Maine Policy Matters

S4E4 PFAS: The Forever Chemicals We Need to Know About

In this episode, we talk with Caroline Noblet, Jean MacRae, Dianne Kopec, and Caleb Goossen about PFAS (Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances) and their effects on the environment, Maine’s efforts to combat it, the public’s understanding of the issue, and how PFAS affects agricultural systems and interstate commerce.
Caroline Noblet's MPR article: “Forever Chemicals Needing Immediate Solutions: Mainers’ Preferences for Addressing PFAS Contamination
Jean Macrae's MPR article: “Estimated Greenhouse Gas Emissions from PFAS Treatment of Maine Drinking Water”
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Threads: coming soon
Today's episode transcript cannot fit in the show notes. You can access the transcript here: https://mcspolicycenter.umaine.edu/s4e4-pfas-the-forever-chemicals-we-need-to-know-about/
 

S4E3 Maine’s Clean Water Act: A Celebration of Progress

In this episode, we talk with Rebecca Schaffner, Chris O. Yoder, Brian Kavanah, and David L. Courtemanch about the Clean Water Act, in celebration of Maine Policy Review’s special section titled “50 Years of the Clean Water Act.” This significant milestone of half a century since the passage of the Clean Water Act, we are bringing in a panel of experts to highlight Maine’s efforts to improve water quality and the need to maintain and strengthen water quality protections.
You can find the articles discussed in this episode by following this link: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mpr/
Our website: https://mcspolicycenter.umaine.edu/maine-policy-matters/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/umainepolicycenter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/umainepolicy
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Threads: coming soon
Today's episode transcript cannot fit in the show notes. You can access the transcript here: https://mcspolicycenter.umaine.edu/s4e3-50-years-of-the-clean-water-act-in-maine/

S4E2 AI: A New Paradigm for Research and Higher Education

In this episode of Maine Policy Matters, we talk with Ali Abedi, Salimeh Sekeh, and Peter Schilling about navigating AI in research and education.
More from Ali Abedi: https://cugr.umaine.edu/people/director-ali-abedi/
More from Salimeh Sekeh: https://umaine.edu/scis/people/salimeh-yasaei-sekeh/
More from Peter Schilling: https://umaine.edu/citl/people/peter-schilling-ph-d/
Our website: https://mcspolicycenter.umaine.edu/maine-policy-matters/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/umainepolicycenter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/umainepolicy
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Threads: coming soon
Today's episode transcript cannot fit in the show notes. You can access the transcript here: https://mcspolicycenter.umaine.edu/s4e2-the-impact-of-ai-on-research-and-higher-education/

S4E1 Student Government Interns: Making a Difference in Maine

In this episode of Maine Policy Matters, we’ll be talking with Peggy McKee, director of the Maine Government Summer Internship Program, to hear about the history and impact on students and government agencies. We’ll also be hearing from a few interns and their supervisors throughout the episode to get an inside look at what it’s like to participate in this program. 
 
Our website: https://mcspolicycenter.umaine.edu/maine-policy-matters/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/umainepolicycenter/
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Threads: coming soon
 
Today's episode transcript cannot fit in the show notes. You can access the transcript here: https://mcspolicycenter.umaine.edu/summer-interns-impact-on-maine-government/
 
 

S3E9: Making Maine More Attractive to Young People

Today’s episode has two parts. Part one is a synopsis of Amanda Rector’s article, “Maine’s Changing Demographics: Implications for Workforce, Economy, and Policy”. Part two features an interview with Everett Beals and Michael Delorge, winners of Margaret Chase Smith Library’s 2020 essay contest. Beals’s article is titled, “Making Maine More Attractive to Young People” and Delorge’s is titled, “Progress for Young Mainers Paved by Education”. The essay prompt asked students to propose how they would make Maine “the way life should be” for young people so that more of them will choose to live in a state with one of the oldest populations in the nation.
You can find the articles here:
Rector: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mpr/vol29/iss2/13/
Beals: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1872&context=mpr
Delorge: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mpr/vol29/iss2/18/
Transcript
[00:00:00] Eric Miller: Before we start today's episode, we'd like to let listeners know that this is our last episode of season three. We'll be back for season four on August 29th, 2023, covering a variety of topics like PFAS, Investing in Teachers' Leadership Capacity: A Model from STEM Education, Maine's Libraries, Moose and Ticks, and AI in Higher Learning. Thanks for your support throughout this season, and we look forward to returning in the fall.
Now let's get started with the episode. How has Maine's changing demographics affected our workforce economy policy and Maine's younger generation in light of Covid-19?
This is the Maine Policy Matters podcast from the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. I'm Eric Miller, research associate at the center.
On each episode of Maine Policy Matters, we discuss public policy issues relevant to the state of Maine. Today's episode will have two parts. Part one is a synopsis of Amanda Rector's article, "Maine's Changing Demographics: Implications for Workforce, Economy, and Policy." Part two will feature an interview with Everett Beals and Michael Delorge, winners of Margaret Chase Smith Library's 2020 essay contest. Beals article is titled, "Making Maine More Attractive to Young People" and Delorge is titled, "Progress for Young Mainers Paved by Education." The essay prompt asked students to propose how they would make Maine "the way life should be" for young people so that more of them will choose to live in a state with one of the oldest populations in the nation.
Amanda Rector is the Maine state economist, we've had her on the podcast before, a position she has held since 2011. Rector is a member of Maine's Revenue Forecasting Committee and serves as the governor's liaison to the U.S. Census Bureau. She also serves on the advisory board for the New England Public Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and is a member of the Board of Visitors at the Muskie School of Public Service.
Everett Beals is a rising senior at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, pursuing a degree in environmental science with a minor in creative writing. On campus, Everett has served on Clark's Undergraduate Student Council and serves for the Department of Philosophy and the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. In the fall semester, he'll serve as editor-in-chief of Clark student Newspaper, The Scarlet. He spends his summers in Maine as a faculty member at a summer camp, working as the instructor for sea kayaking and marine biology. Everett is a graduate of Kennebunk High School in Kennebunk, Maine.
Michael Delorge of Biddeford, Maine, is a third year student at the University of Maine pursuing a dual degree in biology and political science. On campus, Michael is the president of the University of Maine Student Government and also leads UMaine's Partners for World Health Club. He is a John M. Nickerson Scholar and a Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center scholar researching the Maine substance use epidemic. Michael has also been a UMaine UVote Ambassador, a member of the Sophomore Owls Tradition Society, a resident assistant, and recently inducted into the Senior Skulls Tradition Society. Michael hopes to pursue a career in health policy upon graduation.
Rector's, Beals's, Delorge's respective articles were published in volume 29, issue 2 of Maine Policy Review, a peer reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center. For all citations for data provided in this episode, please refer to the original article, which can be found in the episode description.
Rector argues that the events of 2020 were a sobering reminder of why it is important to understand the demographics of a region. With the onset of Covid-19 our lives were upended. The economy, which had been chugging merrily along, came to a screeching halt. There is nothing like a public health crisis to help clarify that every policy, at its core, is about people.
The fundamental purpose of any policy, be it federal, state, or local, is to safeguard and improve the wellbeing of people. The understanding of any policy decision, therefore, must start with a understanding of demographics. Demographics describe the characteristics of a population. The most basic demographic data or simple population counts: how many people are living in a given area at a point in time? From here we can delve into ever more detailed demographics such as age and sex, race and ethnicity, migration patterns, fertility and mortality rates. These demographics provide the data we need to make policy decisions.
The Decennial Census is the single best source of demographic data available in the United States. Every 10 years, the US Census Bureau accounts every person living in the country and gathers some basic demographic data about them. These decennial population counts are used to determine each state's representation in Congress as well as districts for state legislatures. They're also used to distribute billions of dollars of federal funds every year. Policymakers, researchers, business owners, and others use the data to make decisions that affect our lives every day.
Helpfully, Maine became a state the same year the United States conducted its fourth decennial census. This means we have a snapshot of what Maine's population looked like near the time of statehood. In 1820, when Maine became the 23rd state in the nation, Maine's total population was 298,335, 3% of the US total at the time, and the twelfth largest population. Only 13% of the population was 45 or older, compared to around 12% of the US population. Reflecting the times, the census counted "free white" males, and females separately from slaves and "free colored" males and females. Maine's population density of 10 people per square mile was nearly twice that of the 5.5 people square mile for the nation.
By 1920, Maine's total population had increased more than 150% to 768,014, but this was only 0.7% of the US total. The 1920 census included six different options for "color or race." Despite the increase in categories, population remain 99.7% white.
Jumping ahead, another 100 years to 2020, Maine's total population has increased another 75%, making Maine the 42nd most populous state in the country. Half Maine's population is age 45 or older, compared to around 42% of the US population.
The 2019 population estimate from Maine shows 93% of the population as "white alone, non-Hispanic." Maine has the highest percentage of white alone, non-Hispanic population in the country. Since the beginning, Maine's population has grown more slowly than the nation's, and while population density has increased, Maine has become relatively less densely populated than the rest of the country. Participation in labor force has changed substantially over the past 200 years as baby boomers age, labor force participation rates in Maine and the United States will continue to decline. Employment itself has followed a similar trend with a rapid increase in the 1970s, but Maine reached a new record non-farm employment level in 2016, followed by a further increases in 2017, 2018, and 2019. It is still unknown exactly what trajectory current economic conditions will take.
The single most dominating demographic force in Maine in recent years has been the aging of baby boomers, with this generation making up around 27% of Maine's population. As baby boomers continue to retire, fewer new workers will enter the workforce, which may lead to fewer available workers in the future unless more younger workers move to Maine. Maine has seen a natural population decline since 2010, but net migration has helped offset this decline and led to increased population growth. In 2019, Maine's rate of net domestic migration ranked 16th in the nation, an overall population growth ranked 25th.
According to US Census Bureau's American Community Survey, the only age cohort that saw net domestic out migration in Maine in 2018 was age 75 and older. The largest increase in the domestic migration rate came out of the 18 and 19 year olds. We also saw high rates of migration for young children and adults aged 30 to 44. Demographics are on our minds more than ever these days, even if we don't realize it. There are some possible silver linings for Maine. Those rural parts of the state that may have seemed too far for some people in the not-too-distant past, suddenly now hold new attraction. While some businesses in Maine have certainly faced tremendous uncertainty and unpredictability in our bicentennial year, they have also demonstrated their adaptability.
That concludes our synopsis of the Rector article. We will now move on to the interview with Michael and Everett.
Thank you both for joining us today.
[00:09:31] Everett Beals: Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure.
[00:09:32] Michael Delorge: Thanks for having us.
[00:09:33] Eric Miller: Since both of your essays were published in Maine Policy Review in 2020, would you both mind catching up our listeners on what you've been up to since you wrote your high, essays in high school? Michael, we'll start with you.
[00:09:44] Michael Delorge: Yeah, sure. I think I submitted my essay in the height of the pandemic. And at that point, I don't even know if I knew where I was gonna college at that point. But I've just spent my last three years finishing up my third year here at the University of Maine in Orono. I started as a biology major, pre-med, decided that I did not want to go to med school, and I picked up a political science major and I'm leaning towards going in, into a public health policy in grad school.
I've done some work here on the student government. I'm the president of the student government for the remainder of this year and for next year. I've done some work in global public health with this branch of a Portland-based nonprofit called Partners for World Health, and my club here at UMaine is a branch of their chapter and or a branch of their nonprofit.
And we sort medical supplies from some local Bangor area hospitals and distribute them down to Portland, who distributes them all over the world. Last May, I got the opportunity to go to Senegal on a, like a non-religious medical mission trip with a nonprofit. And I've done some stuff in voter engagement while I was at UMaine and just try to take advantage of as many opportunities as I possibly can with political science and clubs and whatnot.
Yeah, I didn't think I would be here doing this, going to a STEM school in high school studying biology and sciences and stuff like that, but here we are.
[00:11:15] Eric Miller: That's fantastic. You clearly, Covid, didn't really slow you down that's all fantastic stuff, Everett, how about you?
[00:11:20] Everett Beals: Yeah I guess we're both juniors now I ended up going to Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.
I had a pretty good idea even before I enrolled anywhere that I want to do environmental science for a bachelor's degree. That's what I stuck with. At Clark, there are three, three tracks and I'm on the environmental science and policy track, so that's a program I've really enjoyed. I also added a minor in creative writing on the suggestion of one of my advisors who's been big help to me, as a personal editor and someone who's helped me push my boundaries.
So that's something I've really enjoyed. In terms of extracurriculars I was on Clark's undergraduate student council for two years. And I've been writing for our student newspaper the Scarlet for three years. I'm currently the news editor and next year I'll be the editor in chief. I have a couple jobs on campus that I really enjoy doing.
One is that I'm an undergraduate admissions ambassador, and the other is that this year I'm a peer learning assistant for a philosophy class on environmental ethics. So that's what I've been up to in terms of like during the academic year. And yeah I'm pretty happy where I am.
[00:12:19] Eric Miller: Oh, that's fantastic.
Yeah. I imagine you've read a fair amount of, Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson in your journey.
[00:12:25] Everett Beals: Absolutely.
[00:12:25] Eric Miller: That's fantastic. As fellow bachelor's in environmental studies myself, really appreciate that. Everett, when you wrote your essay, you had a statement, quote, first and most importantly, we need to emphasize that we as a whole state have to solve the problem together.
Could you speak to that problem you discussed in your essay and how collaboration within the state could help solve that issue?
[00:12:48] Everett Beals: Yeah, I was trying to recognize basically the geography of the situation we're dealing with. Michael and I are both from New York County. Michael, I know you went to MS SM, which is a lot further north than where we ended up settling.
But I was trying to recognize that the state is a big place, and I have grown up in kind like my entire life and I wanted to acknowledge that my experience was siloed. And understanding Maine's history, a lot of the population has been concentrated sort on that bottom southwestern portion, but the state being so large, in fact, so much of it that frankly I have not yet seen myself. I think it's really important, especially with the kinds of frontier communities that I was talking about, Skowhegan being one of them, but also lots of towns like, which are important for my family ties like Millinocket which used to be major industrial centers and now in the recent past have been struggling. I was trying to make it clear because I believe this really firmly that any solution that's going to apply to the entire state of Maine needs to be informed by the entire populace of the state of Maine.
So it can't come just from Kennebunk and it can't come just from Orono. It needs to come from everywhere. I know that sounds aspirational. It's vague in a sense, but that was my emphasis that we can't silo any solution that we have, and it's really important to hear every kind of diverse perspective that we have.
So that's what I was getting at and trying to start there saying, we need a comprehensive, holistic solution that everyone should be a stakeholder in.
Totally fantastically put. Michael, do you have any comments on the same type of issue, like statewide thinking?
[00:14:22] Michael Delorge: Yeah. Yeah.
I think Maine is not diverse in a lot of ways, but it's very diverse in more ways. I, like Everett said, so Everett and I crossed paths a lot when we were growing up being from neighboring towns. And Everett said, I'm from Bedford in York County, and I had the opportunity to go up to the Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Arista County in Limestone, Maine.
I could see the Canadian border from my dorm room. You can't get that in Bedford, Maine. And now I'm in Central Maine going to college. And I've seen the two Maines that people talk about, that really urban, rural divide. And I wish that more students, young people could see that, because Maine is really diverse in a lot of what it offers geographically.
And I definitely agree with what Everett's saying, where we need like a whole state approach to this. There's a lot of communities represented from every corner of the state. And I've noticed that kind of as a student in the University of Maine's system too, when I talk with people that go to other UMS schools it's something that students are aware of too.
[00:15:31] Eric Miller: Yeah. And as someone who isn't a native manor myself, but spent quite a few years there, I find that when I describe what Maine's like and what you should do when you visit, don't just stop at Freeport if you're gonna go up the coast, or don't skip all the coast and go straight to Acadia. Those places are all beautiful, but the type of Maine that you get from every stop along the coast from Portland to Lubec, you get so much variation in there, in economy, in population density, in just the natural features. It's just really interesting and this obviously gets way more diverse as you go west inland.
No, I completely agree. And oh, go ahead, Everett.
[00:16:12] Everett Beals: That divide isn't just like a social thing that, that Mainers have made up in our minds. It's a tangible political boundary between Maine's two congressional districts and Maine is only one of two states that can actually split its electoral votes, right?
Yep. So it's a real thing. And as you're saying though, it's really different from town to town, even just one, one town over, even in York County. So I absolutely agree with what you're saying. Yeah.
[00:16:33] Eric Miller: Michael, you close your essay by writing, "encouraging young Mainers to feel their own fire and ambition as Senator Smith puts it, while they give back and contribute to their communities and economy, is how we make Maine the way life should be."
Could you speak to your experience with the Maine education system and the ways you were encouraged to feel your own fire and ambition?
[00:16:55] Michael Delorge: Yeah. I think a lot of what I meant through that wording was just like helping students find their own purpose is really important. Helping students find their own purpose in the state of Maine is also really important.
And I think the state should invest in opportunities that allow students to find their own purpose. In, I think 1994 the state allocated funds to found my high school. That's a pretty new school and it's a magnet school. It's all state funded. The taxpayers of the state of Maine, paid for my education rather than the taxpayers of my town. And I am personally very grateful for the education that I received there, not only in science and technology and math, but in political science and social science and humanities. And just the lived experience of being up there. And that was how I found my purpose.
But I also know for a lot of students that I would have graduated with in Biddeford High School. They found their purpose through trades or business, which wasn't something I experienced later on in high school. Like I'd talk about in my essay, there were students that I would've graduated with that had multiple trade certifications before I had even figured out where I wanted to go to college.
And, for them that was how they found their purpose. And for me I'm still finding mine, but I think the investment in that is really crucial and like just meeting students where they're at, like we talked about just now geographically too, is huge and investing in those opportunities.
[00:18:31] Eric Miller: Everett, you have alluded to, but to this by staying the course in, in a subject matter that stayed consistent over the years since before starting college, what's something about like environmental policy or your education that found that you found inspiration or were energized by
[00:18:48] Everett Beals: Yeah, I think first off, I really have to thank some of my teachers.
Lisa Farrell was my biology teacher, and she also taught IB environmental science. That was one was the intervention of a really good teacher. The other is that I guess we mentioned before when we started this conversation earlier that, Michael and I were both boy scouts, so I had that experience in the first place and I've always like paddling and like kayaking, so that was part of the connection.
But another is that, like when you live in Maine it's hard to not be aware of the pressing situation we have globally with global climate change. And to me, just trying to understand that and loop it all back into what's happening in my backyard was really important to me. So that is what motivated me, motivated me to stay on that track.
My interests have evolved over time, but no matter what, like that will be my grounding experience was, what I got outta high school. And I'm glad that this is the kind of skillset I've been able to develop as an undergraduate. I think it's really important, and I actually, I just reread your essay, Michael, and you said in, as an example, that Maine students should be learning, like really early on, correct me if I'm wrong, about climate change and about the way that it's affecting our fisheries the way it's affecting more generally, just our agriculture system in general. The way it's happening right here in every town in Maine. I think that's a fantastic idea. And you know it's happening in some classrooms, but maybe not everywhere. And as you said in your essay, that is largely a funding issue. So I think that's one example of that's a great way to bring Maine students to understand the relevancy of the work they're doing in their towns and that gets them involved in their communities.
Make them feel, our children should feel like they are stakeholders in their communities and in our climate future. I really like that point you made three years ago.
[00:20:26] Michael Delorge: Yeah, thanks. And I'm glad you brought up that thing about like climate change as well because, there are so many great research institutions here in the state and advocacy institutions like, Jackson Laboratory, Bigelow Labs, like those are just two that come to mind that I had some experience with in high school that are like working on, genetics and also like marine research that, can get into local school systems and really partner with local school systems to show students that there are opportunities here for them, waiting for them, after they go to college, maybe somewhere else. And they can come back and contribute to research on the Gulf of Maine, which is the fastest warming body of water in the entire world.
And it's right in our backyard. And not a lot of people know that, and there are opportunities here for them, but just like I said, highlighting that. That sense of purpose and that sense of belonging and that Maine is waiting for them here with open arms, I think is important.
[00:21:20] Eric Miller: It's amazing what a, a strong sense of place, especially a place like Maine and the guidance from a specific educator and how far that can go.
So in a Amanda Rector's 2020 article, "Maine's Changing Demographics: Implications for Workforce, Economy, and Policy" she wrote about the possible benefits of Covid-19 for the state of Maine's demographics with the following passage: "We have had a massive real-time experiment in telework, and for many people in businesses, this has been a success. If people can live anywhere and connect to their jobs remotely, why not live in Maine? Those rural parts of the state that may have seemed too far for some people in the not too distant past suddenly hold new attraction." How do you both feel about this statement?
[00:22:04] Michael Delorge: Yeah, I think that, I think that telework has definitely shown people outside of the state that they can move to Maine.
I know firsthand folks who do telework in rural Maine, we have a problem with wifi and broadband here in the state of Maine, which I think the legislature is slowly improving and addressing. I don't know that, like my thoughts on this are fully fleshed out. I do know that I like the idea of people moving to Maine year round and committing to the state of Maine.
I, after you had emailed us, Eric, to set this up, I just happened to come upon an article in the Bangor Daily News from I think February or something like that, that had to do with rebranding the state from Vacationland to something different because the moniker, the name Vacationland implies low commitment to the state.
You can come when you want and you can leave when you want. And just use what we have and then you can leave when you're done your vacation, which is a silly way to think about it. But I think that telework and the ability to work wherever you are bridges the gap between what Maine has and its natural beauty in like the best of both worlds with what we have to provide people this great livelihood and way of life.
This, the way life should be. But I'm interested to hear what Everett has to say on this. I, like I said, I don't really know that my thoughts on it are fully fleshed out yet.
[00:23:36] Everett Beals: Yeah. This is a tough one.
[00:23:37] Michael Delorge: Yeah.
[00:23:38] Everett Beals: Amanda Rector wrote this as we did in 2020, and like the workforce itself has changed a lot. And part of her, I think the reason maybe that she wrote that is that it's trying to just predict what might happen with Maine and the entire world was in this really uncertain state. In terms of the way that remote work is going, I can't say I have much experience with it myself.
But I am curious specifically, not that it's a zero sum game, about like the amount of like economic productivity and square-scare quotes that brings to the state. Not that like things end at the political borders of the state, but if someone anecdotally, and I don't know if this is true, but people in Facebook comments on Portland Press Herald articles are like, oh, all these people are moving to Bedford or Portland and they're still working in another state.
So like what's the benefit for the state of Maine other than the money they're now spending here? I think that, to me is also too pessimistic and we gain a lot from having new knowledge into the state and just we need more people who are actively participating and the municipalities that we have and in our local economies.
Something I alluded to, I guess in my essay was that I was thinking about like transit time to get to work, like commute time. And that's a problem in faster the state if you don't have a car. So like it's really great if people are moving, especially to rural towns and energizing like local Main streets.
But if the state isn't building the infrastructure for that, or especially to build more affordable housing or just more housing in general to increase the stock that we have. Then to me, a lot of people moving in can be something. I can imagine it being something that might be anxiety inducing for some maybe older people in the workforce.
It's a good thing, maybe in net, but I'm, I really can't forecast what exactly it means. So that would be like one concern of mine is, I think like in general, the state should be building a lot more housing. I'm really encouraged actually by speaker Talbot Ross proposing LD 2 recently. Which would basically tackle a statewide houselessness problem by doing housing first statewide, which would a fantastic initiative in my opinion.
So that's a long-winded answer to an admittedly challenging question. But that's how I would approach it.
[00:25:54] Eric Miller: Yeah. Thank you for entertaining that, that question for us. And because it's, forecasting is, and speculating is largely for the talking heads on whatever channel you'd like to check out.
And it is extremely difficult to predict the trade-offs with just a dynamic economy and just public health circumstance that was induced by Covid. And so yeah, it was, I heard many as living in Bangor, many anecdotes of people moving to either Bangor or further north who are very much urbanites in the New York, Massachusetts area and buying up in Aosta County.
And it's a conversation in my work that we have quite frequently with the Policy Center about community resilience, emergency response times, and whether it's firefighters or ambulance or what have you. Some of those places are pretty darn rural, and especially if you're coming from a extremely urban setting your expectations of the, of those services may not align with reality at the moment. And that speaks to the infrastructure point that you made Everett. So since you both experienced the Maine education system in, across the state, so in, in Maine, what's something that you felt was potentially missing from your respective experiences and what motivated you to submit your essays?
Everett, we'll start with you.
[00:27:20] Everett Beals: Yeah. So I, I'm a graduate of Kennebunk High School. I really enjoyed my time there. As I said, I had some great mentors, some great teachers like Lisa Ferrell and also Ms. Moy, who I got a lot of my history background from and who encouraged me to be a good writer. And the, I don't know how many shout outs I should give. I wasn't planning on it, but the person who encouraged me to submit this essay was Ms. Carlson, who's an English teacher at KHS. I was motivated by it because quite frankly, like I, scholarships are really important to me. And college affordability I think is something that Michael and I both wrote about actually in our essays.
So like I, this to me was really personal to try and just help. I wanted to contribute to the literature. I wanted to throw my hat in the ring and try my best to try and address that question as a, as an academic challenge. And I guess since this is from the Policy Review Center, as a civic participation thing.
But also like I used the scholarship to pay for the computer I'm doing this Zoom on. So for me it was like, it was personally important to try my best to try and make my education affordable. So in terms of answering the first part of your question about the educational system, another thing Michael and I both wrote about and he did a great job explaining earlier about like vocational programs.
That was something I concurred with and that I think the state needs a lot more of them. Something that I thought, what really excited me recently was it didn't apply for everyone, but for several graduating years, I wanna say at least three or four community college in the state of Maine is tuition free.
I know that has had cascading benefits, especially in the larger University of Maine system and with potential budget shortfalls at Orono. Stuff that I don't think I fully understand, but on the net, like making education more accessible for everyone in the state of Maine and more attractive to people outside of Maine I think is really good.
That was something that would've encouraged me to stay at the University of Maine system or to try and invest more my time in it is if it was more affordable at the time I was applying. So I felt like I got a lot outta my high school experience. There's a lot I really liked, and I can absolutely agree with what Michael was saying earlier about, friends and the vocational trades.
That's something that is really successful for a lot of main students and making sure that everyone has the same, nice facilities as are available, like in the next, most students in Kennebunk go over to Stanford. They have a brand new regional technical center that is really nice. I pretty sure in Bedford it's also like some really high quality facilities.
I wanna make sure that everyone in the state has access to that and not just here in York, Cumberland County. I think that my experience was pretty holistic, but I wanna try and acknowledge that a lot of other Maine students probably weren't as fortunate. So that's how I feel about that.
[00:30:02] Michael Delorge: Yeah, I definitely relate to that statement. I was really grateful for my education, but I know that there are others who didn't have the same education I had and the same opportunities. One thing I touch on in my essay is the legislature's obligation to that they made to the taxpayers. When the taxpayers in the state of Maine voted on a 2004 referendum, they voted in favor overwhelmingly in a 2004 referendum that the legislature would pay the majority of municipal school funds for public schools. I don't know what has happened since 2020, but I knew that from the time period where that referendum passed up until 2020 when I wrote my essay, the state had not met that obligation at all for a single year.
And what I think that leads to is a lot of in inequity in local school systems all around the state. So when I went to the Maine School of Science and Mathematics up north, I had friends from all these different school systems in Maine, from York to Fort Kent and everywhere in between rich towns, poor towns, rural towns, urban towns, everywhere.
And I got to meet a lot of these people and I got to learn about the state through them. But I also know that for a lot of my peers back at Bedford, they didn't have that same opportunity. And so one of the things that came to mind when you asked that question was just recognizing that Maine is a lot more diverse than your one town.
And I hope that we as a state can celebrate some of the, going back to our conversation from earlier, like we can celebrate some of the, at least geographic diversity in our state.
[00:31:52] Eric Miller: Yeah that's wonderful. Thank you both for submitting those essays. We really appreciate it. And so before we close out you have any final thoughts or comments that you would like to say as we close out here?
[00:32:05] Everett Beals: I guess one last thing I'll mention, just building off of the question you just asked about education. Is that the work is not done, obviously, and things are not back to normal after Covid. From a page of the Portland Press Herald on April 25th, the subheader was Maine kids are experiencing more poverty, homelessness, more poverty, homelessness, and mental health emergencies than before the pandemic, and high school graduation rates across the state are dropping. So clearly secondary education, primary education are all suffering statewide. I know this is a national problem, but I think in Maine we have a real resiliency problem with our public education. I think that was something Michael addressed really well in his original essay.
So just saying and recognizing, I come from a family of educators who are, have been involved in all kinds of different levels of public education. I just, I know and appreciate, think we all can, how hard that work is, and know that in the vast majority of Maine towns, our teachers are woefully underpaid, they are often struggling for better contracts, and our students deserve the best in the country, right? So there's a lot left to do and I don't have any one answer to, and I don't think any. But there's a lot of knowledge building that's going on thanks to the, this journal and thanks to just people like you guys at the University of Maine.
So thank you for the work you're doing.
[00:33:33] Eric Miller: You're very welcome. Michael, any closing thoughts?
[00:33:36] Michael Delorge: Yeah, ditto. Everett you're very well spoken. Everett and I, like I said, we grew up in a neighboring towns, grew up together. But we also met at this program called Youth in Government. And it's a YMCA program that meets annually on Veterans Day Weekend, where students from high schools all around the state of Maine get together and sit in the seats of their legislators at the State House and play model state. Basically where we write our own bills and we vote on our own bills, and we all assume the positions of our legislators in committee. And then both the House and Senate bodies. And that was the one experience I think in high school that I had, or I guess in my childhood, like before the age of 18, that really helped form my worldview and my thinking.
And I just, I'm very grateful for that program and wanted to mention it because I think it informed a lot of my goals for the future and a lot of my views in this essay that I wrote back in 2020. And it also ultimately was what led me to write the essay to even go for applying in the first place, and also led me to meet David Richards down at the Margaret Chase Smith Library, who was the one that encouraged me to apply.
So I hope that others can have similar kind of experiential learning opportunities that Everett and I had that helped teach us about our state, and, helped show us that there was a sense of purpose for them in Maine.
[00:35:13] Everett Beals: That's a really fun one to do.
[00:35:15] Michael Delorge: Yeah.
Those are two very excellent closeouts.
So you both are 21, right? 21, 22.
[00:35:22] Everett Beals: I'm 20, actually 20. I'm young for my class. My birthday's in August.
[00:35:25] Eric Miller: Okay. All right. And so I strongly dislike generational labels and especially like pessimism that goes along with placing generational labels. But it seems like there's a lot in the ether about Gen Z. ,And I'll have to say that you two provide a lot of hope, and we're very excited to keep tabs on your work going in the future. Whether it's your current studies or you choose to divert, we know that you'll land on your feet. And so thank you both so much for checking in with us and we look forward to keeping tabs with you.
[00:35:54] Everett Beals: Thanks for having us, Eric.
[00:35:54] Michael Delorge: Thanks Eric.
[00:35:59] Eric Miller: What you just heard was a synopsis of Amanda Rector's article, "Maine's Changing Demographics: Implications for Workforce Economy and Policy", and an interview with Margaret Chase Smith Library's 2020 essay contest winners, Everett Beals and Michael Delorge. Maine Policy Review is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center.
The editorial team for main policy review is made up of Joyce Rumery, Linda Silka, and Barbara Harrity. Jonathan Rubin directs the Policy Center. A thank you to Jayson Heim and Kathryn Swacha, script writers for Maine Policy Matters, and to Daniel Soucier, our production consultant as mentioned at the beginning of the episode.
Our next episode will be coming out August 29th, 2023 to kick off season four of Maine Policy Matters. We would like to thank you for listening to Maine Policy Matters from the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. You can find us online by searching Maine Policy Matters on your web browser.
If you enjoyed this episode, please follow us on your preferred social media platform and stay updated on new episode releases. I'm Eric Miller. Thanks for listening and have a great summer.

S3E8: Drug Related Morbidity and Mortality in Maine: An Economic Perspective

In this episode, we cover an article by Angela Daley, Prianka Sarker, Liam Siguad, Marcella Sorg, and Jamie Wren titled, “Drug-related Morbidity and Mortality in Maine: Lost Productivity from 2015-2020.” Daley is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Maine, Sarker and Wren are both research associates at the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, Sorg a forensic anthropologist, and Siguad a research assistant at the Mercatus Center in Arlington, VA who was a graduate student when this study was conducted. After briefly summarizing the article, we will speak with Dr. Sorg and Prianka Sarker about the opioid epidemic and how we go about quantifying some of the costs of the opioid epidemic.
This article was published in volume 31, issue 1, of Maine Policy Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center. For all citations for data provided in this episode, please refer to Daley et al.’s article , which can be found here: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1887&context=mpr
 
Transcript
[00:00:00] Eric Miller: Of the significant challenges today, few are as insidious as the opioid crisis, which has divided public discourse and devastated communities across the country. In this episode, we'll recap an article published in 2022, assessing the economic harm of lost labor productivity in Maine.
This is the Maine Policy Matters Podcast from the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. I'm Eric Miller, research associate at the center. On each episode of Maine Policy Matters, we discuss public policy issues relevant to the state of Maine. Today we'll be covering an article by Angela Daley, Priyanka Sarker, Liam Siguad, Marcella Sorg and Jamie Wren titled, "Drug Related Morbidity and Mortality in Maine: Lost Productivity from 2015 to 2020". Daley is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Maine. Sarker and Wren are both research associates at the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, Sorg is a forensic anthropologist, and Siguad is a research assistant at the Mercatus Center in Arlington, Virginia, who was a graduate student at the time the study was conducted. After briefly summarizing the article, we will speak with Dr. Sorg and Priyanka Sarker about the opioid epidemic and how we go about quantifying some of the costs of the opioid epidemic.
This article is published in Volume 31, issue 1 of Maine Policy Review, a peer reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center. For all citations for data provided in this episode, please refer to Daley et al.'s article, which can be found in the episode description.
The increase of prevalence of overdose deaths has been a devastating phenomenon since the pharmaceutical opioids, namely Oxycontin, kicked off an epidemic that has evolved and worsened since the late 1990's. In addition to the heartbreaking losses, there have been significant economic impacts as well, with Maine ranking among the highest in the nation for per capita overdose death rate as of recent years.
The emotional toll on individuals, families, and communities is far reaching, leading to poor physical and mental health, reduced quality of life, lost productivity, increased accidents and crime, and higher social welfare and healthcare costs. The economic impact is staggering, estimated at just over 1 trillion in 2017 for the United States and 6.8 billion in 2017 for Maine alone. In this paper, Daley et al. use a human capital approach to estimate loss productivity from drug related morbidity and mortality in Maine. This approach measures the lost value to society that occurs when individuals cannot fully contribute to market and non-market activities. For example, individuals may be less likely to participate in the labor market, or they may be less productive due to absenteeism, problems with concentration and memory, impaired judgment or interpersonal challenges. This loss of productivity negatively affects their earnings as well as their productivity of their employers and the economy as a whole. Of course, drug related morbidity and mortality also affect non-market activities, such as household work, caregiving, and volunteering.
There are a lot of statistics and figures published in this piece, so we recommend giving the original article a read if you're interested in learning more, but we'll cover some of the major takeaways.
Also, it is important to note that the authors used all illicit drugs, not just opioids, for this analysis. This analysis found that drug related morbidity is lower among females. However, the prevalence of illicit drug use disorder has been increasing for both males and females from 2015 to 2019, and 18-25 year olds are the age group where the percentage of illicit drug use disorder is highest.
The annual loss productivity due to drug-related morbidity on market activities was greater than non-market activities for males, and the inverse is true for females. However, due to the higher prevalence of drug use among males led to higher non-market costs than female non-market costs. In 2019, $40 million in market activity and $62 million in non-market activity was lost among females and among males. $104 million in market activity and $64 million in non-market activity was lost. In total for 2019, approximately $144 million in market activity, and $126 million in non-market activity was lost in Maine due to drug-related morbidity.
Drug related deaths concentrated among individuals aged from 25-64, so there were many years of potential life lost. In fact, the authors found that among individuals aged from 25-54, account for more than 80% of years of loss productivity in 2020. Life loss productivity in 2020 for females was estimated to be valued at $170 million and $564 million for males yielding a total of about $734 million lost for Maine.
Those numbers may be large, but they're also emitting the reduction in quality of life as well as the value of life. Some estimates that include methods of valuing life lost yield much higher economic costs. All of these approaches to understanding the entire societal effect of the overdose epidemic are helping to inform program and policy decisions that aim to address this crisis.
And now onto our conversation with Dr. Marcy Sorg and Priyanka Sarker.
Thank you both for joining us today as this article covered drug related morbidity and mortality through 2020. While most everyone is aware that the fatal overdose epidemic has gotten worse, what is the current state of the opioid epidemic in Maine and what are some of the primary drivers lately?
[00:06:03] Marci Sorg: The opioid epidemic has really continued to challenge Maine in a lot of ways. I can mention several primary drivers, at least from my perspective, and they're all really interrelated. First there's already a large population in Maine that is experiencing addiction to opioids and that population. And it's probably more than 8% of the population of Maine. It potentially grows whenever new users are persuaded to try opioids. And it potentially decreases when people transition from using drugs to long-term recovery or if they pass away.
And secondly, drug trafficking is an international problem with influences beyond Maine, beyond our borders, and it's generally out of reach of Maine's policies. Yet it's affecting Maine's epidemic every day.
The third thing I could mention is the particular drugs that are trafficked during the last seven or eight years. Non-pharmaceutical fentanyl has been the most influential of the drugs. Fentanyl is a really rapid acting opioid, and it's a lot stronger and more potentially lethal than other opioids that were common in the past. And it causes approximately 80% of Maine's drug deaths, although, most of those drug deaths have more than one drug. So fentanyl's just one of usually three or four.
The fourth thing that I mentioned, and there are five things altogether is the access to appropriate treatment modalities. And that includes not only the medications like Suboxone and methadone, but also and very important inpatient and outpatient treatment programs and peer support programs.
Maine's been working pretty hard to increase treatment resources. The fifth thing is stigma. Addiction is still mostly hidden from public view not only from the public at large, but healthcare providers and even users themselves engage in stigmatizing behaviors. It creates barriers to treatment, barriers to problem solving, and it's a strong barrier to asking for help. Many of the persons who die from overdose are using alone. We believe partly due to stigma. And there may be no one who notices they have overdosed until it's too late to reverse the overdose. So these are five things that I think are main drivers of the problem in Maine today.
[00:09:10] Eric Miller: Thank you Marci. And as a data researcher on this team myself, it's really hard to parse exactly how much influence each of those drivers have. And as it is a data scarce problem we can just try to get whatever insights we can. And so, especially since the, in the Covid 19 pandemic coming in 2020, that was hypothesized to be linked toward deaths.
But it's even really hard to parse out on the data end how much influence Covid-19 has had on fatal overdoses. We just know that it came along with more illicit supply and other such factors and increased housing costs and what have you. The Covid-19 rise in fatal overdoses. How does Maine seem to compare to other states?
[00:10:01] Marci Sorg: After Covid-19 was over there's still a residual effect that's pretty important. I think it's important to also, to mention that the deaths from drug overdoses, they're a national problem, not just a Maine problem. And it takes up to two years for the state data to filter up to the federal data and be shown in drug rates and overdose rates and so forth.
And, so it takes two years before we can get numbers that'll allow us to compare one state to another, and that's a pretty important thing. Right now, we're in 2023. We are dealing with 2021 data. We have some preliminary data from 22, but mostly it's 2021. So that is still sort of within the pandemic.
What happens at the federal level when the state data come up is that they get normalized so that the state age structures, for example, are weighted so that they can be compared. So the federal CDC has reported that the US age adjusted drug overdose death rate was 32.4 deaths per a hundred thousand population.
That's for the country as a whole. The highest rates were in West Virginia and they had 90, Columbia had 63.6 now. So that's the range for the highest. Maine's rate in 2021 was 46. For all drugs, that is, not just opioids. It we were number seven in the country for all drugs. If you look just at opioids, we rank at 41.4 deaths per hundred thousand, and that's number five in the country.
So it's pretty high. For comparison, Vermont, both Vermont and New Hampshire are less than Maine. Maine's, vermont was 39.4 and New Hampshire was 30.7. So they're a little bit lower than Maine, the lowest in the country. By the way, we're in Nebraska, South Dakota, and Iowa, which were 11 and 13 and 15 respectively.
So that's a lot lower than these other states, including us. Provisional data for 2022 at least, from our perspective as in collecting those data, it suggests that 2022 increase was about 10%.
[00:12:42] Eric Miller: Very interesting. It's so hard to, or so fascinating rather, to assess these regional trends and how various populations are affected by different substances more so than others. Because the plain states that have a lower rate of opioid age adjusted rate fatal overdoses, have other substance uses that are more dominant in, in those areas. Not the, to the extent is not necessarily the same across all states and substance epidemic type of course, but it's, it is something that is, is kind of curious in the public health researcher perspective. And so this. Huge impact, of course, has the human cost. And one difficult thing is assessing and quite often controversial and highly debated thing, is assessing the economic impact of the opioid crisis.
And while there's several different ways to do it we'll focus on the one that was discussed in the article that was published in Maine Policy Review, and that is years of Potential Life Lost. So, Priyanka, would you mind explaining the concept of years of potential life lost and how it factors into the calculation of economic cost in this paper?
[00:13:58] Prianka Sarker: Yes, of course. So the concept of years of potential life lost means the years lost due to premature mortality. In other words, when a person dies before an expected normal age, then the gap we have between their age at death and the age that they would have otherwise lived. It's called the potential years lost.
We have different life expectancy for both males and females based on the age groups and we usually expect people to leave approximately up to that age. For example, if say there is a 40 year old person, we would normally expect them to live, say another 40 years. Now if they die from an avoidable cause like drug overdose today, then we would be losing those 40 years.
So for example, if we have 10 people from that age group dying from overdoses today, then we would have a total of 400 years of potential life lost. Now in our paper, we attempt to calculate the productivity loss that is associated with these years of potential life lost. We tried to measure the value of productivity that would have been possible to achieve, if we could have avoided this drug related deaths that occurred during the study period in the state of Maine. So as long as a person is alive and they're active, they're contributing to the economy in various ways, like by working in the labor market, doing household shores, taking care of children, or by volunteering.
So when people die prematurely from drug overdoses, we lose several productive years from their lives. In our paper, we calculate the annual as well as the total lifetime value of these productive years for each person. And once we have an estimate for each person, multiplying that by number of debts, then give us a sense of how much productivity losses are occurring in the state due to this premature deaths.
[00:16:15] Eric Miller: For those of you who would like some more nitty gritty details, you're more welcome to reference the paper. But that was a great overview of how you all came to those numbers in the paper. So this essay specifically will be included in a larger cost report that I'm actually leading the charge on.
There are several previous iterations of this cost report dating back to 2000. So there's one published in 2000, 2005 and 2010. And then we'll be publishing an update that includes 2020 in the near future. Due to the changes in the, and waves in the opioid epidemic is it safe to expect that the economic cost to be increasing.
[00:16:59] Prianka Sarker: I think it's fairly safe to expect higher economic costs in the upcoming report. As you have said that the current analysis that we have in our paper will form a portion of the last larger cost report, which is under preparation. One reason I reiterate that is in our paper, we only consider the cost from lost productivity.
There are many other costs associated with substance use disorder, such as treatment costs, reduced quality of life, incarceration, social welfare, and such other costs, and as you say, those will be covered in the larger report. So in our paper, even though we focused only on the productivity aspect, still, the numbers are high compared to productivity losses that were calculated in the earlier version of the reports.
The last iteration of the cost report from Maine, which you mentioned in 2010. So that estimated the cost around 1.4 billion. And in 2017, a report which was based on the entire USA. And that focused only on the cost of opioids alone, estimated the cost for Maine to be around 6.8 billion. So just looking at the trends, I think, yes, it's pretty safe to expect the numbers to be quite high in the upcoming report compared to the earlier ones.
[00:18:26] Eric Miller: Yeah, it's incredible what's been happening. And tragic, of course. The larger cost report will also include alcohol, which I think will, which people will find surprising, the degree of alcohol, use related disorders and mortality. And how the magnitude of effect economic costs that has as well.
Because more people die due to alcohol related disorders than opioid. But it's really difficult to capture all of the alcohol related deaths because if someone dies of old age but was an alcoholic, then it's considered a natural death. So, we are undercounting in our analysis, but we kind of have to recognize that and state that in our assessment.
So we have addressed the, increased economic cost of lives lost. What are some measures being implemented to address the crisis, and what are some significant barriers we face as public health researchers?
[00:19:26] Marci Sorg: I guess I can answer that. Maine has really been working very hard to address the crisis for a while, and to make those actions visible to the public.
And that's done on mainedrugdata.org, a website where all the data are kept and updated all the time. I'll mention just a few things. One of the most important areas has been the increase in distribution of overdose reversal drug, naloxone, or it's sometimes called Narcan, that's the trade name.
Naloxone is used by both law enforcement and the emergency system. Both EMS and the emergency room use it as well as community members. They use it to reverse overdoses. If the person's still found, they are still alive, and the state has distributed hundreds of thousands of doses over the last seven years.
So we, we do publish the absolute numbers of the distribution on the Maine drug data.org website. The second thing I'll mention is improving access to care in rural areas. The development of the options program, and that acronym stands for Overdose Prevention through intensive Outreach, Naloxone and Safety.
And that program has increased the pathways to recovery and treatment. It uses what's called a non-responder model. Options liaisons are people that are hired in each county to respond to overdoses talk to the person who survives an overdose, and provide referrals to resources and referrals to treatment, depending on the needs of that person
That program has recently been expanded quite a bit. The third thing I'll mention is treatment. And people need treatment not only to have it, but to have it close to where they live and work. Unfortunately though and part of this is due to Covid pandemic, there's been a real labor shortage in healthcare and it's slowed the expansion of treatment programs.
However, these, the numbers of treatment programs have been increasing in the state.
[00:21:51] Eric Miller: Thank you for plugging Maine Drug Data Hub. We'll have a link to that in the description of this episode as well. You can find all sorts of data and reports if you would like to learn more. This upcoming question wouldn't have been mentioned if it wasn't making headlines in the past couple months.
But the FDA recently made Naloxone or Narcan a product that could be acquired over the counter. There's been a lot of speculation of how this could help deter overdose deaths. But we, it's really difficult to completely understand. And so some, we're going to ask our guests to do some friendly speculating as to what exactly that change in the rule from the FDA will, how that will affect the overdose crisis.
[00:22:36] Marci Sorg: Yeah, I've got a couple comments here. Apparently this over-the- counter Naloxone will not be rolled out until the summertime. So it's not happening right now yet. In order to get over-the-counter Naloxone, the customer is still going to have to pay for it at the pharmacy. And so that price range that will be charged is not yet known.
It's also not known if they're going, the, if Naloxone's going to be offered in all of the pharmacies or how much of it's going to be available? Unfortunately we think that the presence of stigma, which is still very much present in our communities, may still keep people from asking for it at their pharmacies.
And also we think that the price may be a deterrent, particularly for low income folks. Maine's program of state funded Naloxone is likely to continue in the next little while, even after the over-the-counter Naloxone is available and it's going to be a pretty important source for people who can't afford to buy it.
This program, it's called the Maine Naloxone Distribution Initiative, MNDI, it provides Naloxone at no cost to a group of four tier one distributor organizations who then distribute it to a wide range of tier two organizations and individuals. Anyone who is in need of reversing overdoses regularly or maybe just needs to have it on hand.
[00:24:18] Eric Miller: Thank you so much for indulging in some speculation there. It's of course, it's very difficult for us in this field to assess what is happening in data that's in, or the present day, what's in front of us, let alone projecting into the future, and especially with a massive real change like this.
So we've covered quite a bit of ground here in the, just touching the opioid crisis as a whole, as well as some of the economic factors. But are there some other things regarding this subject that you all would like to share that we haven't already covered?
[00:24:51] Marci Sorg: I guess it's important to just say that Maine's working really hard to understand the issues that are faced by people living with substance use disorder.
And we're focused on opportunities for, intervention and effective resources. We're looking much more at people who survive overdoses and at non-fatal overdose events. We've increased the availability of public data as we've mentioned already today. Maine also provides a monthly overdose report, and I wanted to mention that.
And that report has statistics just from the previous month that, it uses suspected overdoses. Some of those cases haven't been confirmed, but we have a pretty good idea how many of them are going to turn into confirmed overdoses. Those data are provisional and they change slightly. But we now have a pretty timely idea of the overdose trends on a monthly basis.
And it includes not only the fatal overdoses, but the non-fatal overdoses that are reported to us by the Naloxone distributors by the EMS, by the emergency room, and all of these events. Fatal and non-fatal add up to big numbers which shows us the real size of the problem. Finally, I will mention that I think the discussions about overdose and substance use disorder are much more likely these days to be taking place in public spaces. And that suggests to us that stigma has been declining. In the broader community, and I think that's a very meaningful change.
[00:26:45] Eric Miller: I strongly agree. Thank you both so much for joining us today and shed some light on and update the paper that was published recently in Maine Policy Review.
What you just heard was Dr. Marcella Sorg and Priyanka Sarker's discussion of their article, "Drug-related Morbidity and Mortality in Maine: Lost Productivity from 2015 to 2020," and the current state of the opioid epidemic. Maine Policy Review is a peer reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center.
The editorial team for Maine Policy Review is made up of Joyce Rumery, Linda Silka, and Barbara Harrity. Jonathan Rubin directs the Policy Center. A thank you to Jayson Heim and Katherine Swacha, script writers for Maine Policy Matters, and to Daniel Soucier, our production consultant.
In two weeks, we'll be discussing changing demographics in Maine and how attractive Maine is to young people.
We'd like to thank you for listening to Maine Policy Matters from the Margeret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. You can find us online by searching Maine Policy Matters on your web browser. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow us on your preferred social media platform to stay updated on new episode releases.
I'm Eric Miller. Thanks for listening and please join us next time on Maine Policy Matters.

S3E7: A Tale of Maine’s Public Lots: Loss and Recovery

In this episode, we cover an article by Richard Barringer, Lee Schepps, Tomas Urquhart, and Martin Wilk titled “Maine’s Public Reserved Lands: A Tale of Loss and Recovery”. The authors tell us a story of Maine’s public reserved lots and its history to show how efforts to maintain these lots have preserved Maine’s natural heritage. This article was published in volume 29, number 2, of Maine Policy Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center. For all citations for data provided in this episode, please refer to Barringer et al.’s article , which can be found here: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1843&context=mpr
Transcript
[00:00:00] Eric Miller: To preserve the crown jewels of Maine's heritage, tune into today's episode to learn about Maine's consolidated public lots and how they can remain for public use and enjoyment as long as they are valued, accessed, and safeguarded from harm.
[00:00:22] This is the Maine Policy Matters Podcast from the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. I'm Eric Miller, research associate at the Center.
[00:00:30] On each episode of Maine Policy Matters, we discuss public policy issues relevant to the state of Maine. Today we'll be covering an article by Richard Barringer, Lee Schepps, Tomas Urquhart, and Martin Wilk titled "Maine's Public Reserved Lands: A Tale of Loss and Recovery."
[00:00:47] Richard Barringer is author and editor of numerous books, reports and landmark Maine laws in the areas of land use and conservation education, the environment, energy, sustainable development, and tax policy. Lee Schepps represented the state of Maine in the public lots matter, both in the litigation and as the second director of the Bureau of Public Lands. Thomas Urquhart was formerly executive director of the Maine Audubon Society, where forest practices and the opportunities offered by Maine's North Woods were among his top priorities. Martin Wilk represented the state of Maine in the public lots litigation and in the settlement negotiations that followed the Maine Supreme Court's decision in the state's favor.
[00:01:31] The authors tell us a story of Maine's public reserved lots and its. History to show how efforts to maintain these lots has preserved Maine's natural heritage. This article was published in Volume 29, number 2 of Maine Policy Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center. For all citations for data provided in this episode, please refer to Barringer et al.'s article, which can be found in the episode description.
[00:01:58] In 1820, when Maine separated from Massachusetts, it acquired a public domain of 10 to 12 million acres, which was later reduced to 8 million acres. The Maine Constitution required the state to reserve four lots of 320 acres each in any newly organized township. Later, the formula was changed to a single, 1,000 acre lot in each new township for "public use." The legislature authorized the state land agent to sell the "right to cut and carry away the timber and grass" from the public lots in 1850. In 1874, the legislature tried to terminate the Office of Land Agent, but it did not have the power to do so, and the office was eventually abolished in the 1920s. Responsibility for the public lots passed to the Maine Forest Service in 1891. By the early 1970s, the Maine state government had undergone significant changes. In 1972, there were concerns about the state's stewardship of the public lots, and the Attorney General looked into the legal issues surrounding ownership and responsibility for them.
[00:03:08] Schepps researched the history of public land reservations, timber trespass, and forestry practices in Massachusetts and Maine. He found that professional forest management was not a concept in the early and mid-1800s, and that it only came into practice through early forestry pioneers such as Gifford Pinchot. Schepps also looked into the legal disputes involving the word "timber" and argued that if the original deeds only granted the right to cut and carry away the existing timber, the duration of that right could not expand its substance. Schepps submitted his report to the Attorney General, but it was not released to the public. However, due to the relentless reporting of Bob Cummings, the issue became highly publicized and politically charged in Maine.
[00:03:58] In 1973, Jon Lund became attorney general of Maine and released the Schepps report, which argued that the right to cut timber on public reserve lands only applied to the standing timber at the time of sale, not subsequent growth. The report also stated that the state had legal rights of use and access to public lots that had not been located on the ground. The legislature created a joint select committee to investigate the matter and pass legislation to terminate timber rights on public lots, leading to a lawsuit by paper companies and landowner seeking adjudication of their rights. They argued that the state's persistent and long-standing course of conduct barred from asserting rights it may have once have had. The state counter-claimed, stating that the timber cutting rights had expired because the timber in existence at the time of the conveyance had long since been cut. The lawsuit was then used politically to delay consideration of the grand plantation legislation that would terminate cutting rights.
[00:04:59] Then the Maine legislature created a Bureau of Public Lands, to manage the state's interests in public lands. However, the agency had no staff or direction, and its mission was unclear. In 1974, the Maine Forest Service Director assigned a desk, a vehicle, a forester, and a forest ranger to the Bureau of Public Lands.
[00:05:19] The Bureau of Public Lands led by Richard Barringer, surveyed public lands and proposed a grand plantation, but public sentiment was lukewarm. However, in June of that year, the president of the Great Northern Paper Company, Robert Hellendale, approached Governor Curtis to suggest a negotiated settlement to the disputed public lots. Over the summer and fall, Barringer and Helendale negotiated an agreement to consolidate the 60,000 scattered public lots into a small number of high value places that Great Northern Paper Company owned outright. In December, 1974, governor Curtis and Helendale signed the agreement which violated a long established behavioral norm among paper companies and large private landowners. However, Helen's action broke the political log jam, and over the next five years, all but one of the paper companies engaged in similar exchanges with the Bureau of Public Lands.
[00:06:14] In November, 1974, Attorney General Erwin ran unsuccessfully as the Republican candidate for Governor against Democrat George Mitchell and independent James Longley in the wake of the Watergate scandal and President Nixon's resignation in August, 1974, Longley won a surprising victory among Maine voters.
[00:06:33] In 1975, shortly after the Great Northern Paper Company trade was consummated, Barringer was nominated by Governor Longley to become commissioner of the Maine Department of Conservation. Schepps subsequently became director of the Bureau of Public Lands; John Walker, director of the Maine Forest Service; and Herb Hartman, director of the Bureau of Parks and Recreation. Together, the four agreed on a strategy for dealing with the claims of the remaining paper companies and private landowners.
[00:07:03] Using the same value-for-value approach and selection criteria as used with the Great Northern Paper Company, Schepps and his staff evaluated and proposed lands for consolidation, negotiated trade deals with paper companies, and sought approval from the legislature to add another dozen consolidated parcels to the Bureau of Public Lands land-holdings. In each exchange, landowners claimed to be donating the timber rights on the public lots and took tax deductions. Subject to the outcome of the Cushing v. Lund litigation. The Bureau of Public Lands grew as forest operations and other management activities expanded to hundreds of thousands of acres of newly consolidated units.
[00:07:43] Schepps shared information about lands he believed might best be acquired with Barringer, Walker and Hartman for their consideration and approval. Schepps then negotiated a trade based on tax-value for tax-value, without separate appraisals. The state accepted no discount to the value of its own lands because they were scattered, largely inaccessible, and in many cases small minority interests not located on the ground. The private landowners in each case received a release of any liability for timber trespass. In the past, if the state were to prevail in the litigation and claim tax deductions for the assessed value of their timber rights, if the state were to lose the litigation. Each of the trades thus negotiated were consummated after the proposed contract was approved by resolve of the legislature.
[00:08:34] Meanwhile, back in the courts, the lawsuit which spanned 125 years and involved voluminous documentary evidence, was assigned to a retired Supreme Court Justice Donald Webber, who considered two main concerns. One, whether the cutting rights related only to timber in existence at the time they were conveyed, and two, whether the cutting rights were limited to certain sizes and species of trees considered timber at the time. The two issues were presented to Justice Webber based on a Stipulated Record of over 1,000 pages and more than 250 exhibits. Two days after evidentiary hearings were held during which the state presented as its lead witness, University of Maine, Professor David C. Smith, on the contemporaneous meaning of the term timber in the timber and grass deeds.
[00:09:22] After evidentiary healing hearings and presentation of expert testimony, the referee ruled in favor of the private landowners stating that the cutting rights included all standing timber in existence at the time they were sold, as well as timber growing on the land thereafter. The state appealed the judgment. The court ultimately ruled in favor of the state, stating that the cutting rights related only to the timber in existence at the time the rights were conveyed and that these rights had been exhausted.
[00:09:51] The court did not address the party's subsequent conduct or the effect it may have under various legal doctrines. The private landowners had continued to harvest timber on the public lots until the present, which the state claimed were unauthorized and entitled to it to damages for the value of all such timber. The court left it to the state to determine how to proceed with a final settlement given the potential damages were substantial. The court also recognized the special status of the state as a trustee of the public lots stating that it held title to them in its sovereign capacity.
[00:10:26] In the 1980s, there was a legal battle in Maine between the state government and private landowners over the control of millions of acres of forest land. The state believed that these private landowners had harvested timber from state-owned land without authorization, resulting in significant economic losses to the state. The landowners resisted the state's proposals for land exchanges and were initially united in their opposition.
[00:10:50] The state government, however, came up with a comprehensive proposal to resolve the issue which it presented to the private landowners at a meeting called by Governor Joseph Brennan. The proposal involved consolidating public lots to compensate for the timber value lost over the past six decades of company harvesting. The landowners were shocked and angry and left the meeting without reaching an agreement.
[00:11:13] For the next three years, the state government negotiated with the private landowners to settle all outstanding issues. Initially, little progress was made as both sides refused to budge from their positions. Then, in a surprise move, Seven Islands Land company on behalf of the heirs of David Pingree, broke from the other private landowners and entered an into negotiations directly with the state. The Pingree settlement became the standard for all future settlements, and the other private land owners began to rethink their opposition to the state's proposals.
[00:11:44] The state government focused its efforts on landowners who were most amenable to settlement and deferred discussion with those who were most reluctant. The one at a time negotiating strategy proved effective, and all of the remaining landowners eventually came to the table and entered into mutually agreeable land exchanges. The state government claimed damages of approximately $50 million for unauthorized cutting since the 1920s, which accrued added value to the state, in addition to the value of the extraordinary lands acquired. During the eight years of litigation before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court rendered its historic decision in favor of the state, the land holdings in Bureau of Public Lands unchallenged jurisdiction increased from 50,000 to 600,000 acres. Meanwhile, the state government drafted two far-reaching Maine laws to improve the management of public lots according to the principles of multi-use, and to create the nonlapsing revenue account for their improvement in public access and use. These laws have stood the test of time and have been used as models by other states in their management of large blocks of multi-use land.
[00:12:51] In 1972, there was this dispute between the Baxter State Park Authority and the Great Northern Paper Company, over the latter's rights to residual cutting in one of the two scientific management townships located in the north end of the park, which had been acquired by Governor Baxter in 1962. The controversy was based on the application of the multiple use concept and law that guided the management of federal lands by the US Forest Service, particularly the provisions of the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of June 1960.
[00:13:26] The multiple-use concept in law prescribed that public lands should be managed in a way that ensures their sustained use for various purposes, such as recreation grazing, timber harvesting, wildlife habitat, and water conservation. This approach aims to balance the needs of different user groups and ensure that the resources are not overexploited or degraded.
[00:13:50] Schepps, who was the assistant attorney general at the time, was familiar with the federal multiple-use mandate and used it as a framework to build a case against Great Northern Paper Company's harvesting techniques in the township. The case aimed to limit the Great Northern Paper Company's cutting rights in line with the principles of scientific forest management, which entails managing the forest for long-term productivity, ecological health, and multiple benefits.
[00:14:16] In Maine, the multiple-use mandate for managing public reserve lands is based on the Federal Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of June 1960. This law requires that all renewable resources on federal land, such as timber, water range, and recreation, be managed in a way that ensures their sustained yield or maximum use without degrading the environment.
[00:14:36] Overall, Schepps used the federal multiple-use concept and law as a precedent to establish the principles of scientific forest management and the sustainable use of natural resources in the Baxter State Park controversy. This approach helped resolve the dispute between the state and the Great Northern Paper Company and laid the groundwork for future management of public lands in Maine and elsewhere.
[00:14:59] In 1974, Schepps wrote, "Maine's Public Lots: The Emergence of a Public Trust." In it, he stated that no precise legal definition of what constitutes a public trust and different examples can exist along a spectrum At one extreme, large public domains inherited by states such as Maine can be considered assets of the state similar to surplus land or the balance in a state's bank account, the state acts as proprietor and has full power over their disposition and use. At the other end of the spectrum, there are public trusts such as Baxter State Park in Maine, where the state is just the nominal owner for the benefit of the general public and the judicial branch of the government has large powers with respect to the use and disposition of such public trust assets.
[00:15:48] Under US law, courts enforce and protect the beneficiaries of trust. For example, the US Supreme Court has held that submerged lands in Lake Michigan are not merely public domain, but constitute a public trust. Maine's public reserve lands, which are explicitly required to be reserved by the Maine Constitution, appear to enjoy special and restricted status and their use and protection for the people of Maine ultimately and properly reside with the judicial branch of the state government. Schepps brought attention to the fact that if the legislative or executive branch of Maine state government decides to use the public reserve lands for a purpose that strays from the existing authorized use, the judicial branch may be willing to assert its traditional power with respect to public trusts.
[00:16:34] Maine's success in implementing environmental protection policies in the face of strong opposition from the state's powerful lumber and power interests, interests that had outsized influence over economic affairs relative to most every other state was due to a rare alignment of factors, including a free press, sustained leadership, support from the legislature and judiciary, talented staff, strong analysis, good teamwork, skillful negotiation, calculated risk taking, devotion to the task, good timing, good luck, and personal courage. The issue was made public by persistent private citizens and intrepid reporters, and the presidents of two private companies broke the tradition to support the effort.
[00:17:16] Environmental consciousness was growing in Maine and the nation, and the right people came together to meet the challenge with an abiding belief in the public interest, government as an instrument of the public good and unceasing teamwork as the vehicle of high accomplishment. The passage concludes with quotes from retired landowners who now accept and feel satisfied with the policy changes.
[00:17:38] And what of the landowners today, some 40 years later? In the afterward of his forthcoming book, Thomas Urquhart writes, "With the passage of time, much of the bitterness around the struggle has termed to acceptance, even a feeling of satisfaction." Urquhart quotes Brad Wellman, retired president of Pingree Associates: "Take away all of the resentment and whatnot, I think the result has been good for both the landowners and the State." And Roger Milliken, president of Baskahegan Company, stated that "the dominant-use policy [was] farsighted, an example of Maine leading, and ecological reserves never would've happened otherwise."
[00:18:24] Timber harvesting-related controversy began once again in 2011 when Doug Denico, a corporate forest manager, appointed by Governor Paul LePage, proposed a more intensive commercial approach to timber management in the public lots. Denico ordered a 61% increase in harvesting without consultation with the bureau or public comment. This led to a years-long encounter between the Maine Forest Service and the Bureau of Public Lands, as well as between the executive and legislative branches of Maine government over management of the public lots and access to the public reserved lands trust fund for non-trust purposes.
[00:19:01] The governor's office proposed using the trust fund to pay for a cash rebate from the state to replace old, inefficient home-heating furnaces with energy efficient wood pellet boilers. The trust fund had pre been previously used for an unrelated purpose in 1992, but authorizing legislation from the government for the MPFA proposal, LD 1468 was voted down by the legislature.
[00:19:28] Governor LePage won a second term in 2014 and proposed cutting more timber on the public reserved lands to prepare for potentially devastating spruce budworm outbreak in the Maine woods. However, Robert Seymour, a longstanding member of the Bureau of Public Lands Silvicultural Advisory Committee, called the governor's rationale an unnecessary scare tactic to secure more revenue from the public lots, for a favored public response. In response, LePage proposed splitting the Bureau of Parks and Lands between a new Bureau of Conservation, and the Maine Forest Service.
[00:20:04] In 2015, the state of Maine considered changes to its management of public reserve lands, which are protected by a constitutionally mandated trust. Governor Paul LePage proposed increasing the annual timber harvest from 141,500 cords to 180,000 cords to generate additional revenue for the state, but opponents argued that this would threaten the long-term sustainability of the forests and violate the terms of the trust. A special commission was established to study the issue and ultimately recommended maintaining the existing allowable cut, conducting regular forest inventories, and providing oversight by the legislature.
[00:20:45] The historic importance of this commission's deliberations was underscored in a letter dated September 23rd, 2015, signed by five former conservation commissioners- Richard Barringer, Richard Anderson, Ronald Lovaglio, Edward Meadows, and Patrick McGowan. On October 26th, 2015, then-Attorney General Janet Mills sent a written opinion regarding the legal risks of rating a constitutionally protected trust fund. A definitive answer would have to come from the Maine Supreme Judicial Court she argued, but based on the 1992 case, the governor's proposal "would likely meet great skepticism." Further, public reserved land dollars spent on state parks would replace general fund monies effectively making trust money interchangeable with general fund revenue, which is not permitted."
[00:21:36] The special commission released its unanimous report with recommendations in December, 2015. Mindful of the attorney general's warning, it did not include money for Efficiency Maine among its recommendations. The Bureau of Public Lands should maintain a cash operating account of $2.5 million a year against unexpected costs; a forest inventory should be undertaken the next year and every five years thereafter, and Bureau of Public Lands Foresters should make decisions on harvest levels, subject to ACF Committee oversight by the legislature.
[00:22:09] Governor LePage attacked the commission and its report as well as the bill that would implement its findings. The legislature passed LD 1629, however, and the governor promptly vetoed it. The legislature's vote to override his veto fell nine votes short. In 2016, Senator Saviello again presented a bill to implement the committee's recommendations, which passed, and again, the governor vetoed it. The Environmental Priorities Coalition, a partnership of 34 Environmental Conservation and public health groups, took up the battle this time and the legislature succeeded in overriding the Governor's veto.
[00:22:46] These possibilities would have to wait, however, upon a new gubernatorial administration. In January 2019, Democrat Janet Mills succeeded Paul LePage to become Maine's first female governor. Amanda Beal, the new ACF Commissioner, previously led the Maine Farmland Trust's efforts to revitalize Maine's rural landscape. Andy Cutko, the new Bureau of Public Lands director, is an ecologist who has worked for the Maine Natural Areas Program and the Nature Conservancy. He comes to his position with a depth of knowledge about the public reserve lands, and well equipped to manage these natural treasures as they were intended for the people of Maine and our visitors, for their many and diverse values.
[00:23:29] Bill Patterson, the new deputy director of the Bureau of Public Lands, when the original article was published in Maine Policy Review, believes that an important challenge facing the agency is to increase public awareness and appreciation of these lands, "where they are, how and for what purpose they're managed, and what is their potential to serve Maine people and are growing numbers of visitors." To this end, he'll seek to improve the management capacity and tools available to his staff to identify for improvement particular sites with high demand and large need, and invest in their future by leveraging the new federal America's great outdoors monies for strategic investments.
[00:24:10] Forty years of experience teaches that the public reserve lands are at once a high-value and highly vulnerable asset- vulnerable to periodic raids on the trust fund, to meet emergency political needs, and to takeover by private commercial interests. If it is to succeed in this new opportunity, the Bureau of Public Lands must take the offensive and build a comprehensive strategy to broaden public knowledge of the public reserved lands and their many values to improve public access to them and to the facilities they offer, and realize their potential to help strengthen Maine's rural economy.
[00:24:46] This strategy will be best created in collaboration with other state and federal agencies and private organizations that leverage Maine's exceptional outdoor recreation assets to increase economic opportunity and revitalize remote rural communities. Most of all, if there great potential is to be realized, the Bureau of Public Lands must take care to build abiding support for the public reserve lands among the citizens of Maine, just as Governor Baxter did for his own renowned state park.
[00:25:14] These lands must become part of all that Maine people know, understand, enjoy, take pride in and love. They will endure and become all they might be, only as part of Maine people's hearts, minds imaginations, and ongoing conversations.
[00:25:29] Finally, then one may ask, what is the overriding lesson in all of this for all of us? It is to heed the words often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, "Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty, then, now, and always.".
[00:25:47] What you just heard was Richard Barringer, Lee Schepps's, Tomas Urquhart's and Mark Wilk's perspectives on Maine's Public reserved lands. Maine Policy Review is a peer reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center.
[00:26:01] The editorial team for Maine Policy Review is made up of Joyce Rumery, Linda Silka and Barbara Harrity. Jonathan Rubin directs the Policy Center. A thank you to Jayson Heim and Kathryn Swacha, script writers for the Maine Policy Matters podcast. And to Daniel Soucier, our production consultant.
[00:26:16] In two weeks, we will be hearing from me the host Eric Miller, Marci Sorg, and Priyanka Sarker on "Drug Related Morbidity and Mortality in Maine".
[00:26:26] We'd like to thank you for listening to Maine Policy Matters from the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. You can find us online by searching Maine Policy Matters on your web browser. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow us on your preferred social media platform and stay updated on new episode releases.
[00:26:41] I am Eric Miller. Thanks for listening and please join us next time on Maine Policy Matters.

S3E6: Empowering Maine’s Women Through Community Leadership

Today, we will be following up on a 2018 Maine Policy Review article titled, “Our Path: Empower Maine Women Network and Leadership” by interviewing the authors Parivash Rohani, Oyinloluwa Fasehun, Ghomri Rostampour, Bethany Smart, and Laura de Does along with a conversation with Cathy Lee, co-founder of the Empower Network. Their article was published in volume 27, number 1, of Maine Policy Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Policy Center.
The article can be accessed here: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1807&context=mpr
Link to "Justice for Women Lecture": https://mainelaw.maine.edu/events/justice-for-women-lecture/
 
Transcript
Welcome to Maine Policy Matters, a podcast from the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. I am Eric Miller, Research Associate at the Center. Today, we will be following up on a 2018 Maine Policy Review article titled, “Our Path: Empower Maine Women Network and Leadership” by interviewing the authors Parivash Rohani, Oyinloluwa Fasehun, Ghomri Rostampour, Bethany Smart, and Laura de Does along with a conversation with Cathy Lee, co-founder of the Empower Network. Their article was published in volume 27, number 1, of Maine Policy Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Policy Center. The article can be accessed in the description of this episode.
In 2016, Mufalo Chitam (now the executive director of the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition) and Catherine Lee (founder of Justice for Women) created the Empower Maine Women Network, referred to as the Empower Network. Their goal was to address the isolation New Mainer women felt and to give women who have long called Maine their home the chance to interact with new members of their community.
Mufalo was unavailable for an interview, so we will do a reading of her section of the article:
On March 12, 2018, I stood in a room at the Maine State House in Augusta on behalf of my organization, the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition (MIRC), to testify against a bill, LD 1833 “An Act to Facilitate Compliance with Federal Immigration Law by State and Local Government Entities.” My daughter Grace was home on spring break, and while it was a privilege to have her there in the room to witness the work I have been so passionate about for much of her young life, it was also heartbreaking.
Eighteen years ago (Now 23 years ago), I met a young man in my African country of Zambia. He was on vacation, and we met just a couple months before my husband, my then 2-year-old daughter, and I were about to emigrate to America. His words to me were simple: “Please come to Portland, Maine. It is a safe place to raise your family and even though there are few immigrants, Mainers are very nice and welcoming.” If LD 1833 had passed, it would have changed not only this narrative, but also how my daughter feels about Maine, the only place she has called home.
That day I was upholding our humanity, a value my late father taught me at an early age, so that this bill would not make immigrants feel less welcome in Maine. I have spent my whole life constantly looking for small opportunities and for connections to improve someone else’s tomorrow. My role as executive director of MIRC grew from working with immigrant women from diverse countries, ethnicities, and religions. Leadership is seen in suffrage, shown in courage, tolerance, and kindness, and is driven by strength. End of passage.
Empower network met regularly in Portland to connect New Mainers with nonimmigrant women so they could talk about the challenges they face and how to help each other overcome these challenges, as well as to highlight opportunities for engagement in the community. The meetings offered a special presentation featuring women speakers making a significant contribution to the Maine community.
On March 24th, 2018, the women that penned the original piece sat down to discuss the concept of leadership and their definition of what makes a leader. They were asked to reflect on the idea of empowerment and specifically tie empowerment to kindness, suffrage, and tolerance. Now, we will catch up on the authors and hear their perspectives on the importance of community building and interpersonal relationships. Then we had an opportunity to talk to Cathy Lee, one of the co-founders of the Empower Network to speak about her journey and experience working and community engagement in Maine
Eric Miller:
Hello everyone. Thank you all so much for joining us on podcast today. To get us started could each of you give an overview of your experience of moving to Maine and how you all met each other? . Let’s start with you.
Pavarish: Okay. Before I just tell you how I got to Maine, I have to give you a little background.
I’m originally from Iran, so in 1979 when revolution happened, My house was burned down because I belonged to Bahai community and I had to leave the country. So really I became homeless overnight, and then I escaped Iran to India with two of my cousin for safety. We chose India because the proximity to Iran, and also because most people were Buddhist and Hindu, we felt that we were safer among that kind of population.
And then after few years being in India, The embassy of Iran did not actually renew our passport again because of our religious belief. So we had to convert and we refused to convert. So we became from being homeless in Iran stateless in India, and the only option we had to become a refugee. So we became a refugee and came to United States in 1986.
As you can imagine, coming to Maine, I felt I’m a kid in a candy shop, for the first time, I had identity, I had respect. I have freedom. Things that really, even today, people are living their country and giving their life to come to America for freedom. So I really found out my identity in Maine. As a human being and being respected and because of the climate,
actually, I felt at home, because I came from northeast of Iran, the climate is identical to Maine, so I immediately felt at home. I know many people are surprised when they hear, I’m from Iran and I live in a climate like this. But in the north we do have a similar really climate. I just wanted to mention, really it wasn’t the event that it brought me
to come to know Bethany, Laura, Ghomri and Oyi. It wasn’t one event. It was really the desire to serve our community and our intentionality that we wanted to group with people who were doing things in the community. And that’s how I feel, I came, I crossed path with all of these lovely woman that I have really learned a lot from them.
And I have so much respect and love admiration for them. And I think that’s the key. The love that we have for each other have made this connection so meaningful. It wasn’t the event because you can meet people at event. And then you go your separate way. So that doesn’t mean anything but our desire to be together and advance or community for better.
Eric Miller: That’s a very special connection and I am glad that you experienced some of the Maine style climate prior to getting there. Let’s go with Ghomri next.
Ghomri: Hi. Yes. I came from I grew up in Iran. Obviously as Parivash mentioned, just they had they executing them for different reason because of the religion, and they executed us because of all ethnicity, because of our language, because of our, just practicing even.
We are not allowed to practice our culture. And so I became a refugee and stayed in Turkey for -I think I stayed in Turkey for, yeah, so many months. And then I I came to USA and the reason that I ended up to Maine, one of my cousin was here. And at the same time, we have a similar climate, and we have a lot of snow and we have a lot of, just rain and obviously it’s a little different.
We have ocean here. We don’t have any ocean over there. And I miss mountains a lot because , we have mountain here, . I miss it anyway. And yeah, and feel very connected to Maine. I feel like that I am home, especially with the friendly environment and welcoming people here. And so yeah, unfortunately the thing that is just too much for us here,
it’s just when any kind crisis, any kind political turmoil or war is happened in in Iran or in region, in general, it’s it’s too much for us, and I know we have great friends and which is very thankful and always we have them here that they they’re out there for us always.
They’re out there for us. Yeah. And otherwise, yeah. And being free here and practicing my language, my cultural, my culture, my ethnicity, my identity. And imagine in country that even they are not giving birth certificate. They didn’t give birth certificate to,
our great parents, and yeah, it’s feel like that you are you’ll find yourself, and then you feel that you are at least belong to humans. You are a human and belongs to a community that you are getting support from. And then it was back in 2018 that we start to have empower the immigrant women.
And I I just became friends and not only as Parivash mentioned to -it’s just not like a group that we are meeting. We meet with each other and just everyone go back home and, just being on their own business now, we’re still friends. We are doing hiking together. We are going to restaurant with each other, we’re spending time with each other.
We eating, we are crying with each other. We’re celebrating with each other, and sometimes in the middle of night when I get so tired especially Laura , I pick up the phone and give us give her a call, and long conversation and not, and the other friends as well. Yeah.
Yeah. But at the same time, we are in general that, the role of a leader is to coach, guide, and inspire others and to motivate team through you, if you motivate the team through challenging the challenging time that you, they have and guide them. I was very active on so many areas, I should say, but mostly with women and especially Afghan women, I was able to establish the Maine Afghan woman community and which is running right now.
They have little by little at the beginning it was really, it was not easy for them to come along with each other, but I, we were able, to make this unity happen. And so at least, let to share their beliefs with each other, to be honest with each other and their integrity. And, just the influence that we had, kind of like building especially building the skills, acting women that they, when you know, when you are in, when you grow in a country that is dominate country and they’re not letting you to be out there it’s not easy to bring them, to the field.
It’s not easy, to inspire them. But anyway, so it was amazing and it’s running right now and I’m a member of I’m a member of housing Authority Board member, sorry, the board member of Housing Authority and Opportunity Alliance and Civil Commission. And at the same time, I’m a civic activist and happy, and excited and at the same time have my education and raising my two beautiful kids here in university, safe in environment.
And they finished their education and they have their own career. And if you wanna be out there as a role model, just, it’s very important that someone who ensures their team has supported and tools to achieve their goals. You have to start it from your yourself. You have to start just the commitment, the passion, the confidence that you have, and how much you are able to give this to your community. It’s very important, either directly or indirectly or what kind of work vision that you have and the vision that is also managed, for the managing them deliver this vision and inspire them to achieve their goals.
Eric Miller: That’s great. Ghomri. Laura, how about you give me an overview of your experience and with this community?
Laura: Sure. I decided to attend the rather small meeting. It wasn’t a huge meeting of the empower of the immigrant women, and I hadn’t been a part of the organization at all, and went with Bethany and really didn’t know what I as a white Mainer,
I was born and raised in Maine, had to contribute, and I was amazed how all of us just really supported each other and we were there and talked around the room and we were each able to state our needs, something that we needed help with. I had taken in a young man from another African nation who was really struggling and I was trying to find ways to help him, assist him.
And so I brought that to the attention of the group and we just really all supported each other with whatever it was that we needed. And I’ll never forget at the end of the meeting, walking out to the sidewalk and just realized that we were all gathered together, a bunch of us, and just realizing that we had just made these incredible friends.
Now, some of the people I knew, but not, other than Bethany, not on that level. And it’s amazing that more than 50% of the people there I consider my very dear friends today. There was a conference that was put on in part of the Community Network conference that Ghomri and I, not really meaning to ended up co-hosting it.
So I was involved in it in that way too. And again, like as a couple of the women have said already, just the incredible friendships and the support that came out of that first meeting was just amazing.
Oyi: Yeah, I think what everyone has said so far, especially Parivash is actually true. I came into the country as a student, so my story is a little bit different, but and when I came into the country, I came into New York and I met my husband in New York and then he got his first full-time job with the university in Maine, and that’s how I found myself in Maine. Now, Maine was like definitely very cold compared to New York, but I can’t remember exactly how I found myself in the Empower Women Network, but I know Mufalo was the first person I met, and then I started attending the meetings, while I was in Maine, even though I came in as a student, I came in to do my master’s, but after my master’s was over, I needed to still find something to do to keep myself in status, immigration wise. That’s one of the things we have to deal with as immigrants. You have to, to stay legally, I had to do something like go to schools or something. So I went back to community college. I was actually attending Maine community college at that time.
But going to these meetings with these women, I’m like, I’m the youngest so everybody on this group is like my big Auntie , I – going to these meetings, meeting these people was like, it was really it was a great opportunity to just meet people and I found out that everyone was very supportive of where I was at that point in time, even though it wasn’t like I was working, but having good conversations with these great ladies and them supporting me. Even at that time I was even trying to like, get a job, get a job that could could file for me, that could give me like a work visa. And even though I didn’t get to that point, eventually everyone was supportive of me trying to get that including, especially like Mufalo. She tried to connect me with some law firms. ’cause I studied law. I have a legal background. So Mufalo was trying to connect me with people who could like, employ me and file a work Visa for me. And for me that’s like really part of what Empower Women Network is about, trying to ensure that immigrants find their voice, they find something, that they, they can get to do in Maine and Maine is very welcoming in that regard. And that’s just like the most welcoming place I’ve ever lived in so far. Yeah, they’re very welcoming of immigrants, which was what I appreciated about them. And the Empower Network and like Parivash said, everybody was intentional about building that bond, building that relationship.
I remember when I had to have my first child, Bethany was there. I had complications, bethany went through it with me. She cried with me. Parivash was also with me. Laura came to the hospital. Parivash came to the hospital. Parivash was like telling me,’causemy baby was in ICU for a period of time.
Parivash. I remember Parivash telling me to speak with her, even though of course she’s a baby. She couldn’t, but Parivash made me understand that, okay, she’s a baby, but she can hear your voice. You’ve carried her for a long time. And, eventually my child ended up doing great. She’s still a miracle to everybody today.
But yeah, we have that sisterhood, that bond and even though we’re miles away, we don’t call each other every. When we get to connect with each other, we share pictures. We connect with each other on Facebook. When I post something, Bethany, Laura, Ghomri, comments, and even though I haven’t been to Maine in a long time, I still plan to visit the place with my daughter and see everyone, I think it’s more of the fact that everybody was intentional about building this relationship, building this sisterhood, and I really appreciate. I really appreciate that network and I really appreciate everyone on this call for that.
Yeah. And since then we moved to Missouri. From Missouri. We’re now in Tennessee. Yeah. And like I said, it’s like the last move. And I’ve had another child. I’ve had another child in August, and so right now I am. Eventually my husband actually filed for me while I was in Maine to get a green card, but it wasn’t coming through on time, which was why I said I had to go to community college.
Eventually it came through in 2020 and I was able to pursue what I really wanted to do. Right now I’m working for a consulting firm working in the financial services space. I work in like the financial crime investigation side of it, and I work hundred percent from home, which, gives me the flexibility of being a mom, being a present mom, and, working at the same time.
Yeah. So that’s really a summary of, what has been happening to me.
Eric Miller: That’s a wonderful story. There’s so many beautiful memories and congratulations on, on acquiring Your Green Card, finishing school, getting the job, moving around all over the place successfully raising children. What an amazing experience.
And since you named dropped Bethany let’s round up getting to know everyone here.
Bethany: Hi, I’m Bethany Smart. I live in North Yarmouth I in 2018, but prior to the Pandemic was as a volunteer work volunteering through Hope Acts and Hope House as a mentor coordinator. So I would talk to people about Hey, would you like to connect with a new Mainer and help them navigate some systems, be their friend, show them around Portland connect and just listen over coffee, like to what their needs are and see if you can help or,
if Hope House can help or, getting the, we can get the word out to the community and see what folks need. I actually attended, like Laura said with Laura this first meeting I mean my first meeting of the Empower Women Network with, along with a young woman that I was mentoring from Rwanda. And I think my initial thought going was that like she would have a place to connect and that she would know this group existed. So it’s interesting how it turned out that really for me, here we are like all of us connected strongly. And she was even younger than Oyi. So maybe it was just an age factor, but but still I hope that she knows that, she has proceeded with her life here.
She has, sorry. She has I’m sure like, linked up with other friends and organizations in Portland and has the support that she needs. But as it turned out, as you’ve heard from everyone, we had a very strong connection. I mean, I do look at things from through my faith and a spiritual lens so for me, I just feel like it was just all of us coming with really open hearts to connect with one another. And Mufalo asking, like just saying, introduce yourselves and say who you are and say a need that you have. So all of us have multiple needs, right? But I think us coming from Oh, I’m from Nebraska.
I didn’t say that I moved to Maine in 1996, but coming, whether, from any place in the us as a white woman, like in that group, it can be really intimidating to express, like what can my need possibly be when I’m seeing people whose lives I’ve had to, be torn apart and start over.
But as Oyi said, we all rallied around each other’s needs. I remember Laura I think did some editing for somebody who said they needed some editing work, done for work. Maybe that wasn’t you, but I think it was. Yeah, and then the aunties, that’s what we called us planned a baby shower that was at Parivash’s house that she hosted.
And just we started, connecting. Laura and I had always for a long time prior to this been connected and trying to meet needs where we saw them. But this was just clearly just a deeper level of friendship and connection that kind of allowed us all to, I think, extend our leadership into our own spheres even more with the strength of knowing one another.
So I just saw Parivash last week at the State House and I realized later I think I said at the beginning to my husband I’m so glad I went to that meeting. I can’t imagine not having met those women like we were, like Laura said, there’s something about, I think it was supposed to be a one hour meeting and it ended up being three hours.
And then we were doing like selfies and the elevator on the way downstairs who does that when you’ve just met a group of people. But it felt like there was like a reunion and we’d known each other forever. So I realized later, had I not met Parivash that day, I would’ve met her eventually’causeshe’s everywhere all the time activating. But yeah, this has been a really amazing group and amazing friendship and amazing leaders.
Eric Miller: Wow, that I am blown away by the the strength of connection that just going to one place and all, having a collective goal and then letting your guard down and being okay to be intimate and how that builds this community is just such a wonderful thing.
And Oyi you answered this question a little bit already, but that article was published in Maine Policy Review about five years ago, a lot has transpired since then. So I’d love to hear about where people are at now and if Bethany, you mentioned you and Parivash spend time at the State House, if you like to mention other advocacy group or other organizations you’re part of be happy to share that or just general life updates.
Oyi’s been very busy.
Pavarish: Yeah, so I mean, Everybody who is really here in this podcast, we are all involved and we feel, women in general, it is in our DNA to try to make our community a better place. From the unit of home to, you know, local community, national and international. It’s just that, I don’t know how to say it.
We don’t think that we are alive if we are not doing something for somebody or making changes in our community. So yeah, if there are things that, need support at the policy level, look, as Bethany mentioned, it was a day of advocacy in the state house. So we all rallied around Wabanaki people, because we believe in justice. So the justice cannot be discriminated. If you feel everybody have to have a equal, right, then you have to be in forefront of that fight for those people who are really fighting it. And beside that, I do a lot of advocacy around the homelessness and also that recently we had 55 family move to South Portland.
So the, interfaith group decided that, there were items that they needed. So we wrote a email, like I forwarded the email to the Maine ___, and I was overwhelmed with their response of items that had to be delivered to South Portland for the asylum seeker. And I’m not the only one. Every one of these women who you see here, they are involved in many level with that because we all think that it is important.
And I’m among few of the board in Portland Family Promise Board and Portland Park Conservancy that, just doing different thing. It is not maybe so much gear towards the immigrant and asylum, but it is geared towards environment and conserving parks in Portland.
Eric Miller: It’s wonderful. Yeah, you are certainly busy.
As Bethany said let’s go with Ghomri. It’s, it is five years later.
Ghomri: Five years later, yes. As I was my official position was a refugee and immigrant resettlements through Jewish Community Alliance. And when, as you know that how they fragile when they come into this country and we house them when we provide them what food with clothes and reach out to so many organizations, other non-profit organizations, and even, just volunteers that they come out and regardless of color, ethnicity, identity, you know, they house and we were able to house 100 in total. I think in total we had 150, but 50 of them were Afghan community, Afghan families.
And in addition of this one, as I said, I was very involved, to establish empower I mean empower the Afghan woman and, just establish their community. They had community, but it was not very active community. It was not like they didn’t have structure and they, especially the women were not involved at all.
Not at all. I remember at the first meeting that they had only males and they were there and I said, what are the women? And they said, no, we don’t have any woman here. And I said, I’m gonna cancel it out. So then for the next one, we had only two women, and for the third one we had just three women.
And for the fourth one that we had it here in housing Authority, we had 25 women, Afghan woman. So luckily right now, and they are very happy and they’re running their organization. We choose the name for them. Maine Afghan Women and at the same time, civic activist as well and working on my degree to finish it and hopefully another, just the 40 units left to get my master degree from our university international violations.
And the job that I recently, they offered to me, which is, I did not announce that because I have one more exam that I have to take, became a foreign service general. So I know that it’s not an easy job. But anyway, I’m very excited and hopefully to be in the office officially by the August at the end of the August.
And at the same time, I’m a very active member of Worldly Woman. Worldly Woman is under the World Affair Councils here in Maine. The same thing that Empower Immigrant Women did it. We are going out and Laura actually participate in one of our meeting because we are very new and we are still reaching out, just kinda like international women from different group, from different, background and to participate and share their memories and, just supporting each other.
And we have empathy for each other and. So yeah, that is five years later and hopefully in another five years, be president of Iran . We need a woman, yeah.
Bethany: We’ll need a new podcast then.
Eric Miller: Congratulations on making it to this point. Good luck on your final exam there. I have little doubt and how that’ll go for you. I’m sure you’ll pass it without a question. Let’s go to Laura next.
Laura: So I’m trying to think from five years ago how things have changed and I’m not involved in too many direct organizations yet I kind of dabble in a few different ones. And I had a friend, an African friend, tell me not too long ago that,’causeI was trying to find my place in helping in certain situations and he’s, he said to me, you’re a connector. That’s what you do. You connect people. So I’ve kind of taken that and run with it and felt like, that, that is a purpose to connect people that whether it be, to services or that they are trying to better their career or better.
In this particular case, my friends and artists and he just needed to connect with people to Lead to jobs that he has picked up since then. So whether it be people, just needing clothes, I have a couple families right now that are two women are having babies and just even finding some of the basics for some people when they’re new here and they don’t know the language, they don’t have transportation is a struggle.
So anything that we can do, all of us to help make their make their settlement here a little bit easier is what we can do. So I also am on the board of directors of ___ African Newspaper, which is an African newspaper here in Maine. Started in 2018, and the main goal of the newspapers to really connect africans here with Mainers here and also provides news back in Africa for folks settling here so they don’t lose the connection with their homeland. And it also teaches us why a lot of new Mainers are here from African nations, mostly asylum seekers and what might have made them flee and why they’re here and what things are like in their country.
So that’s been really near and dear to my heart. I have an African son, so when I first heard about this newspaper, I thought this is something I really wanna be involved in. So that has helped me connect to other people and just become more and more part of the immigrant community. And, but we’re all Mainers now, so we have to support each other.
Eric Miller: Yeah, that’s absolutely fantastic. Bethany, how about you?
Bethany: So I would say I’m also not, like directly involved like on boards and things like that. But I think just, again, I think my description of leadership in the article like five years ago was just like more pushing myself to do new things. Pushing myself to step outta my comfort zone. To make, always be making new connections, to always be trying to build awareness of what’s happening in Maine, but what’s happening in people’s lives that is important to them. And I think for me it’s allowed me to have conversations on a more informed level than just here’s a general idea of justice.
Everybody should have these basic rights or everybody should be able to do X when they come to the United States and not have all these hoops to jump through kind of thing, but even with family members, with other friends, having like just a greater understanding of the struggles and to say, my friend’s going through this like this, we, we all need to be supporting one another.
So I think, I’d say like Laura’s a major connector. I’ll take minor connector. I’m a connector as well. And I just going back to the spirituality and faith piece, I just look at leadership, not so much as being out front and center as standing my integrity and like doing small things and trusting the ripples that we don’t see.
And yeah, just gaining awareness and it’s it’s like more of a scaling in then scaling up kind of perspective.
Eric Miller: Absolutely. That’s great. So a lot of these points that you all have made actually feeds really nicely into the next question because Parivash in the article in 2018, you mentioned often grassroots leaders making seemingly small decisions have a huge impact on the lives of ordinary people.
Would you mind providing some examples of some of these small decisions? It seems Laura, Bethany have captured these small decisions in small actions and there’s large ones serving on boards. Would you like to elaborate on that a little bit?
Pavarish: Yeah. So really in general, I don’t feel that this, we have this conception of leadership that we think leadership is some alien or coming out of a space and making things work better or we have this complex, I don’t know, idea, and to me leadership is not complex because leadership is about others. It is not about the leader, it is not about us, it is about other people. And I always feel there are so many unsung heroes that they, doing a small thing, but do a small thing or organically changing your community. Sometimes when we talk about complex thing, it’s very disappointing because when you want to take a big, have a big goal. Sometimes it is not possible to fulfill it, but if you make small changes, it is encouraging because you see the result. Like what all the stories that Laura, Bethany and Ghomri share, these are little changes that they are all making and making our community a better place.
So I have an example that I mentioned earlier, like just sending the email, it wasn’t a big deal, but the response that I got was so overwhelming to me. And it wasn’t the leadership because it was about orders, but people were generous. They stood up and, really contributed. But I have, few years ago, I went visiting this family in Lewiston from Congo, and I was visiting them with one of my friends who was from Paris. She was from France. So she was able to translate, all of our conversation. And I casually ask the woman why she’s at home and she is not taking English classes because everybody in her household was gone for, the class except her. And she said, because she cannot see. And I was very surprised because I didn’t see any disability with her sight. And I mentioned to her, I said you can’t see what you mean. She said, I cannot read. I cannot see, to read right. And I had over counter glasses that I bought from Dollar Store, so I thought, okay, I’ll just try to give her this reading, over counter reading glasses.
And she had a paper in front of her and she started reading and she started crying because she was overwhelmed that her problem was just, was solved with reading over counter reading glasses. It wasn’t a big deal that I offered to her, but just being intentional to make sure what is her problem, and if there was anything that I could do to make a difference, which I wasn’t sure that it would make a difference, but just being intentional.
So when I left there, I was thinking really many of the problem that people are dealing with is not a big problem. They are a small problem is just that we are people who are connecting with other people, whether they are immigrant, asylum seeker. If you are intentional in our day-to-day work, we would be able, with a small decision, make a change in people’s life.
So this intentionality is very important and doing something about the problem that we are facing and not saying, oh, okay, so what, they are dealing with this for a long time and nothing has changed, so just let it be. I think that’s the important, really lesson for all of us, that the small changes can be perceived big from the point of view of the person who received that small change.
It can impact their life.
Eric Miller: Yeah. Thank you. For expanding on that point in intentionality is a very special and powerful thing and can be channeled into, I like how you framed as it be channeled into as small or as large as an act as what is in front of you in that moment. And so as leaders and yourselves and as immigrants or have worked intimately with new Mainers yourselves can you all speak to how leadership and community networks can help individuals and families that call Maine their new home?
Pavarish: Yeah, I would like to say because I’m immigrant, what am I offering is not some vague, something in a vacuum because I live the immigrant life and I know what was important to me was learning the language was one of the really the most important thing that you need to learn the language of the country that you reside in because that could also improve your own life, if you are fluent in the language.
The second thing is, I think the attitude or attitude towards getting job, because most immigrants who come here, they are highly educated. So if we want to wait for that perfect job that pays $150 an hour, it’s very hard . So we have to have a different attitude towards job. And I share a little story after I say this. That’s very important.
The another point is that as immigrants, we should not take everything and anything that people say and put it in a category of discrimination that, oh, these people tell me this because I’m from another country, so you can’t take everything as discrimination because that would make our life very hard.
Another point that I really want to make sure that as immigrant, the immigrant are paying attention to that, is just that we need to take the first step. If we want to become friends with other people, we need to take the first step. I remember when we moved actually to Maine, it was winter and people hibernate in Maine, so you can’t connect with anybody.
And I remember, my neighbor heard that we are from Iran and they thought this terrorist family moved next door to them. They were worried about their children and all of that. And I was alone. I left everything that I was familiar with in Iran. I didn’t have family. When I came to Maine, it was only me, my husband, and my daughter.
So I needed connection, but my neighbors didn’t need connection because she already had relative, friend, well established, community. But I didn’t. So I couldn’t sit home and say, oh, I’m waiting for my neighbor to come say, hi, Parivash, how are you? I’m glad to meet you. If I would have that attitude after 30 some years, I still would not have any connection with anyone.
So I say that we really, as immigrant, we have to take that step. I want to tell you the story. My husband was doing his PhD in India. So when we came, he was working two jobs as a stock clerk in 7-Eleven, and he was also as a stock clerk in L.L. Bean. So the first job, the first week we were in Maine, got a job in L.L. Bean
I remember when he would go to job, I would sit and cry because I was thinking, oh my God, he’s so intelligent. He has done all of this PhD work and now he’s stocking, somewhere in 7-Eleven and I don’t know, in L.L. Bean, and I would not let him know that I was worried about that. So I remember one day he came home and I was crying.
I would make sure he doesn’t know that I cried because I thought he’s working hard for me and my daughter. There is no reason that I should show him that I’m distressed. So I remember he came home sick and he saw me crying and he thought something happened to my parents. So he said, something happened to your parents?
I said, no. He said, please tell me why you are crying. I said, I’m crying because you are an intelligent man. You have did your, pre PhD and all of this work while you are now folding clothes at night in a L.L. Bean. My husband got mad at me. He said, what is the use of PhD if I cannot put food in front of you and my daughter,. He said, still whatever I’m making is better than $0.
And because I’m working in L.L. Bean actually I’m aware of other opportunities because if I am not working in L.L. Bean, most of a job are posted within the company. So the fact that I’m there as a stock clerk makes me aware of the posting. So I have the ability to apply for better job. So really these all the advice that I’m offering humbly if, because we went through that as an immigrant, it’s not some abstract something out there that I have no clue or I didn’t go through that hardship.
So I feel these are something that we need to remember. Or attitude need to be very positive and not, because I have PhD, I’m not going to work here, I’m not going to work there. But those are all opportunities for better future.
Bethany: Can I just also say that, Parivash cut the story short, but she took her neighbor that a meal to meet her, right? In the first story.
Pavarish: Oh yeah.
Bethany: When you were feeling like your neighbor didn’t wanna meet you and you said you need, people need to take the first step. You cooked her a meal and it should have been the It should have been the reverse, but it wasn’t.
Pavarish: Yes, I make food. I, with any excuse, I go and knock at the door. And I have to tell you, it had a happy ending because when we became friend, she gave my name as somebody in the school because her kids had allergy, very bad allergy. So if something happened to them, they would call me because she was working full-time. So it had a really happy ending, but it had a happy ending because I try to make sure we connect so she doesn’t have this misconception that I’m terrorists because I’m from Iran. If I would have really, that would have been something that I would say, oh, okay, she thinks I’m terrorist. I’m not going to reach out. She would’ve never found out that our similarities is more than our differences. Thank you for reminding me Bethany.
Eric Miller: Ghomri, d you have something that you’d like to add for how as an immigrant yourself, you can speak to leadership community networks in, in Maine and how that can help individuals and families?
Ghomri: Yeah, a lot, just if you share your stories with them and journey that you had, and anytime when we have when I have home visit with them, because we have a lot of home visit with them, we’re talking about our stories.
How I was mentioned to it, I was a principal back in Iran and I had my master’s degree, but I never prayed to go to ___ food, and pack food, just work very hard and I’m telling them the same, just they are really frustrated and they are sometimes, they get so emotion, they’re crying and obviously, that is’causeof the barrier language called for shot, not they’re not able to navigate with the system.
But when you out there and telling them that is my story. When I came here, I went back to work, I went back to education, and you will get there. You will be there. So yeah, that is very important. And then at the same time, just , it’s, the difference is it’s here. Some people with the strong but strong educational background.
And then the other one is with zero educational background. That makes your job much difficult. When you know the language and when you just, at least a little bit familiar with technology world. This is the technology world and the thing that they suffered a lot and some of them, they’re dealing with a very little, email address and they do not know how to send an email address and just, but we’re providing with classes for them. Just teaching them and even sometimes you are going to their home and we’re there, just to help them. But they give the cell phone to you and they don’t know how to use the app. They don’t know how to do the online banking. They don’t know how to, just send the documentation to their , the organization that they’re supporting to their attorneys. Who are mostly working with asylum seekers and the attorney is asking for a lot of documentation, pictures and this and that, technology world, it’s not easy for them, but still, just, if your action inspires others, to dream more, learn more, do more. So then became more. It means that you can, you have a good message for your community and you can inspire them in so many ways. I know that they’re frustrated sometimes. And as an example, the immigration system, when they when they’re coming here, some of them even, they do not have their own name and they change their name and then they get frustrated and their name is not matched with their age and their name, their age is not matched with their name, and then social security and, dealing with social security, dealing with the department of Health and Human Services and dealing with the medical system, they became sick, just so tired and anxious, nervous, and, exhausted and but we were there and we’re trying to help them in so many ways.
Not only emotionally, not only, how to navigate with the system that is the most difficult part for them. But just I hope this world, be just like how the birds are migrating, if people, to get to this point, if they get to this point, the migration is not hurting anyone and migration is not hurting any system, anything.
Just for make a world to a better place to live. If they come to this concept, the world will be much better. Look at the birds, they’re migrating. When it’s winter they’re flying. When it’s getting warmer, they’re coming back just for the contribution. Right? And the same as, said, if they do not think that you are coming here, just you are not a terrorist, you are not a danger person, you’re a human.
Humankind, just every, everybody else in this area, we have all of us, regardless of the color, religious, ethnicity, background, we have just one type of blood and it’s red.
Eric Miller: Yeah. Thank you so much Ghomri I can’t imagine something more isolating or intimidating than trying to navigate a foreign bureaucracy.
So having those resources are invaluable for people new to an area. Oyi it sounds like you were quite the beneficiary of this cultivated community. Would you like to share you shared a little bit about how you benefited and had support. Would you like to share some of your experience with the leadership and community networks with folks who are new to Maine or anywhere?
Oyi: Like I said, when I introduced myself, I was trying to find a job as a new immigrant, but of course I didn’t have a green card. So I was looking for an employer who could file for me. And like I said, even though I didn’t get that eventually I got support from Empowerment Network . As to connecting with people who were in my field.
And I feel like every immigrant has a story. they have a story of how they started and how they got to where they are now. And I always tell people who just move into the country who have had the opportunity to know maybe back from Nigeria, that, you have to be patient with the process because it’s a process, it doesn’t happen overnight and you have to just be patient with it.
And if you stick through the process, you eventually find it rewarding. And that is what I have realized in my own journey as an immigrant. It was tough at the beginning because I had a master’s degree. I sat for the New York BAR exam, but I couldn’t work with it because I didn’t have a green card, and it was really frustrating. I had to go back to community college, the degree, yeah. There’s no, you can’t knowledge, no knowledge is wasted, so I won’t say that I didn’t gain from that, but eventually that was like an associate degree. I already had a master’s degree. So at the end of the day, it was just like, let me just do something to be in status.
But so at that point it was frustrating us. And if you’re not careful, you may feel like, oh, you’re not good enough. You may begin to doubt your worth. You may begin to say, oh, my friends they pass the by exam. They’re working with a law firm. Now what am I doing?
But at the end of the day, everybody’s story is different. Everybody’s story is unique and you just have to believe in yourself and know that it’s a process. And, being an immigrant everybody has to go through it. Everybody has to go through it. As an immigrant, whether you come in as a refugee, whether you come in as a student, everybody has to go through that process, that was what I was able to benefit from the, this network of amazing women. I was able to meet people. I was able to meet people that were like me, that I could share my story with, that I could hear their own stories, which, eventually encouraged me to keep pushing. And I think that is what is important for, moving forward for people to be able to come together as immigrants, as Americans, to support each other, to keep each other going that, okay, you’ve got this, there’s light at the end of tunnel, at the end of everything you’re going to be better for it. So I feel that was one very important thing that I gained from the network, and I feel it should continue, and I feel every immigrant should be encouraged and should know that at the end of the day, you are, you’re going to go, you’re gonna get to where you want to go to eventually.
Eric Miller: That’s great.
And to bounce back from that adversity after passing the BAR exam and being, hitting that administrative wall that forced you to adapt is very impressive, and the yeah the message is very powerful.
Laura and Bethany, you each had quite a bit of experience working with new Mainers. I would love to get your perspective on, on, on leadership and community networks and Laura, would you like to start?
Laura: It always resonates me when somebody says to me, particularly new Mainers will say, oh, you’ve done so much for me. You’re so amazing. Look at all the things you’ve done. How could I do this without you?
And I just, it, it’s always makes me uncomfortable to hear that because I know what I have gained from, the richness I have gained from having such a diverse group of friends and learning people’s culture and just seeing things through their eyes when they come here. Moving anywhere new is so difficult, but then you add the lack of the language and just how to navigate anywhere in this country, particularly Maine, of course we’re talking about, and I just feel like I, I want to tell people how much they have to gain by reaching out. Just like how Parivash’s neighbor, thought that she was a terrorist. And we have, people have these bias and these stereotypes, and once they actually get to know someone, it’s hard to have that same feeling about them when you become friends with them.
And I feel like when we take the time to truly connect with others and learn about them, there’s no longer, and us and them, it’s just us. And that’s really what this world needs right now. I just feel so grateful to have the ability to connect with people from other nations. When I grew up here in Maine, there, there was nobody from other nations in the Portland area really, very few .
I went to a pretty big high school and it was a very white high school. So our world looks very different now. Again, I have an African son, it’s just made things so much better and our family to have so many other people from other nations be his big brother, his auntie, his, really connecting with others.
So I just wish everyone could feel how wonderful it is to truly make our world a little bit smaller and to connect with people that we really don’t think we have anything in common with, ’cause we do. Absolutely.
Eric Miller: Bethany, do you have anything to add?
Bethany: I feel like I’ll probably reiterate like that connection is just where it’s at.
People have to build relationships. I would say like the distressing, situations like Ghomri’s describing and just the challenges people have and just getting to the point where you’re like, is this even worth it? What am I doing here? Having. Being there, being able to be there for people is a gift.
It’s a gift to us. I know it means a lot, like people will say like we’re their American family and that benefits everyone involved. But I can also say, so that sounds beautiful. I can also say it like breaks my heart and I know Laura would say the same thing, you just get to a point sometime, you’re like why are these things the way that they are?
And it’s hard to have this conversation without naming that our immigration system is broken and it’s created by a system of white supremacy and it, it can’t be a white person in this conversation without saying that It’s painful to see where we’re at and I don’t know the way out unless people choose to connect. What I can say is that many of the cultures that share our community now in Portland have such strong cultural concepts of community that I think we can learn from. And people already if there weren’t all these barriers, if there weren’t all the barriers to working, barriers to language barriers if life wasn’t so difficult I, and we didn’t make it so difficult, our system didn’t make it so difficult for people.
Even they’re, just ready to get in there and be community and give back and work even sooner. So we’re talking about yes, it’s beautiful when it happens, and then there’s also this like unsaid piece that I feel like we haven’t addressed it. Like it can happen sooner. We need to, be advocating for changes to make this not so complicated and not so charged politically and stuff like that.
That might be a bit off topic. I feel like that has to be said that we have to work for a change.
Eric Miller: It’s all relevant. Thank you. Thank you both so much for your perspectives on this issue as well. As we close out in our final question here, I do you have any quick thoughts for budding young leaders in this space?
And any advice or short stories that would you think that they’d find beneficial? Parivash? We’ll start with you again.
Pavarish: I think few things I would like to stress. One is of course, to listen and to learn as new leaders. That’s very important to listen because sometimes we think we are leaders.
Everybody else has to listen to us, and we don’t have anything to learn from others if we feel that we are leaders. But really, as a good leader, you have to be listening and also being open to learning. Another thing is really I feel that the leadership, as I mentioned before, is about others. It is not about us.
So if we are good leaders, we are not creating followers, but we are creating leaders who would be leading, because, I mean, the global community is full of leaders who have followers, but we don’t see changes happening in our community because people blindly following these leaders without knowing where they are going.
And also to give vision and inspiration to people who are with collaborating as supposedly leaders with people who we cross path, it is important to do, be intentional that they become leaders and we all actually empowering other people and creating resources in the community because if we are just thinking about us and our own leadership, nobody is there to step up for taking the role of leadership in the future.
I think really those are among the thing that those think it is important. And one last thing doesn’t have anything to do with leadership, but I always say if I die and they dissect me, they never going to find a gene that say, para honey was Iranian. No gene would indicate that we are all human. So what they find is just indicating that I’m another human like anybody else.
So I think it is important to remember that we are all more interconnected, more interdependent than we think we are. We have, and that’s why really connecting with people no matter where they come from. And connecting and forming relationship doesn’t happen going to the lecture, listening to podcast, it happened at each other’s kitchen, sharing food and being together and celebrating important things.
Recently I dropped my phone in somewhere that it was not very nice, but Laura supported me, and she stayed with me till my husband go and get something to fetch the cell phone. So those are the things that, make our friendship and connection stronger, and I don’t think Laura is going to let me forget it because she texting me and she says, take care of your cell phone from Parivash.
Laura: I’ll never let you forget that.
Pavarish: No.
I want to say that I have a lot of trust in this younger generation, really wherever I go, if I don’t see young generation among people, I say something is wrong with this picture because this younger generation is the generation that is going to lead global community.
They have it right. We just have to support them and accompany them and let them know that they are doing great thing, really. I mean, I mentioned few things, but I really, I think this younger generation know it all. They know how to lead. They have proved it in many areas that they know. They know the priority.
Eric Miller: That’s great. Thank you for the story. This is great. Ghomri, do you have anything you would like to say about young leaders
Ghomri: Yeah. For young leaders? Yeah, absolutely. Always your action is louder than your talk or your speak. When you inspire others, as I said, as I mentioned before, when you inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, became more and this one will have to be done by your action.
So it means you are Good leader. And at the same time to me, just because after Covid, you know that 4 in 10 household have lost their job, their business, and they reduce wages and hours, and the rate of the death. And then the young generation are fortune afraid. They are home right now and they’re always on technology and technology is good. It’s so many ways, it’s very beneficial, but at the same time, the communication, it’s getting, it, the skills, communication skills get lost. And we have to, and then the the empathy, the compassion we have to take them out and, just pull them, they, their commitment, and confidence, commitment, communication. To me, those are really important and we have to work on this one, in this area .
Eric Miller: That’s wonderful. Thank you so much. Laura, quick if you have any thoughts about young leaders in the community?
Laura: My only thought really is to just not get overwhelmed with the idea of how can I be a leader? How can I, what can I do? What difference can I make? And, as Parivash said it’s not, leaders aren’t necessarily the ones in charge. They’re the ones maybe just being there for others who want to make a difference. And I think if I had concentrated too much on being a leader, I wouldn’t be doing anything because the idea of having to lead and might be overwhelming to me and thinking, what do I have to offer?
But as we’ve talked about, it’s the little things that can make a difference. If we all make a little difference, what a huge difference it becomes for everyone. So I think it just do something, whether it be learning more about everything from race to different cultures to policies that aren’t helping anyone besides the white man.
I think that everyone can make a difference. So whatever it is, whatever your passion is, even if it’s the environment that affects all of us, whatever your passion is, try and find your way to make a difference.
Eric Miller: Very inspiring. That’s great. Oyi, do you have anything you’d like to mention as we close out?
Oyi: Yeah, I, the only thing I want to add is at the end of the day, everybody is a leader in their own space. And at the end of the day the work of a leader is to serve. And it’s not just, having the title of being a leader. Everyone should be able to have some form of influence in the space that they find themselves.
And once you realize that you have that kind of influence, you want to make sure that you are, you are being the person that you’re treating people the way you want to be treated. That’s like the summary. At the end of the day, everybody is, we’re all human beings. Whether you’re white, whether you’re black, whether you are from Iran, whether you’re from Nigeria, at the end of the day, we are all human beings and we should be able to treat each other with respect, with dignity. And, the world will be a better place if everybody has that understanding. And you if you wanna be treated right, you want to be able to treat people right as well.
And yeah that’s all I have to say.
Eric Miller: Fantastic. It’s hard to close out everything after all those amazing perspectives and insights Bethany, but do you have any thoughts you’d like to share for young leaders or your community involvement as we end here?
Bethany: I would just really echo all of that Ary saying, inspiring people to do more, to act more, to dream big.
Laura’s points about everyone has something to offer and always that people are standing in their integrity and treating others as they would want to be treated. I just think that our definition of leadership has been so skewed. And especially these past few years, like what young people have grown up with and seen as labeled as leadership is horrifying.
That we need to like rebrand. What does it mean to be a leader. And I think it is totally like just back to these basics of treating each other well and focusing in our immediate environments, as Oyi said. We can always branch out from there, but we always have a immediate sphere of influence in our community around us will uplift us to more if they see gifts that you know, like that we can inspire in others. But otherwise, our job, I feel, is to be uplifting those around us.
Eric Miller: That was great parting thoughts. Thank you all so much for joining us today. It a great conversation. And thank you all listeners for tuning in and I hope our panelists enjoyed themselves and have a wonderful rest of their day and we’ll be in touch sometime soon.
Cathy Lee
That was our discussion with the co-authors of the article. And now to our discussion with Cathy Lee. Hello, Cathy, welcome to the podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you.
Cathy: Thank you, Eric. It’s wonderful to be here.
Eric Miller: So you helped start the Empowered Network in Maine, and could you touch a little bit on your personal professional history?
Cathy: Sure. I grew up in Lewiston and in those days the ethnic community, that was the target of a lot of hostility were French Canadians. I was surrounded by that whole dynamic. I eventually moved to Brazil for a year in high school through a program that Maine has, or Maine. And the most northeastern state in Brazil are sister states and the program still exists.
And that was my first real international experience that is being in another culture ’cause I went to a place where no one spoke English at that time. So I, after two weeks of not saying anything to anyone, decided I better try to learn this language. And I did. And it just, the experience of living in another culture as part of that culture just opened up the world to me.
So that was a really important event in my life. I came back, went to college, left college, went back to Brazil, went to law school in Brazil for a while. came back finished college in New York City, went to law school, and then became a sex crimes prosecutor. And I think in addition to the language and opening up the world, the experience in Brazil also strengthened my sense of being a very committed feminist.
Watching the way women and girls were , and living the way they were treated there made me very clear about what I believe. So I worked as a sex crimes prosecutor in New York City for three years and then moved back to Maine. Got married, actually got married, commuted for four years, and then moved to Maine with some reluctance because I had experienced Maine as boring, as not diverse as, just limiting. That’s how it felt to me for many years growing up. But we moved to Portland and I’ve made a really exciting and interesting life for myself. I spent 13 years at Bernstein Shore, one of the big law firms in Portland, and then worked for a few more years managing the main office for a New Hampshire law firm, and then decided I want to do something else, more international, more entrepreneurial work, where I feel every day what I’m doing is making a difference.
And I started to focus on climate change and that’s still the work I do as a lawyer. But I also in 2010, felt it’s time to stop traveling because a lot of my work was in Southern Africa. The climate work and spend a little more time in Maine. That was the year my father died and I felt like he did so much for the community.
I need to do more and I need, but I needed to do something from me that was based on what I had to offer. And one of the first things I did was start a program called Justice for Women. And it’s a program that brings some dynamic leader from the developing world, from the global south to Maine every year for a week.
And the woman gives a big public lecture that’s free. In fact, this year, it’s April 26th at Hannaford Hall and spends the rest of the week meeting with different communities. And what inspired me was watching the demographic change in Maine and realize there were women in African dress walking up and down the Franklin arterial and traditional Mainers look at these women and they have no idea who they are. They make assumptions that they’re victims or that they’re ignorant or uneducated. And I knew just from all the travel I’d done that there are so many amazing leaders out there around the world, particularly in Africa, in Southeast Asia, and parts of the world that people in Maine don’t get to experience for the most part.
And I ought to bring some of those women that no one’s ever heard of here and put them up on a stage, have them meet with members of different communities as a way of trying to show that, first of all, there are incredible women leaders from some of the very places that we have asylum seekers and refugees, so don’t make assumptions.
Second, they’re all activists. They’re all outrageous, strong, active. And I thought by bringing them here, it can help to send the message that everybody can be an activist in their own backyard. You just need to find your inner courage. So I think it was through that, that I met Mufa lo and just thought she was one of those incredible women who has yet to grow into her own.
This was years ago here in Maine, has yet to be recognized for the strength and the courage and just. Her ability to lift others up. And the same the, so we got together and decided we need to find ways to bring main women, white women together with the immigrant women in the communities and get to know each other and get to help each other.
And it really is helping each other, that those of us who have a lot of, let’s say social capital, can open doors for some of the women immigrants, but they can show us other ways of looking at the world also and how to be courageous and so on. So that’s how we met and decided we would start this thing to get women, to give women an opportunity to know each.
Eric Miller: What a beautiful life story. Thank you so much for the work that you’ve done. And if you’ve made this far in the podcast you have heard the discussion we had with the panelists earlier, and you can see the dividends that were paid in, the relationships they formed based on your work, and truly incredible. And to this day are regularly in contact with each other and building those community ties. And we touched a bit on community and leadership in their discussion, and I’d really like to hear your perspective on the qualities in the leader or when you first met Mufalo, hat were some of the things that spoke to you as this individual is, has the potential to be a leader, and what are some tools of engagement? If people are looking to get more involved themselves, what can they do as well?
Cathy: I think the first thing is don’t make assumptions. Don’t think, you know who this woman is. And that’s one. Number two, whether it’s in employment or in friendship or in any other context, give these women a chance to show who they are, because so often they’re limited in what their opportunities are and they just don’t get a chance.
And when they do Mufalo, Ghomri, like Parivash like so many other women, they flourish. But part of the issue is often give them an opportunity to show you who they are. So that’s one piece of advice I think, in one of the early years when I brought. I, when the speaker was from Zimbabwe, I remember years ago, and she led an organization, this is the Justice for Women’s Speaker.
She led an organization in Africa in 17 countries that worked on food security. So we used that opportunity to raise an issue of child hunger in Maine. So try to always connect the speaker with an issue of importance in Maine. And the Empower Network, which was still very much active in those days, gave a dinner at somebody’s apartment.
And there were maybe 25 women who were all crowded into somebody’s living room. Everybody brought food that they had made from their own country. And we went around the room and these women, there was a dental surgeon. I mean, they were just incredible and they were stuck in these. Dead end jobs for many that hadn’t yet learned enough English, which is almost always number one challenge to integrating into the workforce, into society.
But they were just something I saw in Mufa and I see in all of these women strong, courageous, have the ability to persevere in the face of the most incredible challenges. And, but people don’t know that about them. Each one has her own story of difficulty in just getting here and trying to make it here, and they just don’t give up.
And another year we had a. A justice women speaker from India, who is one of the worldwide leaders in the movement, a against sex trafficking. And at one point she made a state, made a comment saying, courage is contagious. And I thought, oh, I love that. That’s great. It turns out it was actually Gloria Steinem, who said it, who’s a good friend of ___, but the dean, oh, I didn’t say before that when I created the program Justice for Women, I took it to the law school and said, would you like the law school to be the home for this program? I’ll raise money for it and I’ll put the community piece together every year. But the public lecture, it will all be identified with the law school. So it’s been at the law school .
So every year the dean of the law school gives a Courage is Contagious Award, and this year it’s going to two immigrant women who were part of those who I met through those that, that early networking that the Claudette and Mickey, who are co-founders of in Her Presence, which is a fantastic program in the greater Portland area that helps immigrant women with all sorts of things from English to employment and so on.
So they’re going to get the award this year very much deserve and they just capture. Leadership as Mufa does, just being able to show by example, lift other people up and get help. People just have the courage to keep going.
Eric Miller: That’s wonderful. And so many insights and your just casually trafficking so many groups and events as well.
And I would love to hear, so April 26th is there’s an event going on there if you’d like to remind us what that is. So if people would like to attend, they can. And I’d also love to hear about any ideas you have or for the future of your own work or any other type of initiative or advocacy that you’d like to highlight before we, we close out here.
Cathy: Okay. The Justice for Women Week is April 24th to the 28th. The lecture, which is Wednesday evening, Hannaford Hall 7:00 PM and it’s open free, but you have to register. So I sent you the link, Eric, just so you could see what the program is. I don’t know if there’s a place for you to post it, but if people just want to Google Justice for Women Main Law, they’ll go right to the link.
And our speaker this year is a very courageous journalist from Brazil. Who was targeted by the former president on social media. And she just embodies all of those qualities. And the rest of the week we’ll be going to high schools during high school where she’ll be meeting with a group of 30 plus recently arrived Lan minors who are asylum seekers who speak Portuguese like she does.
And we’re going to Brunswick High School, so we have a whole week of events. But the public lecture we’d love to have people come and join us. April 26th, Wednesday, 7:00 PM Hannaford Hall, just Google Justice for Women Main Law and you can. You can sign up. One of the things I haven’t mentioned two things I wanted to mention that the, in addition to just becoming friends with so many immigrant women, in addition to the ones I’ve mentioned, Saia Khalid, who’s in Lewiston, and Betty and Vicki and some of the other women from the South Sudanese community, Angela and Dina from Bangor, Deka Dak, who we supported going to emerge and she then ran for office and was mayor of South Portland now is in the legislature. So many amazing women who’ve come into their own. But I’m also on the board, I’m actually currently serving as vice president of the board of the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center. And we just got an earmark thanks to Representative Pingry substantial amount of money to develop a program called Women Lead.
And we’re going to be working on this very question of women and leadership under the direction of Raza Jali, who’s the executive director there. But I’m very excited about the work that the Great Appointment Immigrant Welcome Center is doing, and the opportunity gives me to try to continue to offer so, So watch for those programs.
It’s, there’s an English lab, small business hub, but the Women Lead program is going to be something I hope will be a national model.
Eric Miller: Oh, that sounds amazing. And we’ll definitely keep tabs on that going forward. And I’ll put link in the description of this episode for the event as well. Great.
And so we are very grateful for the work that you’ve done. Very impressive. And look forward to yeah, like I said, keeping tabs on this new women lead group that’s going to be established. And we really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today.
Cathy: Thank you for the work that you do. I think it’s great that you take the time and make the effort to give an opportunity for these women to speak.
Eric Miller: It is our pleasure. You can also livestream the Justice for Women Lecture if you are interested and cannot attend or prefer to watch it online
What you just heard was our panel discussion with Parivash Rohani, Laura de Does, Ghomri Rostampour, Oyinloluwa Fasehun, Bethany Smart, and Cathy Lee about community, engagement with New Mainers, and leadership. Maine Policy Review is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center.
The editorial team for Maine Policy Review is made up of Joyce Rumery, Linda Silka, and Barbara Harrity. Jonathan Rubin directs the Policy Center. A thank you to Jayson Heim and Kathryn Swacha, scriptwriters for Maine Policy Matters, and to Daniel Soucier, our production consultant.
In two weeks, we will be covering Richard Barringer’s Lee Schepps, Tomas Urquhart, and Martin Wilk story of Maine’s public reserved lands.
We would like to thank you for listening to Maine Policy Matters from the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. You can find us online by searching Maine Policy Matters on your web browser. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow us on your preferred social media platform to stay updated on new episode releases.
I am Eric Miller–thanks for listening and please join us next time on Maine Policy Matters.

S3E5 200 Years of Maine’s Forests: Navigating Vacationland

On each episode of Maine Policy Matters, we discuss public policy issues relevant to the state of Maine. This episode covers an article by Lloyd C. Irland, author of five books, fellow of the Society of American Foresters, and participant in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and National Assessment on Climate Change. Irland gives us an inside perspective on Maine’s Forests from 1820-2010 in his article titled, “From Wilderness to Timberland to Vacationland to Ecosystem: Maine’s Forests, 1820–2020”. This article was published in volume 29, number 2, of Maine Policy Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center. For all citations for data provided in this episode, please refer to Lloyd Irland’s article: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1863&context=mpr
Transcript
This is the Maine Policy Matters podcast from the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. I am Eric Miller, research associate at the Center.
On each episode of Maine Policy Matters, we discuss public policy issues relevant to the state of Maine. Today, we will be covering an article by Lloyd C. Irland, author of five books, fellow of the Society of American Foresters, and participant in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and National Assessment on Climate Change. Irland gives us an inside perspective on Maine’s Forests from 1820 to 2010 in his article titled, “From Wilderness to Timberland to Vacationland to Ecosystem: Maine’s Forests, 1820–2020.” This article was published in volume 29, number 2, of Maine Policy Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center. For all citations for data provided in this episode, please refer to Lloyd Irland’s article , which can be found in the episode description.
Want to know the history of Maine as a vacationland and how the forest has changed over the last 200 years? Lloyd Irland has some answers.
The story of Maine’s forest has many themes across American economic history, including technology and markets for wood products, labor-management conflicts, financial technology, and logging equipment to name just a few. Irland touches on these topics by focusing on how Maine’s forests have changed over time. He examines many aspects of Maine’s forests, and in this episode we focus on Maine’s forest at statehood, as timberland, as part of Vacationland, and as ecosystem, and carbon sink.
Maine had a rough start at its statehood. Communities were trying to restitch a political society after three devastating events: Jefferson’s embargo, the War of 1812, and 1816—the “year without a summer.” Two years of unprecedented harsh weather brought famine to the countryside and stimulated significant outmigration. In1820, most of Maine’s population of 300,000 people lived along the coast and by a few inland rivers . In rural areas, many people spent some part of a year cutting wood. 1820s Mainers preferred fishing and lumbering to establishing farms, which they say contributed to the slowing down of Maine’s development as a state.
In 1820, Maine’s land was 92% forests (only 1% of which was managed for timber),11% wetlands, 4% farmland, and 1% urban. In 1829, Moses Greenleaf, one of Maine’s earliest cartographers, predicted a future in which Maine’s northern forests were replaced by thriving farms and small towns along with managed woodlots and town forests. But a combination of events, including transportation revolutions, westward migration, and new agricultural technology, meant Maine’s farm economy was short lived. World War 1 caused crop prices and Maine’s farm economy to crash. The final blow to Maine’s farm economy came with a new invention that replaced horses: the tractor. The demand for hay, which had supported many marginal farms, virtually disappeared. As farmland areas continued to shrink in response to its diminished competitiveness, plowland and hay fields shifted first to pasture, then went back to scraggly, uneven forests. Between 1920 and 2020, Maine’s farmland dropped from 10% of the state’s total acreage to 2% and forestland increased from 76% to 89%.
Before Maine’s first legislature met, 9.8 million acres of Maine had already been sold or granted away in the Bingham purchases and royal grants. This meant that Maine forests were already owned by mostly out-of-staters. In 1820, 6.6 million acres of mostly forest land were in the settled towns and plantations. In the Act of Statehood, Maine and Massachusetts split 5 million acres of surveyed public lands into two roughly equal parts. This act ended Massachusetts’s interest in Maine lands with a buyout in the 1840s. Between the 1840s and 1870s, public lots in many wildland towns were held in common and undivided tenure with the majority owners and never laid out on the ground. Statewide after 1880, the Maine forest gained some 4 million acres through natural reseeding, which led the forest to return as a timberland.
Historians say puritanical New Englanders thought that sport fishing and hunting were for ne’er- do-wells; hard work was king. However, this idea began to shift in the late nineteenth century when resort hotels along the coast and the lakes became popular, marking the shift to Maine as Vacationland. These hotels began to sprout in Rangeley and on Moosehead Lake. Prosperous families summered at high-ceilinged hostelries with captivating views and access to public transportation. The Boston sports participated in a genteel culture of small sporting camps with their guides, guide boats, and refined fly-fishing techniques. These gentry were also among the first to explore the paths up the region’s peaks to see the views. Irland names three events that solidified Maine’s status as Vacationland. The first was union membership, the 40-hour week, and higher wages in manufacturing. The second was widespread auto ownership. Blue-collar families now had the means and the time for enjoying activities that were once reserved for the wealthy. Returning GIs in the late 1940s sought well-earned peace and recreation in the forests and brought the kids along. Many were used to camping out and preferred the outdoor air to the Brahmin atmosphere of the old and costly hotels. Third, the turnpike and the Eisenhower era’s interstate highways trimmed travel times dramatically. The gateways to the Northwoods became busy on summer weekends and during hunting season.
Only a few of the big resort hotels survived the Depression and WWII, which led to more people camping in the Maine woods and eventually purchasing land for camps. This caused people to resort to tenting, then camping with travel trailers, and eventually purchasing land like homes and lots. Rafting and canoeing also increased and caused some conflict. Groups jostled for places at crowded put-in points on major wilderness rivers. Allagash paddlers sought more solitude and fought bitterly against access points that might allow motorized canoes to disturb their peace. Managers of Baxter State Park struggled to contend with large groups holding parties atop Katahdin in defiance of regulations designed for a more conservative age. The age of snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles brought baffling new conflicts to both private and public timberlands managers, now rebranded by the tourism industry and outdoor magazines as the wilderness. For the first time, recreationists were traveling the Maine Woods in numbers, and many did not like what they saw. The wildlands people remembered from childhood visits was now full of large clear-cuts with little evidence of regrowth or care for long-term sustainability or for the forest as home for wildlife and fish.
By the 1980s, it was clear that vacationland, timberland, and the wilderness did not always comfortably coexist. Wealthy individuals were buying large lots on mountainsides and lakefronts. This threatened to change the view and restrict public access. By the 2010s, hunters were reporting that the extensive road network spawned was shrinking. Roads were blocked and reverted to shrubs; bridges were being removed, and old hunting haunts could no longer be reached on wheels.
During the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century, timber harvesting in Maine was relatively benign compared to today’s technology. Amazingly, crews with horses or oxen logged the steep upper slopes of major mountain ranges, even building flumes to run logs to drivable water. Logging and roading wasn’t seen as a threat to Maine’s regrowing forests and its ecosystems. But with the beginning of ecological research in the 1970s,, researchers began to dig more deeply into Maine’s ecosystems. They uncovered disturbing facts about the effects of insecticides on birds and the effects of intensive harvesting on soils. Naturalists noticed that some rare species were in danger of disappearing. Conservation efforts are now focused on keeping track of a list of federal and state threatened and endangered species and their habitats.
In the twenty-first century, Maine woods came to be threatened by global change: the warming climate and its ominous implications. Changing temperatures, longer growing seasons, lower snowfall, and more frequent intense storms are likely to shift habitats for many trees, shrubs, animals, and associated creatures. Economic effects will not be far behind. Now, scientists and managers are trying to understand how forests can be managed to store more carbon, and how they might better adapt to the changing climate that lies ahead. These problems are more complex and difficult than many realize. To date, much of the discussion has been at the level of vague and unhelpful generalizations. The knowledge base is so limited that virtually every constructive suggestion is promptly attacked by skeptics.
After reviewing two centuries of Maine’s forests, where does it stand now? Irland writes, [quote] “Today, Maine’s forest is nearly as large as it was when captain John Smith first gazed on it in 1614…to this day [Maine’s forests] remain largely in private hands”. For a century and a half, Maine citizens and successive governments welcomed new mills, dams, power facilities, and railroads as tokens of progress and improved life prospects for Maine people and for immigrants as well. Interregional and international changes in demand, competition, and technology have brought creative destruction to the doorsteps of Maine’s small farms, mill towns, and rural communities, and the entire forest. In mill towns, local civic and economic development groups struggle to find new manufacturers or other occupants for the vacant spaces and to create new housing projects, to bring a few jobs, pay taxes, and provide community stability. The days when passive state and federal governments could gaze calmly over Maine’s forest as it shifted from wilderness to timberland to vacationland and to an ecosystem and carbon sink have passed. We are only beginning to learn how our forest—the backdrop of Maine’s 200-year history as a state—can continue to produce the benefits.
In 2020, private owners still owned large swaths of the wildlands, though some had sold development rights in the form of easements. Offshore capital, nontransparent investment funds, and a few wealthy individuals joined the roster of timberland owners. Public and conservation ownership now accounts for 20 percent of Maine’s land area, an amazing accomplishment, born of intense effort in less than 30 years. Additionally, key reaches of Maine’s re-engineered rivers, especially where dams blocked migratory fish, have been restored to free-flowing condition. Yet, the recent rearrangements of ownership and expansion of conservation interests have not led to full agreement on the larger purposes of all this activity.
Irland concludes by asking his audience to contemplate the following questions,
“Have these changes been done to retain wood production potential and a basic industry? To conduct re-wilding as some advocate? To preserve deer or canoeing opportunities? To preserve scenic views from the decks of high-end homes on mountain view lots?”
What you just heard was Lloyd Irland’s perspective on Maine’s changing forests from 1820 to 2020. Maine Policy Review is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center.
The editorial team for Maine Policy Review is made up of Joyce Rumery, Linda Silka, and Barbara Harrity. Jonathan Rubin directs the Policy Center. A thank you to Jayson Heim and Kathryn Swacha, scriptwriters for Maine Policy Matters, and to Daniel Soucier, our production consultant.
In two weeks, we will be commemorating Women’s History Month by hearing from the authors of an essay titled, “Our Path: Empower Maine Women Network and Leadership”.
We would like to thank you for listening to Maine Policy Matters from the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. You can find us online by searching Maine Policy Matters on your web browser. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow us on your preferred social media platform to stay updated on new episode releases.
I am Eric Miller–thanks for listening and please join us next time on Maine Policy Matters.

S3E4 Antiracist Public Policy in Maine: Reflecting on a Troubling Past for a Better Future

Trying to understand the history of race and public policy in Maine? Today we will be covering James Myall’s arguments on active antiracism to improve the lives of people of color and correct historic wrongs.
You can find Myall's article here: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mpr/vol29/iss2/4/
Transcript
Trying to understand the history of race and public policy in Maine? Today we will be covering James Myall’s arguments on active antiracism to improve the lives of people of color and correct historic wrongs.
This is the Maine Policy Matters podcast from the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine . I am Eric Miller, research associate at the Center.
On each episode of Maine Policy Matters, we discuss public policy issues relevant to the state of Maine. Today, we will be covering an article by James Myall, he is a policy analyst at the Maine Center for Economic Policy, who focuses on health care, education, and the inclusive economy. Myall gives us an inside perspective on  his article entitled “Race and Public Policy    in Maine: Past, Present, and Future.” This article was published in volume 29, number 2, of Maine Policy Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center. For all citations for data provided in this episode, please refer to James Myall’s article in Maine Policy Review.
Myall identifies four factors that contribute to racism and public policy. These are Constructing Whiteness, Second-Class Citizenship, Discriminatory Drug Policy, and School Segregation. First, let’s go back to 1867. In 1867, a heated debate raged in Maine’s legislature and filled newspaper columns across the state. Advocates for Black rights wanted to repeal the state’s long-standing ban on interracial marriages, but opponents rejected the “mixing of the races,” often citing racist theories of white genetic superiority. The Portland Daily Press in 1897 reported on February 4 that people who opposed the repeal were afraid that if families were allowed to have mixed children, that “there will be no Caucasian society left.”
Mainers like to think of themselves as being on the right side of history when it comes to racial justice. Maine entered the union in 1820 as a free state and was home to several abolitionists. Abraham Lincoln appointed one Mainer, Hannibal Hamlin, as his first vice president and
Another, Oliver Otis Howard, to lead the Freedman’s Bureau. The Maine legislature had just recently ratified the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution in the 1860s. Despite this progress, they stumbled at the idea of interracial marriage. The 1867 attempt to end the ban on interracial marriage failed, and Maine’s anti-miscegenation would not be repealed until almost a generation later in 1883.
Myall claims that “This episode is a stark reminder that Maine’s record on racial discrimination is not as clean as conventional wisdom would have us believe. It is easy for residents of northern and western states to assume that racism was largely, or even entirely, confined to the South.”
For example, between 1790 and 1970, the US decennial censuses recorded Maine’s population as at least 99 percent white. As recently as 2018 Maine has 93 percent of its residents identifying as white non-hispanic.
Myall identifies two ways that Maine has been harmful to nonwhites. The first is explicit racism. An example of this would be the prohibition on interracial marriage. The second is implicit discrimination and unintentional harm. Myall cites this discrimination affected not only Black and Indigenous populations, but also groups whose whiteness was questioned, such as Irish and French-Canadian immigrants, and Jewish peoples.
It is important to look at Maine’s past to better understand current policies and the future of Maine’s legislation. The effects of historical racist policies like banning interracial marriages causes a ripple effect through generations. Children inherit the negative impacts of historically exclusionary policies, and so do their grandchildren. Nationally, white families have 10 times the wealth of black families, with this gap being wider in some local areas
To understand historic racism, we have to look at how whiteness was constructed. Myall believes that we need to understand the historic definitions of race. These definitions have changed over time because race is a social construct. The decennial census has categorized Americans into at least 14 different racial and ethnic categories in the past 220 years. In early censuses, Americans were divided between “white” and “colored,” with the definition of colored being somewhat ambiguous.
An example of this in Maine are Acadians in 1764 and 1765, once deemed “French Neutrals” after being evicted from what is now Nova Scotia. Acadians were not the only group considered to be only partly white, or white in an inferior sense. Other immigrant groups were also deemed lower status. In Maine, Irish and French-Canadian immigrants suffered discrimination alongside people of color, though generally not to the same degree. Maine’s Jewish community was seen as both religiously and racially distinct.
Another aspect of Maine’s history with discrimination is the second-class citizenship status of nonwhite groups. The 1890 Census found that among men aged 21 and older, just 3 percent of native-born white Mainers with native-born parents were illiterate, compared to 12 percent of those with foreign-born parents, 25 percent of those who were themselves born abroad, and 38 percent of Mainers of color. The literacy amendment did specify that voters who were already registered could keep their registration without passing the literacy test, which was for first-time voters only. However, 1893 also saw the creation of local voter registration boards, which had the ability to remove voters from the rolls and make them reapply.
Discriminatory drug policy is something that greatly affects nonwhite communities today. Black Mainers are six times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Hispanic white Mainers.This disparity has a long history, extending back at least as far as 1840 when the US Census Bureau began tracking rates of incarceration. Throughout Maine’s history, people of color have been incarcerated at much higher rates than white Mainers. Maine’s recent experience with decriminalizing cannabis hints at one possible way to tackle these disparities. However, there are deeper inequities to address in Maine’s criminal justice system. Once arrested, Mainers of color face harsher charges and sentences. A recent report by the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments found that Mainers of color, especially Black Mainers, were more likely to be charged with serious drug offenses.
Segregation in schools also has roots in Maine. The right to public education has been enshrined in the Maine Constitution since 1820, but its provision has not always been universal or equitable. Maine towns with Black communities often created segregated school systems. Such separate schools were found in Portland, Brunswick, Warren, and Machias when white residents objected to their children attending integrated schools. In Atusville in Machias, the Black community established its own school in 1853 after their children were attacked by white students for trying to attend the local school.
Economic hardship also limits children’s access to education. While Maine had some early laws limiting the use of child labor and punishing truancy, the laws were irregularly enforced until federal legislation outlawed child labor. For many low-income families, the decision to send a child to school meant losing an income. Economic necessity likely depressed school enrollment among children from immigrant families and families of color.
Today, Mainers of color still face educational disparities. Black, Latino, and American Indian students graduate high school at lower rates than white Mainers.  Black and Latino students in the University of Maine System are also less likely to graduate within six years of enrolling than white students White K–12 students in Maine are one-and-a-half times more likely to be enrolled in AP classes than Black students, while Black students are two-and-a-half times more likely to be suspended.
So, what can Maine lawmakers do to change the course of Maine’s public policy towards more racial justice? Myall concludes with the following message:
To truly achieve racial justice in Maine, policymakers need to be deliberately antiracist, with actions that work to overturn more than two centuries of harm. Lawmakers need to recognize the legacy of this harm and the need for targeted policies that repair it. Lawmakers need to continue to ensure that people of color aren’t left out of broadly progressive economic measures like the minimum wage. Lawmakers need to be keenly aware that legislation can have racist effects even without racist language or intention and to consider the racial impact of new policies. Antiracism requires consistent and deliberate work, but it is possible. Mainers deserve no less.
What you just heard was James Myall’s perspective on the history of race and public policy in Maine. Maine Policy Review is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center.
The editorial team for Maine Policy Review is made up of Joyce Rumery, Linda Silka, and Barbara Harrity. Jonathan Rubin directs the Policy Center. A thank you to Jayson Heim and Kathryn Swacha, scriptwriters for Maine Policy Matters, and to Daniel Soucier, our production consultant.
In two weeks, we will be covering Llyod Irland’s piece entitled, “From Wilderness to Timberland to Vacationland to Ecosystem: Maine’s Forests, 1820–2020.”
We would like to thank you for listening to Maine Policy Matters from the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. You can find us online by searching Maine Policy Matters on your web browser. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow us on your preferred social media platform to stay updated on new episode releases.
I am Eric Miller–thanks for listening and please join us next time on Maine Policy Matters.