Briefs
High School Budget Approved, Conners Emerson Reconstruction Moving Forward, Earth Day Events, First Gives $5k to Shore Path Rebuild, and Acadia Senior College Events and More.
MDI HIGH SCHOOL BUDGET APPROVED WEDNESDAY NIGHT
BAR HARBOR—The MDI High School’s fiscal year 2024-25 budget was approved Wednesday, April 3, in the high school theater. While the process to vote in the new budget is open to all registered voters in the four island towns, only 11 registered voters showed up to participate. Of those 11 voters, only one was not a member of a school board or an employee of the school system.
The total high school budget is $14,490,156, an increase of 7.10%, with an assessment to the towns of $11,369,030, an increase of 7.86%. Tremont is the only town that does not experience an increase due to the budget increases. The breakdown of increases is below.
The budget is approved via a warrant process and all 18 warrant articles were approved unanimously and without discussion.
After the meeting was adjourned but prior to anyone leaving, Bar Harbor Warrant Committee member and Chair of the School Subcommittee Bob Chaplin asked if he could have a minute. Chaplin recommended to Principal Matthew Haney that he follow the lead of the Bar Harbor Warrant Committee and try to shave 7% off of the high school’s budget. Chaplin was the sole voter not connected to the school system in any way.
BAR HARBOR SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION PROJECT CONTINUES TO MOVE FORWARD
BAR HARBOR—The Bar Harbor School Board met Monday, April 1, in the Conners Emerson Library and Dr. Heather Weir Webster gave her principal’s report and said that once the plans for the new school are done and spoke about bids. Engineering firms look over that to make sure systems align. There have been four bids. Harrimans is overlooking the bids, then they will look at the firms and potentially interview the bidders, then it will go to commissioning agents.
“You can pick the lowest bid but you aren’t bound by policy to pick the lowest bid,” School Superintendent Mike Zboray said. The building committee will look at the bids first. There might be a special meeting for the whole board. Harrimans will likely have a rubrick to help.
Vice Chair Marie Yarborough said another project manager or subject expert might be helpful to overlook bids.
Board member Misha Mytar said maybe someone from the town might have that expertise, too. Zboray suggested someone at the Jackson Laboratory, which has had several construction projects.
“It’s super exciting,” Mytar said of the movement forward on the project.
There are 352 students at Conners Emerson, up eight from August’s numbers.
Dr. Heather Weir Webster said that she already has 30 students signed up now and expects that there will be 38-40 next year. This year there are 33 in the kindergarten class.
Family STEAM night will be on Thursday, April 11. Show Stoppers headed to its state competition on April 5. Spring sports have started, and the jazz band performed at Waterville High School last week for a state competition. The school is also advertising for a school counselor because Carol Rosinski is retiring. During the meeting, the board also approved a one-year leave of absence for a teacher.
THE FIRST PRESENTS $5,000 GIFT FOR SHORE PATH RENOVATION
The First National Bank presented the Village Improvement Association with a gift of $5,000 on Friday.
“What a great way to end the first week of our Help Save the Bar Harbor Shorepath campaign. Thank you so much to First National Bank for being one of our lead donors with a generous $5000 donation. We are very excited about the strong start and appreciate all who are stepping up to help out!” the association said in a statement.
Lower Main Street - New Traffic Pattern Planned for Two Weeks
BAR HARBOR—Main Street is CLOSED from Cromwell Harbor Road to Park Street and between Center Street and First South Street. Main Street is OPEN between Park Street and Center Street and between First South Street northward to the Village Green. Detour signs are in place.
The closures will allow water / sewer / storm water utility work at Wayman Lane. Weather dependent, this traffic pattern will remain in place for two weeks. Thank you for your continued patience during these utilities upgrades. Please call 288-1026 if you have any questions.
COLD TITS WARM HEARTS FOR THE YWCA
MOUNT DESERT ISLAND—To say the recent fundraising event conducted by the women of Cold Tits, Warm Hearts for the benefit of scholarships at YWCA MDI was successful would be an understatement. Since March 1, the group raised money online as they “dipped” every day in the frigid waters all around MDI and beyond. Some pledged to swim each day, others did their parts by organizing weekly community dips and encouraging others to join in.
In addition to the donations their actions generated, the camaraderie which emanated from everyone in the group, and their absolute joy in being in the water was infectious, said Jackie Davidson of the YWCA MDI. “At the YWCA MDI, we have been truly honored by their spirit and generosity. These days, we all need what they bring to us.”
“We at the YWCA of Mount Desert Island send our thanks to each and every one who participated, from the dippers themselves to the encouraging cheerleaders, and the many donors. You help make our work of eliminating racism and empowering women not just possible, but joyful,” she said.
SUPER BAR HARBOR BARTER AND SWAP YARD SALE OF AWESOME
Bar Harbor Barter and Swap is hosting a community event at the Atlantic Oceanside event center on May 5 from 10-2. They are “selling “ tables through BHB&S.
All of the table fees are donated to the Tremont School PTO. In addition, Katia Brophy, founder of the site, has donated tables to the MDI High School students raising money for their trip to Rome next year, MDI Hospital Auxiliary, and a couple of other nonprofits.
In addition, and to emphasize the community participation, Brophy invited the Mount Desert and Bar Harbor Police Departments to come to the event and have the community cookout that the departments had to cancel earlier.
“I was delighted that they accepted,” Brophy said. “I’m a firm believer in ‘community policing’ and having a positive experience with the human beings who do the job. So, I am in love with the vision of our beloved community coming together in this way!”
The Bar Harbor Story will have more about this event soon.
MDI HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS OF THE MONTH
EARTH DAY IN LAMOINE
On April 20 at 7 PM and April 21 at 7 PM there will be a play reading at the Lamoine Community Arts Center at the Grange in Lamoine. The play is written by Fred Stocking and Gordon Donaldson, “Along The Treeline‚ A Glimpse of the Future.” It’s a dramatic adaptation from the book by Ben Rawlence The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth. Admission is free.
EARTH DAY AT COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC
COA hosts community Earth Day celebration
BAR HARBOR—Explore a more sustainable future with music, food, info tables, energy tours, and more during a free community Earth Day celebration at College of the Atlantic on Saturday, April 20, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“COA’s Earth Day event is a space for the MDI community to come together and celebrate the earth through hands-on activities for all ages and to learn more about regional environmental initiatives,” said COA Earth Day coordinator Linnea Goh ’25. “There will be opportunities to learn about local organizations, get free plants, listen to live music, learn how to fix your bike, buy second-hand books, and participate in many other activities.”
The day begins with opening remarks at 11 a.m. Throughout the day, guests can participate in tours of clean energy improvement on campus, explore a life-size, inflatable humpback whale, and hang out with lambs from COA Peggy Rockefeller Farm.
Info tables and hands-on activities will feature regional organizations such as A Climate to Thrive, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Acadia National Park, and the Bar Harbor Conservation Commission. Entertainment will include performances from local musicians and a puppet show by Funky Trunk Puppets. There will also be opportunities to provide feedback to the Climate Emergency Task Force’s Climate Action Plan for Bar Harbor.
For more information, visit coa.edu/calendar.
DESTINATION HEALTH YARDSALE!
Destination Health is closing its doors and hopefully relocating locally. In the meantime they are holding an indoor moving sale this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Acadia Senior College Presents . . . Social Media: Connection or Corruption?
Maya Caines and Gray Cox
Friday, April 12, 8:30 a.m.
Join us for coffee, pastries and good conversation at Brasserie Le Brun
74 Cottage St, Bar Harbor.
At our next Coffee Clash, Maya Caines and Gray Cox will address a compact question and a huge subject. The question: Social Media: Connection or Corruption? Those five words can open a discussion of the profound forces that over the past two decades have transformed how we communicate and who we are.
Social media have connected humankind as never before, enabling global reach. But many critics of social media fear the prospect of a society manipulated through uncontrolled private entities.
Please join us and share your views.
Maya Caines has lived in Bar Harbor for five years. She has worked for the Jackson Lab and the Town of Bar Harbor. She currently serves as a member of Bar Harbor’s Town Council and works for College of the Atlantic as the Director of Residence Life and Student Experience. During her time as Bar Harbor’s Communications Coordinator, Maya saw the benefits and perils firsthand of using social media and other media to spread information about local issues. Maya earned her degree from the University of Maine, where she studied marine biology, environmental policy, and economics.
Gray Cox teaches philosophy, peace studies and language learning at College of the Atlantic and is a cofounder and Clerk of the Quaker Institute for the Future. Works include: The Ways of Peace: A Philosophy of Peace as Action; The Will at the Crossroads: A Reconstruction of Kant’s Moral Philosophy; and A Quaker Approach to Research: Collaborative Practice and Communal Discernment. His most recent book is: Smarter Planet or Wiser Earth? Dialogue and Collaboration in the Era of Artificial Intelligence. He is also a singer/songwriter and lives with his wife at the edge of Acadia National Park where they garden and go adventuring with their grandchildren.
The cost to attend in person at Brasserie Le Brun is $10 and includes coffee and pastries. The discussion will also be available on Zoom.
Click for more information and to register
Please let us know by noon on Wednesday, April 10th if you cannot attend.
QUESTIONS OF DEMOCRACY
The 2024 College of the Atlantic Summer Institute will examine democracy in the United States during one of the most consequential years of our times.
Struggles for democracy traverse our lives and society, from ballot boxes to inboxes, from the corridors of congress to the halls of schools, from kitchen tables to city streets. Questions of democracy confront us in our debates over freedom of the press, voting rights, and artistic freedom, in struggles of authoritarianism, and in conversations about how to effectively engage with disagreement and conflict across a range of topics.
Join us from July 29 - August 2 as elected officials, authors, analysts, and community organizers discuss what democracy means to them, the threats it faces, and how our individual and collective efforts can fortify democracy now and for future generations.
We will announce speakers over the next weeks. Please check the Summer Institute page for more details as they are announced. Registration is free, and opens May 1 for Champlain Society members, June 1 for the general public.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WITH FRED BENSON
Fred Benson
Friday, April 26 at 11:30 a.m.
Birch Bay Village, Bar Harbor and on Zoom
Proponents claim that Artificial Intelligence will produce results with a greater degree of precision, create a new standard for productivity and efficiency, can be used in situations where human intervention can be hazardous, and lead to massive improvements in medicine, education, and product production.
Naysayers argue that maybe so, but at what cost? AI is extremely expensive to build, could lead to massive unemployment as humans are replaced in repetitive jobs, and eventually lead to robots enslaving human beings as it becomes the dominant form of intelligence on earth.
In his presentation, Fred will define Artificial Intelligence, provide more detail on the general benefits and risks, and focus primarily on the threat AI brings to our national security.
Fred Benson retired as an Army full Colonel having served combat command tours in Vietnam and Korea, and Pentagon assignments in the offices of the Army Chief of Staff, the Secretary of the Army, and the Secretary of Defense.
Subsequently, he served as Vice President for National and International Affairs for the Weyerhaeuser Company and later was President of the US-New Zealand Business Council, a consortium of 31 US companies with an active business presence in New Zealand. Read more...
The lunch and talk will be held at Birch Bay Village in Hull’s Cove on Friday, April 26, 2024. The lunch begins at 11:30 and costs $15. The presentation begins at noon. The program will also be offered on Zoom.
Click for more information and to register
ASC Racial Justice Book Group
Are you interested in joining us? We are open to new members who want to share in the reading and the hard work that ensues as we examine the underpinnings of systemic racism and its effects on society and on each of us individually, in the ultimate hope that our studies can work toward change.
We have been meeting once a month on the second Tuesday of the month from 10:30- 12:15.
We started with the basic readings of How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. We then spent many months delving deeply into The 1619 Project edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones.
Since then, we’ve read some James Baldwin, Colson Whitehead, Zora Neale Hurston, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Clint Smith and many others. We look forward in the next few months to reading some James McBride and Bryan Stevenson. We also share articles of interest that deal with the issues we’re facing.
If the truly hard, but most meaningful, work we are doing to examine our society, culture and ourselves sounds like something that interests you, please contact me at rjbg2021@gmail.com or 207-664-9954.
Read more about the book group
Beyond the Cortex: Causative Factors of Brain Deterioration
Our brains carry memory, identity and our understanding of the world around us. As the average human lifespan continues to increase, our awareness and concern about neurodegenerative disease is growing with it.
JAX’s “Scientifically Speaking” virtual discussion on May 7, 2024 features two postdoctoral associates pursuing neurodegenerative disease research. Join us to meet them and learn more about their work:
• Ashley Munie Gardner, Ph.D., studies the role of microglia (cells in the brain that help protect and support nerve cells) on the nervous system function to better understand neurodegenerative diseases.
• Michael Maclean, Ph.D., is working to better understand how common stressors, such as obesity and diabetes, influence the development and progression of diabetic retinopathy and Alzheimer’s disease.
They will be joined by Anna Lisa Lucido, Ph.D., senior director of research strategy and director of research program development, who will moderate the event.
When:
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET
Where:
Zoom
Hello Carrie Jones, I see my note about the Earth day event at the Grange but the dates have changed, the dates are April 20. at 7:PM and April 21. at 2:PM ; Also , the PLAY is FREE. Please set it right in your next Briefs. Thank you very much, Barbara Entzminger