Category: Voices & Weekend Voices

Locally produced radio magazine on cultural & community events & people. Every Wednesday from 4:00 – 4:30 PM

Weekend Voices 9/25/10

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Audio recorded by: Meaghan LaSala

A gubernatorial candidates forum on the topic of Maine’s quality of place, was held on September 21st at the Bangor Opera House. The event was sponsored by several Maine-based nonprofit organizations, including: the Bicycle Coalition of Maine, Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, GrowSmart Maine, Healthy Community Coalition, Maine Conservation Voters Education Fund, Maine Development Foundation’s Downtown Center, Maine Downtown Coalition, Maine Farmland Trust, Maine Preservation, Maine Rural Partners, Trust for Public Land and the Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine.

The candidates for governor were asked for their views on the future, and how they would protect and promote Maine’s natural and cultural resources. We are bringing the audio from this event to you in 2 parts, so we can include as much of the forum as possible. In this first segment that you will be hearing today, the candidates were asked:

What they see as the state’s role in protecting quality of place and capitalizing on the Maine “brand” in job creation?
Their opinion regarding funds for economic development being tied to the impact the development would have on quality of place?
How would they balance public access with private landowner’s rights?
How would they encourage more “smart growth” and encourage bicycling, walking and public transportation?
And how development and job creation can be promoted, without creating
sprawl?

In attendance were 4 of the 5 candidates who will be appearing on the ballot for Governor: Democrat, Senator Libby Mitchell; and Independents Shawn Moody, Eliot Cutler and Kevin Scott, Republican Paul LePage was invited, but did not attend

The forum was emcee’d by Carol Coultas, editor of Maine Biz

NOTE: Part 2 will air on “Voices” at 4pm on Tuesday, September 28tg

Voices 9/21/10

Executive Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Contributing Producer: Carolyn Coe

Audio from the Veterans for Peace rally held in Portland, Maine on August 29, 2010. Approximately 300 people attended.

Speakers/singers:

Gerry Condon, President of Greater Seattle Veterans for Peace
Will Hopkins, Iraq Veterans Against the War
Lisa Savage, Coordinator of Code Pink Maine and an organizer of Bring the War $ Home campaign
Sally Alice Thompson & Alice Ritter, Raging Grannies and VFP members
Emma’s Revolution (Pat Humphries and Sandy O)
Nancy Nygard, member of Military Families Speak Out
Michael Ferner, VFP Board President
Emcee: Bruce Gagnon, member of VFP Maine Chapter 0011

FMI: www.resisters.ca , www.ivaw.org , www.veteransforpeace.org , www.bringourwardollarshome.org

Weekend Voices 9/18/10

Executive Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Contributing Producer: Carolyn Coe

Audio from the August 26th, 2010 public meeting, organized by Veterans for Peace, as part of its National Convention in Portland, Maine. The speakers spoke about the costs of war, lifting the fog of war.

Speakers:

Terry Tempest Williams, Author and environmental activist
Mike Brennan, Social Worker and former State Senate Majority Leader
Matt Moonen, Political Director of Equality Maine
Geoff Millard, Board Chairman of Iraq Veterans Against the War

FMI: www.veteransforpeace.org , www.ivaw.org

Voices 9/14/10

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

An interview with John Christie, publisher and senior reporter for the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, a non-partisan and nonprofit journalism organization based in Hallowell. The mission of The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting is to “ful?ll the responsibility of a free press in the American democracy by providing independent reporting to Maine citizens about their government and elections” and they aim to “fill the gap between the diminished in-depth reporting from the existing Maine media and the need of the state?s citizens to be fully informed about the actions of its government and public servants.” Their work appears in various media outlets across the state, as well as their own website, pinetreewatchdog.org

WERU is working with The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, to bring their stories to our listeners, in a partnership that we kicked off last month with Naomi Schalit’s report on Wind Power Legislation in Maine.
John Christie joins us on Voices today to talk about his in-depth report called: PENSIONS: THE NEXT BUDGET CRISIS which looks at the looming threat to Maine’s economy that is posed by decades of an underfunded– and over politicized– state pension system.

FMI: www.pinetreewatchdog.org

Weekend Voices 9/11/10

Executive Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Contributing Producers:  Carolyn Coe, Meaghan LaSala, Matt Murphy

Segment 1: Former U.S. Army Specialist Ethan McCord spoke at the 25th Anniversary Veterans for Peace Conference in Portland, Maine in late August.   He talked about his efforts to help Iraqi childen, as captured in the Wikileaks video “Collateral Murder”, and his struggle to get his military benefits.   Produced by Carolyn Coe.

Segment 2:  A profile of the Machias-based Beehive Collective, and their most recent poster on mountain top removal.    Produced by Meaghan LaSalla:

Segment 3: Obama administration officials, including representatives from the  Department of the Interior (DOI), USDA, EPA, & White House Council on Environmental Quality, were in Bangor on September 2nd, to hear local residents offer their ideas for open space, public lands, and our National Parks, as part of the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative.   WERU’s Matt Murphy attended the listening session, and brought back some of the voices of those in attendance. Recorded by Matt Murphy, Edited by Amy Browne  (You can learn more about the initiative and submit your comments, at www.doi.gov/americasgreatoutdoors/ or by email to ago@ios.doi.gov)

Voices 9/7/10

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Contributor: Matt Murphy

Topic: America’s Great Outdoors Listening Session in Bangor

Obama administration officials, including representatives from the  Department of the Interior (DOI), USDA, EPA, & White House Council on Environmental Quality, were in Bangor last week to hear local residents offer their ideas for open space, public lands, and our National Parks.     Amy Browne talks with Alexander Brash, Regional Senior Director for the Northeast, for the nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association, and Matt Murphy interviews Stephanie Clement, a representative of Friends of Acadia.

Voices 8/30/10

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Contributer: John McVeigh

Segment 1:  Clean Waters, Clean Shores project.  Guest: Ron Greenburg talks w/ Amy Browne about the launch of this new project aimed at cleaning up the local coastline.  FMI:  ron@benbows.com or 207-288-3340;  terry@friendsofacadia.org

Segment 2: Interview with Alice Lichtenstein, summer resident of Surry, Maine and author of the novel “Lost”, published in March of this year.  Insight into how the book was researched and written, and how life experience aids in creating a work of fiction.  FMI: lichtensteina@hartwick.edu

Weekend Voices 8/21/10

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Segment 1:

Maine’s Board of Environmental Protection held a public hearing regarding the designation of  bisphenol A as a priority chemical and it’s regulation in children’s products on Thursday.

Guests:

Mike Belliveau, Executive Director, Environmental Health Strategy Center
John Peterson Myers is founder, CEO and Chief Scientist of Environmental Health Sciences, co-author of Our Stolen Future (1996) and the website OurStolenFuture.org (synthesizing hundreds of scientific articles about endocrine disruption to make them accessible to the media and the lay public)

http://ourstolenfuture.org/ and

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/

Laura Vandenberg, PhD, Post Doctoral Fellow, Tufts University. Her major research focus is on understanding human exposure to the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A.
Jennifer Sass is a senior scientist in Natural Resources Defense Council’s health and environment program, Jennifer received her doctorate degree from the College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, and a postdoctoral fellowship in toxicology from the University of Maryland. http://www.nrdc.org/
Segment 2:
WERU is kicking off a new partnership with the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, in which we hope to bring some of their in-depth reporting to the WERU airwaves.

Award-winning journalist Naomi Schalit, formerly of MPBN, the Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel is Executive Director and Senior Reporter for the Center. She joined us here at the WERU studios to tell us more about the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, and their recent series of reports on the Wind Energy Act of 2008—which fast tracked industrial wind power development in Maine.  http://pinetreewatchdog.org/