Articles

Working Waterfront Losses

Between 2000 and 2004, according to a recent study by Coastal Enterprises, Inc., land values in a sample of 25 coastal and island communities increased by an average of 58 percent. The rise (in two of the towns surveyed it was over 100 percent) is caused by an apparently insatiable market for waterfront property, a

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Wiscasset Faces the Future

Maine Yankee was a huge presence on the midcoast waterfront for many years. Now the nuclear plant is gone, leaving behind a lot of high-level waste but something positive as well: an opportunity for the town of Wiscasset to demonstrate how this kind of site can be redeveloped for other uses. In fact, there are

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The Tax Cap

In November Maine voters will come face to face with a ballot initiative that, if successful, will cap property taxes and reverse the recent dramatic increase in property valuations. The tax cap is an understandable reaction to a problem the legislature has been much too reluctant to face: escalating property valuations and taxes, pushed ever

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Getting it Together

For everyone who helped raise money to purchase land at the Deer Isle “gateway,” who worked on Cliff Island’s barge landing project, who helped with the Islesford Fair, who helped settle the long-standing dispute over golf carts on Great Diamond Island, who worked on the large lobster-seeding project in New Brunswick’s Bay of Chaleur, who

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Security?

Set government agencies a-sniffing after terrorist threats nobody can define, and the results seem predictable: delay, confusion, the wrong people caught up in the dragnet, the real threats ignored. This September marks the third anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We’ve had ample opportunity to learn about the need

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Island Institute Programs Staff

Island Institute Programs Department (from left): Ben Neal, Marine Programs Officer; Ruth Kermush-Allen, Education Outreach Officer; Rob Snyder, Programs Director; Chris Wolff, Fellows Program Officer; Cherie Galyean, Grants Writer; Dana Leath, Community Development Officer; Shey Veditz, GIS Specialist.

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