Portland City Manager Mark Rees announced the selection of Acting Police Chief Michael Sauschuck as the city’s next Police Chief. Rees will formally present Sauschuck for City Council confirmation at the February 6, 2012 meeting. Upon confirmation, Sauschuck will become the nineteenth Police Chief to serve the city.

“I am very excited to make this announcement,” stated City Manager Rees. “After a rigorous and competitive search, I am confident that we have found the right person for the position. Mike’s commitment to public service, the police department and the community is unparalleled. He knows and loves this city, and the community will be well served by the Police Department being under his leadership.”

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“On April 1st, the state of Maine will default, it will not have money to pay the fourth quarter of 2012 Medicaid payments,” Gov. LePage said after he interrupted the work of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee.

The state’s fiscal year begins in July giving lawmakers three months to work out the issue. LePage went on to tell legislators that their failure to cut $221 million from the budget will force him seek cuts to state education to close the gap.

“I will be calling you back and asking you to give the GPA money so that I don’t have to close nursing homes and we will probably close schools, ” he said. “Or by Feb. 1st, you give me curtailment orders so I can start saving money. This is not normal politics, this not rhetoric.”

But this issue would not be able to be classified under a curtailment order.

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A measure that would protect students from bullying in Maine schools was stalled today during a work session of the Legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee. The bill nearly passed into law in 2011 but was sent back to the Education Committee at the last minute in the face of opposition from the Christian Civic League.

“Maine students can’t afford for this bill to be delayed any longer,” said Rep. Terry Morrison, who sponsored the bill and has strongly advocated for it after hearing from hundreds of students and parents in his district. “While this measure gets held up by unnecessary political wrangling, students in schools across our state are being threatened and bullied by their peers.”

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Democratic State Rep. Anna Blodgett of Augusta introduced a bill to help protect children by making it a crime to fail to report a missing child under the age of 13 within 48 hours or to fail to cooperate with an investigation into the death of a child. She presented her legislation before the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee on January 19.

“I submitted this bill and proposed amendments because it is a tragedy that children go missing every day and we should be doing everything we can to try and find them,” said Rep. Blodgett. “I was contacted by over 100 constituents who shared my concerns and asked me to submit a bill.”

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Gov. John Baldacci and Dale McCormick, director of housing, prepare to winterize a home in 2005 for Keep ME Warm. The KeepME Warm program is the first public-private partnership of its kind started by Gov. Baldacci in 2004. photo by Ramona du Houx

This winter the Keep ME Warm initiative aims to buy 100 gallons of fuel for 1,000 Maine families, to keep vulnerable residents healthy, safe and secure this winter. The funds will supplement emergency fuel programs. To fulfill that goal the initiative needs to raise $350,000 to offset cuts to the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, (LIHEAP).

“It is no secret that the current economic challenges in Maine and the country are causing many to have to make difficult choices,” said Lisa Laflin, chairwoman of the United Ways of Maine.

Those challenges mean without help some Maine residents will have to choose between food, rent, prescriptions or heating their homes. In frank terms, people’s lives are at risk and help is needed.

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Rep. Sharon Treat, D-Hallowell, announced she and 50 other Maine Democrats are joining hundreds of state legislators from across the nation in filing an Amicus Brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. The brief will be filed this Friday and was prepared and filed in conjunction with the national progressive think tank the Constitutional Accountability Center.

“We are joining this lawsuit as a “friend of the court” because we know thousands of Maine people will benefit from the new health law,” said Rep. Treat, who is the ranking House Democrat on the Legislature’s Insurance and Financial Services Committee. “If you or a family member recently received preventive care such as a mammogram or colonoscopy or immunization, and weren’t charged any copay and didn’t have to meet a deductible, then you have already benefited from the Affordable Care Act, which required insurance companies to cover many preventive services without out-of-pocket cost to the patient.

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Congressman Mike Michaud sent a letter to President Obama urging him to include full funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) in his Fiscal Year 2013 budget submission to Congress.

“When the President proposes a massive budget cut for LIHEAP it gives congressional leaders an incentive to do the same,” said Michaud. “We need the President to show that he’s listening to the thousands of Mainers hurt by this funding cut by requesting full funding for LIHEAP. Not doing so threatens the health and safety of Mainers struggling to keep warm and make ends meet during cold winter months.”

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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has awarded the Norway Fire Department $199,500 for the purchase of a fire truck. The funding announced today was made possible through DHS’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) program.

“Investments in our fire departments improve public safety by providing the best equipment possible,” said Congressman Mike Michaud. “With these additional resources, Norway’s first responders will be able to better serve and protect the community.”

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I am sure you have been hearing this story a lot but only today as I called in to refill my seizure control medicine prescription and a refill on my 11 year old’s allergy medicine which helps control her asthma did I find out that my family no longer has MaineCare.

My pharmacists said she has had to tell at least 20 different people today that they too didn’t have coverage anymore. She added, “good luck getting through to them, I heard they had over 300 calls yesterday.”

Without giving notice – beside political posturing did LePage give us fair notice? He just set tens of thousands of Maine residents adrift without a life vest, not a oar or even pointing which direct to go for survival.

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This week’s cold snap serves as a good reminder to the public that on any given night more than three hundred and fifty people within the Portland community experience homelessness and seek emergency refuge at one of community’s six overnight shelters. These men, women and children are particularly vulnerable to the weather and often in need of help or assistance from the community to stay warm. The City of Portland’s two emergency shelters are currently seeking donations from the public that will be distributed to those in need.

Suggested items include new blankets, coat vests, gloves, mittens, hats scarves, earmuffs, long underwear and warm winter socks. Donations to the shelters are down by as much as a third compared to years past. Members of the public interested in making donations can make arrangements by contacting the city at (207)761-2072.

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