Kids take a few extra runs Friday at Spruce Mountain Ski Area after a Maine Cabin Masters renovation reveal in Jay. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

JAY — Spruce Mountain Ski Area directors on Friday afternoon held a reveal to showcase changes made by “Maine Cabin Masters,” a company and reality TV show.

About 100 community members and town officials waited more than half an hour to walk up to the renovated lodge to tour the inside.

The lodge now features an updated sign welcoming skiers. The inside is brighter with new windows and the smell of new wood greets those entering. The ski trails are illuminated with vibrant lighting. A large granite stone is in back of the lodge.

Attendees were cautioned several times that photos or videos could not be taken or shared on social media before the episode airs. Ron Jacques, president of the ski area, said the show will air the end of February or beginning of March. A date is not known yet, he noted.

In November 2023, the ski area was undergoing a generational transition, Jacques said. More volunteers and donations were needed to maintain the ski slope, which is owned by the towns of Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls.

It was announced in August that Maine Cabin Masters had agreed to help the ski area with needed renovations. The work began in September and when asked about an update on the project then, officials with the company indicated they preferred not to and wanted to wait until the reveal.

The “Maine Cabin Masters” film crew takes footage of the public Friday as they enter the Spruce Mountain Ski Area lodge for the renovation reveal in Jay. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

“This is an exciting day,” Sarah Delaney of Livermore said while walking up the roadway. “It is big news.”

“It’s pretty special,” Justin Shink, a board member from Livermore, said inside the lodge. “Having grown up skiing here, seeing the transformation, the work keeping the ski slope open for generations is awesome. My kids ski here.”

“It is beautiful, what they have done,” Terry Bergeron, a Jay selectman noted. “It is much different, much better.”

Gary Desjardins of Livermore, who is on the OTIS Federal Credit Union board that donated $10,000 toward the project, said, “I am representing the credit union. It means a lot to me, a lot to the community. OTIS needed to contribute. It’s all about the kids. They use this place. It is quite wonderful.”

“What is neat is all the old pictures of skiers,” Jim Manter of Livermore noted. “The new view with the granite stone on the back side is a nice touch of nostalgia. It touches with the history of the founders of the ski mountain, the ski slope. I last skied here in 1974. It is quite a change.”

Emma DiPompo of Jay is manager of the ski area. “I am so excited to work in a place like this,” she said. “I would have worked here anyway but it is so cool, so different. So much has been done. So many people donated. So much got done in a short amount of time. It’s like 40 years of renovations in a summer.”

“It’s really nice,” said Hannah Burhoe of Jay, who is the lift operator. “The lift will be easier to operate.”

Jeanne Chretien admires the renovated Spruce Mountain Ski Area lodge Friday during the Maine Cabin Masters reveal in Jay. Chretien says she learned how to ski there. “We were here every Wednesday night in high school, skiing under the lights.” Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Jeanne Chretien of Turner, who grew up in Livermore Falls, said, “I learned to ski at Spruce Mountain Ski Area.”

“I taught my kids to ski here. My great-nieces and nephews ski here now. I skied here every year in high school. I am in my 50s now. I have many great memories. I knew all the original people involved. Jimmy Morrill was in my class,” she said.

Chretien said during high school she was at the slope when it was open — every Wednesday night and on the weekends. “If you skied, this is where you were,” she explained. “There were a lot of great ski teams. I watched it grow from the bunny tow to the upper slopes. We called the lodge the hut.”

“It is beautiful,” Chretien said. “I am so happy for the younger generation to have all the amenities that they have put in. I was fortunate to grow up in a small town like this. It is so nice to come back and see people I have known all my life.”

“Maine Cabin Masters” airs Monday nights at 9 p.m. on the Magnolia Network. More information may be found on their Facebook page.

Children of members of the board of directors of the Spruce Mountain Ski Area grab a table Friday in the lodge at the Maine Cabin Masters renovation reveal in Jay. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

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PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A pair of conservative groups on Friday challenged a Maine law that limits donations to political action committees that spend independently in candidate elections, arguing that money spent to support political expression is “a vital feature of our democracy.”

Supporters of the referendum overwhelmingly approved on Election Day fully expected a legal showdown over caps on individual contributions to so-called super PACs. They hoped the referendum would trigger a case and ultimately prompt the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify the matter of donor limits after the court opened the floodgates to independent spending in its 2010 Citizens United decision.

The lawsuit brought by Dinner Table Action and For Our Future, and supported by the Institute for Free Speech, contends the state law limiting individual super PAC donations to $5,000 and requiring disclosure of donor names runs afoul of that Citizens United legal precedent.

“All Americans, not just those running for office, have a fundamental First Amendment right to talk about political campaigns,” lawyers wrote in the lawsuit in federal court. “Their ‘independent expenditures,’ payments that fund political expression by those who are not running for office but nonetheless have something to say about a campaign, are a vital feature of our democracy.”

Cara McCormick, leader of the Maine Citizens to End Super PACs, which pressed for the referendum, said the lawsuit attempts to undermine the will of the people after an overwhelming majority — 74% of voters — approved the referendum last month.

“Super PACs are killing the country and in Maine we decided to do something about it. We want to restore public trust in the political process,” she said. “We want to say that in Maine we are not resigned to the tide of big money. We are the tide.”

But Alex Titcomb, executive director of Dinner Table Action, argued Friday that the government “cannot restrict independent political speech simply because some voters wish to limit the voices of their fellow citizens.”

Named in the lawsuit are Maine’s attorney general and the state’s campaign spending watchdog, the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices. The ethics commission is reviewing the complaint, said Jonathan Wayne, executive director.

The Maine referendum didn’t attempt to limit spending on behalf of candidates. Instead, it focused on limits on individual donations to super PACS, an area the Supreme Court has not ruled on, observers say.

Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig, a longtime advocate for campaign finance reform, contends the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue of individual contributions to PACs, and long-established case law supports the notion that states can limit individual contributions to PACs despite a decision to the contrary by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Lessig, whose Equal Citizens nonprofit backed the Maine referendum, previously said the cap on donations imposed by the referendum “is not asking the Supreme Court to change its jurisprudence, not asking them to overturn Citizens United.”

The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com

Phil Coupe is a co-founder of ReVision Energy.

Recent concerns about rising utility bills overlook and misconstrue the proven benefits solar policies deliver to Maine’s economy and environment. Multiple independent studies of Maine’s solar net metering policy have found that the benefits of solar to ratepayers significantly outweigh the costs, while increasing the Dirigo State’s energy independence and resilience.

Maine’s renewable energy industry contributed more than $2.3 billion, or almost 3 percent, of Maine’s total gross state product in 2022. With more than 15,000 workers statewide, our clean energy industry is a significant job creator, and we have the fastest-growing clean energy economy — as measured by new job creation — of any New England state.

It’s important to note that Mainers export $4 billion per year from the local economy to import expensive, finite, single-use fossil fuels from away. Every time we invest in a locally built renewable energy project, we keep our energy dollars in the Maine economy, creating long-term energy independence and resilience to the negative impacts of a rapidly changing climate and worsening storms.

As a Maine-based company, ReVision Energy has firsthand experience with how solar energy positively impacts our economy and local communities. Since its start in Liberty in 2003, ReVision has grown into a 100 percent employee-owned solar company with nearly 300 Maine co-owners providing clean energy solutions to local homeowners, schools, municipalities, and businesses. These jobs not only include installers of solar arrays, heat pumps, battery storage and electric vehicle charging stations, but also engineers, project developers, and roles in service, IT, finance, marketing and sales.

The renewable energy sector’s growth throughout the state has also created work for Maine-based subcontractors, electricians, and equipment suppliers from Kittery to Caribou. We hear a lot about the solar industry being entirely out of state, but the truth is that many of us live, work, play, raise families and add to the economy right here; we are your neighbors.

Our state’s investment in solar energy not only helps ensure that our children and our grandchildren can enjoy the same clean air and water that we value today, but it also saves money immediately and over time by allowing homeowners and businesses to lock in predictable energy costs. There is no question that some Maine businesses are facing rising energy bills due to multiple factors including complex national and global fossil fuel market forces. The responsible approach should be to seek collaborative solutions rather than pointing fingers at solar energy. ReVision and our colleagues in the renewable energy industry, like the Maine Renewable Energy Association, are doing that work before the Maine Public Utilities Commission right now.

Twice now the PUC has commissioned studies on the costs and benefits of solar to Mainers and both studies clearly show that the benefits of solar, including reduced energy costs, outweigh the costs.

Maine’s rising electric bills are not caused by clean energy. To the contrary, solar, wind and hydro power act as a reprieve to the rising cost of fossil fuel energy, while delivering significant economic stimulus to Maine and protecting the environment. Energy storage solutions are also poised to positively impact our local economy with the announcement that the largest battery in the world will be built at the former location of a paper mill in Lincoln.

Let’s not risk the progress we’ve made by singling out a critical sector that provides good-paying jobs and long-term savings for Maine families and businesses. Instead, we should work together to ensure that energy policies remain equitable and effective for all Mainers. By protecting and improving solar energy programs, we ensure a more prosperous and sustainable future for our state.