Jack DeCoster, Maine legislators, and faulty testimony

As I reported a few weeks ago in the Portland Phoenix, the infamous egg magnate Austin "Jack" DeCoster has some friends in the Maine state legislature, which has been considering a law to help out his companies. That initiative may get voted on as early as today.

I have a magazine piece about all this in the forthcoming issue of Down East, but readers won't see that until after the legislature votes on L.D. 1207, an act that will free Mr. DeCoster's companies from the worry that their workers might one day unionize. The Down East article sheds light on the question many have about Mr. DeCoster: how does he keep getting away with it? [Update: 5/24/2011: the Down East story is now online.] But there are a couple timely details to report straightaway.

First, when members of the legislature's Labor Committee met to consider the bill, they received a remarkable amount of erroneous testimony. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Dale Crafts (R-Lisbon), a labor attorney hired by the company to "investigate" its own record, and two company officials told the legislators that the company had had a clean record in Maine for ten to fifteen years, and suggested, stated, or implied that no significant problems had been turned up by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (or OSHA).

A few minutes on Google reveals this not to be the case. In reality, DeCoster's Maine operations have been fined by OSHA multiple times over the past decade for serious and repeat violations of workplace safety and other issues. These include $344,210 in June 2002 for a range of serious workplace safety infractions; $108,500 in August 2004 for "willful, repeat and/or serious violations"; and $150,000 in August 2008 for a "disregard for basic, commonsense safety procedures and employee protections [that] is as astonishing as it is unacceptable."

This, of course, leaves aside far more serious transgressions by Mr. DeCoster's companies in other states, including responsibility for a salmonella outbreak that sickened over 1900 people and triggered the recall of more than half a billion eggs. It also ignores fines for animal cruelty and law suits by neighbors over the past decade here in Maine.

I gather that it's not illegal to give false testimony before the legislature, which means legislators ought to spend a few minutes on the Internet checking out what they've been told.

[Update, 5/23/2011: As a result of this report, Sen. Rector says he is withdrawing his support for the bill.]

Eastern Maine: the Kitty Hawk of Tidal Power

The Bay of Fundy has the world's highest tides, so perhaps it's not surprising that a new and more promising generation of tidal energy generating devices is being tested there. But within the moon-wracked estuary -- most of which is in Canada -- it's a company in eastern Maine that's become the apparent front-runner, beating out older, larger European competitors.

My story in the new weekly print edition of The Christian Science Monitor has the details on the Ocean Renewable Power Company, their tests to date, and what the Fundy tides did to their competition. It's also just come up online, for the cellulose averse among you.

Two novels present Maine as it is

In my bimonthly Working Waterfront column, I discuss two new novels that seek to present Maine as it is, rather than as it should be: Jim Nichols' Hull Creek (Down East Books) and Crash Berry's Sex, Drugs, and Blueberries (Maine Misadventures). The piece is in the new issue, out last week, and just posted online. Read and enjoy.

And, while on the topic of books, my wife and I have the first-ever-signed-by-author copy of The President is a Sick Man (Chicago Review Press), the new book from Matthew Algeo. Mainers may remember him as a past host of MPBN's Maine Things Considered, Americans as a past reporter for American Public Media's Marketplace, and readers everywhere as the author of Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure. My wife's had time to read it and gave a thumbs up.

A hopeful sign for Maine politics

Mainers have been justly proud of their political culture which, compared to other parts of the country, has been remarkably civil, featuring lawmakers who often seem more interested in finding solutions that help the state's people, than getting caught up in partisan death matches, hyperbolic assertions, outright lies, and appeals to humanity's worst instincts. Augusta has many problems, to be sure, but nothing like those in Albany, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C.

But in recent years the worst pathologies of national politics -- elections awash in a sea of soft, difficult-to-trace soft money, the drafting of bills and gubernatorial policy being outsourced directly to corporate lobbyists and special interest think tanks, legislative initiatives that represent the interests of campaign donors rather than voters -- have infected the state. Gov. Paul LePage's administration has been a vector for some of the worst viruses, but plenty of others were quietly metastasizing in the body politic during the Democrats' long watch.

But don't give up on Mainers, yet. Yesterday, Rep. Kathleen Chase (R-Wells) asked a key legislative committee to kill her controversial immigration bill, modeled on the infamous Arizona statute. The reason is moving, even for cynical political observers like myself: she had an emotional, occasionally fiery face-to-face meeting with immigrant advocates Rachel Talbot Ross (of the Maine chapter of the NAACP) and Alyisa Melnick (of the Maine Civil Liberties Union) and, after a few days of contemplation, recognized the harm the bill would have done to people unlike herself.

MPBN's Josie Huang has the story, and its worth listening to the original three minute audio version. If empathy can survive in the corridors of power, there's hope for us all.

Nuclear waste, power, and New England, a Post-tsunami look

With Japan still combating the worst nuclear power disaster since Chernobyl, Americans have been reintroduced to the dangers inherent in the nuclear fuel cycle, in which events considered too improbable to take seriously can have horrific implications.

With that in mind, I've taken a look at Maine's nuclear risk exposure, both from the high-level waste stranded in Wiscasset and from operational nuclear plants just over our eastern and southern borders. The results are in the June 2011 issue of Down East, which arrives on newsstands this week, and is already available online.

For those wishing to do further reading thereafter, try starting with the documents section of the Maine Yankee website and the monthly safety reports from the State of Maine's nuclear safety officer.

As I previously reported in the Phoenix, there was recently an interruption in the flow of the latter documentation, which is required by Maine law. Since then, reports for last October, November, and December have posted, meaning the site is still roughly three months behind its usual reporting schedule. At a glance, the reports contained nothing unusual, except that both the October and November 2010 reports had references to condition incidents considered too sensitive to disclose to the public. Having read all prior monthly reports, I don't recall seeing such references in the past. Perhaps these incidents, whatever they were, have some bearing on the delay in the filing of the reports.

Portland: State approves weakened working waterfront protections

Earlier this year, I reported on how city officials in Maine's largest city, had weakened working waterfront protections at the behest of pier owners. Presented with the option of excluding the pier ends themselves from zoning changes -- but opening up the valuable lots along Commercial Street to a wide range of developments -- the majority of Portland city councilors decided there was no need for caution.

State officials from the outgoing administration of Gov. John Baldacci warned they would likely not approve the changes, but most observers expected that under Gov. Paul LePage, developers would likely trump fishermen when the zoning changes were reviewed. And, indeed, this is precisely what happened, as announced today by City of Portland spokesperson Nicole Clegg:

City of Portland
389 Congress Street
Portland, Maine 04101
www.portlandmaine.gov
CONTACT: Nicole Clegg, 207-756-8173, 207-272-4477 (cell) nicoleclegg@portlandmaine.gov

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 6, 2011

Maine DEP Approves Changes to Waterfront Central Zone

PORTLAND, Maine – Today, the City of Portland was notified by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection that the city’s request for zoning amendments under the Shoreland Zoning Program has been approved. The Waterfront Central Zone amendments expand opportunity for development while continuing to protect working waterfront uses and infrastructure.

“Today’s announcement marks the end of the successful planning process and the beginning of new opportunity for the city’s waterfront,” stated City of Portland Mayor Nicholas Mavodones. “We appreciate the time the Maine Department of Environmental Protection took to both provide input during the planning process as well as review and grant approval to our amendment request.”

“For more than 20 years, Portland has strived to strike the right balance between protecting the character defining maritime uses that we love with other development that increasingly characterize the city’s new economy. We sought equilibrium by creating a mixed-use waterfront that supports our marine-based industries and as a result have created a dynamic waterfront that values the many industries for which our piers are their lifelines. It goes without saying that we are proud of the city’s waterfront and the local policies that support it.”

“The changes approved today are the direct result of the hard work and commitment of the stakeholders, city staff and the City Council to work collaboratively in developing policy that would present new development potential while protecting the city’s working waterfront. We took great pains to insure that the Waterfront Central Zone process involved everyone and while we may each have had our own oar, we all agreed to pull in the same direction. Because whether you are a fisherman or a restaurant that prepares the fish; a lobsterman or a tour guide taking a group of people on a boat to pull traps; a tugboat operator or a bus driver taking cruise ship passengers to tour the lighthouses, we are all connected and depend upon each other’s success to make our economy work. Just as Portland creatively navigated economic challenges of the twentieth century, today, we enact new policies that preserve our working waterfront and build our economy for the twenty-first century,” concluded Mavodones.

Portland’s Central Waterfront, located west of the Maine State Pier and east of the International Marine Terminal, is home to fifteen piers, dozens of marine and non-marine businesses, and is the center of the region’s fishing economy. The zoning amendments for Portland’s Central Waterfront were developed to protect traditional marine business while allowing other compatible uses for development.

Maine: a Senate candidate's financial priorities

Here's another one from the Can't Make This Stuff Up Department, which has been sadly expanding its footprint on the Maine political scene of late.

Louis Maietta, the Republican candidate in the special election to replace the retiring state senator for South Portland, has a company under bankruptcy protection. He owes the City of South Portland over $14,000 in unpaid taxes. He reportedly has two court judgments against him to return $770,000 to a 96-year old woman over whom he once had power of attorney.

But MPBN couldn't reach him for yesterday's story because -- wait for it -- he's in the Turks & Caicos Islands attending his daughter's destination wedding.

You'd think this apparent lack of fiscal responsibility would concern the GOP, which hopes to pick up the seat previously occupied by Democrat Larry Bliss. But state party chair Charlie Webster had this to say to MPBN: "Who's somebody sleeping with or where they moved here from or how much debt they have or if they owe money to somebody--those things are not significant," Webster says. "The question is, he capable of representing the district? He did it in the House for a couple years. He's a successful businessman, well-known in the community."

Fascinating.

[Update, 5/11/2011: Maietta was defeated by his Democratic challenger, Cynthia Dill, by more than 2-1.]