Mercy Hospital opening new emergency room
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Mercy Hospital is ready to open its new emergency room. The Portland hospital’s emergency room at its Fore River campus will open for business on Tuesday. On the same day, the hospital’s old emergency room on State Street closes. It’s the final clinical program to move from its State Street hospital, marking the final step in its campus consolidation.
Donation to provide seed for Down East mustard museum
EASTPORT, Maine (AP) — A museum that’s planned around what’s touted as the last stone-ground mustard mill in the nation received a major donation. The Raye’s Mustard Mill Museum announced that the Hutchins family, longtime owners of the Dead River Company, donated a Dead River building with an appraised value of $157,000. Karen and Kevin Raye, who incorporated the Museum in 2018, said the property will eventually be sold to provide funds for the museum.
FOUR-SEASON RESORT
Resort developer must restart permitting process for marina
GREENVILLE, Maine (AP) — Developers who want to create a year-round resort centered on a ski resort in Greenville are going to have to start from scratch if they want to include a 150- to 200-slip marina. Developers who are buying and renaming the Big Squaw Mountain Ski Area in Greenville were told by the Land Use Planning Commission that the marina development exceeds the scope of an expired permit. The Bangor Daily News reports that developers wanted to reconstruct and expand elements of the existing waterfront development under terms of a permit issued in 1987.
BC-ME-FIRE DEATH-MAINE
Maine woman, 95, dies after New Year’s Day house fire
CHELSEA, Maine (AP) — Maine fire officials say a 95-year-old woman died after a fire swept through her house in the town of Chelsea. The fire was reported just before 7 a.m. on Saturday. The owner of the home, Gladys McGuire, was found dead inside the home. McGuire lived alone. An autopsy is scheduled for Sunday to determine the cause of death. Officials from the fire marshal’s office were called in to investigate. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
MAINE REAL ESTATE
Maine real estate market expected to slow but not stall
BANGOR, Maine (AP) — Rising mortgage rates that are expected to be spurred by the Federal Reserve actions will slow but not stall Maine’s red hot real estate market. The Bangor Daily News says home prices will keep rising but not as fast as this year despite higher interest rates and anticipated inflation. Kortnie Mullins, vice president of the Bangor Region Realtors Association, said it will take a few years for supply to meet demand, and for prices to stabilize. Until then, she said high prices are going to be the “new normal.”
CARPET PILE
27K tons of carpet still piled up decades later in Warren
WARREN, Maine (AP) — The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is sending out another request for proposals for removing 27,000 tons of carpet that pose a fire hazard at an abandoned rifle range in Warren. The previous contract expires at year’s end with little to show for it. The Bangor Daily News reports that only 16 tons of material were removed. The mountains of carpet-like material arrived around 1998 to serve as a berm to stop bullets at the rifle range. But the property owners seemingly disappeared soon after the materials arrived.
MAINE FIRE DEATHS
More people at home, and dying from fires, in pandemic
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — The state fire marshal says the pandemic played a role in helping to push the state’s fire deaths to the highest level since 2014, The number of fire deaths — 27 — is three times the level of the safest year for fire deaths, 2010, when nine people died in fires. The state’s worst year for fire deaths as 1967, when 70 people died. Maine Fire Marshal Joe Thomas said the increase in fire deaths is partly is related to the pandemic because people are spending more time at home and less time at the office.