Alna has been so good to her, Deputy Town Clerk Lynette Eastman is almost sad to be retiring.

“Almost,” the former Woolwich and Pittston official repeated, laughing. Eastman, in public service 37 years, leaves the Alna job later this year. Selectmen and others lauded and applauded her Sept. 26. 

The recognition, at the start of the board meeting at the town office and over Zoom, included a detailed recounting of Eastman’s recent, surprise receipt of a lifetime achievement award from Maine Town & City Clerks’ Association.

The town kept the secret a month, including Town Clerk Sarah Perkins’ close call that stemmed from a pocket dial. Perkins was home, working in her barn, when her phone called the phone of Eastman’s husband George, one of the contacts Perkins had made in connection with the surprise. Then Perkins’ phone rang. “And Lynette’s voice was on the other end of the line. She said, ‘You just called this number?’”

Perkins told her the phone just dialed it and she had no idea why. She didn’t think Eastman would buy it. “I thought, ‘Oh, no … we have totally blown our cover.” But the woman Perkins said is very hard to surprise “with anything,” accepted the apparent fluke. 

Eastman said she was very surprised by, and appreciative of, the lifetime achievement award. “I can’t get over it. I really can’t.”

Perkins recalled getting Eastman to go to the event up by signing her up for a class at it. Eastman said she, as a “lame duck” due to her impending retirement, wondered why the town would send her. Perkins insisted she go, saying it was a wonderful class, the two recalled.

Third Selectman Coreysha Stone said Perkins assembled “a crew” of Eastman’s family, friends and past co-workers. Stone said they all hid “behind stage, behind curtains” until the award was announced.

“She has served … with grace, class and professionalism,” Perkins said. “Since 2018, Alna has truly benefited from her hard work and dedication … Lynette, we congratulate you on receiving this award. And though I wish I could keep you forever, Lynette will be retiring in a few short months, and I, for one, will miss her.”

“Well, thank you,” Eastman said. She said of the nomination which officials described as a group effort, “You don’t know how much that means to me … What a shock it was when I heard my name called (at the event) as the honoree … I have never been so honored or so grateful to be working with such thoughtful people. You folks are the best.”

The award came with a certificate and an engraved, handcrafted rocking chair; both are wonderful keepsakes, Eastman said. She noted she and Perkins assembled the “absolutely beautiful” chair Sept. 24.

A letter Stone, board chair Nick Johnston, Second Selectman Steve Graham and former selectman Ed Pentaleri signed as part of the nomination stated, “Although Lynette’s experience and expertise are of the highest order, it’s her character that truly sets her apart … She possesses unwavering integrity and grace, navigating all manner of challenges without drama,” including keeping the office open in the pandemic. 

Eastman was Woolwich’s town administrator from 2007 to 2017 and, before that, its tax collector, according to Wiscasset Newspaper files. 

Also Sept. 26, the board supported a liquor license renewal for The Alna Store; and — pending voter approval of a proposed tap of American Rescue Plan Act funds at a 6 p.m. Oct. 24 special town meeting at the fire station — selectmen nodded a $30,840 bid from Quality Services of Alna for roadwork on Bailey Road.

Ford Enterprises of Houlton bid $78,400, Johnston said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California on Sunday vetoed a bill that would have enacted the nation’s most far-reaching regulations on the booming artificial intelligence industry.

California legislators overwhelmingly passed the bill, called SB 1047, which was seen as a potential blueprint for national AI legislation.

The measure would have made tech companies legally liable for harms caused by AI models. In addition, the bill would have required tech companies to enable a “kill switch” for AI technology in the event the systems were misused or went rogue.

Newsom described the bill as “well-intentioned,” but noted that its requirements would have called for “stringent” regulations that would have been onerous for the state’s leading artificial intelligence companies.

In his veto message, Newsom said the bill focused too much on the biggest and most powerful AI models, saying smaller upstarts could prove to be just as disruptive.

“Smaller, specialized models may emerge as equally or even more dangerous than the models targeted by SB 1047 — at the potential expense of curtailing the very innovation that fuels advancement in favor of the public good,” Newsom wrote.

California Senator Scott Wiener, a co-author of the bill, criticized Newsom’s move, saying the veto is a setback for artificial intelligence accountability.

“This veto leaves us with the troubling reality that companies aiming to create an extremely powerful technology face no binding restrictions from U.S. policymakers, particularly given Congress’s continuing paralysis around regulating the tech industry in any meaningful way,” Wiener wrote on X.

The now-killed bill would have forced the industry to conduct safety tests on massively powerful AI models. Without such requirements, Wiener wrote on Sunday, the industry is left policing itself.

“While the large AI labs have made admirable commitments to monitor and mitigate these risks, the truth is that the voluntary commitments from industry are not enforceable and rarely work out well for the public.”

Many powerful players in Silicon Valley, including venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI and trade groups representing Google and Meta, lobbied against the bill, arguing it would slow the development of AI and stifle growth for early-stage companies.

“SB 1047 would threaten that growth, slow the pace of innovation, and lead California’s world-class engineers and entrepreneurs to leave the state in search of greater opportunity elsewhere,” OpenAI’s Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon wrote in a letter sent last month to Wiener.

Other tech leaders, however, backed the bill, including Elon Musk and pioneering AI scientists like Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, who signed a letter urging Newsom to sign it.

“We believe that the most powerful AI models may soon pose severe risks, such as expanded access to biological weapons and cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. It is feasible and appropriate for frontier AI companies to test whether the most powerful AI models can cause severe harms, and for these companies to implement reasonable safeguards against such risks,” wrote Hinton and dozens of former and current employees of leading AI companies.

On Sunday, in his X post, Wiener called the veto a “setback” for “everyone who believes in oversight of massive corporations that are making critical decisions that affect the safety and welfare of the public.”

Other states, like Colorado and Utah, have enacted laws more narrowly tailored to address how AI could perpetuate bias in employment and health-care decisions, as well as other AI-related consumer protection concerns.

Newsom has recently signed other AI bills into law, including one to crack down on the spread of deepfakes during elections. Another protects actors against their likenesses being replicated by AI without their consent.

As billions of dollars pour into the development of AI, and as it permeates more corners of everyday life, lawmakers in Washington still have not proposed a single piece of federal legislation to protect people from its potential harms, nor to provide oversight of its rapid development.

Copyright 2024 NPR

FARMINGTON — Western Maine Audubon is sponsoring a live talk by Professor Herb Wilson, “Vagrant Birds Seen in Maine.” The free talk is set for 7-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 9, in Thomas Auditorium in the University of Maine at Farmington’s Preble Hall, 173 High St.

Variegated flycatcher Herb Wilson phoyo

Wilson will explore some of the research that has been done to explain vagrancy in birds. Some explanations rely on intentional movements to explore outside the normal range and others involve the effects of storms and faulty navigation. Some of the more amazing vagrants that have occurred in Maine will be considered, according to a news release from Will Jones, Audubon board member.

Wilson is a professor emeritus of biology at Colby College, where he taught ornithology, evolution and diversity, marine ecology, and marine invertebrate zoology. His primary ornithological interests are the impacts of global climate change on bird migration and the foraging behavior of winter birds in Maine.

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For those who cannot attend, the talk can be accessed live via Zoom.

Both postings will be available on the day of the talk. A video will also be recorded and posted on the website.

The link for the sign in will be posted at western.maineaudubon.org and on the Western Maine Audubon Facebook page.

 

Check out other upcoming area events!

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