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Editorials In Maine Newspapers, Broadcast News Centers.

When reporting the news, it is the five W’s.

Who is it about?
What happened?
When did it take place?
Where did it take place?
Why did it happen?

And sometimes a sixth question gets asked from the guy or gal with the reporter’s top spiral ringed notebook. How did it happen?

And it’s all about taking meticulous notes, gleaning quotes collected in the hen scratching shorthand. Or fielded with a handheld micro audio recorder, video camera’s blinking red light. To capture the news maker.
Team Work, For The Good Of The Game, Played By Rules. Positive Lessons Taught Early In Maine.
Catchy soundbites that pretty much size it up in the news maker’s own words. Make it you are there. With the person in the news or in the know for the show and tell. That’s the way it is as Walter would drawl. Slowly removing his black rim glasses with one hand. A stack of news held in the other. Saying goodnight with a warm trusting smile. You believed him. It was all the news fit to air, print, circulate.

Stepping around the journalist alone in the news organization. Peeling off one level of the news reporting, layering means let the interviewee talk. Just listen. To the guy or gal who knows way way more about the topic. So you see, hear in their own words. Complete with inflection, strain, pain, excitement, pause, raised eyebrow or the tip toeing. Dancing around the subject. Because you’ve all heard the question posed and had the scratch your head feeling.

Saying out loud “just answer the question”! Politicians are famous for carrying a list of bullet points. That somehow regardless of the query, the topics are sliced, diced. Seasoning, sprinkled, spread all over the interview. Injected, infused into the news reporting from questions asked that get these facts and figures, sentiments weaved into the Q & A discussion slyly. It is an art to say how did they make that connection to something out of nowhere. You think.

So what about editorials in Maine?

In some European countries they are on the front page. And don’t have to be as long as your arm diatribes of rhetoric fed in paragraph form only riding tucked inside the newsprint folds. Cartoons, images to prove the news organization opinion on a subject it finds pertinent to hash and thrash. Beyond the 5 W’s. And along with the opinion piece, often there is a place in the newspaper, magazine or newscast for “Man on the street” pieces across the crease. For reaction to earlier editorials. To make it fair and balanced, news and opinion. The needed clarification coming at you in two way fashion. To expand on a topic, issue. With collective, not just one voice sounding out.

In Maine, the 4th lowest crime state, our news gathering, reporting is pretty tame.
Staying Positive Wins The Game. Helps The Lesson Learning Happen Quicker, Easier.
Compared to places with gang turf wars, political corruption, sex scandals, drive by shootings that are a given in the daily diet of local reporting. More people, bigger problems, greater saturation of negative news fed into the stream. But do you think that is the kind people like, that sells papers, gets viewer ratings?

Do we live in a negative reporting society by choice? Low on hope, cynical, quick to judge. Maybe attempting to make serious subjects, issues into a comic book over simplification? Is that the way you lead your life?

Shouldn’t your new sources operate with the same approach to life? Or do you argue it just reflects the good, bad and the very ugly? And if you are unhappy, does learning about someone worse off somehow spur you on as one of the lucky ones? Making you count your blessings.

Do you ever get cranked up over editorials with an obvious agenda?

When the day after day hammering, lashing is happening? To the point you cringe, cower. Don’t really want to tap into that signal. Because of the bitter after taste hearing, seeing it in print? But not just because you see the spin being applied and let it go as sad, for what it is. Mean spirited. Sometimes coming off as a hatred, attack knee jerk. And other more important subjects are not addressed that are screaming for the attention. Helping hand. Even if not so handsome, sexy, trending or easy to beat the drum about out of habit. Or that might take time away from what the editor really wants to see addressed over and over.

Leaving me wondering what good comes out of this waste of space that could be so so beneficial, supportive and insightful. With real solutions offered. Spread out over a multi part series of solutions, stances for the same goal. To help readers, listeners, views. Not the often same angry condescending regurgitation copy and paste points. From earlier editorial recycled venom. More often than not some individual or a group or political party the punching bag. Battered newspaper or newscast syndrome happens.

The population that picks up the signal gets depressed, not trusting many of the national, state or community leaders. What did we do wrong now? Kick the state some more to be feeling the shame of how we seem to come up so short across the board. Just about the same time when locals were feeling pretty high about accomplishments in a complex World we live in. Could some of it be the voice of a transplant not happy where they lived before either? Hand the megaphone, typewriter to another with a more positive approach to rally around. With a little praise for what we do right in so so many ways in Maine. And gentler, kinder prodding on how to step it up in other areas needing spotlight exposure.

A steady diet of “what did we do wrong now” is literary abuse.

It is lazy too. And maybe a little like the sea captain pirate. Who reminds all those down below rowing and manning, loading the long canon guns. That the beatings will continue until the morale improves drastically. The readers need more than water and bread spread across the pages.

There should be a requirement of before the dissing, cussing, fussing what is the variety of solutions getting the bulk of the ink or airtime. The tone, attitude, approach of your news machines is so so important to be pro-active in a state like Maine with 108 small towns, a handful of cities. Where individual volunteers, families, civic groups are working so hard to make a difference.

To huddle, chatter it up in the dug out, on the bench, out in the field like a Maine little league team.

To be constructive, informative, teaching life lessons. That make their area of Maine a little better place to live, work, play. And the media individuals, organizations out for a pound of flesh need to develop a more positive solution oriented approach. The one we all take on the local level in Maine. Rather than the finger pointing, scolding attitude in their editorial stance that does so much harm. That causes newspaper cancellations, broadcast dials to be cranked hard, changed up.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

February 19, 2014
Maine Is The 5th Highest For Beer Microbreweries.

A local Maine lawyer dropped me off a gift bag a couple weeks ago. The present? A pair of home brews.

Twin dark styles of beer. The blue hand written labels proclaiming, hinting what lies hiding inside. The dark tall bottles were Coffee Vanilla and Chocolate Maple Porter.

One count I looked up showed Maine had 31 beer breweries.

Then the raise your hands count eighteen months later, the end of 2013, the number climbs. Hoisted to 40 Maine microbreweries dotting Vacationland. Shipyard Brewery in Maine is the USA’s fifteen largest. It’s microbrewery products shipped, stocking shelves, or available on tap in forty states. All, starting in 1992 bottle operations with humble Maine beginnings in Kennebunk.

Clean Air, Water, All Natural. Maybe Why 40 Maine Microbreweries.
For awhile it seemed cool for a restaurant, bar, golf course, resort, white water rafting or ski slope business to have it’s own microbrewery. Handcrafted barley pop and enjoyed pretty much only locally. But often the operation going out of business, one for the history books. Nice try. It’s built on a business platform first, for profit. Not a government agency yet.

One group of Presque Isle Maine doctors gave birth to a restaurant microbrewery in Aroostook County.

Been a few year’s since the place with the copper distillery big tank, hoses, piping, couplers closed its doors.

Seems marketing the anemic volume of production, distribution, consumption like most businesses peddling a product came home to roost.

To die with poor beer reviews for suds designed with less alcohol and fewer carbs.

Like a lot of health clubs, ski areas, it seems the same pattern to make them successful.

You had to be second or further back in line. Patient. To buy them at the bank foreclosure auction for fifty cents on the dollar or less for better odds to succeed. Again. For less overhead then the over the top original dreamers begged, borrowed and stole. Invested with second and third home mortgages, cashing in life insurance policies that failed despite the all out effort. Still went under. Timing is key along with a sound marketing plan.

More what the state of Maine microbrewery licensing regulations say. It takes money, funding to get a microbrewery licensed, off the ground. Here is what one Maine couple’s microbrewery community fund raising plan.
Barley farmers, hop growers, the job comes with challenges. It is after all farming in Maine, ’nuff said.

The cost to start a microbrewery, depends on who you talk to, listen to. The basic steps in the start up.

Have to report back on the lawyer’s home brew but if you are buying, Allagash White is pretty tasty.

And another choice, Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale that is not so rave reviewed by some but you be the judge. Do your own thinking about what you are drinking.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

February 17, 2014
You Wearing Green, Black Today, Observing Singles Awareness Day?

Yesterday, February 14th all about wearing red, spiking sugar levels with delectable chocolates, the mad dash rush for roses by the dozen.

No Man, Woman Is An Island. But For A Time Just Makes Sense Being Parked, Healing, Learning.
Handwritten cards trying to accomplish the how do I love you, let me count the ways. Sparkling, faceted presents in little hinged velvet covered, silk interior slotted boxes.

Candlelight romantic dinners, wardrobes of little black dresses, leather and lace. Flutes of bubbly, grape juice. (Record screech sound, SADE or Chris Isaak background music halts abruptly.) Hear the pin drop in the silence?

Singles Awareness Day, does the term make you think of Misfit Island where one elf wants to be a dentist?

Alone. Not in a couple, relationship partnership for lots of reasons.

But it does not mean unhappy. Or should not be wanting to be with someone, anyone to just avoid being, doing time alone.

As Mae West said.. “I’m single because I was born that way.” Or Jay Leno quips yesterday “Today is Valentine’s Day. Or, as men like to call it, Extortion day.” And from behind the green shimmering sequined curtain The Wizard of Oz reports, this just in “Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.”

Or one more “Some people are settling down, some people are settling and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.”

That from Carrie Bradshaw in “Sex in the City” who treats it like the porridge. Wait for the one that’s just right like Goldie did. Keep walking. Searching. Living. Paying close attention. Taking very good notes.
Happy, Alone, Not Married Says Bingo. Let’s Play, Enjoy The Day. Make It Count.
With no regrets or looking back. Stumbling, tripping over the past. It’s about patience.

Not in a relationship by choice reasons can be sheer fear driven. Marriage. One person. Forever. That’s a little unnerving, BOO, scarey.

Or you’ve tied the knot, given it a whirl. Have the kids to prove it. And just want to finish the job of getting them raised. Out of the nest safe and sound.

Not pushed out prematurely because of a bad blend of two families, tension. Coupled with a brand new relationship adjustment loaded with opening baggage pieces to juggle.

That’s not Brady Bunch smooth, wrinkle free, fun with Alice.

But tailspins, black smoke pouring out the rear end in the steep accelerating screaming dive. Going south shortly after the second I do. With some kids saying “I won’t”. Digging in their heels. Attended the wedding, in the photo proofs but not hook, line and sinker part of the ceremony. Some that will go to their graves in old age wishing, dreaming, hoping their real Mom and Dad reunite, hold hands again. Play footsies. The failure rate of second marriages with two opposing benches of kids on the playing field 72% for lost yardage, game ending penalties in the first two years. Ouch.
Turtle’s Song Playing “So Happy Together.” Hear It?

It does not mean to be cynical either.

Like Peter Wolf in J Geils. His raspy voice broad brush horsely singing. Summing up the entire process with the warm gushing feeling lub dub ends up being “Love sucks”.

Or is congratulations, you just you have found another way to bleed. When the new and different, we talk all the time freshness ten day plates get unscrewed. The made in a prison ones get bolted on way too tightly with lock washers.

Tired. Because relationships need weeding, feeding, watering. And if it is not a friendly division of duties, back and forth on the teetering totter, someone gets drained. Empty, bankrupt. Then (dark cloud rolls over, rumble of approaching thunderbolts charging) resentment. Here it comes. Incoming. Take shelter. Walking on egg shells, tip toe mine field time. You forgot to date your mate. Should have done, gone into the relationship counseling upfront. Before you both realized you needed it but way way too late.

Do this or it is over gun to your head ultimatums don’t make it free and easy. Friendly.

And that kind of “I love you if..” conditional codicil twist to the vows up front before all your family and friends does not have a happily ever after ending. To the life together union where each stays individual but weaves roots, tree limbs intertwined, laced together. To be better off paired, than each could ever hope to pull off alone. Not putting the fun in dysfunction with Alt J’s “she’s morphine, the queen of my vaccine” either. Desperate for all the wrong reasons to keep her in his life to dull his past emotional pain.

Expectations, unmet needs, the previous defensive relationship faux pas, over correction, ownership of the role each plays. And the biggest wrecking ball of relationships, pride.

If one partner microscopes the other.

Finds the flaws we all have and makes it lop sided you are the sole reason for rough seas, that is not a partnership. And exhaustive to the point that partner can turn themselves inside out. Forget who they are. To try to make the other happy. You can not make someone happy. That is a full time job your highness. Eyes on your own paper. Change you, and stop praying that God does the other.

Sometimes it is a break, getting to know yourself better and loving being alone.

Because some think, like Michael Douglas of Fatal Attraction fame that “Being single is pretty good. It’s a nice sense of irresponsibility.” Unless you are being stalked. Looking over your shoulder for the other half of it takes two. When the last relationship ends badly. And like it or not, you are still connected by a single tough strand of rusted barbed wire. Scrapping, chaffing your wrist or hooked to your ankle. And you hope you don’t have to gnaw it off, loose a limb to get away. Make the break from the date.

The National Association of REALTORS shows one third of homes are being bought by single people.

Who some say singles are more fun to be around then their married friends that are not so out going, so social and spontaneous.

Maybe it is as simple as the cat being on the wrong side of the door. Wanting whatever he does not have. The dog with the bone eying that of another that seems to be worth the dropping, replacing exercise.

Work hard, you are as joyful, content as you want to be inside first and last. You should not be chasing happiness that does not live outside your inner thoughts. Wherever you find yourself, make it over the top. The best it can be for you, others. And blessed, lucky enough to be in a relationship where both partners think they are matched with someone way out of my league.

Where each thinks they got some kinda lucky. Each landed the better end of the bargain. Both wonder why and bask in that sunshine of appreciation.

Happy Singles Awareness Day if the shoe fits.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

February 15, 2014
Music You Get Exposed To, From Your Siblings, Work, Kids.

Music sets the mood, makes the coffee, work, recreation all that much sweeter.

Sometimes for background filler, motivation, or to be turned up and felt deep down inside. To move, shake, buzz, rattle and hum. Because dancing is expression, great exercise. So the music you listen to, how wide and varied and why?
Just Hanging Out Inside, Listening To C & W Tunes, Music In My Box Stall.

My three older brothers, in a ten year difference of age span exposed my Maine family household to lots of artists.

From oldest brother Stephen’s Chuck Berry, Little Eva, Chubby Checker, Fats Domino and Jerry Lee’s “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”.

(The latter a group my oldest brother got to be warm up performing band for at the old Bangor Auditorium in his local Bangor Maine talented musical group called “Bootleg”).

The next brother in line Jonathan’s “House Of The Risin’ Sun” by the Animals.

That I can see sitting on his bed. Bent over a stringed Gibson, learning to play on guitar.
Spring Time Yellow, 1967 Ford Mustang Easily Got You To School On Time. Anywhere Four Speed / V8 Fast.
And his favorite Kinks, Beach Boys, The Who, The Doors, Traffic, The Moody Blues song cranked louder at home. When Mom and Dad were away. On the front room den hi fi surround sound, not just on his upstairs bedroom two channel stereo.

Or when he was giving me rides somewhere as the baby of the family. To be dropped off, picked up. Very fast. And in the 1967 Mustang bought during a good potato year for two brothers to share.

For their working pretty much round the clock when not in school on the Maine farm.

And next youngest brother Brian’s Cream, Iron Butterfly,and Rolling Stones. His shared harmonies of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Add in the Sunday noon after church living room songs from Boots Randolph, Tom Jones, Jerry Vale, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and likes of old World War Two Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller.

Mom’s piano playing of old hymns and Christmas songs like “Up On The House Top Click Click Click”. Her Anne Murray, Glen Campbell, Engelbert Humperdinck, Wayne Newton, other artists always on the kitchen radio. While she whipped up amazing meals for the Maine farm family table. The same one used for counting potato barrel tickets during harvest.

Plus my Aunt Ruth was a music teacher so got dragged around on her operetta circuit with my cousins. Exposed to her pretty amazing voice belting out “Valeree, Valerah.. ha ha ha ha ha” when the camping knapsack song kicked into gear. Heading to swimming lessons at Cary Lake from her horse riding summer camp on the Callaghan Road.

I worked at a local Maine radio station WHOU and went on to the Bangor Maine market to spin tunes during the second half of the 1970’s.

WABI had a Golden Oldie’s format so that helped broaden the segments I was too young to remember. And top forty exposure split with the country music format at another station blew open the repertroire expanse. Z62 was a rocker and you can always get more done with a rock bass line pushing you from behind. To tap your toe to. Feel a finger or two have to go up and down. As you catch the beat. It goes inside your pores. Heading for your soul. Amen.

But listening to XM / Sirius in all the vehicles, being around my own household raising four kids meant non stop tunes to pile on. The hits that just keep on coming. But no longer stacks of wax. Riding on vinyl grooves or 8 track, metal cassette delivery. No no. Digital, not analog and on clean, loud, just music hard drives. In all types of personal devices to plug in the ear buds. For a companion while mowing lawns of angled grass. Or early morning, late night walks. While puttering on projects outside.

The kid’s ipods a music library in their own right. 3500 songs a piece is a lot.

From electronic of Deadmau to Daft Punk. French DJ techno to Alt Nation my current favorite musical watering hole. But then shifting to other channels depending on the day. The Loft or Coffee House genre with unplugged versions stripped down for a Sunday morning. When slicing, dicing onions, mushrooms, peppers of all colors. To mix into the grated cheese, hot sauce, fresh ground black peppered scrambled eggs. Home made toast. The fresh black coffee, weekend newspapers and home fries, sausage links for the breakfast brunch.

I remember the first albums. Saving up to buy, eye balling the art work, reading the lyric sheets. Studying the liner notes, the entire 33 and a third RPM musical collection of tune tracks. Usually five, six a side. Of my favorite Doobie Brothers, Billy Joel, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pater Frampton records. That played in the background of the memory making. That take you back, neck rein so efficiently to earlier times in your life.

The singles, ZZ Top, the little old band from Texas. T Rex, Bang A Gong, Get It On. Radar Love, because I been driving all night, my hand’s wet on the wheel. High school dances with The Raspberries suggesting what the heck. Go All The Way. Elton John crooning about Crocodile Rock, Saturday Fighting being alright. Something about your little sister, wearing braces and boots. With a gob, handful of grease in her hair.

So how about you?

How wide and handsome is your musical background? Keeping it expanding, growing so easily today with a little thing called the Internet. And a slew of the concert series playing at a local venue near you of the old timers who sound better than ever with the new technology. Shorter sets and more variety on the same play bill making it like a musical buffet.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

February 14, 2014
Books To Enjoy Year Round In Maine, Do You Read?

Just finished Stephen King’s “Joyland” book.

Revolves around carnival park life. Where some unfinished business gets squared away before “The End”.
Maine Is Family, Reading To And Doing Things With Your Kids.
In a Maine winter, we are outside as much as possible like the other three seasons. Dressed with layers and toasty warm. Enjoying the fresh crisp air, strengthening sun’s rays, amazing scenery. A slew of outdoor recreational family options.

But like enjoying a good chowder, soup, stew, a new book to nurse.

To nibble and slay a chapter at a time is a good pastime. To keep your imagination from rusting. Whispering, whining “oil can, oil can”.

Just picked up, getting into “Sharp Objects” by Gillian Flynn about a reporter who is covering a “who done it” story in her small home town.

Her own mysteries from the past percolate to the surface to impact her reporting. Reading is a habit, entertaining and when you finish a book, your two hands feel empty. You reach for something else to scan.

Much like the back of the cereal box, milk carton, place mat to scan. To past the time. To learn something. And your newspaper, even though online and available to tap tap tap into, the eerie glow gleaning is not the same.

Without the smell of newsprint, your two arms holding it high. Or flat on a table, breakfast bar. Opening, flipping the neatly folded, inserts tucked away inside fresh edition. Delivered to your doorstep if a Maine daily. Snagged at the supermarket if a weekly or your don’t hire the postal carrier to add to his hernia load. To keep you in the know, satisfy your curiosity. Making your feel involved, current.

Visit a local library in Maine.

Did you use to read more when you were a kid, or is your job so much technical study that work scanning cures the hunger to be whittling away at literature?

Did you see your parents reading books for pleasure, knowledge? And are biographies, nature, historic, DIY, fiction or non fiction what you prefer?

Have a lot of new to the area folks ask in their top ten after how high are the property taxes, heavy the regulations, zoning end up moving on. To “tell me about your home town’s library, hospital, schools”. That answer tells a lot, reveals volumes about what is important. Where the local community’s priorities are.

Read, learn, think, broaden your perspective and grow. Consider other viewpoints, perspectives, experiences, solutions. Pass that on to your kids to develop so they always remember stories in the early bedtime ritual. Before their prayers, lights out. Cue the Sand Man. Books in their lives for so many reasons, benefits keep getting reached for if you do. Passed down example to follow. My parents did for their four boys.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

February 12, 2014
Your Small Maine Town Ambulance Service Makes Money.

The emergency call comes in for your small Maine town ambulance service.

To high tail it.
One Worried Eye Watches As Maine Ambulance Blurs By. Sirens Make Wildlife Nervous, Hide.
Make the sick patient pick up, the delivery to a health care facility stat. Three ambulances, with three year rotation updates to keep the fleet in the pink, healthy. Can not afford a breakdown. To be dead in the water. Parked the other side of the Interstate rumble strip right? When the precious cargo’s life seconds are numbering.

Sometimes a new small Maine town ambulance that costs $160,000 give or take a few dollars is purchased.

On other occasions a demo gets the nod off the bench. Put into service. Or the retired, aging rig is put out to pasture. Replaced by unfastening the high tech mini hospital back square box. Slide out the high mileage diesel chassis. Back up, under and bolt on the new frame, plug in the cube’s wires. With there, whew, a fresh power plant, transmission on a new air ride. To be the new life support on wheels crash cart vehicle.

To carry the life and death sick and injured at higher speeds down the Maine highway. Sirens blaring, lights alternating, flashing brightly. To announce to traffic, neighborhoods all along the route. What’s up ahead to move it on over to make way. To avoid causing an accident involving the ambulance. Which would not be good at all.

Could be a loved one of your own in the back of the Maine ambulance.

Isn’t that the first thought you have?
Small Rural Towns, Mostly What Maine Is. Spread Out.
I do. Wondering oh oh. Who is in trouble, hurting, maybe dying? Where I live in Houlton Maine, it is a cut off location for the Life Flight. I hear the whomp whomp thud of compressed air. Felt, getting louder. As the bird circles. Sets down two blocks away at the helipad just outside the Emergency Room entrance.

The ambulance crew for a tenth the cost can be saddled up, on the road though. To boogie with the patient to a larger health care facility with specialty services to the south. But depending on the distance, you are in transit less time beyond Bangor by the time the order goes in, the bird arrives. Disappears over the horizon with blinking navigational lights.

When a town around Houlton Maine signs on for ambulance services the cost is based on a per capita fee to keep it fair.

Monticello Maine to the north has used Crown Ambulance in the past which parked a rig in the Westfield / Mars Hill Maine area. To have it on call for faster turn around service.

The cost for Crown has been $9100 annually according to Monticello town officials. Cheaper than Houlton. Plus the ambulance crew cab ride cost gets billed to the insurance company or Uncle Sam. Paid for the loaded one way delivery. To pick up, answer a call in Monticello, Maine. That has a population a whisker away from 800 people last head count.

And after loading the stretcher into the rear, the back barn bay doors get shut to let the patient, the family flip a coin to decide. Should I go to Houlton Regional Hospital to the south or The Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle to the north? From an economic standpoint for my home town, for this money making arm of the County Seat for Aroostook, I would like to see more stays, bookings at Houlton Regional. Like all of the runs.

Not greedy but quality health care happens at HRH too.

Where the job count flickers, vacillates between 1st and 2nd largest area employer. Jobs are a bigger deal in a small Maine town where they don’t grow on trees. Are chased, hunted down, hung on to dearly.

Another translation | Affects my, everyone in the town’s property tax bill size. Even Emergency Medical Service Director Milton Cone has to dig deeper, who lives in this burg. Where he, his wife, the family of three girls they raised lives are pretty heavily invested. Six other EMT/EMS paramedics jobs happen too because of the three ambulances with their snouts pointing toward the door. To sail out of the fire department’s station automatic doors when the call comes in to turn on the light and sound toggles, roll.

Cone, who rotates lids, wears a couple town government hats. Also leads the Houlton Fire Department, is our local Smokey Bear. Makes sure everything is spiffy, clipped, mowed, trimmed. Proper and respectful at our local cemeteries. Like me, thinks getting Monticello Maine’s business would be a good thing for this blogger’s home town. At a time the lower bidder no longer has the parked ambulance idling, waiting for service when the 911 call comes in. There are behind the scenes changes, adjustments underway at Crown Ambulance. TAMC exploring options. The city of Presque Isle toying with buying some ambulances, housing them in their fire department like Houlton does.

A healthy 1600 runs for the sick last year for the Houlton Ambulance that makes money and that you would like to see the revenue continue, to grow.

That’s exciting economics. Way more than the small Maine town over spending the other way. Hefty hikes yearly in the property tax bill. That hurts business, the individual tax payer. For savings needed to pay the other bills. Luxuries like heating, groceries, mortgage, rent, kid’s braces and prom dresses. Land line, cell phones, cable or dish. All types of insurances, home upkeep, cars with their maintenance nickel and dime and college accounts. To name just a few.

The branching off to new areas when town officials awhile back in the Danforth, Wytopitlock (AKA Reed Plantation), Bancroft area asked if Houlton could service their small towns, can mean have to hold it. The level of service can suffer when you get to far away from your primary target area. If a ambulance department gets over extended.

Sending rigs, crews out during snow storms, poor road conditions into the middle of nowhere.

Not enough runs to have a local pinch hitter crew based closer or volunteers in towns that are just getting so so small. Too tiny to make the expenditure pay. That like their school enrollment, job options too are shrinking, hemorrhaging. In the dwindling not so perky local economy happening all over Maine. As municipal DT addiction to disappearing, trickled back revenue sharing rehab continues.

The call to the helicopter can get scrubbed too. When the whirly bird wind beater can not fly. Is grounded like Santa almost had happen one bad storm condition year. Before the freak reindeer strapped in, took off in red light, saved the day.

Sometimes the Houlton ambulance trip to Bangor, 119 miles away means the no vacancy neon light suddenly flicks on.

No beds are available and keep driving boys and girls. Heading further south. Experienced this when number three of four children, the oldest son was antsy to arrive into the world way way too early. The neo natal unit in Bangor Maine’s California king was booked. Suddenly in use and it was how about Lewiston Maine to hook up the machinery? To calm the tremors, to keep the pregnancy easy does it. Underway and Alex inside Mom until the coast was clear for the delivery hide and seek of the bundle of joy ended naturally.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

February 11, 2014