AUGUSTA, Maine – Gov. Janet Mills announced Thursday she will nominate Sara Gagné-Holmes to serve as Commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
Gagné-Holmes will face a hearing before the legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee and must be confirmed by the Maine State Senate.
Gagné-Holmes, a Maine native who has served as Deputy Commissioner of the Department for the past five years, has been the Acting Commissioner since June 1, after Jeanne Lambrew stepped down to become the Director of Health Care Reform for the Century Foundation, a Washington-based think tank focusing on research and policy change.
“Acting Commissioner Gagné-Holmes cares deeply about the health, safety, and welfare of Maine people, and she has dedicated nearly her entire professional career to improving the lives of people across this state,” Mills said. “Her deep policy and managerial experience, her intimate knowledge of the department — including both its strengths and its challenges — along with the respect she has earned from her colleagues, lawmakers and others, and her collaborative approach to solving problems make her the right person at the right time to take on this important role.”
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DHHS is the largest department in the Maine state government, with more than 3,000 employees across eight Offices and two psychiatric hospitals.
“The Department has made great strides in advancing our mission of ensuring health, safety, resilience, and opportunity for Maine people. We have more work to do to fully implement our progress, better meet the needs of the Maine people we serve, and continue building trust through listening, transparency, and accountability. I look forward to discussing how we will achieve those goals with the legislature, our many partners, and the public,” Gagne-Holmes said.
Gagné-Holmes grew up in Sanford before earning an undergraduate degree at Bowdoin College in Brunswick and a law degree from the University of Maine School of Law. After law school, she served as a law clerk with the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.
She practiced law with a focus on health care at a Maine law firm before serving as a Health Policy and Legal Advisor in the Governor’s Office under Gov. John Baldacci. She also led work in nonprofit legal services and advocacy at Maine Equal Justice Partners and philanthropy at the John T. Gorman Foundation.
She joined the Maine Department of Health and Human Services in March 2019.
The intersection of Routes 11 and 85, Webbs Mills in Casco, is one of several intersections in the Lakes Region that will receive temporary traffic-calming measures in 2025. Rory Sweeting / Lakes Region Weekly
The Lakes Region towns of Gray, Casco and Sebago will install temporary traffic-calming measures next year as part of a wider initiative to curb vehicle crashes in Maine.
These installations, which will last from June to October, allow planners to test out potential safety measures in the real world, and are part of the wider Vision Zero effort. In development for about a year, Vision Zero is focused on reducing fatalities and serious injuries on Maine’s roadways, with the ultimate goal of eliminating them entirely by 2045.
The Greater Portland Council of Governments has completed two plans as part of this effort. One of these plans is specifically designed for the city of Portland and its surrounding suburbs, while the other, tailored towards rural and island communities, is the basis behind the upcoming Lakes Region projects.
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According to GPCOG Transportation Director Christopher Chop, the new projects are among several traffic-calming demonstration projects that have been implemented throughout the Portland area and some of the surrounding area. Within the Lakes Region, the Bicycle Coalition of Maine previously worked with Gray to install advisory bike lanes as a way to indicate that a street is designed for all modes of transportation.
These pilot projects, both in the urban area and the Lakes Region, will help GPCOG collect data to inform decisions on the most effective measures. Should the measures prove successful, GPCOG plans to replicate them elsewhere. However, if the measures are unsuccessful, Chop hopes that they can understand the reasons why (for example, if they used the wrong tool for the wrong area, or if there were maintenance issues) and avoid them in future projects. These measures, Chop noted, not only make travel safer for cyclists and pedestrians, but for everyone just by slowing traffic down.
The Lakes Region project costs $100,000, funded by a grant from the United States Department of Transportation. Chop said that the temporary measures provide a low-cost opportunity to test out different treatments, as opposed to the more expensive prospect of immediately installing permanent infrastructure. If successful, the GPCOG could look to provide permanent infrastructure to make the region safer.
“In the long run,” Chop said, “the Greater Portland Council of Governments and the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation System … both are very committed to the Vision Zero effort, and there’s a number of different strategies to make our roads safer for all transportation users.”
Public reception to the traffic-calming measures has been mixed. While the measures were only recently made public in Gray, Town Manager Michael Foley noted that over the years, many residents have been pushing for safety improvements, and that they will be designed and shared with the public before being put into place. In Casco, Town Manager Anthony Ward said that while some in the town are very supportive of the measures, others are a little more hesitant because a previous traffic-calming effort was not well received.
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However, Ward remained optimistic and said, “There was some hesitation about (the measures), but I think the vast majority will support (them).”
Ward also noted that since most of the roads in Casco where the temporary measures will be implemented are state highways, full implementation would take place in conjunction with the Maine Department of Transportation.
The efforts in Gray will focus on the area of Gray Village where three state highways converge, and will likely involve West Gray Road, Portland Road, Yarmouth Road, Main Street, Shaker Road and Brown Street. While Casco has not finalized the areas in which the measures will be implemented, it also plans to focus around the village, with some of the proposed areas including Pike Corner, Webbs Mills, and Cook Mills. Sebago will see measures implemented in East Sebago Village, Mac’s Corner, and a 2-mile section of Route 11 connecting the two areas.
BANGOR, Maine (WABI) – One local organization is looking to improve the holidays for hundreds of veterans in the Greater Bangor area
The Maine Veterans Project hosted their Thanksgiving distribution event this morning from 8am until 12pm at their office in Bangor.
Any veteran in the Greater Bangor area was welcome to stop by and get some food for free to help feed them and their families this Thanksgiving.
Meals were also delivered to those who couldn’t make it to the event in person.
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Over 200 large bags of non-perishable food were available as well as turkeys, milk, eggs, burgers, and bacon.
They also had some cold weather gear available to those who needed it including jackets, socks, and gloves.
Hermon elementary school students also made some heartwarming cards for the veterans who would be picking up food at the event.
Maine Veterans Project vice president Anthony Murano said their goal was just to help as many veterans as they could.
“As you can see we do have a lot of moving parts going on out here. Today is our Thanksgiving distribution event, and the goal of today is to feed as many veteran’s families as we possibly can for the Thanksgiving season. We do have a small food pantry that we do keep stocked throughout the year, so if we have any vets that are looking for a little food assistance, we can help in that aspect,” said Murano.
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Maine Veterans Project partnered with several local businesses and organizations to help make this event possible including Evan’s Veterans Project and the Not Your Average Nurses Foundation.
And for more information on everything that the Maine Veterans Project does, you can visit maineveteransproject.org or check them out on Facebook.
Erik Stevenson was fouled making a 3-pointer and completed the four-point play with 3.5 seconds left to lift the Capital City Go-Go to a 96-93 win over the Maine Celtics on Sunday at the Portland Expo.
Stevenson finished with 36 points for Capital City. Ruben Nembhard Jr. added 13 points. 14 rebounds and seven assists, while Michael Foster Jr. had 14 points.
Ron Harper Jr. had 21 points and six rebounds for the Celtics. JD Davison added 11 points and 10 assists, while Baylor Scheierman finished with 16 points and six rebounds. Drew Peterson scored 18 for Maine.
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