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Very good early morning from Augusta. We’re keeping a listening session for politics readers on July 29. Sign up right here. Here’s your soundtrack.
Quotation OF THE Day: “Every change we took appeared to expose a new secret and the clues we gained had been ambiguous and tainted by agendas,” mentioned Sonia Kennebeck, director of a new documentary on an Indiana guy who claimed he was a political prisoner in the Penobscot County Jail, alleging little one pornography costs he confronted had been a ruse to punish him for his do the job with hacker group Nameless and tries to leak CIA documents to Wikileaks.
What we’re observing right now
The Legislature is established to focus a lot more on its extensive investigation of the youngster welfare procedure soon after the dying of a boy in Waldo County. Maine’s embattled boy or girl welfare process is back in the spotlight after the loss of life of 3-12 months-old Maddox Williams of Stockton Springs. Police have charged his mother, Jessica Trefethen, with murder and court records have exposed two instances in which law enforcement contacted the Maine Office of Wellbeing and Human Providers about the boy possibly currently being neglected while in his father’s care.
The procedure has been the concentration of a two-calendar year probe by the Legislature’s watchdog committee that started soon after the fatalities of Kendall Chick in 2017 and Marissa Kennedy months afterwards in 2018. Modifications were being built under both Gov. Janet Mills and previous Gov. Paul LePage, like much more caseworkers in a condition spending budget handed two years back, but employing them has been difficult and the COVID-19 pandemic led to additional young children in state custody right before a decline.
A report from the state’s little one welfare ombudsman has noted lingering difficulties with first investigations into baby safety and assessing whether little ones need to be reunited with dad and mom. The Mills administration has resisted all those conclusions, noting progress in tamping down turnover and making sure its workers preserve up with licensing and training. But a state report from January also claims the division would need to have 42 much more caseworkers to cope with scenarios ahead of it.
It leaves the Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee with heaps to look at as it dives back again into the process. Sen. Chip Curry, D-Belfast, issued a letter previous 7 days asking the panel to identify how to carry out earlier suggestions to boost the process, while some of Maddox’s household members attended a current Rockland protest calling for variations.
The panel will just take testimony on Wednesday from ombudsman Christine Alberi, Director of the Workplace of Household and Baby Providers Todd Landry and top condition murder prosecutor Lisa Marchese, and may possibly ask for a condition evaluate of boy or girl-safety policies.
The Maine politics top rated 3
— “Lawsuit worries Maine’s key courtroom decisions in health care malpractice conditions,” Jessica Piper, Bangor Day-to-day News: “The lawsuit problems only one particular aspect of the proceedings, arguing that in circumstances where by the panel asks a Top-quality Courtroom choose to make a decision on a authorized difficulty, the decision must come to be a community document. It argues that the sealed opinions violate the right of community access to courtroom paperwork below the 1st and 14th Amendments.”
— “Lawyer withdraws from practically 200 scenarios following not complying with condition investigation,” Samantha Hogan, Maine Monitor: “Maine is the only point out that relies fully on non-public lawyers to present lawful expert services to defendants who are unable to manage to use a lawyer. The fallout from the conclusion to suspend [Amy] Fairfield is the newest instance of how complex it is for the state’s community protection agency, identified as MCILS, to oversee the private lawyers it hires. Lawmakers are demanding improved auditing of payments to lawyers, but that involves legislation corporations to be willing to take part.”
— “Cancellation of Christopher Columbus ship reproduction tours reversed even with tribal objections,” Lynne Fort and Monthly bill Trotter, BDN: “Dick Campbell, a former Republican state legislator from Orrington and guide organizer of a tall ships competition put on by the Penobscot Maritime Heritage Association, said Sunday that competition organizers and officers with the reproduction ship, named Nao Santa Maria, made a decision to resume giving paid out tours that morning. He reported that there has been a large amount of desire on Sunday by folks interested in using tours of the ship.”
The ship’s earlier scheduled Bangor appearances continue to be canceled. Organizers to begin with explained they “failed to take pleasure in the symbolic significance of bringing the replica of the Santa Maria to port.” Tribal leaders explained they had been “disheartened” by the use of a reproduction of a Christopher Columbus ship, characterizing the function as “offensive in a lot of techniques, as effectively as historically inaccurate.”
Today’s Day by day Quick was composed by Jessica Piper and Michael Shepherd. If you’re studying this on the BDN’s web site or were being forwarded it, you can sign up to have it sent to your inbox every weekday early morning right here.
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