Immigrant rights advocates, faith leaders, and local officials gathered at Portland City Hall on Thursday to launch the Maine ICE Watch Hotline, a new statewide tool created to verify reports of immigration enforcement activity and connect immigrant families with resources and support. The hotline — (207) 544-9989 — is a project of the Maine Immigrants’…
As Portland Mayor Mark Dion and the Portland City Council begin their work, I pulled out for discussion below the best ideas of those most recently running around housing affordability and the environment. I do this in the hope that if we highlight their good ideas, they will feel even more empowered to pursue them.…
Fifteen years ago, I was sitting in my office at LearningWorks (a not-for-profit organization that helps break the cycle of poverty through education) when a man with dreadlocks walked into my office looking for resources to send kids of color to summer camp. I don’t think I was able to help him in that moment,…
Many people believe the mayor of Portland holds little power. But that’s not true. The power of the office is not what it should be, to be sure. But the position provides ample tools for a mayor interested in making significant change for the people of Portland. As the official head of Portland’s policymaking body…
Two weeks ago, the Portland city council killed an effort by Mayor Kate Snyder and the Greater Portland Chamber of Commerce that would have undermined our citizen initiative effort. I wrote about the mayor’s proposal a while back, but just to recap, it would have allowed city staff to block an initiative prior to even…
As Maine has become more diverse, with a small but growing immigrant population, Pious Ali has seen a gap emerging. Ali, who is originally from Ghana and serves as a Portland city councilor, is the founding director of Portland Empowered — a group that seeks to ensure student and parent voices are heard within Portland…
A Portland City Council committee recently voted to support an effort in the Maine State Legislature to defund a state police agency critics say infringes on Mainers’ rights to privacy and freedom of speech. Earlier this month, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers led by state Rep. Charlotte Warren (D-Hallowell) introduced a bill to cut…
This week on the Beacon podcast, Esther Pew and Mike Tipping discuss the new milestones in vaccinations in Maine, even as rates of shots tick downward and some clinics close. They also discuss systemic racism and police accountability, from the Derek Chauvin verdict to the collaborative newspaper series shedding light on misconduct among Maine troopers.…
Maine’s attorney general, state lawmakers and criminal justice reform advocates welcomed news Tuesday afternoon that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been found guilty on all charges in the murder of George Floyd but said the verdict remains far from addressing the history of how Black and brown communities have been violently policed. “It…
Leaders in the Maine immigrant community came together in an online meeting Wednesday to celebrate the end of former President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban and to discuss how the policy impacted them, members of their community and Muslims around the world. The conversation came after a recent executive order issued by President Joe Biden rescinded…