PORTLAND — The city and the Maine Department of Transportation will be making changes to some problematic city streets this summer during paving projects on outer Congress Street, St. John Street, and Park Avenue. Outer Congress Street will be reduced to two travel lanes and a center turning lane in the area around Hobart Street, […]

PORTLAND — City officials and developers are expected to move the Williston-West Church redevelopment project to a Planning Board public hearing Tuesday afternoon. City staff supported the project, which would turn the sanctuary into a community center and performance hall. The parish building would be used as offices for the staff of a software company […]

YARMOUTH — Alan Stearns believes “land conservation is growing up.” Stearns, the executive director of the Royal River Conservation Trust, spoke as he followed a trail May 18 at the Spear Farms Estuary Preserve. Maine’s many land trusts, and their volunteers, can’t operate “in bake-sale mode for the next 50 years,” Stearns said. “Bake-sale mode […]

PORTLAND — Maine’s biggest city will celebrate Memorial Day with its annual parade and a baseball game this year. The parade, sponsored by the Harold T. Andrews AMVETS Post, steps off at 10:30 a.m. at Longfellow Square and winds down Congress Street to Monument Square, where a memorial ceremony will take place with speeches and a […]

PORTLAND — The city is making a renewed push to engage businesses with a series of initiatives aimed at economic development and job growth, and a new director of planning and urban development. Mayor Michael Brennan unveiled the projects in a press conference on May 16. They include loan programs aimed at expanding local businesses, […]

PORTLAND — The City Council approved a $206 million budget for fiscal 2013 on Monday night with little discussion or debate. Among other things, the budget includes a 40 percent hike in the cost of hourly parking at two city-operated downtown garages. “That concludes our work on the budget and results in passage of the […]

SOUTH PORTLAND — “For more than a decade, Tony Vigue has been the go-to person when people in Maine need advice about starting a public access station. He is unfailingly helpful and devotes a lot of his own time to answering questions and providing technical expertise.” That’s how Shoshana Hoose, former manager of TV3, Portland’s […]

The Forecaster’s Mario Moretto spoke Sunday morning with Thema Ponton of News 8 WMTW about the Maine Mall’s plans to open a farmers market in a parking lot this summer. If things go as planned, it will be the second summer farmers market in the city.  Tune in to WMTW every Sunday morning at 7, […]

PORTLAND — Police divers Tuesday found the body of a Cambridge, Mass., man missing since early Sunday morning. The body of Nathan Bihlmaier, 31, was discovered by a Maine State Police diver in the water near the Custom House Pier at about 11:45 a.m., Police Chief Michael Sauschuck said at a press conference a few blocks […]

SOUTH PORTLAND — The city is distancing itself from a lawn-care company that may have sprayed chemical pesticides on turf designated for organic care. Purely Organic Lawn Care of York Harbor has been the city’s pest-control provider for the Wainwright Recreation Complex and the high school fields since at least 2008. Now, because of an […]