Smith Letter to State Auditor (PDF) Smith Letter to State Auditor (Text)

Board Emails (PDF) Board Emails (Text)

Dept of Labor Letter to Hoffman (PDF) Dept of Labor Letter to Hoffman (Text)

By Naomi Schalit and John Christie, Senior Reporters

Last April, Maine’s largest wind energy developer, First Wind, trumpeted a multimillion-dollar deal that would pay for the company’s ambitious plans to erect more wind turbines throughout Maine and the Northeast. But in just the last week,  the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) dealt a potentially fatal blow to the deal. Faced with what opponentsMore

By Naomi Schalit and John Christie, Senior reporters

AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul LePage is proposing legislation to close a loophole in ethics laws that has allowed high-level state officials not to report millions in state payments to organizations run by themselves or their spouses. The governor’s legal counsel said the bill was prompted by a Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting story lastMore

By Lance Tapley, Contributing writer

The state has spent millions of dollars to prop up the Old Town pulp mill while steadily fining the mill’s owner for ongoing pollution. And now the biggest fine ever is imminent. The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting has learned that the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is preparing to slap a $497,000More

By John Christie, Senior Reporter

Sometimes it takes a death. Sometimes it takes four deaths: a mother, her two children and the man who killed them and then killed himself. The deaths of Amy, Monica and Coty Lake at the hands of their husband and father, Steven Lake, may be the tragedy that brings major reform to how the criminalMore

By Kate McCormick, Contributing Writer

CORRUPTION IN SMALL TOWN MAINE COSTS TAXPAYERS $800,000 IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS Last summer, a former deputy clerk and treasurer of the town of Newburgh was sent to jail after pleading guilty to taking the town’s money, nearly $200,000 of it. Last spring, the Pleasant Point police chief pled guilty to taking $33,000 fromMore

By John Christie and Naomi Schalit, Senior reporters

Around 3:50 on the afternoon of Wednesday, Oct 12, a state-owned silver GMC Sierra pickup pulled into the parking lot at the Colby College rugby field. A man in a blue windbreaker got out of the truck, took a cardboard box of equipment from the cab and headed down to the field, where members ofMore

By John Christie and Naomi Schalit

AUGUSTA — The head of the state agency responsible for the safety of about 100 potentially hazardous dams admitted to a legislative committee Monday that the dams are not being inspected when the law says they should be. But he also said he was confident in the assurance he got from the chief dam inspectorMore

“Wherever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”

— Thomas Jefferson