While no one is saying exactly how it happened, Portland got a new mayor Monday, who is actually the old mayor, Nicholas Mavodones, agreeing to come back for one more turn.

It’s a good move for the city. Portland is in the last year of a nearly 90-year-old form of government, in which the City Council elects one of its members to serve as the council’s ceremonial leader, chairing meetings and representing the city to the public.

Mavodones is well-liked and experienced and should provide a steady hand during a difficult budget season. And he will be a familiar face to representatives of the state and federal government and the business community, with whom the city must interact.

If you’re contemplating a fiscal knot that no single person seems able to unravel, would adding a variety of views to the mix produce results?

That was the idea behind President Obama’s 18-member bipartisan debt commission, which is due to hand down its recommendations Dec. 1.

And it’s apparently what’s driving Gov.-elect Paul LePage’s effort to produce a balanced budget for the state of Maine in the coming fiscal biennium.

Senators should file this one under the heading of “you’ve got to start somewhere,” and pass a moratorium on earmarks, the budgetary device that lets members of Congress steer money to pet projects.

It’s not that banning earmarks would save a lot of money – it wouldn’t. They make up less than 1 percent of federal spending and, even if you eliminated all of them permanently, you would barely make a dent in the national debt.

It’s said that investors can tolerate anything but uncertainty, and that’s what opponents of wind power development appear to be counting on.

After eight years of solid support from Maine’s governor and growing backing of green energy projects in the stimulus bill by the federal government, wind power looked like a good investment to the private sector and a number of projects got under way.