PORTLAND

LaMoria will be sworn in as city’s fire chief Thursday

Jerome LaMoria will be sworn in as the city’s 14th fire chief during a ceremony at 2 p.m. Thursday in the State of Maine Room at City Hall.

LaMoria, 50, will oversee 234 professional firefighters and civilian employees and a $16 million budget.

Previously, LaMoria was the training and exercise coordinator for Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department in Maryland.

For more than 25 years, he was a professional firefighter with the Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department, which has a career force of 765 and nearly 1,000 volunteer personnel. He was the acting deputy fire chief of emergency operations when he retired in November 2011.

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His father, Norman, a 50-year firefighter and fire chief in Newfane, Vt., will pin on LaMoria’s badge during the ceremony.

City Manager Mark Rees conducted two nationwide searches before choosing LaMoria, who was unanimously confirmed by the City Council last month.

 

Detours on Outer Congress will continue through Friday

Traffic on outer Congress Street will be detoured through Friday because of a utility project.

Unitil’s contractor, NEUCO, will finish a new gas main at the Congress Street-Johnson Road intersection.

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These detours are set up:

• Outbound traffic on Congress Street must turn right onto outer Congress Street and detour around using the Skyway Drive Overpass.

• Inbound traffic on Congress Street can only turn left.

• Inbound traffic on Johnson Road will be prohibited from turning left onto Congress Street.

• Any vehicles using City Line Drive must use the Jetport Access Road.

Crews will work around the clock until Friday afternoon.

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BOOTHBAY HARBOR

Series of public forums on lobster industry starts

A series of forums seeking public input into the state of the Maine lobster industry got under way Tuesday with a meeting in Boothbay Harbor.

Maine fishery officials plan 16 public meetings through January in coastal towns from York to Machias.

Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher said he’s seeking ideas from people in the lobster industry about the harvest, prices, Maine’s relationship with Canada, the state’s marketing strategy and the lobster licensing system.

The industry was thrown into turmoil last summer when a lobster glut caused prices to fall, and Canadian lobstermen blocked truckloads of Maine lobsters from being delivered to Canadian processors.

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The schedule of all the forums is posted on the Department of Marine Resources’ website: http://www.maine.gov/dmr/LobsterIndustry.htm.

BAR HARBOR

Florida woman, 19, rescued from mountaintop in Acadia

Authorities say a teenager from Florida was rescued from atop a mountain in Acadia National Park after suffering from hypothermia and other medical issues.

Supervisory Park Ranger Richard Rechholtz said the 19-year-old woman was not properly dressed for the temperatures when the 911 call came in about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Her name was not made public.

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The rescue efforts were hampered by deep snow and high winds. She and a male companion were flown to a Bar Harbor hospital.

Rechholtz told WABI-TV that as many as 50 people were at the top of Cadillac Mountain on Tuesday morning to watch the first sunrise of the new year. Many of them helped the woman before rescuers arrived.

BANGOR

Canadian man pleads guilty to smuggling meth into U.S.

A Canadian man pleaded guilty Wednesday to smuggling thousands of methamphetamine pills into the U.S. over the border at Calais.

Charles Maillet, 49, of Dieppe, New Brunswick, entered the plea at his arraignment in U.S. District Court on a charge of importation of 500 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing methamphetamine.

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Maillet was remanded into the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, according to court records. He faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison and as much as life.

The federal Department of Homeland Security had Maillet on a watch list because he was suspected of smuggling methamphetamine to southern Maine in the seat of his commercial truck. He was stopped on Nov. 22 at the Maine Port of Entry at Calais, according to court records.

A U.S. Customs officer found a methamphetamine pill under the driver’s seat, and a police dog alerted officers to more at the front of the vehicle, court records say.

Officers found four packages in the center console of the vehicle containing about 2,000 methamphetamine pills.

 

Local father, 18, charged in death of 3-month-old

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A Bangor man has been charged in the death of his 3-month-old child.

Police said Wednesday that 18-year-old Dustin Brown has been indicted by a grand jury on a charge of manslaughter.

He’s accused in the Nov. 25 death of Xander Brown.

The Bangor Police Department said it had responded to a home for a baby that was not breathing. The infant was taken the hospital where he died. An autopsy determined that he had died of inflicted trauma.

 

Milo man, 43, gets five years for selling oxycodone tablets

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A Piscataquis County man who illegally dealt thousands of oxycodone tablets over a four-year period was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Bangor to serve more than five years in prison.

Tony Woodard, 43, of Milo was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge John Woodcock Jr. to serve 63 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

Woodward had pleaded guilty to a single count of distribution of oxycodone on Feb. 29.

Court records reveal that in July 2010, Woodard sold 10 oxycodone tablets to an undercover agent with the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency.

The court also found him to be responsible for distributing 3,600 oxycodone tablets over the prior four year period, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

WILTON

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Police arrest man for firing semiautomatic handgun

Police arrested a man who they say fired a semiautomatic handgun during a dispute at a mobile home park.

Timothy Koehler was arrested shortly before 1 a.m. Tuesday at the Arkay Trailer Park.

Police Chief Heidi Wilcox told the Sun Journal that Koehler, 30, was charged with aggravated reckless conduct and domestic violence criminal threatening.

Wilcox said officers responded to the mobile home park in response to a 911 hang-up. Two officers investigated and said they learned that a .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun had been fired during a dispute. No one was hurt.

Koehler is being held at the Franklin County Detention Center.

 


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