🩹 Safety concerns at Maine psychiatric hospitals go before lawmakers.
◉ Members of the Legislature's watchdog panel will review a request for a review of safety concerns and other issues at the state-run psychiatric hospitals in Augusta and Bangor at a meeting on Wednesday. Read it.
◉ The request came in May from Sen. Mike Tipping, D-Orono, and Rep. Amy Roeder, D-Bangor, the co-chairs of the labor panel, which heard graphic testimony from workers on assaults as well as concerns about staff recruitment and retention. Tipping and Roeder are requesting a review of those issues as well as staffing levels at the two hospitals.
◉ Violence in the hospitals has been a long-term issue that grabbed headlines early in the tenure of former Gov. Paul LePage, leading to reforms that included a mental health unit at the Maine State Prison in Warren. A 2014 lawsuit from an employee who was stabbed while pregnant by a patient asserted that the state could have done more to protect her.
🔌 Republicans rally opposition to proposed electric vehicle rules.
◉ The Maine Republican Party is whipping opposition to a set of electric vehicle rules put forward by environmental groups ahead of a Thursday hearing at which the Maine Board of Environmental Protection will gather public feedback.
◉ The rule drive is being led by the Natural Resources Council of Maine, which used a little-known process to advance proposals that would push Maine toward adopting California rules on passenger vehicles and trucks. A board appointed by Gov. Janet Mills will consider the requests, and the governor's office has said Maine should not let actions by other states drive the process.
◉ The state party asked its supporters to sign a petition against the new rules in a Monday email: "If you don't weigh in, you could find yourself in an unreliable, expensive electric hunk of junk soon," Joel Stetkis, the chair of the state party, wrote. |
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