“Conserving Maine’s land and natural resources is an investment in today’s jobs and tomorrow’s prosperity for our children and grandchildren,” said Senator Roger Katz, a Republican from Augusta who sponsored the legislation. “Our natural resources are what set Maine apart – they are our biggest competitive advantage. Preserving and conserving them has got to be a top priority as we develop and grow. This is a value shared by families and businesses across the state.”

LMF has been extremely popular with voters, who have passed bonds in 1987, 1999, 2005, 2007, and 2010 by two-to-one margins. Since its inception, the LMF program has conserved land in each of Maine’s 16 counties, including working farms, commercial fishing waterfronts, timberland, and important tourism and recreation sites. Nearly 200 projects have been completed statewide, ensuring more than 500,000 acres of land remains open to the public for hunting, fishing, hiking, and other outdoor recreation.

“Land for Maine’s Future is an innovative method of conserving wildlife habitat and public access, as well as farming and fishing opportunities,” said Carole Dyer, a hunter from Bowdoinham. “Hunting supports 4,000 jobs, generates $217 million in retail sales, and over $81 million in salaries and wages. Investing in land that supports these activities is what LMF does.”

A recent study by the Trust for Public Land quantifies how these efforts have benefited the state’s long-term economic health in terms of both jobs and revenue. The report found that Maine’s natural resources support at least 62,000 jobs and generate billions in economic value for Maine businesses. It calculated that every $1 invested in land conservation through LMF returned $11 in natural goods and services to the Maine economy.

“This is an investment we’d be foolish to turn down,” stated Representative Jeff McCabe, a Democrat from Skowhegan. “LMF creates important new conservation and economic opportunities through partnerships with landowners, towns, and state agencies. Since it began, the LMF program has leveraged nearly $100 million in local, federal, and private matching funds. LMF is a win-win for Maine communities.”

“We’d all like to leave behind a fully-paid home to our children and grandchildren,” said Dave Ramsey, sportsman and President of the Brownville Snowmobile Club. “But that doesn’t happen overnight. It takes well-planned investing and a long-term commitment. And that’s what LMF is all about. Lawmakers can help us leave an important legacy to our families and communities by voting for the LMF bond and putting it on the ballot in November.”

A continuing economic focus for LMF will be its role in conserving wildlife habitat, including for white-tailed deer, a mainstay of Maine’s rural economy and way of life for at least the past 125 years. In 1996, Maine had 160,000 deer hunters, and they contributed $200 million to the economy of the state. Today there are fewer hunters and far fewer deer to enjoy.

“Investment in deer wintering areas today can help restore healthy deer numbers and also benefit countless other wildlife species in the northern half of Maine,” said David Trahan, Executive Director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and former Republican Senator from Waldoboro. “LMF guarantees that our outdoor heritage, the very thing that defines our state and makes it special, will be conserved and handed on to future generations.”

The LMF bond would also provide funds to help purchase development rights in order to preserve and protect key properties on the coast that provide access to and support commercial fisheries activities.

Melanee Osier-Gilbert, owner of Maine Fresh Lobster Inc. in Bremen, stated, “With six generations of the Osier family firmly attached to commercial fishing from this waterfront property, we believe that the Working Waterfront Access Protection Program not only preserves an important asset for our descendents and their neighbors in the community, but it also helps our present business invest capital into much needed improvements to the wharf and buildings, enhancing the twenty jobs that depend on access across this property.”

Katz added, “We owe it to Maine families and businesses across the state to send them a bond package that includes investments that protect the good jobs and good health that our natural resources provide to all of us. That package should include Land for Maine’s Future.”

The record of LMF projects shows it has helped establish and guarantee public access to thousands of acres and dozens of ponds, streams, lakes, and rivers for hunting, fishing, hiking, snowmobiling, biking, camping, and many other recreational pursuits. It has helped protect mountain summits, working forests and farms, salt marshes, and coastal shoreline.

Supporters of LMF cite the following examples of LMF’s positive impact on Maine’s economy and way of life:
• conserving 25 working farms – supporting family farmers producing dairy, vegetables, meat, and flowers;
• helping to conserve more than 250,000 acres of working forestland – guaranteeing continued sustainable forest management and public access for hunting, hiking, fishing, and many other uses;
• working with communities across the state to establish hundreds of miles of snowmobile trails, including critical links in the statewide snowmobile system that would be difficult to replace;
• protecting more than 1,000 miles of shorefront – guaranteeing access for canoeing, fishing, and boating;
• protecting coastal sites to ensure clammers and wormers have access to mud flats, ensuring their economic future;
• serving all Maine citizens and visitors – those who fish, hike, farm, raft, bike, boat, hunt, snowmobile, camp, and picnic; and
• leveraging nearly $100 million of local, federal, and private matching funds.

The Maine Land Bond Coalition is comprised of more than 350 supporting organizations, including sportsmen, business leaders, citizens, health organizations, conservationists, recreational enthusiasts, and environmentalists.

Two days after news broke that a container ship company servicing Portland had ceased operation, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree showed the top maritime official in the country around the International Marine Terminal in Portland and discussed ways to attract a new company to Maine to provide the service.

“We’ve proven that there is a customer base that wants to ship container cargo in and out of Portland,” Pingree said. “And with the big improvements that have already been made at the terminal, Portland is a prime candidate for a new company to set up container service.”

Pingree met with U.S. Maritime Administrator David Matsuda as well as local and state officials this morning to discuss opportunities for new container service at the International Marine Terminal as well as the design of a new, fuel-efficient tug-barge combination.

“This new tug-barge design is the right size for container service in a place like Portland,” Pingree said. “It would cost between 1/3 and 1Ž2 what a more traditional container ship would cost and use about half the crew. It’s also a ship that could be built in local yards here in Maine. So getting that design finalized is important.”

Pingree urged Matsuda to fund the completion of a design for an articulatedtug-barge that had been started as part of a joint project between the Department of Defense and the U.S. Maritime Administration.

“These public investments will create jobs now and grow good-paying jobs for the future,” said Rep. Peggy Rotundo of Lewiston, the lead House Democrat on the committee. “The state could afford to do even more to create jobs but there was little political will from our Republican colleagues to do so.”

The governor has said he won’t sign any bond proposals if he doesn’t get his proposed changes to the outstanding budget for the Department of Health and Human Services for 2013.

The five separate proposals include $51,000 million for transportation improvements; $7.9 million for water and wastewater treatment; $20 million for research and development grants; and $5 million for the land conservation.

Republicans and Democrats split votes on an $11.3 million bond to improve higher education facilities and competitiveness. Democrats offered a proposal that would give an additional $3 million in funds to local campuses in the university system.

“Democrats think students at the local campuses from Aroostook to York should have the same opportunity to have improved laboratories and classrooms,” said Rep. John Martin, of Eagle Lake. “No campus should be shortchanged.”

The committee voted out five separate proposals, breaking with the traditional process for crafting one single bipartisan bond package for the Legislature to consider sending to voters.

“We are concerned that the separate vote will set-up one or more of the proposals to fail,” said Senator Dawn Hill, of York. “If all five bonds pass the Legislature, the Republicans have given the governor a menu of options to reject rather than a single bipartisan package that was negotiated in good faith that we could all stand behind.”

Hill added, “All five proposals will create jobs and give our economy the shot in the arm it desperately needs.”

Maine has lost more than 1,000 jobs since 2011 and was recently rated 50th for personal income growth according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The Association of General Contractors said the state lost 500 construction jobs from February to March this year alone.

Fiscal experts from the Legislature’s Office of Fiscal and Program Review told lawmakers earlier this week that the state had the capacity to borrow more than $200 million in the next two years, paying debt service at a conservative levels of between 4-6 percent of the state’s two-year budget.

According to the fiscal office’s analysis, debt service payments from 2013 to 2015 will decline by nearly $30 million.

Maine has a history of paying down its debt quickly. The state typically bonds for 10 years, not 20 or 30 as other states do.

The bond proposals will now be considered by the full House and Senate and could still be amended by legislative leaders.

“Art can have a transformative effect in a community,” remarked City of Portland Mayor Michael Brennan. “It can connect us to the environment, to each other, to a sense of greater purpose. Portland’s public art collection brings this connection into our daily lives as we walk to work, drop our kids off at school or wait for the bus. Art in Our Front Yard gives us an opportunity to access the city’s art collection and develop a new appreciation and understanding of the important role art plays in our lives.”

“Portland is a city well known for its creative and artistic culture of which a thriving and diverse public art collection plays an important role,” noted Alice Spencer, Co-Chair of the Portland Public Arts Committee. “PPAC is excited to help bring to the city’s art collection to life. Thousands of residents pass by these pieces every day, but in our haste to reach our destination, we often miss the art right before our eyes. Art in Our Front Yard gives the public a chance to see, discuss, and engage in the city’s arts culture.”

In April 2000, the City Council established the Portland Public Art Program to preserve, restore and enhance the City’s public art collection. The Portland Public Art Program commissions art that engages with the surrounding environment to create, enrich, or reveal a sense of place, and to express the spirit, values, visions and poetry of place that collectively define Portland.

Currently, the public art collection contains twenty-eight works of art that are permanently installed throughout the city, including works of historical significance dating from the nineteenth century, as well as contemporary pieces that reflect the diversity and the spirit of the city. Recent efforts of the PPAC include redesigning the Pullen Fountain to improve access and protect it from vehicular traffic, accepting the gift of seven steel animal sculptures, Glimpse, for the Portland International Jetport, and restoring and re-plumbing The Little Water Girl for her move to the new foyer at the renovated Portland Public Library. The City Council is also expected to consider two new art initiatives in May, the PPAC recommended design proposal for the Bayside Trail Seating and the gift of a new piece for the public art collection, Tidal Moon by Maine sculptor Jesse Salisbury.

Of the twenty-eight pieces, twelve located within walking distance of the Arts District will be a part of the Art in Our Front Yard: Portland’s Public Art Collection series. Other pieces located outside of the downtown include a number of functional artworks including the Common Ground Gazebo in Payson Park and The Ravine water space in Deering Oaks: The Circle of Life.

The Portland Public Art Committee develops and presents to the City Council an Annual Art Plan that recommends expenditures from the municipal percent-for-art allocation, reviews potential gifts of art to the City’s collection according the Guidelines for the Public Art Ordinance, seeks private donations to care for the public art collection, and recommends appropriate locations for the installation of permanent public art. The Public Art Fund is supported by a .5% annual appropriation of the total city’s Capital Improvement Program.

Other organizations receiving money include: Bangor Folk Festival, $35,000; Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance of Old Town, $30,000; Cultural Resources Inc. of Rockport, $15,000; Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, $15,000.Figures of Speech Theatre of Freeport, $10,000; Penobscot Marine Museum of Searsport, $10,000; PORTopera, $15,000; and the Telling Room of Portland, $10,000

Jeffrey Young and Jonathan Beal, lawyers for the plaintiffs in the labor mural lawsuit plan to appeal the ruling of a federal judge who found that Gov. Paul LePage was within his government speech rights when he ordered the work removed from a state office building.

The plaintiffs contend that U.S. District Judge John Woodcock was wrong when he concluded in March that the mural was government speech rather than the speech of Judy Taylor, the mural’s artist commissioned by the state.

“When a simple, accurate portrayal of history is determined to be partisan speech and is removed, we are in dangerous territory. When a court bolsters this prejudice with its legal prestige, we are in worse trouble,”said Robert Shetterly, a Brooksville artist and one of the plaintiffs.

In March 2011, LePage ordered the 11-panel mural removed from the waiting room of the Labor Department. It was placed in an undisclosed location.

Taylor, spent a year researching and creating the 36 foot mural. She put in labor apprentices, textile mills, child labor, loggers, Rosie the Riveter, union secret ballots, the 1937 shoe strike, 1986 paper mill strike, and U.S. Labor Secretary Frances Perkins. The mural depicts various scenes from Maine labor history and highlights major incidents in Maine’s labor history giving workers dignity.

Attorney Jeff Young stated at the time he filed the complaint a year ago, “We are filing a temporary restraining order today in order to resolve this issue as quickly as possible, and hopefully return the mural to its rightful place. It is important to remember that by removing the mural, Governor LePage is infringing on the people of Maine’s First Amendment rights and denying everyone the opportunity to learn about, and be inspired by, the history of Maine’s workers. Our Constitution prohibits our government from taking down artwork simply because it disagrees with a viewpoint.”

The Complaint alleged that Gov. LePage’s removal of the mural denied plaintiffs their First Amendment right to view the mural. Attorney Jonathan Beal commented, “this kind of censorship, based on the artist’s portrayal of episodes in the history of struggle and achievements of Maine workers, is contrary to every principle of this democracy, and the principles of the people of this State.”

Last year the U.S. Department of Labor requested LePage return the federal grant funds used to pay for the mural be returned because LePage is violating the terms of the grant award. Either he pays or he must put the mural back up. Ever since LePage ordered the removal of the mural the artwork has become a national symbol for the attack the Tea Party has waged on union collective bargaining rights.

The plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal with the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston last week.