Like a true rite of spring, the opening of Stutzman’s Farm Café & Brick Oven Bakery on Friday, April 5 ushers in the beginning of the farming season. This third generation family farm located at 891 Douty Hill Road, enters its sixth season as a field to fork restaurant and its 40th anniversary since operators Sid and Rainie Stutzman took over the family farm.

Mayo Regional Hospital has announced four community forums to provide updates and answer questions regarding the potential merger with Northern Light Health, a statewide health care system. The forums will be held in four of the 13 towns that make up Hospital Administrative District (HAD) 4 and will provide an opportunity for citizens in the district to learn more about what a merger might mean for the hospital and local access to quality care.

The 2019-20 academic year budget continues to be developed by district officials, but SAD 4 is scheduled to receive approximately $234,000 more in state subsidy than for the 2018-19 Superintendent Kelly MacFadyen reported during a March 12 meeting at Piscataquis Community High School.

With the HAD 4 board of directors voting 15-3 last month to start a merger with Northern Light Health, Mayo Regional Hospital officials are looking to hold four public information nights across the region to share details of the process and hear from residents and answer their questions. One session is tentatively scheduled for 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 2 in the Morton Avenue Municipal Building Gymnasium.

The Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Office plans to keep its patrol division housed in Guilford at the former primary school building -- the law enforcement space more recently was the home of the SAD 4 administrative office suite -- for another three years after the county commissioners approved extending the space lease through the end of 2022 during a March 5 meeting. A formal document should be signed during an upcoming session.

Sen. Paul Davis, R-Sangerville introduced LD 555 “An Act To Reduce Colorectal Cancer Incidence and Mortality by Updating Screening Coverage” late last month to the Legislature’s Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services Committee. With this bill, Sen. Davis hopes to remove the reference to the minimum age at which insurance companies must cover colorectal cancer screenings.

After discussion that day about issues facing young adults and what can be done, Mills encouraged those present to go back to their schools and form a Positive Action Team. “Our group thought if kids had more positive things to do then maybe they would not turn to drugs,” Keane said. The teams have caught on.

An act of the Legislature is needed if Mayo Regional Hospital’s merger with a statewide health care system is to go forward in the way administrators at the Dover-Foxcroft hospital are proposing. But no legislator from Piscataquis County has publicly committed yet to sponsoring the legislation that would eliminate the charter the hospital has operated under since the 1970s.

On Feb. 27 the board that oversees Mayo Regional Hospital (Hospital Administrative District 4) voted 14-2 to tax the 13 communities it serves should it need to in order to balance its debt service. Two board members abstained and one member was absent.

The public board that oversees Mayo Regional Hospital has voted to begin a merger with Northern Light Health, the statewide health care organization that’s based in Brewer and includes Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. The board members, who are elected from 13 Piscataquis County communities served by the hospital and who oversee a quasi-municipal entity known as Hospital Administrative District No. 4, approved the merger agreement in a 15-3 vote during a meeting Wednesday night, Feb. 27.

Maine's highest court has denied another appeal of a Guilford man convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend and the toddler she was babysitting. Jeffrey Cookson sought a new trial for the 1999 killings in Dexter based on a provision of Maine's DNA statute.

Each month outstanding pupils in grades 5-8 at Piscataquis Community Elementary School are honored as Students of the Month. The 15 February honorees were presented with certificates in front of their peers during morning meeting in the cafeteria on Tuesday, Feb. 26.

The public board that oversees Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft will vote Wednesday on whether to go forward with a proposed merger with Northern Light Health, the statewide health care system that’s based in Brewer and includes Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

A few significant projects in Senate District 4 include bridge replacement on Route 150 in Athens, highway construction and rehabilitation on Route 6 in Abbot and bridge improvements on Pleasant Street in Milo.

On Wednesday night, Feb. 27, following months of due diligence, planning, and gathering public input, the board that oversees Mayo Regional Hospital (Hospital Administrative District 4) plans to vote on a non-binding merger agreement with Northern Light Health, a statewide health care system.

If Maine lawmakers pass a bill endorsed by the Legislature’s judiciary committee, pay for jurors in state courts would more than triple, rising to $50 per day -- the same rate paid to jurors by the federal court system.

More than a dozen students in the younger grades at Piscataquis Community Elementary School are now HEROs for their outstanding conduct during the month of January. The HERO honorees were recognized with the presentation of certificates during an elementary-wide morning meeting on Feb. 15.

Directors from Dexter and the other dozen communities making up HAD 4 are awaiting negotiation details between officials with Mayo Regional Hospital and Northern Light Health on a potential merger of the Dover-Foxcroft facility serving the region with the statewide healthcare system, the town council learned during a Feb. 14 meeting.