The Maine Monitor

Monitor Local is a reporting initiative to meet the local information needs of people in towns across western and downeast Maine with public service reporting on town council meetings, school budget debates, zoning conversations, tax deliberations and more. It functions alongside The Maine Monitor's investigative and in-depth reporting to serve the people of Maine. LUBEC — Residents will not be billed for emergency services from the Fire Department in the next fiscal year.

Monitor Local is a reporting initiative to meet the local information needs of people in towns across western and downeast Maine with public service reporting on town council meetings, school budget debates, zoning conversations, tax deliberations and more. It functions alongside The Maine Monitor's investigative and in-depth reporting to serve the people of Maine.

Monitor Local is a reporting initiative to meet the local information needs of people in towns across western and downeast Maine with public service reporting on town council meetings, school budget debates, zoning conversations, tax deliberations and more. It functions alongside The Maine Monitor's investigative and in-depth reporting to serve the people of Maine.

In the “frontier county” of Piscataquis, there’s generally one rule of thumb for anyone trying to make a difference in the lives of its 17,000 residents: Be creative. In one of the largest counties by land area east of the Mississippi River with a population smaller than the city of Bangor, the most vulnerable people aren’t living in encampments or hanging out downtown or sleeping at a shelter.

Monitor Local is a reporting initiative to meet the local information needs of people in towns across western and downeast Maine with public service reporting on town council meetings, school budget debates, zoning conversations, tax deliberations and more. It functions alongside The Maine Monitor's investigative and in-depth reporting to serve the people of Maine.

Candidates for the Maine Legislature have to file personal financial statements ahead of the general election that disclose how they and their spouses make money. But in a quirk of state law, the same is not true for candidates running to be Maine’s next governor. Personal financial disclosures are a common campaign finance requirement in states across the country that help voters assess public officials’ and candidates’ potential conflicts of interest.

A 26-year-old Colombian man named Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Monday morning while driving in Biddeford. Authorities have released little information about the incident. As of July 16, no video footage had emerged showing the shooting itself, but the sound of gunshots can be heard on neighbors’ Ring cameras and video footage shows the man’s body later being pulled from his car. The officers were not wearing body cameras.

Local, state and federal authorities are all involved in investigating the fatal shooting of a Colombian man by a federal immigration agent in Biddeford earlier this week. But details about their process and timeline, as well as how well federal investigators are sharing information with Maine authorities, remain sparse. The man, who has been identified by immigration advocates and family as 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, was shot in his car around 7:17 a.m. on Monday.

This story appears as part of a collaboration between The Maine Monitor and Maine Focus, the investigative team of the Bangor Daily News, a partnership to strengthen investigative journalism in Maine. You can show your support for this effort with a donation to The Monitor. Read more about the partnership. An oil spill discovered in the Kennebec River in Clinton in late April came from the Skowhegan paper mill up the river, the U.S. Coast Guard found.

Monitor Local is a reporting initiative to meet the local information needs of people in towns across western and downeast Maine with public service reporting on town council meetings, school budget debates, zoning conversations, tax deliberations and more. It functions alongside The Maine Monitor's investigative and in-depth reporting to serve the people of Maine.