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Happy Wednesday.

In the Age of Convenience, just about anything can be delivered directly to your door. You can work from home. With supplemental vitamin D, you don’t even need to go out of doors. (For some reason, I see images of Morlocks and Eloi. Nevermind.)

Well, Tremont’s volunteer firefighters got a taste of that convenience this week, when a Tesla driver pulled over in front of their fire station moments before the sedan’s high-voltage battery ignited, the irony of which wasn’t lost on them. The department luckily had a good-sized arsenal for dealing with electric vehicle fires and extinguished the blaze, but not before it did a number on the Tesla.

And speaking of fire, that great blazing ball in the sky will become partially shrouded by the moon today. The eclipse will begin in Bangor just before 1 p.m. and peak at 1:53 p.m., when nearly a quarter of the sun will slip behind the moon. The celestial show ends in the Queen City at 2:49 p.m.

Enjoy the show. We won’t see a total solar eclipse until the 2070s, an awfully long time to wait.

Housing for homeless in Bangor moving forward despite push back

Michael Myatt, executive director of BangorHousing, walks through the new construction of Sunridge Senior Housing, a 50-unit senior living complex on Sunset Avenue in Bangor on Sept. 24, 2025. Credit: Linda Coan O'Kresik / BDN

Bangor City Council on Monday approved a property tax reimbursement for a 30-unit housing development for homeless residents. The project, Yellen Pines, will offer studio apartments for people who have been chronically homeless in Bangor with 24/7 services on-site to help residents get healthcare and substance-use treatment and readjust to living indoors.

The project is being primarily funded by a state grant, but it’s been delayed due to difficulties finding enough money. The tax credit agreement will help bridge the funding gap, with the city reimbursing 75% of the property taxes paid by the Yellen Pines facility for a 30-year period.

During Monday’s meeting, Councilor Michael Beck noted that the city wouldn’t get any tax revenue from the property if it remains empty.

One resident speaking out against the tax agreement suggested that the people who would be housed at Yellen Pines are “individuals who have no hope of recovery,” while another said she was worried about pedophiles living in the apartment building. 

Mike Myatt, CEO of the Bangor Housing Authority, later approached the public comment podium to state, “we will not be housing pedophiles at Yellen Pines.”

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From the Opinion Page

Jazmin Evans, a student at Temple University, prepares her post-kidney transplant medications at home in Philadelphia on Feb. 16, 2024. Evans had been waiting for a new kidney for four years when her hospital revealed shocking news: She should have been put on the transplant list in 2015 instead of 2019 — and a racially biased organ test was to blame. Credit: Tassanee Vejpongsa / AP

“Currently, 62.4% of all patients on the national organ transplant waiting list are members of communities of color and are at risk of death.”

Opinion: Organ donation can especially help communities of color