The Law Offices of Joseph Baldacci

I am happy to share with you that our1st Baldacci Spaghetti Supper with our homemade sauce, meatball and a cannolli----- 1 cannolli per person no hoarding please- will be occurring on Sunday October 6th at 5pm Bangor High School cafetaria. All registered voters in Bangor and Hermon are cordially invited- please save the date-will need some volunteers- children under 12 are $5 for dinner and a dessert and everyone else $7 for dinner and dessert.

More information as we get closer- thank you.

If you interested in volunteering that day let me know- thank you

The Law Offices of Joseph Baldacci With over 20 years of experience, we proudly serve clients across the state of Maine from our office

For Immediate Release

Aug. 20, 2024

Contact: Samantha Warren, 207-632-0389, [email protected]

University of Maine System to study feasibility of establishing state’s first public medical school

ORONO, Maine — The University of Maine System (UMS) will partner with the nation’s leading medical education consultant to study the feasibility of starting the state’s first public medical school.

In response to a critical shortage of physicians in rural Maine and with the support of the Maine Hospital Association, the Maine Primary Care Association and Northern Light Health, in 2023 the Maine Legislature and Gov. Janet Mills provided funding for UMS to undertake a study to examine establishing an MD-granting institution in Penobscot County – likely affiliated with the University of Maine (UMaine).

Following a competitive request that generated multiple proposals, UMS has selected Tripp Umbach to assist with the study. The firm has worked with most U.S. medical schools over the past 30 years including in Maine, and conducted some 50 medical school feasibility studies, including in rural states such as Idaho and Montana.

“As with Maine in general, our physician population is aging. It has been difficult to keep pace with retirements and demographic shifts to fulfill the healthcare needs of northern Maine. This exciting first step, determining the feasibility of a new medical school in Penobscot County, may spark interest in current physicians to move here, while looking toward building a sustainable physician workforce for the future. Northern Light Health looks forward to expanding its tradition of training the next generation of physicians and building on our existing education and research partnerships with Maine’s public universities,” said Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center Director of Clinical Education Dr. James Jarvis.

Tripp Umbach was chosen by UMS in part because of its extensive experience in innovative graduate medical education models, including multi-state medical education programs, health system-driven medical schools and state pathway programs with established out-of-state medical schools.

As part of the study, UMS and Tripp Umbach will engage stakeholders throughout the state, including community and statewide healthcare organizations, state and federal healthcare and Veterans agencies, research institutions, other medical education providers, policymakers and associations, such as those representing hospitals, physicians and primary care providers.

The study will consider whether a public medical school is necessary for Maine and what resources including funding, personnel, and research and clinical laboratories and equipment would be required if such an initiative is deemed essential. Any proposal to establish a medical school within the System would require a public review process and approval by the UMS Board of Trustees, as well as significant public and philanthropic support.

“We appreciate that Maine policymakers and healthcare leaders see our university as central to addressing the state’s healthcare workforce shortages, which are particularly acute in rural regions where we are so strongly rooted and include the need for more physicians,” said UMaine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy, who is also the System’s vice chancellor for research and innovation. “While we are realistic about the substantial resources required for starting and sustaining a public medical school, we look forward to working with Tripp Umbach and statewide stakeholders to understand the opportunities for our university, the broader System and our partners to build upon our strengths to further improve healthcare access and outcomes for Maine and beyond.”

The UMS Board of Trustees is authorized to operate a college of medicine and confer the degree of Doctor of Medicine, but the public system has never had the resources to do so and has focused on other education and research initiatives to improve Mainers’ health and well-being.

Last year, Maine’s public universities produced 894 healthcare graduates and brought tens of millions of dollars in related research investment to the state, mostly through UMaine – the state’s only institution to have achieved the prestigious Carnegie R1 classification for very high research activity – and the University of Southern Maine’s Catherine Cutler Institute.

UMaine is also the degree-granting institution that anchors Maine’s Graduate School of Biomedical Science and Engineering, an innovative, multi-institutional education and research consortium that also includes The Jackson Laboratory, the MaineHealth Institute of Research, the MDI Biological Laboratory and the University of New England. In 2018, UMaine launched its Institute of Medicine to coordinate the institution’s accelerating activities and partnerships in health and life science education and cutting-edge research.

The feasibility study and its recommendations are due to the Maine Legislature in November 2025.

Bipartisan award to all members of the HHS Committee, which I proudly serve as Senate Chair, for protecting important programs dfoor Maine's seniors, most particularly of note was our budget decisions to protect the Qualified Medicare Beneficiary program which helps seniors earning less than $41,000 per year with their copays, deductibles and premiums. 2000 seniors in Bangor and Hermon would have been adversely affected.

In all this talk about childless people let's remeber that George Washington, the Father of our Country, had no children; but he did essentially adopt Martha's two children from a previous marriage. Let's try to keep everything in perspective please.

Happy to share with you my endorsement today for the Maine Senate by the National Association of Social Workers Maine and to the more than 1000 members statewide. Social workers are intregal to any functioning mental health and behaviorial health care system, to keep people and families safe and cared for, and to live their lives with dignity and independency. Honored to have their support in this campaign.

And a big shout out to constituent and Hermon resident Christopher McLaughlin for his work and leadership in this organization, his tireless advocacy for those who need help and compassion and his demonstrated willingness to contribute to his won community and neighbors.

I was able to work with Chris Kilgour
of C &L Aviation in Bangor this past year as well as previously as a City Councilor. This past year we passed important legislation to reduce unnecessary regulations that would have hampered significantly their ability to do and continue in business in Maine.

preciously as a City Councilor the Bangor City Council provided critical financing and infrastructure to support the job creation that has taken place over the last 10 years. It now has more than 200 good paying jobs here in Bangor.

Thank you to the 24,000 teachers and educators across Maine for their early endorsement of my State Senate candidacy based on my 4 year 100% pro-education, pro-student, pro-teacher, pro- support staff voting record and dozen of bills and across multiple budget funding requests.

CONGRATULATIONS TO Abigail Fleming Named to Spring 2024 Dean's List at Stonehill College.

Abigail Fleming, a member of the Class of 2025 from Bangor, ME, has been named to the Spring 2024 Dean's List at Stonehill College. To qualify for the Dean's List, students must have a semester grade point average of 3.50 or higher and must have successfully completed all courses for which they were registered.

Matias Aleksandrov Makes the Dean's List at McKendree University. !!!!

Congratulations to Matias Aleksandrov, who was named to the McKendree University spring 2024 semester Dean's List for earning a grade point average of 3.60 or higher.

Congratualtions to Kathryn Higgins of Hermon and Abby Caron of Bangor for being named to the Spring 2024 Dean's List at the University of Rhode Island. Congratualtions to you and your families and best wishes for continued success!

It is estimated that 1.5 million Americans served in the armed forces since the time of the Revolutionary War.

One of them was my great uncle Maroun Karam who worked with his brother, my grandfather, Elias Karam at Karam's Market on Hancock Street. They and another brother Frank Karam, were Lebanese immigrants to America in the early 1900s. Frank was actually a Democratic alderman in Bangor in the 1920s but sadly died young of cancer most likely.

Maroun Karam enlisted in the U. S. Army in World War I and served in the Army Expeditionary force in France during the war.

When he came home he lived the rest of his life with my grandparents on Palm Street. He had been characterized as " shell shocked" from his combat in France and worked with my grandfather Elias at the Hancock Street grocery store until he passed away in the 1950s.

His story is much like hundreds of thousands of Americans returning from war.

We honor all of them today.

2 years ago I worked on ensuring Bangor had in person sports betting. We passed a law.

But we still don't. The person charged with this responsibility had made little effort to explain to the public why. Letter going to Director Champion and Gov. Mills today.

In other news The State Treasurer's office has informed me that there are approximately 2500 people in Bangor and Hermon who are owed money from the State of Maine in form of unclaimed property. anywhere from $1 to over a thousand dollars.

I will be sending each person or business a letter notifying them and giving people contact information for them to follow up over the next few weeks.

From my report to the Town of Hermon to be in the next Town newsletter- thank you to the Hermon Town Office for inviting me to submit a report.

In case anyone asks--- $74 million more was included in last week's budget for several important housing initiaties to keep thousands of Mainers with a roof over their heads--- one of the highest priorities we were working this past session.

EMERGENCY HOUSING RELIEF FUND PROGRAM
Emergency housing such as privately-operated low barrier shelters, winter warming shelters, legal services, and other wraparound settlement supports [with $2.5M dedicated to low-barrier shelters]
$16,000,000

EMERGENCY HOUSING RELIEF FUND PROGRAM
Additional $5M for low-barrier emergency shelters (aggregating to $2.5M per year for three years)
$5,000,000

Affordable Homeownership Program to expand affordable, energy-efficient housing options
$10,000,000

Rural Affordable Rental Housing Program and the Low-income Housing Tax Credit Program
$20,000,000

Manufactured and mobile home park preservation and assistance
$5,000,000

Stable Home Fund
2-year pilot program designed to provide support for eviction prevention (LD 1540)
$18,000,000

Housing Subsidy Program for Homeless Students
Housing subsidies to homeless students in elementary and secondary school. (LD 1422)
$2,000,000

I just gave to Joe Baldacci! Show your support with a contribution.

I was glad to work with a bipartisan group of legislators to push for and help pass funding for 32 additional positions dedicated to rural patrol units. This is particularly important and helpful to Penobscot County with its geographic size and many small towns; and it is important to Hermon part of my district to maintain adequalte rural patrols without over burdening our local Sheriff Department. This was an important win that took several years of pushing and prodding.

The latese info from Versant on Bangor streets being worked on-----
-Hi Senator – I just sent out another update with an updated list of the streets we expect to be restored by the end of the day. In Bangor, those are:

BALSAM, BENJAMINS, BROADWAY, BURLEIGH, CAROL, CHASE, CHURCH, ESSEX, FENTON, HEATHER, HOGAN, JOANS HILL, JUDSON, KITTREDGE, LINDAS, MILTON, PACKARD, PARTRIDGE, REINZO, ROSE, SKYLINE, SPRINGER, STILLWATER, TAMARACK, TRIPP, WALDEN PARKE, WHITETAIL

It looks like Essex, Packard, and Stillwater are all on the list. I see that we’re aware of the Virgina Lane outage affecting 28 customers.

We are currently at ~1,350 customers out in Bangor of the 18,000 served. System wide, we continue to expect to be able to restore 95% of the customers who lost power from the storm peak on Monday.

Hope this helps,
Eric

AND HERE ARE THE AREAS IN HERMON THAT WILL LIKELY BE RESTORED TODAY------ANNA BABY, ANNA BABYS, BOG, EDGEWATER, GEAGANS, GREEKS, GREEKS LNDG, JUSTIN, LEAHS, SMITH, SOUTHGATE, VICTORIA .

HERE ARE THE STREETS THAT WILL LIKELY BE RESTORED TODAY----

-ALLEN, AMMO INDUSTRIAL, AUTUMN, BAILEY, BALSAM, BANGOR, BENJAMINS, BOWER, BREWSTER, BROADWAY, BUNKER,
BURLEIGH, CAROL, CHURCH, CLYDE, COURT, DRUMMOND, EARLE, ESSEX, EVERETT, FALVEY, FALVEY (CO-GEN EXTRA), FENTON,
FINSON, FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN (CO-GEN), G, GRANT, HEATHER, HUSSON, JOWETT, JUDSON, LEIGHTON, LINDAS, LINDEN,
MILTON, MONTGOMERY, NASH, NAYLOR, NELSON, NORFOLK, NORFOLK (CO-GEN EXTRA), NOWELL, ODLIN, OHIO, OHIO (COGEN), PACKARD, PARTRIDGE, PINE LEDGE, PLEASANT VIEW, POPLAR, PUSHAW, ROGER, ROSE, SKYLINE, SMITH, SMITH ST,
SUMAC, SUNSET, TAMARACK, THOMAS HILL, THORNTON, UNION, WALDEN PARKE, WHITETAIL

LITTLE CITY AND BANGOR GARDENS

To further update people- I have been speaking with Government Relations Director of Versant since the stornms tarted . I just spoke to him this morning- I have relayed to him yesterday that Little City is out, that their outage map was not correct previously if it showed it was on and that Bangor Gardens needs to be addressed as well.

I SPOKE TO HIM AGAIN THIS MORNING AND as he did last night he indicated that there was crew at Poplar Street this morning which I drove by this morning and saw the crew hard at work. THANK YOU!

And that there are 2 outage sources in Little City and one in Bangor Gardens that is back on their plasces to adrress- WITH A TOTAL OF 400 CUSTOMERS AFFECTED---- and as he told me last night he was going to committ 100 crews in the City of Bangor today to hopefully make significant progress.

I will continue to provide information as I get it. And I continue to encourage people in Bangor and Hermon to contact me here or by DM about power outages they are having. I have communicated with Versant regarding all such messages I have recieved.

Sincerely,

Joe Baldacci

CORRECTION--- OF THE MORE THAN 1000 LINES THAT WERE TAKEN DOWN BY THE STORM ABOUT 500 WERE IN BANGOR-- Source: Versant Power

Proud to continue to fight for teachers, educators, students and parents .

Quality schools, like Bangor and Hermon have, happen because we all work together and support each other and our schools.

That is what Ive done in Augusta and what I will continue to do with your help and support in the future.

Fellow Bangorians------- Versant says the following streets are being worked on today-------3RD, A, ALLEN, B, BALDWIN, BALSAM, BENJAMINS, BIRCH HILL, BLAZER TRAIL, BOMARC, BOND,
BOUTELLE, BOWDOIN, BRIARWOOD, BROADWAY, BROOKLINE, BRYANT, BUCK, BURLEIGH, C, CAROL, CARROLL,
CARVER, CASTLE, CEDAR, CHAPIN, CHESTNUT, CHURCH, CORPORATE, CORTLAND, CRESTMONT, D, DEAN,
DEXTER, E, EAST, EDGEWOOD, ELIZABETH, ESSEX, F, FAIRFAX, FAIRMOUNT E‐FAIRMOUNT W‐FAIRWAYS,
FARVUE, FENTON, FIFTEENTH, FIFTH, FINSON, FOURTEENTH, FOX HOLLOW, G, GRAHAM, GRAHAM N‐GRAY,
GRIFFIN, H, HAMMOND, HARTHORN, HEATHER, HERSEY, HEWEY, HILLVIEW, HORNBEAM, HUDSON, I, J,
JUDSON, K, L, LANE, LARKIN, LASALLE, LEDGE, LINCOLN, LINDAS, M, MAIN, MAINE, MAXIM, MCLAUGHLIN,
MILDRED, MILTON, MOONBEAM, MOUNTAIN VIEW, MT HOPE, MUNROE, N, NASON, NEW YORK, NORTH,
NORTHEAST, NORWAY, ODLIN, OHIO, ORCHARD HILLS, PACKARD, PARKER, PARTRIDGE, PATRICK, PATTEN,
PENOBSCOT, PERKINS, PERRY, PERUVIAN, PIER, PLAISTED, POPLAR, PUSHAW, RALPH, ROLLING MEADOW,
ROSE, ROYAL, SANFORD, SAVAGE, SAVAGE (CO‐GEN), SECOND, SEVENTH, SHADY, SIDNEY, SILVER, SIXTH,
SIXTH S‐SKYLINE, TAMARACK, THIRD, TRILLIUM, UNION, VERNON, VINE, VIRGINIA, WALDEN PARKE, WALTER,
WARREN, WEBSTER, WEBSTER N‐WEST, WESTWOOD, WHITETAIL, WING, WOOD, WOOD (CO‐GEN),
WOODBURY, WOODLAND

Maine's leaders in DC may think this is a good story but it is actually fairly pathetic that Maine gets $27 m out of an *8.5 b investment in northeast rail and it is only for the route from Brunswick to Boston, only 42 miles of which is in Maine. It is a failure of leadership because no one in DC is fighting for the rest of the State- i.e. Lewiston, Waterville, Augusta,Bangor and north to have passenger rail at the one moment when it is a leading mission of a President of the United States. Disappointed in the lack of leadership and lack of vision.

Federal funds coming to Maine to improve Downeaster rail service It’s from an infrastructure law.

Jump In! The Campaign to Support Dakin Pool, organized by Friends of Dakin Pool Ready! Set! Jump In! We know kids love to swim in the summer. … Friends of Dakin Pool needs your support for Jump In! The Campaign to Support Dakin Pool

Carroll Plantation couple sues neighbors and animal control officer over constantly barking dogs In the lawsuit, Darrell and Terry Park say the dogs' noise has lowered the value of their property.