leaders aggressively pursuing energy issues,” he said. Hinck’s energy agenda includes increased energy efficiency, energy independence, and fiscal security along with wind and other renewable energy resources.

Hinck said his background (as a lawyer and as an environmental advocate) is “clearly” superior to his opponent’s.

“The incumbent has fashioned himself as an outsider,” Hinck said, “but he sends legislative communications - his campaign message - on taxpayer money.”

He lives in the West End with his wife, Juliet Browne, an environmental lawyer, and 9-year-old daughter, Darcy.

Peter Smith can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 126 or psmith@theforecaster.net.

District 117 a 3-Way Toss-Up

2006-10-13T14:29:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND – With Rep. Joseph Brannigan running for state Senate, the House District 117 seat representing neighborhoods in the Rosemont and Stroudwater sections of the city is up for grabs.

For the Democratic Party, Anne Haskell is on the ballot after moving back to her hometown. Haskell is a former state representative from Gorham, where she served from 1988 to 1994 when she was Anne Larrabee. She is retired.

Haskell’s Green Independent Party opponent, John Safarik, is also retired. He ran for office two years ago and said he believes it is his civic obligation to run again.

Republican candidate David Pelletier was reached for comment once, but was unable to provide any information at that time. He did not return subsequent telephone calls.

Anne Haskell

Haskell, 63, lives in the home she grew up in on Higgins Street and married Lou Haskell two years ago. She has two grown children and he has four.

A former Finance Authority of Maine communications manager and head of the Maine International Trade Center, Haskell graduated from Deering High School and attended the University of Southern Maine.

She is opposed to TABOR and calls the bill a “meat-ax approach to a complex issue.”

Haskell said she is running for office again because she enjoyed working in the House before and feels she has something to offer to her neighbors.

She said her time representing Gorham gave her an understanding of suburban concerns, which provides a nice contrast with her understanding of Portland’s urban concerns.

Haskell is interested in supporting higher education through loan repayment for college graduates. She said loan repayment is better than loan forgiveness, because with the latter, students often need to decide a career path as a college freshman. With loan repayment, the benefit would come after graduation.

Haskell is also a supporter of improving the juvenile justice system and said the state should concentrate on helping offenders early, so they can function as adults in regular society.

“It is something that needs advocates,” Haskell said.

John Safarik

Safarik, 69, lives on Ivy Street with his wife, Sharon. He worked in various information technology jobs, including as a software developer.

Safarik said the Taxpayer Bill of Rights is “a good example of what we shouldn’t do in general.”

He said he did not want to rely on the future needs of the state by a simple algorithm, and believes people should rely on the representatives they elect.

Safarik, who holds a doctorate in political philosophy from the University of Oklahoma, would like the state to encourage businesses to use environmental concerns to their advantage.

“We need not to look at these issues as constraining,” he said.

Safarik would also like a process put in place where adults can re-educate themselves. He said a good liberal arts degree is a start.

“Being trained for the obsolete is never ending,” he said. “One way to lessen that is to educate people so they can update themselves easily.”

Safarik is in favor of a universal health care system.

“A healthy population is a more productive population,” he said.

Sustaining public transportation is also a priority for Safarik. He said a mass transit fund should be set up and people should be encouraged to use buses and even trains to travel.

“There are some fragments left of public transportation,” he said.

Kate Bucklin can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 106 or kbucklin@theforecaster.net.

"District 115 Challengers Stand in Cummings' Leadership Path" by Kate Bucklin in the Portland Forecaster: October 11, 2006

2006-10-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND – There is a three-way race in House District 115, where incumbent Rep. Glenn Cummings faces challengers from the left and right.

Running on the Republican ticket, political newcomer Melinda Loring admitted she is not a natural politician and said she is running in part to try and keep Maine affordable.

Green Independent Party candidate Murrough O’Brien said he is sick of both of the major parties running things in Augusta and believes the Greens would bring new ideas to the Legislature.

Cummings, meanwhile, is positioned to be elected speaker of the House if he is re-elected.

District 115 includes the neighborhoods of Woodford’s Corner and Back Cove.

Glenn Cummings

Cummings, 45, is the House majority leader and is seeking a fourth term in the Legislature. A Nevens Street resident, Cummings lives with his wife, Leslie Appelbaum, and their two children.

“TABOR endangers public safety and education,” Cummings said of the citizen-initiated Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

A strong opponent of the bill, Cummings said the state needs to work on alternative reform for the tax code and for spending that supports small business and working families.

Cummings is a professor of economics and entrepreneurship at Southern Maine Community College and said the state needs more people to attend and complete college and other higher education programs.

“To do that we need to make it affordable,” the graduate of Brown and Harvard universities said. “Lower tuition at community colleges.”

He said increasing skill level will also increase high paying jobs in Maine, which will boost the economy.

Investing in research and development of the state’s infrastructure and of open space are also important to Cummings.

Melinda Loring

Unlike her opponents, Melinda Loring is a strong supporter of TABOR. A professional actuary, Loring said the proposal is a good way to get state spending under control.

“I think it is a very reasonable way to deal with a very big problem in Maine,” the Bates College graduate said.

Loring, who declined to provide her age, lives on Concord Street and has two teenage sons.

The average citizen does not get heard in state government, Loring said. She said her main reason for running is she is tired of complaining.

“At some point you need to step up and do something,” she said.

Loring said she would like her sons to be able to stay in Maine when they grow up, and that means the economy needs to be stronger and so does the job pool.

Murrough O’Brien

O’Brien, 61, joined the Green Party six years ago because he was tired of the Democratic Party. An attorney and Portland native, he said he would like to see politicians spend less time being divisive.

The Taxpayer Bill of Rights, O’Brien said, is a “simple-minded mechanical solution to a complex problem.”

“I would vote against it,” O’Brien, a graduate of Harvard University and Maine Law School, said. “It obviously resonates with a lot of people though.”

A Concord Street resident, O’Brien acknowledged he is running against a very popular incumbent. He also admitted his priorities in Augusta would be vastly different than most representatives’.

“Global warming is the most important issue,” said O’Brien, who has two grown children with his wife, Johanna. “Other issues won’t matter if we don’t deal with climate change.”

O’Brien said a lot can be done at the local and state level to take on global warming, and not just energy conservation efforts. He said the Baldacci administration did little to make the environment a priority, and at a world level the United States refused to sign the Kyoto Treaty.

“The glaciers are melting and polar bears are beginning to drown,” O’Brien said. “I would be a full-time irritant on the subject of global warming.”

O’Brien would also like to have the state Department of Environmental Protection audited, along with taking a serious look at the state Department of Health and Human Services, which he said is letting people down.

Kate Bucklin can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 106 or kbucklin@theforecaster.net.

Clarke Canfield of the Associated Press on the DNC Action in House District 120: October 19, 2006

2006-10-10T04:46:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND - Howard Dean talked up Democrats, talked down Republicans and went door-to-door in a Portland neighborhood Monday to rally Democrats for the coming election.

Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a former Vermont governor, and Maine Gov. John Baldacci spoke to about 150 people at a breakfast fundraiser at the Italian Heritage Center before knocking on doors in a heavily Democratic Munjoy Hill neighborhood.

Accompanied by a gaggle of reporters and cameras, Dean and Baldacci stopped at four houses to tout the Democratic message.

One of them was owned by Jon Radtke, a high school teacher who said it’s important for Democrats to conduct a grass-roots effort to remind voters what’s at stake in the Nov. 7 election.

"It was a way to boost spirits as we go into an election," he said.

Earlier in the morning, Dean told party supporters at a fundraiser that Americans can’t trust Republicans with their money or to defend the country. The Maine Democratic Party asked for contributions of $29.29 because the event took place 29 days before the election.

While Bush likes to talk tough, Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, North Korea announced it has tested a nuclear device, and Iran has threatened to do the same, Dean said.

"You’ve got to be tough and smart, not just tough and talking tough at election time," Dean said.

For the governor’s race, Dean called Baldacci’s Republican opponent, Chandler Woodcock, a "clone of George Bush."

"If you like what George Bush is doing, you ought to vote for Chandler Woodcock," he said.

Barry Flynn, communications director for the Maine Republican Party, later said that Dean represents a "shrill vitriolic wing" of his party, and that Mainers are capable of determining which issues are important to them and which leaders they want in office.

"Maine people at the end of the day are going to define Chandler Woodcock," he said.

On Munjoy Hill, Dean and Baldacci visited several homes of people who were notified ahead of time that they might be coming to their door.

At the first house, Gary Akovenko asked what should be done about the war in Iraq. He was pleased to hear Dean say a change of direction is needed and Baldacci call for a comprehensive foreign policy, not one that changes from country to country.

"I wanted to hear about Iraq. I think that’s what’s on people’s minds," Akovenko said.

While Dean and Baldacci knocked on doors, several neighborhood residents followed behind carrying signs for Ben Meiklejohn, who is running in the district as a Green Independent Party candidate for the Legislature.

Kevin Donoghue, who is registered as a Green, commented about how "staged" the event was.

"I think it’s interesting to see an establishment party pretending to do grass-roots politics," he said.

"Democratic Chairman Lends a Hand in Maine" by Greg Kesich in the Portland Press Herald: October 10, 2006

2006-10-10T04:31:00.000-07:00

Portlnd Press Herald staff photo by John Ewing

Gary Akovenko looked surprised to answer his door Monday and find Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, Gov. John Baldacci, a crowd of party activists and a clutch of reporters from newspapers, radio and television waiting to greet him.

"With all of you, I thought I won Publisher's Clearinghouse," Akovenko said.

Instead of a prize, he accepted literature for a handful of Democratic candidates.

The door to Akovenko's hand-picked home on Monument Street was the first to be knocked on by Dean and Baldacci in a joint campaign appearance on a crystal clear October morning, 29 days before the Nov. 7 election.

As part of his "50 state strategy," Dean is taking the Democratic message to parts of the country that have gotten little attention from national leaders in the past because they were considered either too hostile to the party or so friendly that they didn't need the support.

For Maine, Dean's leadership of the national party has meant the addition of three state organizers who are working on behalf of candidates at all levels of government.

It also meant a quick visit from the party's national leader, beginning with a red-meat partisan speech far tougher than what's typically heard in a state where "partisan" can be a dirty word.

Dean focused much of his attack on President Bush, who he said could not be trusted with the economy or the national defense.

He said Bush had sent mixed signals to North Korea instead of trying to delay its nuclear weapons program through negotiation.

"His administration thought that North Korea was going to collapse of its own weight, and the hardliners refused to negotiate," Dean said. "That was a huge mistake."

Ignoring the Green Independent Party and independent challengers to Baldacci, Dean dug into the Republican opponent, Chandler Woodcock, whom Dean compared with Bush.

"If you like what George Bush is doing in Washington, you ought to vote for Chandler Woodcock, because he's a clone of George Bush," Dean said. "He's mouthing the same stuff, although he may be further to the right."

Maine Republican Party Executive Director Julie Ann O'Brien said she was not surprised by Dean's presence in Maine or his hot rhetoric.

"They try to throw things against the wall and see if they will stick. It's just not happening," she said. "People know the difference between what's happening in Maine and what's happening in Washington."

After the speech, the first person who greeted Dean's arrival on Munjoy Hill was Ben Meiklejohn, the Green candidate for the Maine House of Representatives who is running against Democrat Anne Rand and Republican Jeffrey Ferland. A handful of Green activists followed the Democrats, holding up Meiklejohn's campaign signs in the line of television news cameras.

"Nice to have Greens at Democratic events," state Democratic Party Chairman Ben Dudley said to Meiklejohn. "It's nice that you know who's actually getting stuff done."

Meiklejohn sniped back: "It's great to see you guys doing the doors, finally."

Meiklejohn said he has spent the last four months meeting voters in the district that includes Munjoy Hill.

He said there has been significant turnover in the district, giving him a chance to beat Rand, a popular Democrat who has been elected eight times to represent Portland in the House and Senate.

Rand agreed that the neighborhood in which she grew up has changed, but said she does not change her message because she is running against a challenger from the left instead of the right.

"Wherever I go, I come to the door and tell the people what I stand for," she said. "If they don't like it they can vote for someone else."

At Baldacci's and Dean's first stop, Akovenko said he had been called by party advance people Sunday and expected a visit from canvassers.

He asked Dean and Baldacci about the Democratic position on the war in Iraq.

"We don't like it," Dean answered. "We don't think we should be there and they think that we should."

Akovenko asked him to be more specific, and Baldacci responded that the country's position on Iraq should be part of a comprehensive Middle East strategy.

Akovenko said he was satisfied with the answers and said that he does not consider the Greens a realistic alternative when the issue is the war.

"That's really what's on people's minds," he said.

Staff Writer Gregory D. Kesich can be contacted at 791-6336 or at:

gkesich@pressherald.com

"Eder Gets Maine People's Alliance Endorsement" by Ed King in the West End News: September, 11 2006

2006-09-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

West End State Representative John Eder has received the endorsement of the Maine People’s Alliance in his reelection bid for the House 118 seat which encompasses the West End and Libby Town.

Maine People’s Alliance (MPA) is dedicated to advancing economic, environmental, political, and social justice by involving and educating citizens. The organization is known for its grassroots organizing and education that reaches more than 100,000 Mainers each year with direct personal contact and leadership development.

Eder, who worked as a door to door canvasser for MPA several years before he was elected to the legislature, called leadership development ‘a priority’. He said he works closely with MPA in Augusta to put Universal Single Payer Health Care into place and to successfully implement Dirigo Health. Other priorities of the organization include eliminating mercury pollution, affordable housing, defending the referendum process, and increasing voter participation.

Eder called MPA “one of my most powerful partners in Augusta. When the MPA and its members come to the State House, the walls shake.”

"Greens Vote to Reject TABOR" by Ed King on thewestendnews.blogspot.com: August 21, 2006

2006-08-21T04:43:00.000-07:00

The Portland Green Independent Committee voted unanimously on August 17th to oppose the Taxpayer Bill of Rights ballot question in November. The decision came after a public debate hosted by the Greens, featuring referendum proponent Tom Zimmerman and Christopher Saint John of the Maine Center for Economic Policy.

Local Greens are calling for an overhaul of the tax structure and for tax relief to service centers.

Portland Greens are running more legislative candidates than ever - four years after the election of West End Representative John Eder as the only Green Party state legislator in the country.

Kelsey Perchinski will challenge incumbent Ethan Strimling and Republican David Babin in the District 8 State Senate race, which covers most of the city. Matt Reading is challenging incumbent Herb Adams and Republican Jason Lavoie in District 119 (Parkside, Bayside). Green School Committee member Ben Meiklejohn will run in District 120 (Munjoy Hill) against Republican Jeff Ferland and former Democratic State Senator Ann Rand.

"Putting Money at the Point of Learning" by Stephen Spring in the Portland Forecaster: August 16, 2006

2006-08-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

I returned from my family vacation Satruday and picked up the Forecaster at my usual place - Sonny's on Congress Street. I read your editorial "New school year..." and felt compelled to clear things up. You missed the real story.

Two times in the past year, your paper has charged that the Greens have put partisan politics above doing the work of improving our schools. The first time was when me and three other elected officials quested the size of the superindtendent's pay raise in a failed attempt with a 4-5 vote to reduce the raise to something we could support. This led to charges that he Greens were meeting in private to do this and was somehow tied to the Class of 2023 Initiative.

Last week, you decided to focus on some bogus charge that was invented by teh chairwoman of teh school Board, Ellen Alcorn, and her local Party Boss rather than on what the real issue was. The notice that three of us were meeting to chat about downsizign administration brought attention to the fact that Portalnd Public Schools had two assistant superintendents. With one retiring, it was time eliminate one of those $100,000 a year positions. The outcome of what you call a 'shenanigan' is that we now have this money to put at the 'point of learning.'

You call this pushing a party agenda - I call it improving our schools by redirecting meoney so it ends up in the classroom.

"Editorial on Greens was Misguided" by Ben Meiklejohn in the Portland Forecaster: August 16, 2006

2006-08-17T09:50:00.000-07:00

Options state in last week's editorial regarding an informal meeting held in a public park are misguided. Firstly, it was not a "disregard of board procedure." Policy delegates responsibility of convening School Committee meetings to the chair, but we did not convene a Committee meeting. Policies do not prohibit individuals from meeting outside of official business meetings. Also, that it "is usually considered to run afoul of the state's right to know law" is presumptuous. Numberous attorneys substantiate that indivuduals may interact without public notice, unless there is a quorum that is making decisions.

Nonetheless, although not required by law, we believ ein being accessible to the public. That the "method of notice ensured that few members of the public attended," was a decision of our Chairwoman to not forward notice to the media, and further more not to notify us that it would not be sent out. Had we known this, we would have done it ourselves.

When we met informally in the park, we made no decisions nor voted. We talked casually about Portland schools, as any other would. That partisanship creates a tense atmosphere on teh Committee, and that "the new school year is not off to a good start," are exagerated characterizations designed to reflect Greens in the poorest light. The Committee rarely votes party lines, members work together in best faith to reach decisions, students attend good schools, and our teachers do a great job educating them. It's going to be a fine school year.

"Maine Voices" by Ben Meiklejohn in the Portland Press Herald: August 15, 2006

2006-08-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

About the Author

Benjamin J. Meiklejohn is anat-large member of the Portland School Committee.

To top of story

In December 2005, four Greens on the Portland School Committee presented a proposal to create a task force to consider ways to graduate every incoming kindergarten student from college by 2023.

Democrats accused Greens of violating public access laws by meeting on that topic without giving sufficient public notice. Greens were accused of "maybe" breaking the law, even though no meeting that included three or more of them ever took place.

The charge originates from interpretations of Maine law which spell out how "public notice shall be given for all public proceedings as defined if these proceedings are a meeting of a body or agency consisting of 3 or more persons." The statute further defines School Committee as an applicable "body."

While no group of three or more Greens met that December, Democrats still made accusations. In a Dec. 8 Press Herald article, attorney Jonathan Piper claimed "it is illegal for three or more members . . . to meet in person or discuss business by e-mail or telephone without giving public notice."

Numerous attorneys refute this. The committee itself is a "body" of three or more members. In Portland, it has nine. Three members of that body are, however, not themselves also a "body." The Democrats however, portray that Greens "might" be breaking the law.

If true, every elected city councilor and School Committee member in Portland breaks the law.

Three councilors or committee members are frequently seen grouping together, talking indirectly or directly about city or school business, among themselves, away from others - in parking lots, on sidewalks, in separate rooms, well outside of the commencement and adjournment of official meetings and without public notice.

Nonetheless, an unnamed colleague of mine had expressed a concern about these meetings. As a gesture of respect, Greens did what elected Democrats in Portland city government never do - ask the district to notify the media that three friends on the School Committee would meet in a public park and talk about reducing administrative costs.

However, that notice was not provided. Had it been known the district would not help with its media resources, then notice would have been provided independently.

It's interesting that, whenever Greens begin talking about reasonable controls on administrative costs, the Democrats flex their muscles of accusation.

Indeed, the charge of a clandestine meeting regarding the Class of 2023 came immediately on the heels of four Greens not voting towards the three-fifths requirement to enter an executive session to discuss the superintendent's salary.

Maine law clearly states that "an executive session may be held only if public discussion could be reasonably expected to cause damage to the reputation or the individual's right to privacy would be violated."

Given that all members speak frequent praise about our superintendent, the motion was not proper. Democrats disagreed, and Greens were then accused of illegality.

The Democratic strategy to claim repeatedly that Greens "may" be breaking the law implies guilt in the public forum, outside of courts. They continue claiming that Greens' actions, although no different than those of elected Democrats, are illegal violations of public access laws.

Yet they refuse to sue, instead straddling the line of "maybes." A court ruling that Greens who meet are certainly not breaking the law is not as advantageous as the privilege of being able to insistently state that they "may" be.

I believe all nine members of the School Committee have excellent working relationships with each other, bringing unique perspectives, resulting in healthy and wholesome decisions of the "body."

The portrayal of our committee as divided along partisan lines is less a reality than a convenient description to serve the purposes of city Democratic leaders, about whose motives one can only speculate. It is after all, an election year.

Three friends on the School Committee will be meeting again on Thursday at 5 p.m. in Lincoln Park, and anybody is welcome to attend. It is a public park, in a free country.

"No Summer Break in School Board Discord" by Chris Busby in the Bollard: August 7, 2005

2006-08-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

An illegal meeting? From left: Portland School Committee members Jason Toothaker, Stephen Spring and Ben Meiklejohn discussing school business in Lincoln Park on Aug. 3. (photos/Chris Busby)Portland public school students are on vacation this summer, but there's been no break in the partisan bickering that's plagued the Portland School Committee for much of the past year. Though the nine-member school committee is, officially, a non-partisan board, the five members registered to vote as Democrats and four Green Independent Party members have been sniping at one another like Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

The latest flare-up was ignited by Green board member Ben Meiklejohn, who's running for the state legislature this fall. On July 31, Meiklejohn announced that the four Greens on the board (Stephen Spring, Jason Toothaker, Susan Hopkins and himself) would be meeting at the fountain in Lincoln Park on Aug. 3 to discuss the possibility of reducing school administrative staff.

Assistant superintendent Dana Allen had recently announced his resignation, and Meiklejohn said he thought this presented a good opportunity to cut administrative costs by leaving Allen's position unfilled. In addition, Meiklejohn and Spring expressed concern early last week that the administration would begin a search for Allen's replacement immediately, and bring forward a candidate for the job before the board had a chance to debate whether or not the position should be filled.

But Meiklejohn also had another motive. The meeting in the park was intended to challenge the belief, held by some board Democrats, that it is illegal for three or more board members to meet and discuss school-related matters outside official meetings.

Last fall, the four Greens introduced a new initiative called the Class of 2023, a project to ensure every student has an opportunity to graduate from college. Some board Dems alleged the Greens had met as a group outside any formal board meeting to craft the proposal, in violation of board rules and state law.

The Greens deny this, saying they communicated one-on-one about the Class of 2023 proposal, but Meiklejohn has since come to believe that even if they had met as a group, such discussions are legal. Opinions to the contrary are like "a looming cloud over us that's very suppressive of us interacting… and exercising our right to free speech," he said.

The Greens' concern about Allen's position was largely assuaged at the full school board's formal meeting on Aug. 2, when Superintendent Mary Jo O'Connor announced the assistant superintendent job would not be filled before school starts again this fall. O'Connor and other top administrators will take on Allen's duties, and the job shuffling will result in a reduction of one-half of a salaried position this year, saving about $60,000 in pay and benefits, according to administrators. Meanwhile, a board-initiated "efficiency study" of the schools' administration will be conducted in hopes of identifying further savings, said School Committee Chairwoman Ellen Alcorn.

During an Aug. 1 interview with The Bollard, Alcorn said she was mystified as to why the Greens felt a need to meet outside the normal schedule of official board meetings. "It seems there's an implication that some of us care more about administrative efficiencies [than others]," she said. "If that is the perception, I would take issue with that.

"We just need to have some better accountability in place," Alcorn continued. "We need to stop functioning in the realm of political rhetoric [and gather] more data about decisions."

Functioning in the realm of political rhetoric

The three Green board members who showed up at the park last Thursday afternoon – Meiklejohn, Spring and Toothaker – talked casually about the preceding evening's developments, expressing satisfaction that savings would result from administrative restructuring this year and hope that further savings will be found following additional study.

No votes were taken during the 20-minute gathering, which was attended by this reporter and city government watchdog Steven Scharf, an occasional opinion columnist for The West End News. Spring said he hopes to make the meetings in the park a regular, biweekly event during which board members of either political party and members of the public can discuss school matters in a relaxed atmosphere.

From left: Toothaker, Spring, Meiklejohn and Steven Scharf (back to camera) in Lincoln Park on Aug. 3.

Although Meiklejohn does not believe it is necessary to formally notify the public when three or more board members gather to informally discuss school business, notice of the meeting was sent to all eight of his fellow board members, media outlets that regularly cover school matters (The Bollard, The Forecaster and The West End News) and Superintendent O'Connor. Alcorn and O'Connor were asked to pass notice of the meeting along to media on the schools' list of press contacts.

The Aug. 3 meeting was not posted on the school department's online schedule of committee meetings, and it seems notice of the meeting in the park was not forwarded to media on the schools' press list.

In an Aug. 5 article in the Portland Press Herald, Alcorn told reporter Beth Quimby she decided not to forward notice of the meeting to media on the press list because only the chair of the board has authority to schedule school committee meetings. Instead, Alcorn told Quimby, she contacted Portland Democratic Party Chairwoman Sive Neilan, and Neilan "then sent off several e-mails to city officials in protest," according to the article.

Though Quimby's article asserts that the Greens' Aug. 3 meeting "is drawing criticism from colleagues and constituents," no board colleagues other than Alcorn are quoted or referenced in the article, and no constituents, other than Neilan, are quoted or referenced.

The daily also failed to mention a notable board dispute, aired in public at the Aug. 2 meeting, in which Alcorn was accused of violating board rules and state open-meeting laws. (Quimby did not attend the Aug. 2 meeting.)

On June 21, Alcorn, Hopkins and school board members John Coyne and Jonathan Radtke met to discuss contract negotiations with the teachers' union and a union representing administrative employees. No other school board members were able to attend that meeting in person.

As is common practice when union contracts are being negotiated, those present moved to have the discussion in a private "executive session." However, the group of four officials did not constitute the quorum of five members necessary to hold the closed-door meeting. Rather than cancel the meeting, board member Otis Thompson was contacted by phone, and Thompson participated in the private meeting, which lasted 12 minutes, via phone.

"This isn't Who Wants to Be a Millionaire where the chair gets to use one of her Lifelines to call her 'Special Friend,'" Spring wrote in a July 11 e-mail to The Bollard. "This is government; when it comes to negotiating the teachers contract, [Alcorn] needs to follow the law, not to mention basic democratic principles."

Meiklejohn said he could have participated in that meeting by phone, but was not called. "I'm disappointed I wasn't given equal opportunity as a colleague to participate," he said. The practice of calling select school board members "gives some members more access than others, and we're all supposed to be equal."

"In retrospect, [calling Thompson] was probably not the right thing to do," Alcorn said in an interview with The Bollard. "Live and learn." Alcorn apologized for the incident at the Aug. 2 board meeting, and the full board went back into executive session that evening to discuss the contract negotiations again.

The school board's legal counsel, Harry Pringle, told members at the Aug. 2 meeting that courts across the country are "split" on the question of public officials participating in meetings via phone. Pringle said case law in Maine doesn't provide a solid precedent, but added, "I don't think you have a valid quorum unless there are five bodies" physically present at a meeting.

In a follow-up interview with The Bollard, Pringle said if such an issue were brought before a court in Maine, he predicts the court would cite the "long tradition in this state of officials being present at meetings," and reject teleconferencing at public meetings unless state lawmakers specifically approve that type of communication.

Pringle also said Maine law doesn't set a clear precedent regarding the legality of three or more board members getting together for informal discussion of public business – though board meetings are regulated by the charter and policies of the board itself.

Such informal gatherings could become "problematic" if enough members gather to form a quorum or nearly a quorum, make decisions, and then "get together and ratify" those decisions at an official public meeting, Pringle said. But a gathering like the Aug. 3 meeting in the park is not, "on its face," illegal, and would not necessarily require public notice.

"You can draw your own conclusion whether that's a good way for a public body to make decisions," Pringle added.

School Meeting in Park Criticized by Beth Quimby in the Portland Press Herald: August 5, 2006

2006-08-05T15:05:00.000-07:00

Staff photo

A meeting of some of the Portland School Committee's Green Party members to discuss school business at the fountain at Lincoln Park Thursday is drawing criticism from colleagues and constituents.

Critics say the Greens are once again stirring up partisan politics on a committee that traditionally operates outside them.

Green Party members say all they are trying to do is make the School Committee's business more public.

But it appears their attempts at transparency have backfired. Critics also say the Green Party members violated public access laws by improperly calling the Lincoln Park meeting and failing to post it publicly.

The meeting was called Monday by at-large committee member Ben Meiklejohn, a Green who said he wanted to talk about reducing administrative costs in a casual setting.

He sent e-mails to his fellow committee members asking them to join him. He also e-mailed School Committee Chairman Ellen Alcorn and Superintendent Mary Jo O'Connor, asking them to notify the public of the meeting by contacting the media.

"We decided to be above-board and to cross all the t's and dot all the i's," Meiklejohn said.

The meeting took place as planned, at the fountain at Lincoln Park next to the Cumberland County Superior Court building. Those present included Meiklejohn and fellow Green committee members Stephen Spring and Jason Toothaker and two reporters contacted by Spring. No other media had been contacted. The meeting ran for about 10 to 15 minutes.

"We just talked about possibilities. It was totally open," said Meiklejohn.

Both he and Spring said the meeting was a deliberate move to make the School Committee's dealings more public. Earlier this year all four Green party members, including Susan Hopkins, pushed to keep the discussion of O'Connor's salary public rather than hold the discussion in secret, a move opposed by the five non-Green members.

Alcorn said she did not follow through with Meiklejohn's request to contact the media because it fell outside board protocol. All meetings are supposed to be called by the chairman, she said, not by individual committee members.

Instead, she alerted city Democratic Party Chairman Sive Neilan about the Lincoln Park meeting. Neilan then sent off several e-mails to city officials in protest.

Defending her move, Alcorn said she alerted the Democrats out of frustration over simmering partisan politics on her board and a belief that someone who would care should know about the Lincoln Park meeting.

"I don't go to Democratic City Committee meetings. I don't have huge ambitions to go to the City Council, but I really care about the School Committee and am at the point now I just do not know how else to handle it," Alcorn said.

She said two meetings with a facilitator to help the committee cooperate and a meeting with the school attorney have failed to iron out differences.

Alcorn said while it is not clear whether the meeting in the park was illegal, it most likely violated the School Committee's own policies, which require all meetings to be called through the chairman.

"Ben Meiklejohn never called me to ask me to call this meeting. It is a violation of our policy," she said.

Neilan called the meeting "very out of order" and criticized the Green School Committee members for not adequately publicizing the meeting in a park few people know by name.

"In Maine there has been a really long struggle to open up the public debate on civic matters to the public. The Green people do not seem to be aware of that long struggle," she said.

Spring said the Lincoln Park meeting was a demand for more openness.

"I see it as a statement that we need to do our business more in the public," he said.

He said the park meeting was such a success, the three decided to gather there at 4 p.m. every other Thursday.

The school district's attorney, Harry Pringle, was unavailable for comment.

Staff Writer Beth Quimby can be contacted at 791-6363 or at: bquimby@pressherald.com

"Rocker replaces rocker against Herb Adams; State Senate hopeful Babin to face former campaign manager" by Chris Busby in the Bollard: July 25, 2006

2006-07-26T17:46:00.000-07:00

This year's races for Maine State House and Senate seats are beginning to take official shape, as political parties replace "placeholder" candidates with contenders they hope will actually campaign.

As we reported in Briefs back in April, one such placeholder was Jason Rogers, a local indie rocker who held the Green Independent Party's spot on the ballot for the House District 119 (Bayside and Parkside) race. Incumbent Democratic Rep. Herb Adams is running again for that seat, and the Republicans' horse is Jason LaVoie, a conservative University of Southern Maine student activist.

Rogers has been replaced by another guitar-slinging Green, Matt Reading. Reading, 24, said he was inspired to run by Rep. John Eder, the West End Green whom he worked for at the State House a few years ago. He's also been inspired by Warren Haynes, the former Allman Brothers ax-man now shredding Southern rock in Gov't Mule.

Reading is not currently in a band. Rogers' band, Diamond Sharp, plays this Friday at Space Gallery.

In another semi-interesting twist, Karl Rawstron, the Greens' placeholder in the District 8 State Senate race against incumbent Ethan Strimling, has been replaced by Kelsey Perchinski, office manager and DJ at WMPG. The Republican candidate is David Babin, who ran and lost (badly) against Strimling two years ago.

Babin's campaign manager in that race: Kelsey Perchinski.

"He's completely fine with it," Perchinski said of Babin, who confirmed that he supports Perchinski's candidacy. "I certainly plan to help Kelsey in any way I can (she has all the dirt on me)," Babin wrote in an e-mail to The Bollard.

Rawstron, meanwhile, now has more free time to get ready for the rumored reunion of Sex Sells, the short-lived Portland indie-pop trio he fronted with bassist Meghan Conley (now Meghan Busby, this reporter's wife).

In non-rockin' political news, the Elephant Party has been unable to find a candidate to run in the House District 118 (West End) race against Eder and Democratic contender Jon Hinck. Perhaps that's just as well, as the last time Republicans had a candidate in this liberal district, she neglected to campaign and ended up endorsing Eder.

That's not likely to happen this year on the East End, where the Republicans have replaced Douglas Calderbank with Jeffrey Ferland.

"Since 1997 we've ranked as the state with the highest tax burden, and since that time, our neighbor New Hampshire hasn't ranked worse than 48th," Ferland wrote in a July 22 e-mail declaring his candidacy. "I'm finding it hard to believe that 49 other states can handle their budgets better than us, and still have the same kinds of services."

Ferland is an information technology consultant and auditor at a local accounting firm (he declined to disclose his employer's name). He's also 21 years old. His opponents in the House District 120 race are Portland School Committee member and Green "Zen" Ben Meiklejohn, and Anne Rand, a veteran Democratic state legislator seeking to return to Augusta.

Greens to Challenge Dem Big Guns by Ed King on thewestendnews.blogspot.com: July 24, 2006

2006-07-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

Portland’s Green Independent Party nominated two candidates at a party caucus held at Portland’s City Hall on July 24th, to compete in two of the highest-profile legislative races to be contested in the city this fall.

Kelsey Perchinski will run for the State Senate seat representing District 8, which covers most of the city. The seat is currently held by Portland West’s Executive Director Ethan Strimling. Republican David Babin is also a candidate in the race. Perchinski, a native of New Hampshire, is the station manager at WMPG. She is married and is the mother of a four-year-old girl. She was also Babin’s campaign manager when he ran against Strimling two years ago.

At the same caucus, Matt Reading, a native of Auburn and currently a resident of Portland, was nominated to run in the race to represent the Parkside/Bayside neighborhood, District 119, in the State Legislature. That seat is currently held by Representative Herb Adams, who is also being challenged by a Republican. Reading previously ran for office in Auburn.

Portland Greens Back on Top

2006-07-05T18:20:00.000-07:00

Portland Green Independents celebrated independence from Britain and politics as usual at a campaign kick-off party on North Street. Committee Co-Chairs and residents of Munjoy Hill, Kevin Donoghue and Rebecca Minnick (above), will seek to represent District One on the City Council and the School Board, respectively. Dave Marshall and Stephen Spring also signaled the start to their respective campaigns for City Council and School Board in District Two. Stephen Spring is seeking re-election for a second term. The four peninsular candidates for municipal office will take out papers next week and begin working for you.

"Eder Receives AFL-CIO Endorsement" by Ed King in the West End News: July 5, 2006

2006-07-04T06:11:00.000-07:00

In a historic move, the Maine AFL-CIO has endorsed Green Independent State Representative John Eder in his re-election bid for the District 118 State House seat representing the West End and Oakdale neighborhoods.

Eder has a 100% voting record on labor issues tracked by Maine’s unions, but this is the first time the labor union has endorsed his bid for the legislature, and it marks the first time that the union has endorsed a Green Party legislative candidate.
“We endorse legislators who have a record of supporting our goals and the needs of working people, and Representative Eder has shown a strong commitment to our issues,” said Ed Gorham, President of the Maine AFL-CIO.

Eder said it was “one of the high points of my legislative career to be endorsed by the nation’s most well-known union.”

In his two terms in the legislature Eder has made “livable wages” a focus, and has sponsored several pieces of legislation to increase the wages of Maine workers to a “livable wage.” He says that the legislature must set the tone by requiring “living wages” to be paid in state contracts and in wages paid through reimbursements from the state. Eder pledged to continue to speak out on behalf of those struggling on low wages.

"Greens upset they're not on Ethics Panel" in the Bangor Daily News: June 28, 2006

2006-07-03T17:11:00.000-07:00

AUGUSTA - Prominent members of the Green Independent Party lashed out Tuesday at Democratic and Republican legislative leaders, claiming Greens had been sidelined for too long in their battle for representation on the state ethics board.

Charging Democratic and Republican leaders with nurturing an "institutional bias" against the Greens for years, Nancy Allen, a party spokesman, and state Rep. John Eder, a Green Party lawmaker from Portland, said there was no reason why a Green could not be named to fill the fifth slot on the five-member Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices. The board resolves ethics complaints and investigates state campaign finance violations and has conducted its business with a vacancy since April 2005.

"The Green Party ought to be considered," Allen said.

"The point is that if you become a major party, you can't be kept away from these kind of positions by the other two parties. That's unethical, unfair and undemocratic."

The Green Party statements were made in reaction to remarks offered Monday by House Speaker John Richardson, D-Brunswick. During a meeting with State House reporters, Richardson deplored the fact that the ethics panel vacancy had persisted for so long and repeatedly referred to the need to find an independent candidate for the position. The fifth candidate for the commission must be nominated by GOP and Democratic legislative leaders and approved by the governor.

Richardson implied the delay was prompted by the inaction of Republican leaders, adding that finding a candidate not enrolled in a political party who met the approval of party leaders in the House and Senate was a "very unwieldy and difficult" task. It was, he said, apparently more difficult for Republicans than Democrats.

"It appears that we have put out a number of nominees, but the Republicans have been a little late in providing their names and that has caused a fair amount of delay," Richardson said. "It is my hope that there may be a couple of names that will come forward and then, ultimately, the governor can choose one of those three names and then one can be agreed upon."

Republican leaders in the House and Senate denied Richardson's characterization of their alleged procrastination and insisted they have been discussing a candidate with members of the governor's staff.

"The speaker can play the blame game as much as he wants, but there's a process for filling this position, and I'm pretty confident it will be filled in the near future," said House GOP leader Joshua Tardy of Newport.

While the GOP's unnamed candidate is not a Green, Tardy and Senate GOP leader Paul Davis of Greenville said they would not oppose a qualified Green candidate for the ethics panel - a possibility that didn't arise Monday during Richardson's discussions with reporters.

"I'm not surprised that it didn't," Davis said. "Greens take votes away from Democrats and I'm sure they wouldn't want one on the commission. It wouldn't bother me, though, as long as they could do the job."

While Richardson referred to finding an independent candidate for the vacant ethics slot, the pertinent Maine law simply states that no more than two members of the five-member board can represent the same party. Jonathan Wayne, executive director of the ethics commission, said there was nothing to prevent legislative leaders from nominating a Green to the commission if that was their desire. Rep. John Eder, G-Portland, said his party has to continually fight for a place at the table in Maine politics.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you - then they fight you," Eder said. "We're moving through this process and obviously there's an effort to try and suggest that there's none other than the two parties which enshrined themselves in the Maine Constitution in the 1980s. It's a constant battle, but we want a seat on the board. We've paid our dues."

Responding to the Greens' remarks late Tuesday afternoon, Richardson said that, contrary to Davis' suggestion, he also would welcome a Green nominee for the ethics panel.

"All I would say is that if the Green Party wants to be a major party in the state of Maine, then they need to do as everyone else does: assert themselves just as Republicans and Democrats do by offering up names," he said. "I'm certainly not obstructive or adverse to the notion that a Green could serve."

Historically, the fifth commission slot has been filled by an independent. Former independent Gov. Angus S. King was presented as a potential member earlier this year, but he declined the nomination.

The panel has essentially been a four-member board since April, when independent member Terrence MacTaggart, the former chancellor of the University of Maine System, finished his term. While the commission has largely been able to avoid stalemates, that was not the case in March when the panel deadlocked 2-2 over a request from the Conservation Law Foundation to investigate Rep. Thomas Saviello, an independent from Wilton.

The foundation charged that Saviello, a manager at the former International Paper Co. in Jay, used his position on the Legislature's Natural Resources Committee to craft weaker environmental regulations for IP and that he bargained with the Department of Environmental Protection to drop an enforcement action against the mill. The two Republican members of the commission voted not to investigate the allegation, while the two Democrats supported it. The deadlock ensured no action would be taken.

The absence of the fifth member "was critical in the Saviello case," Richardson agreed.

A decision by Richardson and Senate President Beth Edmonds, D-Freeport, to convene a 15-member advisory panel to review the current code of ethical behavior for lawmakers and the manner in which complaints can be resolved may yet hold implications for the Greens. The panel held its first organizational meeting last week, and while the Saviello incident enjoyed a fair amount of discussion, a variety of other potential topics were also broached.

John Rensenbrink, founder of the Maine Green Party and one of the 15 advisory panel members, said Tuesday it was high time the commission's composition reflected the Maine electorate instead of the Maine Legislature. Noting that Maine voters are composed of 39 percent unenrolled or independent voters, 31 percent Democrats, 28 percent Republicans, and 2 percent Greens, Rensenbrink reasoned it made more sense to have the panel recommend that the ethics commission consist of two unenrolled members, one Democrat, one Republican and one Green.

"One, one, one plus two would be just fine," Rensenbrink said. "I think I will be inclined to recommend that to the full commission when we get to that point."

"School Board May Move Meetings to City Hall" by Ed King in the West End News: June 21, 2006

2006-06-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

The Portland School Committee will vote on June 14th on whether to continue meeting at Portland Arts and Technology High School (PATHS) on Allen Avenue, or move the meetings somewhere else- possibly to Portland’s City Hall.

The Casco Bay High School currently exists in PATHS - with it's epicenter at 250 PATHS - where the school committee meetings are held, and is expanding from 80-something students to at least double that number.

West End School Board member Stephen Spring says that meetings are inconvenient for the students, because much of their work is project-based and the students need more space to do their work.

Currently, the nine-member board has six representatives who live near or on the peninsula. Two board members- Ben Meiklijohn and Jason Toothaker – do not own cars.

Moving the meetings to City Hall would result in easier travel and less fossil fuels being used, says Spring.City Hall is accessible by most major bus routes, he says, and participation by citizens without cars would be easier.

"Grass Roots Fire Fight" by Sara Donnelly in the Portland Phoenix: June 7, 2006

2006-06-08T06:04:00.000-07:00

Kevin Donoghue slumps deeper in his chair at the 2006 Maine Green Party convention as a debate over one of the most significant structural changes to the party’s governance in its 22-year history swallows up more of his Friday evening. About 30 Greens sit in the theater of the Center for Cultural Exchange in Portland, discussing whether to streamline party leadership in a year when many of them think their gubernatorial candidate, Pat LaMarche, could win.

The single Green state legislator, John Eder, is home sick with the flu. Ben Meiklejohn, aka “Zen Ben,” a 34-year-old Portland school committee member and a candidate for state legislature, stands in the front row and objects to the proposal to fire the party’s current group of leaders (who party founder John Rensenbrink recently said didn’t do much of anything this year) in exchange for a smaller group of new leaders. A Green in a yellow tropical shirt interrupts Meiklejohn and berates him so vehemently Meiklejohn walks out of the room. Donoghue watches, amused and dismayed.

Like most young active party members from Portland, Donoghue, 27, is more energized by winning a political seat, like Zen Ben and other Portland Greens have managed to, than he is by debating the state party structure that hasn’t done much to help him run for office in the first place. But whether or not Donoghue cares much about the party, the party is starting to care a lot about people like him.

Around 8 pm, after some impassioned condemnations of the current party leadership, a tiny fraction of the 24,000 Greens registered in the state raise their mint-green placards and votes to create a stronger central governing body whose first priority is to hire an executive director who will help more Kevin Donoghues from around the state run for office. The 13-member steering committee of the Green Party, which chose not to recruit a single candidate for this fall’s municipal or state elections, is dissolved on the spot and replaced with five new politics-minded Greens including Ben Chipman (the party’s most ardent campaign manager), Jonathan Carter (who ran twice for governor), and Carol Schiller (who lost her campaign for city council last year). In about 25 minutes, the party transforms from a chronically decentralized group of activist-skeptics into a maybe, possibly, if-you-squint-your-eyes-could-be a unified party with a palpable lust for political power. And some key Greens think it’s about time.

Twisted roots
While the 30 or so Greens at the convention debated the merits of a smaller governing board, Jacqui Deveneau mills around the room munching on snacks from the lobby. Deveneau is the party’s “Welcome Wagon Lady” — she contacts new Greens and helps them become active in the party — and is one of the busiest Green activists in the state. Deveneau loves the Greens, and wants the party to be strong and happy and functional and all that, but she’s not much involved in politics of the Kevin Donoghue or John Eder variety. She, like many who join progressive third parties as refugees from the middle-moving Democrats, prefers direct action in protests and advocacy work over courting the voting public.

“There’s those at the party leadership level that would rather be the due processors and not get out and be in the streets, and those people are more heavily into running elections,” she explained earlier this spring in a phone interview. “And there’s always going to be those of us that are activists and don’t really care for the politics of it.”

Deveneau believes, most of the time, activist Greens support the electoral Greens, if from a safe, cynical distance. She hopes the new board, free of what she calls “baggage” from the previous leadership, can bring the party together.

Since its inception, the Green Party has worried about how to navigate the world of politics without forfeiting its progressive ideals. Nationally, this means Green candidates occasionally encourage voters to abandon the party and vote for the Democratic candidate in close races. During their 2004 campaign, Green candidate for president David Cobb and his running mate Pat LaMarche focused most of their efforts on so-called “safe states,” where Democrat John Kerry was sure to win. John Rensenbrink, a former government and environmental studies professor at Bowdoin College who founded the Maine Green Party in 1984, wrote in his 1999 book Against All Odds: The Green Transformation of American Politics, that the Green Party was created to create “profound change” in the way government and society run by promoting a platform that includes protecting the environment, forming a decentralized economy, and coveting local control of government. Rensenbrink describes rocky early days of the US Green party and its Maine branch, when members debated everything from the party’s structure and purpose to how it could remain ideologically true and still convince a majority of voters to elect (and then re-elect) its progressive candidates. The party eventually settled on its 10 Key Values platform — which includes promoting the environment, a decentralized economy, and local control — and two awkwardly mutually-exclusive goals — launch bold protests against corrupt government and get Green candidates elected to change the government from within.

From the beginning, the movement-oriented activists and what Rensenbrink refers to as the political “party types” regarded each other suspiciously from opposite ends of the same dream. The activists worried that politics, which by necessity focuses on winning first and on ideology second, could taint the Greens and twist them into exactly the kind of power-hungry force they were trying to replace.

“If the Green parties are successful in winning elections, will this bring in its train a slew of problems of the sort that electoral success usually brings?” writes Rensenbrink of the debate within the national party during the early 1990s. “Opportunists, who have hitherto hung back, now join in droves. ... The risk is great that the Greens will be co-opted and corrupted by the system.”

Broken branches
In his book, Rensenbrink suggests that the Greens can salvage their integrity by always encouraging both the direct action and the electoral branches of the party, something which, judging by the anger at last month’s Green convention, the most recent leadership has failed to do.

“In my opinion, there’s an argument from within on whether we’re an electoral party or a direct action party or a social club,” says John Eder, who, in 2002, became the first Green to win state-level office in a regular election. (In 1999, Green Audie Bock won a seat in the California lower house in a special election.) Eder, who says some of the direct-action Greens “looked at me and were like, eew” when he won his first election, believes the Greens have just started to figure out how to actually grow a political party that includes a lot of people who distrust politics.

“We began winning seats only recently and really running to win only recently,” says Eder. “And it’s sort of created an identity issue. I think some in the party were satisfied to be issues-based, direct-action based and not seriously pursue electoral goals and when we began to take seats in Portland it began to bring [electoral politics] to the fore.”

Rensenbrink, who is now 77 and active with the Topsham Merrymeeting Greens, is concerned that all 12 Green candidates for office this year come from Cumberland County, evidence that the rural Green committees have detached from the electoral game. During an interview at the Little Dog Café in Brunswick in April, Rensenbrink was most animated, albeit with frustration, when talking about what he referred to as the “political dissidence” or the “down with politics” attitude of some Greens.

“If our country goes down the tubes, it’s because of that — the profound alienation of political consciousness,” he said, shaking his head dismally.

But during a phone interview after the convention, Rensenbrink sounded optimistic that the new board will give the party “a greater coherence and sense of direction” by raising money, reconnecting those detached Green committees, and eventually helping more candidates run for office.

“It would be great if we could have enough time and energy to field effective candidates for US Congress and Senate. I hope that will come in the future,” he said. “It’s really important for us to being to devolve power from Washington [DC] down to the states and then down to each locality, we’re always trying to find more effective ways to do that.”

Cutting through
If the new governing board proves to be as strong as intended, it will be a significant change from the origins of the party, which for the first six years of its life functioned exclusively through small, non-hierarchical committees scattered haphazardly throughout the state. These committees focused on platform building and direct action without the benefit (or hindrance) of a strong state party governance. It wasn’t until 1990, six years after the Maine Greens were founded, that the party created a statewide team to even look at running a candidate for office, and it wasn’t until 1992 that they could actually find someone to do it. That someone was Jonathan Carter, who ran unsuccessfully for the US House and, two years later, on a campaign budget of $32,695, managed to attract over six percent of the Maine popular vote as a candidate for governor. This total was enough to exceed the state minimum of five percent to get the Greens official party status in Maine for the first time. Party status is crucial, many Greens say, because it allows candidates to run officially as Greens (which makes for great publicity), it qualifies the party for some state funding, and it allows party leadership to gather a list of registered Green voters. According to the Maine Secretary of State, the Green party registered 24,155 voters in 2004 (the most recent numbers available), up from 16,169 during the last election cycle in 2002.

But winning the country’s most powerful seats has proven to be a pipe dream for any color that’s not blue or red.

“The only evidence we ever had of a third party winning at the national level and kind of knocking off one of the two major parties was of course the Republican Party in 1860. Civil war can tend to do that,” says Mark Brewer, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Maine, who specializes in US electoral politics (see sidebar, “What Republicans Can Teach The Greens”). “There is no third party in the United States right now that has any shot of winning a presidential election or even a congressional election.”

According to Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, a 22-year-old Web site and newsletter based in San Francisco that tracks third parties in the US, the Maine and US Green parties have guilt to wrestle with on top of the challenge of breaking into high-level mainstream politics. After waiting years to jump into politics — most third parties run a candidate the same year they launch — to avoid diving into a race only to help a Republican win, the Greens watched their presidential candidate Ralph Nader realize the party’s worst nightmare in 2000 when he helped swing the election for George W. Bush. Winger says that experience made many Greens recoil even more from pushing third-party candidates, even at the state level.

Winger says the strongest national third parties in the country are the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, and the Constitution Party. Green Party membership nationally has stagnated in recent years, while the Constitution Party, an ultra-conservative group that believes US law should be based on the Bible, has lately gained the most registered voters of the five top third parties (see “Party People” sidebar). More than a decade after their slow-to-spoil start in politics, Winger says the Maine Greens are one of the strongest state third parties in the country in part because Eder has been elected to state office twice.

Sowing seeds
It’s not easy being Eder, the lone representative of a small party that must devote all its resources to the gubernatorial race to maintain party status, and which struggles with a perennially anemic budget. The party’s 2006 budget, according to documents passed out at the April convention, is $15,000, the bulk of it raised from either tax check-offs or direct contributions from registered Greens. During the first quarter of this year, which was reported to the state Governmental Ethics and Election Practices Commission in April, the Maine Greens collected only $607, compared with $67,000 raised by the Maine Republican Party and $334,000 raised by the Maine Democratic Party. The Green Party can’t afford to provide Eder with a state House clerk who can work more eight hours a week and, in 2005, the party closed its Augusta office for lack of funds (the Portland office is still open, but is funded by the Cumberland County Green Committee, not the state party). As it currently stands, the party budget is hardly healthy enough to hire a full-time executive director, which is one of the board’s first goals. The Greens are therefore not hiding that dredging up more green is their first order of business. The new board will hold its first meeting later this month. Until then, the board’s chair, Jane Meisenbach, says she does not know how the party will focus its future fundraising efforts.

Most Greens we spoke to, including party leaders and average voters, see the changes at the top as necessary growth.

“We’re reinventing the way we view politics,” says Bob Dunning, chairman of the Bridgton Green Independent Committee. “We don’t want it to be traditional and it’s not always going to be the same solution because organizations change all the time. Everything has to change or die.”

"School Board Member Clarifies Concerns on Cell Towers" by Susan Hopkins in the Portland Forecaster: May 31, 2006

2006-06-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

To the editor:

The “Deering High School to have cell tower” story in The Forecaster does not accurately represent the concerns that I raised at the May 16th Portland School Committee meeting about the cell tower contract. I did not voice a concern “about the lack of conclusive scientific evidence” between radio frequency radiation and adverse health effects. I made a motion to delay the vote on the cell tower lease for another week so that we could look at evidence on the health effects of this type of radiation. We, as a legislative body, didn’t look at any evidence. In support of my motion, I cited reports from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (which is one of the National Institutes of Health within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services).

I specifically cited the EPA’s 2002 letter that said that US exposure standards are not up to date with the latest research and the fact that the radiation levels of the proposed tower were set by legislation passed in 1996.

I also asked whether we knew if the International Association of Firefighters has lifted their moratorium on placing cell towers at fire stations, as they were concerned about the adverse health effects. I quoted health policy analyst Karl Polzer’s “Washington Post” op-ed piece in which he said, “If cell towers are too risky for firefighters-- who are paid to enter burning buildings and who are routinely exposed to toxic fumes-- then it makes no sense to put cell towers near schoolchildren.”

I said that, despite the low levels of radiation, I have questions about whether the impact of exposure to this level of intensity of radiation is cumulative. I question the wisdom of exposing students and employees to that, especially with such a low-fee lease with no indemnity clause coming from the cell company.

The leading researcher in this field said that he wouldn’t live next to a cell tower. If we could have explored some of that evidence, as a deliberative committee, my next question would be, once we actually review the evidence, do we as a School Committee want to use a “preponderance of the evidence” standard when it comes to deciding whether having cell towers on Deering High School is safe or a higher standard like “clear & convincing” or “beyond a reasonable doubt”?

I’m obliged to support the decision of the School Committee, so I propose that to ensure the safety of the children attending our public schools, we must look at the research more thoroughly and be prepared to re-visit this contract if we are unable to say that our students on Stevens Avenue are 100 percent safe.

For more information see www.protectschools.org

Susan Hopkins

Portland School Committee, At-Large Seat

"Greens Dump State Leaders" by Ed King in the West End News: May 24, 2006

2006-05-22T07:10:00.000-07:00

Maine’s Green Independent Party began its annual party convention with a bang on May 19th by voting to replace the entire state party leadership with a complete new slate of officers. Three prominent Portland Greens were elected to take the party in a new direction, on the second day of the two-day convention. Neighborhood activist and former City Council candidate Carol Schiller, and party strategist Ben Chipman are now part of the 5-member state committee, which also includes former gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Carter. Portland Green Party Chair Kevin Donoghue was elected a national representative.

There are twelve announced Green candidates in the state this year – all of them in Cumberland County. Six Greens are elected officials in the City of Portland – four school board members, one member of the Portland Water Board, and West End state legislator John Eder.

Green Independent Party gubernatorial candidate Pat LaMarche addressed about 40 Greens at the convention on May 20th, delivering a critical ‘State of the State’ address in which she touched on such topics as health care, education, energy, and the economy.

"Eder Bill Becomes Law" by Ed King on thewestendnews.blogspot.com: May 17, 2006

2006-05-22T07:04:00.000-07:00

A new law sponsored by West End Representative John Eder requiring landlords to present prospective tenants with a disclosure form revealing a rental unit’s energy efficiency has gone into effect. The law requires landlords to fill out the form, make it available to the rental housing consumer, and post it in a visible place in the apartment for rent. Upon signing the lease, the prospective tenant must sign that they read the form.

The forms are now available to landlords and property managers for download on the Public Utilities Commission website. The forms provide easy to understand information describing in simple terms whether or not a rental unit meets minimum energy efficiency standards, and also apprise the renter of an existing law that allows a prospective tenant to contact the utility to find out how much it cost to heat the unit in the previous twelve months.

Portland has some of the oldest housing stock in the country, and many of its rental buildings are uninsulated. Eder says that every winter he gets calls from tenants who are shocked by the cost of their heating bills. The original legislation would have required all rental units in the state be made to be energy-efficient. The disclosure form approach was the result of a compromise between those representing tenants, the environment and landlords.

Among the groups who worked for the bill’s passage was The League of Young Voters, who were invited by the Legislature’s Utilities and Energy Committee to be among the stakeholders who worked out the final language of the law.

"Bloggers Bring New Dimension to Local Political Scene" by Ed King in the West End News: May 10, 2006

2006-05-12T11:12:00.000-07:00

Comments by Portland School Committee member Stephen Spring on his web log became the topic of a Portland City Council workshop on May 8th when City Councilor Jill Duson asked if the School Committee members who voted against the School Committee budget had issued a ‘minority report’. (Four Green Party members on the officially non-partisan School Committee had voted against the school budget in a 5-4 vote.)

School Committee Chair Ellen Alcorn told the City Council that there was no consensus among the dissenters as to their reasons for voting against the budget, and so a ‘minority report’ was not possible.

Spring and several Green Independent Party members who are running for local office recently started their own web logs to get their views into the open. Portland Green Independent Party Co-Chair Kevin Donoghue is using his blog (kevindonoghue.blogspot.com) to promote his campaign against District 1 City Councilor Will Gorham. Other Green Party candidates with web logs include David Marshall (District 2 City Council; www.davemarshallforcouncil.com) and Kevin Gardella (at-large School Committee; kevingardella.blogspot.com).

Duson said that she thought it was ‘odd’ for a public official to put his views on a blog instead of bringing it before the official body. Spring, however, has said that there is no forum for the minority on the School Committee to express its views, hence his comments independent of the board.

Spring has proposed several ideas on his blog (www.springcares.blogspot.com.) to cut the school budget and save energy as well.

"Born to Ride?" by Stephen Nunns in the Portland Forecaster: May 10, 2006

2006-05-11T15:37:00.000-07:00

It's 8:20 in the morning all over the city, parades of elementary school children pedal their way along didicated bike routes, traversing intersections with the help of crossing guards, making their way to school in time for the morning bell.

This is the scenario that some biking advocates and parents hope to see in place of the next few years.

Currently, the School Department has no official policy about kids riding to school; instead it is left up to individual principals to decide policy on a school-by-school basis. As a result, some schools are examing the idea of letting the kids ride to school.

"I think there's been a confluence of events," School Committee member Stephen Spring said. "First of all, I think there's a growing awareness that there are other weays to get around having to put $30 into your tank every couple of days. And secondly, there are more transportation advocates in positions of power and people are starting to listen to them."

At Hall School, some parents and staff have embarked on a pilot program to encourage kids to ride to school. A new bike rack was installed on May 1. Accord to Rich Veillieux, whose two daughers attend teh school, the rack has been "overfull" since its installation.

"My daughters and I rode to school twice last week," said Veillieux, who is one of the parental advocates and was project director for Healthy Portland. "One day they found it was actually too crowded."

According to Veillieux, there was never a frim policy disallowing bikes, but riding them to school had not been encouraged. Last fall, he and a number of other parents starting speaking to the administration about allowing bikes as an experiment.

"We convinced them that it was the right thing to do." he said. "It relieves the congestion around the school at the start and end of the day and the kids get exercise and a certain amount of freedom."

Parents and otehr advocates are getting assistance from members of Portland Trails, Healthy Portland, and the Portland Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee, who have teamed up to create a Safe Routes to School team.

According to Jaime Parker of Portland Trails, the group is applying for grants to install bike racks, work with Maine Department of Transportation to improve or create safe routes to and froms schools and install road safety programs into schools' curricula.

"Communities should see that not driving kids to school is beneficial to everyone," Parker said. "It's a wholesome, healthy thing to do."

Parker believes parents and school administrators need to rethink their kids' transportation needs. He notes that he lives within a seven-minute waslk to the new East End Community School, the school his two children are slated to attend. Nevertheless, they will still be eligible to be bused to class every day.

"None of us grew up with that," he said. "It's not only a waste of money, but it's coddling. It limits kids' freedom and independence."

Still, advocates like Parker acknowledge that allowing schools to set their own policies makes more sense that trying to institute something throughout the city. The situation is certainly different at Peak Island Elementary - where most kids ride to school even in the dead of winter and cars travel more than 25 mph - than for the kids at Riverton, which is accessed by busy Forest Avenue.

Not everyone is excited about gaggles of third- and forth-graders pedaling their ways to school.

"I would hold my breath with worry," said Dawn Carrigan, principal of Longfellow School. "Can you imagine 2,000 kids riding to school in two one-hour blocks in the morning and afternoon?"

Longfellow does not currently have any policy against biking to school, though Carrigan said it is strongly discouraged, thanks in part to the traffic on Stevens Avenue and because there have been numerous examples of vandalism and theft to bikes left on school grounds.

"I'm a big cheerleader for Portland Trails," she said, "and I'd be interested in hearing their thoughts, but this really is an issue of safety."

Veillieux acknowledges that traffic is an issue for certain schools particularly because of cars that speed through school zones. But he bleives that enforement of traffic laws, and educating motorists should be the key.

"Inevitabley, someone will get hurt," he said. "There is a risk with biking as there is with any physical activity. But what we need to do is make the city safer for biking and not discourage it just because conditions aren't what they should be."

"METRO to Let Students Ride Free" by Ed King in the West End News: May 10, 2006

2006-05-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

Beginning in September, all students in grades 6-12 in both Portland and Westbrook will be given free access to METRO for a four month period. During that time, data will be gathered on usage, and students will be able to provide feedback to policymakers.

West End School Board member Stephen Spring had been promoting a plan to offer passes to only high school students, which he was hoping to see implemented this past January. Spring was one of six elected officials of the joint finance committees of the City Council and the School Committee who met in the Fall of 2005 to create a list of consolidation recommendations to save money for the City.

The original plan was to give students free passes to use METRO on a voluntary basis to get to and from Portland High, Deering High or PATHS. During the rest of this academic year, youth were going to test the system, gather data, and advise METRO on how it could tweak its routes and schedules. On February 23rd, school and METRO staff came back to the school committee recommending that consolidation not be implemented for a number of reasons.

However, Spring insisted that joint committee's plan was misunderstood by METRO and school staff members, and continued to push the consolidation plan, which was adopted by the school committee last month.

"Eder, Hinck Face Off in First Campaign Battle of the Season" by Ed King in the West End News: May 10, 2006

2006-05-11T09:31:00.000-07:00

Although they agreed on almost every issue raised during a candidate forum sponsored by The League at Reiche School on May 9th, West End State Representative John Eder and challenger Jon Hinck exchanged angry charges and denials regarding what may be the most important issue – perhaps the only issue in the campaign – the viability of having a third party to promote progressive ideas in the State Legislature.

Eder, the only elected Green Party state legislator in the country, took great exception when Hinck accused him of not doing anything when Democrats nearly lost an important committee chair to a conservative Republican in the last session. Eder denied the charge, saying that he had nothing to do with the committee in question and said that the Democratic leadership considered him to be part of the working majority. He said that he voted his conscience and that he was a Green - not a Democrat who had become an independent.

After Eder said that there should be more political parties and that the two-party system has failed, Hinck described how radically different Portland politics are from the rest of the state, and how Republicans vote against every progressive measure. He then said that he didn’t think that third parties were the answer – that they tear down the better parts of the other two parties.

Aside from that major difference, the two candidates agreed on issues ranging from citizen referendums to toxic waste disposal to single-payer healthcare to immigrant voting rights. At the end of the 40-minute session, the two candidates hugged each other and started distributing their first wave of campaign literature.

"LaMarche Wins League's Dating Game" by Ed King in the West End News: May 10, 2006

2006-05-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

Green Party gubernatorial candidate Patricia LaMarche beat out opponents Peter Mills, Davy Jones and Christopher Miller at the The League’s “ReEmergence” event on May 6th, making her its choice as The League’s 2006 political prom queen.. The League event included music, dancing and a Gubernatorial Candidates Forum staged as a political version of “The Dating Game”.

The questions posed by voters ranged from political to personal to serious to social:
- Are you pro-choice or pro-life?
- What are you listening to on your CD player right now?
- Do you believe there should be equal benefits and wages in the workplace?
- How do you believe we should take on the burning issues of construction debris and the environment?

The candidates were concealed behind a privacy screen - allowing for anonymity – and placing the focus on the depth and substance of the answers, as opposed to the personality and verve of the individual candidates. By a show of audience applause, the winning “date” was chosen.

The League made a point of stating that the results were not an official endorsement, despite the applause LaMarche received from the youthful crowd. LaMarche received a bouquet of red tulips and box of chocolates for her victory.

“Now that our mutual affection is a matter of public record, I look forward to my next date with them on November 7th,” she concluded.

"The Greens: Portland's Second Party?" by Mike Feinstein in the Green Pages: April 24, 2006

2006-04-24T15:35:00.000-07:00

While the roots of the Green Party in both the U.S. and Maine go back to 1984, the party's electoral presence has grown slowly and organically over the years, reaching 200+ candidates nationally only for the first time in 2000.

Compared to the Democratic and Republican parties (founded in 1792 and 1854, respectively), perhaps the best test of Green strength is on the municipal level, where grassroots organizing has a better chance of succeeding.

Portland, Maine is one such example, where Greens are harvesting the benefits of steady local organizing going back more than a decade. Today they have six elected officials on legislative bodies. Only Madison, Wisconsin has as many.


	John Eder, State House, District 118, first elected 2002 repjohneder.com

Why Portland?

Demographics

Portland's voter registration demographic-approximately 44 percent Democrat, 34 percent Independent, 5 percent Green, and only 17 percent Republican-often makes it possible for Greens to be pitted de facto, directly against Democrats, with little chance a Republican will be elected. This results in a more level playing field for Green candidates, without the distortions of lesser-of-evil politics.

"What we are finding with consistently stronger showings around town," says John Eder, elected to the State House in 2002 and 2004, "is that people are not moved by the spoiler argument and that the Democrats have given up on it for the most part. This is especially the case on Portland's Peninsula-the downtown hip area of Portland. The Democrats may get traction on the spoiler thing with other loyalist Democrats but not with Independents and more disaffected Democrats."

"Part of what made the spoiler argument take hold in the past with Independents and even Greens," continues Eder, "was the fact that we never won seats. But now Independents are not swayed by that argument. They look at Greens as '"the anti-party party'" and are very sympathetic to us. My victories owe much to the Independent vote. The numbers prove it was not solely because of Greens, because there are not enough in my district to win by them only."

Under such circumstances, the Portland Greens hold four of the nine seats on the city's School Board, along with Eder's seat in the State house and a seat on the Portland Water Board. With political demographics similar to Portland and Madison, Greens in Minneapolis, Minnesota have also won in head-to-head, two-way races against Democrats, taking three City Council seats in the last four years there.

A similar dynamic also occurred in a March 1999 Special Election for California State Assembly in the Oakland/ Alameda County area. Green Audie Bock upset a Democrat in a two-way race, with no Republican running. All of these cases suggest with Republicans not a factor, many voters will choose Greens over Democrats.


	Ben Meiklejohn, School Committee At-Large, first elected 2001

Organizing

Even with a more level playing field, Portland Greens have relied on quality candidates, sound positions on the issues and skillful organizing in the community.

Eder's win in 2002 was the first time a U.S. Green had been elected to a state legislature in a General election. But before him, Greens had been running in that same district almost every cycle since 1995: John Herrick in a special election in 1995 (3rd/3, 18.2 percent), then Ben Meiklejohn in 1998 (2nd/3, 26 percent), Derrick Grant in 2000 (2nd/2, 34.8 percent) and Eder in 2002 (1st/2, 66.8 percent) and 2004 (1st/3, 50.9 percent).
After seeing Greens on the ballot so many times, voters appear increasingly comfortable with the idea of voting Green. Indeed, no other district in Maine has seen Green candidacies so frequently. This suggests success elsewhere may occur as districts experience similar ongoing Green electoral presence.

In January of 1999, shortly after Pat LaMarche qualified the Maine Green Independent Party for ballot status via her 1998 gubernatorial run, Meiklejohn convened Portland as the first municipal Green Independent caucus in the State, and formed its first municipal committee. Just a year and a half before, because of a hostile interpretation of state ballot access law, Maine Greens had lost the ballot status they gained in 1994, and along with it, approximately 4,300 Green voter registrations statewide. Starting again at the time of the founding caucus, there were 60 registered Greens in Portland. (By March 2006, there were 2,353.)

During the late 1990s, Meiklejohn, having just graduated from the University of Maine at Orono, began a two-term service in AmeriCorps, working with youth in community policing centers and Big Brothers Big Sisters, gaining insight into Portland's educational system, and seeing how overuse of suspensions can kick-start a downward spiral for low-income children of single parents. Recognizing these patterns of inequity led him to run for office.

By November 2001, Meiklejohn found himself the city's first elected Green, winning an at-large seat on the Portland School Committee in a three-way race for two seats, finishing second with 5,189 votes, upsetting a Democratic incumbent by just 17 votes. Meiklejohn had run twice for the Committee as a write-in candidate (November 1998 and May 2000) and once on the ballot (November 2000), warming up voters to voting Green before he was finally elected. In the same year, 18-year-old Dan Jenkins was elected to the Portland Youth Advisory Council by Portland students, becoming the youngest U.S. Green ever elected.

Results

In 2003, Stephen Spring joined Meiklejohn on the School Committee. The two immediately went to work on an issue near and dear to their hearts: stopping military recruitment in local schools.

"When the Federal 'No Child Left Behind Act' [NCLB] passed in 2002, with huge support from both Congressional Democrats and Republicans, the Bush Administration had at the same time, sent tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan and was preparing to invade Iraq," says Spring. "A few courageous school districts across the country had banned military recruiters from public schools. In response, a military recruitment provision was placed into the NCLB bill with little debate, forcing high schools to give military recruiters access to schools, and personal contact information to the military, of every high school junior and senior."


Susan Hopkins, School Committee At-Large, first elected 2005

Even before Spring was elected, Meiklejohn had led an "Opt-In rebellion" in 2003 as School Policy Committee Chair. He proposed a policy calling for releasing students' personal information to military recruiters only if the student, or his or her parent or guardian opted to do so. By spring 2004, the Committee supported the Opt-In form. But the district's superintendent, with legal advice, rejected it and went with an Opt-Out form instead.
In December 2004, Spring took over as Policy Committee Chair and directed the superintendent to include Opt-Out language on the student's mandatory emergency card. The policy gave high school students and their families the option to opt out of having their private information shared with military recruiters without their permission.

On opening school day in Fall 2005, Meiklejohn, Spring, and then-School Committee candidate Susan Hopkins (G) welcomed students outside Portland High School with oversized copies of the emergency card, and handed out pencils they had made up with the inscription "Welcome Back to School Portland High Bulldogs. Opt-Out or Opt-In. It's YOUR Decision!" They chose Portland High because military recruiters concentrate their efforts there, with its greater numbers of minority and low-income students compared to Portland's other high schools (51 languages spoken there).
Emboldened by this success, came 'Part Two', according to Spring-limiting the physical presence of military recruiters itself on campus. With the help of the Portland Greens, Maine Veterans for Peace, Pax Christi, and the League of Pissed Off Voters, Spring, Meiklejohn and then-21-year old Jason Toothaker (G) (who was elected to the School Committee by one vote in November 2004) organized to build support for the proposed policy. After Hopkins' subsequent election in November 2005, the School Committee passed one of the most comprehensive anti-military recruitment policies in the nation, which accomplished the following:

Removed recruiters from cafeterias and hallways by requiring them to do their business in guidance like college recruiters.
Limited military recruiters to seven visits per year. Before this policy, military recruiters showed up at Portland High School 28 times in an academic year.
Required all mandatory emergency cards to have Opt Out language. The percentage of students opting out from sending their personal information to military recruiters at Portland High School went from 2 to 65 percent as a result.

Not only had Portland Greens help pass a landmark policy, but they made it a threshold question in the November 2005 election. Of the three School Committee races, two anti-recruitment candidates (including Hopkins) prevailed.

Greens and Dems

Hopkins' election in a three-way, citywide race (38 percent-35 percent-27 percent) signified growing Green strength in Portland. An immigration lawyer who works part-time for the University of Southern Maine's Student Legal Services, her victory gave Portland Greens four seats on the nine-member School Committee, which governs 8,000 students and oversees an annual budget of $80 million.

Maine Public Radio did a 15-minute segment on the incoming School Committee and its potentially changing dynamics. But few predicted how intensely partisan the dynamics of the Committee would become, in what is at least officially a non-partisan board.


	Jason Toothaker, School Committee, District 3, first elected 2004

Before the new board's inauguration, the outgoing Committee-consisting of four Democrats, three Greens and two Republicans-voted on whether to raise the superintendent's salary. Citing "fiscal responsibility," the Republicans voted no, while the Greens questioned the evaluative process behind the recommendation, suggesting it was based on emotion and personal contacts, rather than hard data. This produced a stalemate, with a continuation to the new Committee.

Once seated, the new Committee-five Democrats and four Greens-first caucused to elect a chair and sub-committee (finance) chair. The Democrats won both seats on 5-4 party line votes, with the School Committee chair appointed having served only one year in office, compared to Meiklejohn's four, the longest of anyone who hadn't yet served as chair.

The committee considered first going into executive session to update new members, but this failed 5-4 (D-G) on party lines, as state law requires 60 percent to go into executive session.

Meiklejohn argued that state statute prohibits closed sessions unless there is "reasonable expectation that public discussion would damage the reputation" of the Superintendent.

"Since the motion as written focused on compensation, not performance," said Meiklejohn, "it did not meet the statutory standard."
Committee Democrats voted to adjourn rather than vote publicly on the issue. Eventually, at a subsequent meeting with Meiklejohn absent and little discussion, the raise passed. But the effects of this clash have been felt deeply since then, according to Spring, with the Democrats 'closing ranks' and keeping items of substance off the agenda in response.

"Committee Democrats seemingly prefer to support the Superintendent deciding matters in closed session," says Spring, "the public is starting to notice." Fighting back, Meiklejohn and Spring have placed items directly on the agenda, which they believe otherwise, would not have been brought to the School Committee for a vote. Perhaps most important among these were plans to consolidate school and city services on transportation and maintenance, that came from recommendations by a joint School Committee/City Council finance committee after four months of research.
But maybe this should've been foreseen. In 2003, shortly after Eder was first elected to the State House, state legislative Democrats tried to redistrict him out of office, with a plan to place him in a new district to remove his base. That backfired when Eder moved back a few blocks into what was mostly his old district, and handily beat the Democratic incumbent that had been redistricted there to take his seat.

Issues

In 2005, Meiklejohn, Spring, and Toothaker supported starting a small progressive school-the Outward Bound High School-despite concerns by some whether it was worth the cost. "It's a huge success," says Spring. "The practices are considered as models for our two large comprehensive high schools. For example, the new school does not segregate kids by perceived ability (which ends up looking like race and class segregation) and relies heavily on service and place-based learning instead."


Erek Gaines, Municipal Water District, first elected 2003

The New York based International Center for Leadership in Education chose the school (now called Casco Bay High School) as one of 75 promising high schools nationwide to participate in a five-year initiative on best methods and policies.

On the environmental front, Meiklejohn, Spring and Toothaker voted to approve Portland's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified new elementary school, Meiklejohn also led a successful effort to approve an Integrated Pest Management Policy.
On the Water Board, Erek Gaines who, like Toothaker, was just 21 when first elected-successfully sponsored an anti-idling policy that applies to all Water District vehicles and subcontractors. He also advocates changing water rates to promote conservation and increasing green energy sources for the District's power.

For his part, Eder introduced and passed a bill for efficiency standards in rental housing, and a disclosure form to tell prospective renters if the apartment they are looking at is energy efficient and what it will cost to heat. Eder is also is House chair of the Governor's Creative Economy Council to foster the growth of the "creative economy." He delivered well for his district and Portland at-large, securing $500,00 for a local arts incubator and $200,000 for Portland's multi lingual center. Since taking office, Eder has twice been voted Portland's Best Politician by readers of the alternative weekly Portland Phoenix.

Looking to 2006

With a series of municipal and state legislative races all concentrated in the city's most progressive districts, Portland Greens are aggressively attempting to win more seats. They hope overlapping campaigns will increase synergies even more so than has already occurred in the past.
Excitement around this potential has led many Greens to declare for office much earlier than the typical months of July and August. On March 4, Rebecca Minnick announced for District 1 School Committee, and Spring did so for re-election in District 2.

If both win, it would yield Maine's first Green legislative body majority. "We'll be able to educate our children in nonviolence," dreams Spring, "make sure our new elementary school uses alternative energy as its primary power source, and ensure high school youth use public transportation to get to and from school."

Meilklejohn hopes to join Eder, running for State House District 120, which overlaps most of District 1, including the Mount Joy Hill neighborhood. Joining them is affordable housing advocate Kevin Donoghue, who is running for City Council District 1, meaning there will be significant overlap among Green School, City and State legislative candidates.


	Stephen Spring, School Committee, District 2, first elected 2003. Springcares Blog

In Eder's District 118, there is also overlap with much of District 2, where Spring is running, including Portland's West End and Parkside neighborhoods, along with part of the University of Southern Maine. District 2 also overlaps with State House district 119, where Jeff Spencer won 40.3 percent in 2004 and Portland Greens are seeking to field a candidate to win the seat in 2006.

Citywide, Greens are running for five State House, one State Senate, two School Committee and two City Council seats overall-all in a city of 64,000 residents and 51,000 voters, albeit one in which one out of every ten Greens in the state live.

Statewide, LaMarche is running again for Governor. In 1998, she received 6.8 percent, including 7.7 percent in Portland. The Maine Greens need at least 5 percent of the vote in her race to retain ballot status, which was first achieved in 1994 when Jonathan Carter received 6.5 percent statewide, and 10.5 percent in Portland. In 2002, with increased name recognition after years as a leading state forestry activist, Carter ran again. Bolstered by $900,000 of public financing from Maine's Clean Election Law, he received 9.3 percent statewide. In Portland Carter garnered 15.6 percent, tying or beating the Republican to finish second in five out of the city's 20 precincts, and second in District 2 overall.

"Looking ahead, 2006 looks promising on the grassroots level," according to Martin Stephens, who worked on the ballot qualification drives for both LaMarche and Portland's local state legislative candidates. "We targeted areas with a high density of Greens-I was paired up with a driver who knows the area well, and armed with a highlighted map and a list of Greens broken down by district and indexed by street. In areas where a State Senate district overlapped a State House district, I would carry a two-sided clipboard and ask for both signatures. When people were enthusiastic, I would ask for a signature and Clean Election donation for LaMarche. We organized materials to get the most out of each door knocked on, and got an impressive number of candidates on the ballot."

The presence of Clean Election funds also makes it easier for grassroots Greens to succeed, according to Eder. For the State House, candidates receive approximately $4,800 to communicate to districts of approximately 6,500 voters, allowing Greens to focus on meeting voters. "It protects us when other candidates violate the spending limits," says Eder. "The D's and R's have been having their candidates run 'clean.' But then they put more money in-supposedly without the candidate knowing. During my 2004 campaign, my opponents raised and spent an extra $3,000 and I received that same amount in matching funds."

Conclusion

Portland Greens enjoy many advantages most Greens around the country don't: some of the smallest legislative districts in the nation, overlapping campaigns, public financing of elections, progressive neighborhoods, large numbers of independent voters and a lack of the "'spoiler dynamic."' Even the party's official name-the Green Independent Party-works in their favor, in a state where almost 40 percent of the voters are not registered in any party.

But Portland Greens are also working to take advantage of these opportunities, with consistent organizing going back more than a decade. Increasingly, Portland voters are demonstrating that they believe local Greens not only have good ideas, but also can govern. It will be seen in 2006 whether Portland Greens can take the next step, and win more seats in all three legislative bodies.

"Caron and Frost run again; rocker takes on Adams?" by Chris Busby in the Bollard: April 23, 2006

2006-04-23T19:59:00.000-07:00

Former Portland Planning Board chairman Jaimey Caron has announced he's making another run for an at-large seat on the school board. Caron narrowly lost a three-way race for an at-large seat (one of four representing the whole city) last year, falling a few percentages behind Susan Hopkins.

Past school board member Frances Frost also ran and lost in that race, but The Bollard learned last Friday that she intends to seek the seat representing District 1 on the School Committee (the East End, downtown and islands), a post she held for one three-year term in the mid-1990's. Current District 1 school board representative Otis Thompson is not seeking a third term this year, he confirmed Friday. Environmental educator Rebecca Minnick, co-chair of the Portland Green Independent Party, intends to run for that seat, she confirmed today.

The at-large seat Caron is seeking is currently held by Jonathan Radtke, who is not running again this year. This weekend, another candidate for this seat came forward: Kevin Gardella.

Gardella, 28, is an artist who works at a senior living facility in the West End. A registered Green Independent making his first run for office, Gardella said he intends to adopt the campaign finance pledge taken by two other Greens seeking city office this year: Kevin Donoghue and Dave Marshall. The candidates say this will accept no contributions over $100 (the current legal limit is $250) and no money from sources outside the city of Portland. (See "Greens come out swinging in City Council races.")

In other political news, it's come to light that the Green Independent Party challenger in the race for the State House seat representing Bayside and Parkside is none other than Jason Rogers, the local indie rocker whose band, Diamond Sharp, released one of last year's catchiest albums. (See music writer Galen Richmond's piece here).

State Rep. Herb Adams (left) doesn't know the difference between Pavement and asphalt, but Jason Rogers won't be making that a campaign issue. (photos/courtesy State of Maine and Diamond Sharp's MySpace page)

That House seat is currently held by veteran legislator Herb Adams, who is running again this year. Jason LaVoie, a leader of the University of Southern Maine's College Republican group, is also in this race.

Luckily for Adams, Lavoie's chances for victory are slim in this liberal district, and Rogers is not actually running a campaign. Local Green Party officials say Rogers is just holding the party's place on the ballot until a replacement candidate can be found.

"Best Local Politician: John Eder" in the Portland Phoenix Best of 2006: April 21, 2006

2006-04-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

Seriously, how can you not like John Eder? Sure those of you who've run ardently against him and just as ardently lost, you might not like him too much. And the conservative Republicans among us probably regard him as a sideshow freak of liberal ideology and niceness. But the rest of us, we pretty much dig him. Eder has been a reppresentative to the State House from Portland's West End since 2002 (he runs for re-election to his third term this November). Since he's the only Green in the House of Representatives, Eder often has to put with extra BS from the Democrats and Republicans without much opportunity to throw his political weight around because, well, he's one Green in a sea of blue and red. But, despite his challenges, Eder does stand up for what he believes in and keeps in close contact with his constituents back home by hosting such events as a free workshop on how to perform CPR on your pet a vigil for the Iraq War dead on the Casco Bay Bridge, and just in general beign the friendly, politician-of-the-people that has got him this far.

"Schools told City Council may balk at Budget Hike" by Kate Bucklin in the Portland Forecaster: April 12, 2006

2006-04-14T10:44:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND – The city Finance Committee got its first look at a proposed $82.2 million School Department budget Tuesday and warned that the full City Council may not support a 4.9 percent school spending increase in light of declining student enrollment and rising state funding.

School Superintendent Mary Jo O‘Connor told members of the Finance Committee the schools were seeking $3.8 million more in the fiscal 2007 budget to accommodate a large number of incoming kindergartners with autism and to continue to service the 1,700 English Language Learners in the school system.

She said as a whole, the Portland schools have 10 times as many students with some sort of autism than the national average. The national average is one autistic child per 1,000, O’Connor said; Portland has 70 in a population of just over 7,000.

“These 7,300 kids are not the same 7,300 or 8,000 kids we had 10 years ago,” O‘Connor said. “They demand different resources from us.”

Also contributing to the increased budget is a $2.4 million increase in employee pay and benefits and a more than 50 percent increase in utility costs.

The schools want to add more than two dozen new positions, despite the loss of a projected 143 students in 2007. School Committee Finance Chairman Otis Thompson said the schools had already added 13 of those positions during the 2006 school year. He also said the new East End school will require additional staff, and four new positions would be added at Casco Bay High School.

Under the new Essential Programs and Services (EPS) program the state approved last year, the schools were entitled to an increase of $2 million in state funding. Councilor Jim Cloutier said he wanted to see a side-by-side comparison of what the School Department wants to spend on each line item compared to what this new state formula says should be spent.

“I hope we can at least get a thumbnail calculation of how these things square up with essential programs and services,” he said. Cloutier said he is unsure the council would support a 4.9 percent increase.

Councilor Ed Suslovic asked the schools to provide information on staff positions and programs funded by outside grants, which did not appear in the budget. An example would be $100,000 the Gates Foundation gave for Casco Bay High School. He also asked to see what was funded through Title 1 – a federal programs schools qualify for depending on how many students get free or discounted lunch.

Committee Chairman Nick Mavodones asked the schools to send April 1 enrollment numbers and an estimated head count for the new East End school.

Tom Zimmerman of Williams Street said he did not support a 4.9 percent increase for the schools because of the additional state funding and because property taxes are already on the rise because of a revaluation. He suggested the schools come back with a requested increase of $2.5 million.

The City Council has the final say on the school budget, but can only recommend an overall percentage cut or increase; it cannot make recommendations on items in the budget.

The council Finance Committee will hold a public hearing on the school and city budget proposals April 18 at 6:30 p.m. In the Deering High School cafeteria.

"Divided School Board Passes Super's Budget Unchanged" by Chris Busby in the Bollard: April 12, 2006

2006-04-12T20:21:00.000-07:00

Portland Superintendent Mary Jo O'Connor. (file photo/Mich Ouellette)
The Portland School Committee voted 5-4 to pass Superintendent Mary Jo O'Connor's budget on April 10. The school board made no changes to the super's spending request, which now goes to the City Council for consideration.

As has been the case during several other important votes, the ostensibly non-partisan board split along party lines. The four members enrolled in the Green Independent Party (Stephen Spring, Ben Meiklejohn, Jason Toothaker and Susan Hopkins) were trumped by the five registered Democrats (Jonathan Radtke, Otis Thompson, Lori Gramlich, John Coyne and board chairperson Ellen Alcorn).

O'Connor's $82.2 million budget would raise spending by over $3.8 million, almost 5 percent more than last year. The Greens objected to the size of this increase, which would require a 2.2 percent increase in the property tax rate. That tax increase is expected to be slightly larger once the school budget is combined with the budget for city services. Councilors will consider the combined budget in the coming weeks, with a final vote expected May 15.

The school district's enrollment is expected to continue to decline, as it has for the past 10 years. Next fall, school officials expect there will be 143 fewer students than this year, a 2 percent decrease. "I had a hard time trying to justify a 5 percent increase with the declining enrollment," said Toothaker. "The taxpayers are upset, and they let me know [that]."

O'Connor said the bulk of the increase is necessary to cover the cost of raises for teachers and other school staff. (O'Connor herself got a 3 percent raise last year following a bruising, divisive debate between the same partisan factions on the board. See our Dec. 14 story here.) Other factors driving the increase are fuel costs and higher expenses necessary to teach special education students and those learning English as their second language.

At an April 11 meeting with the council's Finance Committee, O'Connor said her budget was not a "pie in the sky" request. Funding requests from principals and district department heads would have necessitated a $10 million spending increase, she said, and it was hard work to pare that down to just $3.8 million more.

O'Connor also noted that the special education students currently in the district and expected to arrive this fall "are not the same group of students we had 10 years ago." The new group requires a different type of assistance, she said. In particular, the district now teaches a high percentage of students suffering from autism and Asperger's Disorder. Twelve autistic kindergarteners are expected to enter the system next fall, prompting school administrators to create a new program specifically designed to meet those students' needs.

The rate of children with Asperger's in Portland schools is many times the national average, school officials said – an alarming trend that may prompt a formal public health study later this year. It's unclear whether the spike in Asperger's cases is the result of better diagnosis of the disorder or some environmental or health factor, like mercury pollution or parental drug abuse.

Toothaker and Spring both said the school district should be saving money by consolidating jobs and tasks with city workers. They also said the district should consider making middle school sports an intramural competition between the city's three middle schools, rather than busing those students to compete against teams from other towns.

Democrats on the board said they are willing to discuss these ideas, but not this late in the budget process. Alcorn said O'Connor will be completing a strategic plan for the district this summer, and after that, "there may be a process where we can have these discussions in a less pressured and more substantive way."

At the April 11 Finance Committee meeting, City Councilors Nick Mavodones and Jim Cloutier gave no indication whether they will support O'Connor's budget request. In past years, the council has demanded that the school department make further budget cuts after the school board approved its spending plan.

Neither Mavodones, a former school board member, nor Cloutier said they feel the divided school board vote on the budget was significant. "They have a lot of 5-4 votes," Cloutier noted.

"West End Resident Re-Districts Himself for Munjoy Hill Council Race" by Ed King in the West End News: April 12, 2006

2006-04-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

Local activist Kevin Donoghue has moved from Pine Street in Portland’s West End to North Street on Munjoy Hill to challenge Portland City Councilor Will Gorham for the District 1 seat on the Portland City Council.

Donoghue, 27, is co-chair of the Portland Green Independent Committee, and a student at USM's Muskie School of Public Service. He said that he is running to fight a "lack of vision and respect for citizen review" on the Council. He referred to ‘re-districting’ himself as a reminder of the 2004 statewide redistricting which resulted in West End State Representative John Eder being redistricted out of the district to which he had been elected. Eder, the highest-ranking Green Party official in the country, moved back into his district and won re-election in 2004.

Donoghue has been active in promoting an overhaul of the city’s public transit system, and other municipal policy issues. He says that he will only accept pledges under $100 donated from Portland residents and businesses. He called on Gorham to do the same.

Gorham, a Munjoy Hill native who owns a home just three doors down from Donoghue’s new residence, was elected to the City Council in 2003, and has most recently been involved with policing issues in the Old Port, which is in his district. He welcomed Donoghue’s entry into the race, saying that his grandmother was a Donoghue, and that his mother’s maiden name was Green.

"Local Artist to Run Against Geraghty" in the West End News: April 12, 2006.

2006-04-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

West End artist David Marshall has announced that he will run against West End City Councilor Karen Geraghty for the District 2 seat on the Portland City Council.

Marshall, 28, is the owner of Pine Street Studios at 41 Pine Street and is a working artist and community activist, and works as Time Dollar Coordinator and Service Works Supervisor at Portland West. This is his first run for public office.

Marshall said that he will make a fundraising pledge not to accept any contributions from outside the City of Portland, or in excess of $100. He will also challenge Councilor Geraghty to make a similar pledge, and endorse a change in the city's campaign contribution rules to cap all campaign contributions for municipal races at $100.

"Greens Come Out Swinging in City Council Races" by Chris Busby in The Bollard: April 10, 2006

2006-04-11T10:46:00.000-07:00

"City Hall at Night" (2004), an acrylic painting by artist and City Council hopeful Dave Marshall. (image/courtesy Marshall, DAM Fine Art)

Two members of the Green Independent Party announced their candidacy for the Portland City Council last week, and in doing so challenged their incumbent opponents to endorse a strict cap on the size of campaign contributions in city races.

Kevin Donoghue, a self-described "housing and transportation activist," is running against Councilor Will Gorham for the District 1 council seat, which includes Munjoy Hill, the Old Port, the Bayside neighborhood, and the islands in Casco Bay still part of the city of Portland.

In District 2 (the West End and Parkside neighborhoods), incumbent Councilor Karen Geraghty is being challenged by Green artist and community activist Dave Marshall, an employee of the social services agency Portland West.

In an April 2 e-mail announcing their candidacy, Donoghue and Marshall said they are making a "fundraising pledge not to accept any contributions from outside the City of Portland or in excess of $100." Furthermore, the two said they are challenging Gorham and Geraghty to make "a similar pledge," and to endorse the idea of lowering the cap on campaign contributions in city races from $250 to $100.

In a recent interview, Donoghue said that while researching past campaign finance reports, he found "a correlation between $250 checks and out-of-town checks."

Asked if he felt $250 contributions from people living outside Portland had somehow corrupted local government, he replied, "I can't cite a particular instance, but on the face of it, it seems like poor form…. If we had a lower [contribution cap], the incentive for, I won't say 'cheating,' but, working the system, is less."

Gorham scoffed at the idea that his vote could be influenced by campaign contributions. "I don't see that a $250 campaign contribution is going to buy my vote in any way…. If anybody thinks the $150 difference they're talking about would mean my vote could be bought, I can assure people they shouldn't worry that's going to be buying any votes on this councilor."

City Councilor Will Gorham: Not pleased to have his integrity questioned. (file photo/Mich Ouellette)

Gorham noted that he returned $750 in campaign contributions from Scotia Prince officials when he first ran for office three years ago. The city was negotiating a lease agreement with the ferry company at the time. "I think my ethics are pretty clear on all of that," he said. "My record is clean."

In their e-mail announcement, the Green candidates said they are running to correct a "lack of vision and respect for citizen review on the Council."

Asked to elaborate, Donoghue and Marshall both cited the council's recent decision to accept three statues from Portland Sea Dogs owner Dan Burke as a gift of public art. The Portland Public Art Committee, a nine-member body made up mostly of citizens appointed by the council to review public art projects, strongly recommended that the council not accept the statues as presented by Burke.

Gorham and Geraghty both voted to accept the statues – the vote was unanimous – though Geraghty, a member of the Public Art Committee, was quite vocal in her criticism of the way Burke presented the gift.

"People put in a lot of time, a lot of deliberation, and their counsel is not respected," said Donoghue.

The citizen committee raised valid objections to the statues, said Marshall, a prolific painter with a home studio on Pine Street. But "when push came to shove, none of them stood up for it."

"I think it would have done a lot for the arts community if [Geraghty] had been that one dissenting vote," Marshall continued. "I was pretty surprised she voted in favor of it after paying lip service" to the opposition.

Geraghty did not return calls seeking comment, but confirmed earlier that she is running for another three-year council term. Geraghty has represented the West End on the council since 1997.

City Councilor Karen Geraghty, as seen through a TV monitor in Council Chambers last fall. (photo/Mich Ouellette)

City Council and School Committee races are officially non-partisan – for example, candidates' political party affiliations do not appear on the ballot – but city campaigns have become increasingly partisan in recent years, much to the consternation of some candidates and members of the public. There are no registered Greens among the nine current councilors, eight of whom are registered Democrats.

Donoghue and Marshall are openly declaring their Green Party affiliation (Donoghue is co-chair of the Portland Green Independent Committee, his e-mail announcement notes) and seeking the support of local Greens. Neither has yet been officially endorsed by the local Green committee Donoghue co-chairs.

Asked if he feels city politics is becoming too partisan, Donoghue said, "I don't know. I wouldn't say it should be more overtly partisan, but it should be more honest to the extent it is partisan." Asked if he would cry foul if Geraghty and Gorham openly appealed to fellow Democrats for political support, Donoghue said, "I would not find that a dishonest move. It's just the nature of the system."

Gorham said the Greens are trying to have it both ways: decrying partisan politics in city government, but trumpeting their party affiliation when it serves their political ends. "Then they'll stand back and say it's not partisan, but let's call a spade a spade here," said Gorham. "They don't have a lot of credibility."

"I want everyone to vote for me," Gorham continued. "I don't care whether they're Republican, Democrat, Green or independent. I want people voting for the candidate best qualified to do the job."

In addition to the Districts 1 and 2 council seats, the at-large seat currently held by Councilor Nick Mavodones is on this November's ballot. Mavodones, a councilor since 1997, said he plans to run again this year. No challengers have yet emerged in this race, but candidates do not have to file official paperwork with the City Clerk's office until this summer.

The seats representing Districts 1 and 2 on the Portland School Committee are also up for grabs this year, as is the at-large board seat currently held by Jonathan Radtke. Radtke is not seeking reelection this year, he said. No candidates have yet come forward expressing interest in that seat.

District 1 school board representative Otis Thompson said he has not decided whether he will run again this year. Green city committee co-chair Rebecca Minnick, an environmental educator, is said to be interested in that seat.

In District 2, incumbent Stephen Spring has announced his intention to seek a second term on the school board. Spring is one of four registered Greens on the School Committee, which has been wracked with partisan infighting since last fall (the other five members are enrolled Democrats).

School Committee member Ben Meiklejohn is running to represent the East End and the Old Port in the Maine House of Representative this year. A registered Green and high-profile party activist, Meiklejohn said he's "psyched about running with a party on my name" after having previously campaigned in non-partisan school board races.

"I never got my full credit for being in a party that's so alternative, and I want that credit, the ability to say I'm part of a transforming movement," he said.

Meiklejohn faults Democrats and Republicans for being preoccupied with "majoritarian control" – maintaining or acquiring a majority of the seats in the Maine House and Senate. He said the Greens are more focused on "ideas and the ability to accomplish goals" than political control, and quotes state government's sole elected Green, State Rep. John Eder of Portland, who calls the Greens "the anti-party party."

Meiklejohn faces a formidable opponent in his quest for the District 120 seat being vacated by Rep. Ben Dudley, a leading Democrat in state politics.

Former state representative and state senator Anne Rand is returning to politics after being forced from office by term limits several years ago. Rand, a Democrat, served four consecutive terms representing this district in the House, followed by four consecutive State Senate terms.

Rand said she enjoyed her time off, but "it's time to get back in the fray and see what I can do."

Republican Douglas Calderbank is also seeking the District 120 seat. The first-time candidate deferred comment until a later date.

"Greens Discontent with School Budget Process" by Stephen Nunns in the Portland Forecaster: April 5, 2006

2006-04-11T10:42:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND – School Committee members were divided last week over the $82.2 million budget proposed by Superintendent Mary Jo O’Connor, with some members asking for a revised version reflecting either less of an increase or no increase at all, and others suggesting the budget should move forward for City Council consideration.

The official first reading of the proposed fiscal year 2007 budget is planned when the committee meets on Wednesday, April 5, at 6 p.m. in Room 250 of the Portland Arts and Technology High School. The budget is scheduled to be presented to the City Council on April 11.

The opponents were members of the Green Party – Ben Meiklejohn, Jason Toothaker and Stephen Spring – who called on the superintendent to offer an alternative set of numbers that would reflect something less than the 4.9 percent increase suggested in her proposed budget.

“We were offered various scenarios last year,” said Meiklejohn. “I found that useful.”

Meiklejohn said he would like to see how a more modest, 2.82 percent increase might play out. That was the number originally suggested by committee members before O’Connor began assembling the budget.

He also said offering alternative scenarios would give the public more of an opportunity to help decide which programs must be cut in order to come up with the lower figure.

That rankled Otis Thompson, who suggested that such mechanisms would unnecessarily impede the process. He mentioned that last year’s budget deliberations ground to a halt at one point over one committee member’s resistance to cutting services to multilingual parents.

“That was an issue for one person on the board,” Thompson said. “It was not close to a majority consideration.”

Thompson also maintained that it would more effective to get a budget to the City Council and then see what its response is before putting together a myriad of different budget scenarios.

“When you have to (make cuts), you come up with different recommendations,” he said.

Spring agreed with Meiklejohn and said that different scenarios would “inform the public.”

Spring also criticized the budget schedule. “As a member of the Finance Committee, I would like to see evidence that we have been following the guidelines,” he said.

Jonathan Radke, another committee member, agreed with Thompson that scenario budgets are unnecessary. “It just causes anxiety,” he said.

“We don’t need to know the ‘what ifs?’” he said. “We all know ‘what if.’ People will lose their jobs – that’s the ‘what if.’”

Thompson also suggested that the only way to make the size of cuts necessary to reduce the budget in such a substantial way would require losing entire programs and, conceivably, an entire school. He noted that the closing of the Baxter School two years ago was as an attempt to lower costs.

“Unless we cut programs and close buildings and increase class size, we won’t get the numbers down,” he said.

Thompson and Toothaker, who is the chairman of the Elementary Facilities Task Force, sparred over this point, with Toothaker maintaining that the idea large savings could be realized by closing schools was a smoke screen for more difficult cuts that could be made on an administrative level. He said more thought needed to be put into consolidating services with the city.

“We need to be bold and creative,” he said.

“Being bold and creative will be part of my repertoire when there are five votes,” Thompson replied.

O’Connor said closing schools is not a viable option at this moment. She noted that there is no room in the larger schools to squeeze in the populations of the either of the smallest schools in the city, Presumpscot and Nathan Clifford.

“We’re not going to close an elementary school,” she said, adding: “Unless you tell me to.”

Only five members of the committee engaged in the partisan debate. Finance Committee member John Coyne only asked that the committee consider reinstating a social worker position that had been eliminated. And the three other members of the committee, Ellen Alcorn, Susan Hopkins and Lori Gramlich, all concentrated on broader policy questions or querying specific line items.

After the meeting, Hopkins ribbed Toothaker about the overabundance of testosterone in the room.

“So, when do we get to the point when you and Otis tear off your shirts and begin beating your chests?” she asked.