Tens of millions of federal dollars for community projects will not be sent to Southwest and Southside Virginia, or anywhere in the state for that matter, this year. 

Congress passed a continuing resolution in mid-March to fund the government through September and avoid a shutdown, the third such measure in fiscal year 2025. That action will round out a full 12 months of federal funding through stop-gap measures for the fiscal year.

Federal funding that was negotiated in the House and Senate appropriations committees in 2024 for dozens of community infrastructure projects in Southwest and Southside Virginia was halted as a result. Those earmarks could have been included in a federal spending bill if Congress had adopted a budget for the 2025 fiscal year. 

“It is definitely disappointing,” said Lydeana Martin, the community and economic development director for Floyd County. The county had applied for federal money to help extend public utilities to undeveloped land just outside the Floyd town limits to enable more affordable housing to be built there. The county had applied for $1.5 million in federal money. 

“It’s very, very difficult to develop sites and housing that local workers can afford, especially because of our terrain in Floyd and the overall cost of land and development in Floyd,” Martin said. 

From $2 million that would have gone towards upgrades to the drinking water treatment facility in the town of Pound, to $1.6 million that would have gone towards revitalizing a blighted structure into a mixed-use community-focused facility in Danville, to $2.5 million that would have gone toward construction of a health care facility to serve Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County, many localities and organizations are left wondering how to foot the bill for projects meant to improve their communities. 

A rundown of the different projects

Dozens of localities and organizations across Southwest and Southside Virginia applied to receive federal funding for community projects. 

Some of the projects with higher price tags include:

• $7 million requested for Virginia Coalfields Expressway Authority, for the phase II paving project of Corridor Q, U.S. 460 Connector.
• $5.5 million for Roanoke County to expand and pave the parking lot at McAfee Knob and to add restrooms, a shuttle stop and National Park Service signage.
• $4.7 million requested for New River Valley Emergency Communications Regional Authority for their Interoperable P25 Public Safety Communications System Project.
• $3 million requested for the Craig County Emergency Communications Project. 
• $2.75 million requested for the Town of St. Paul, safety building improvements.
• $2.5 million for the city of Lexington, the city of Buena Vista and Rockbridge County to construct a health facility to serve the region.
• $2.1 million for Goodwill Industries of the Valleys to develop a free public high school in Roanoke that provides adults with the opportunity to earn a high school diploma, access higher education and receive wraparound services such as food and child care support.
• $2 million for the Wise County Public Service Authority to upgrade drinking water infrastructure in Pound.
• $2 million requested for a multipurpose facility in Pennington Gap.
• $2 million requested for Virginia Tech to enhance nuclear reactor testing and safety.
• $1.8 million for Dickenson County to support communication infrastructure between first responders. 
• $1.6 million for Danville to revitalize a blighted structure into a mixed-use, community-focused facility with housing and an educational center. 
• $1.5 million for the Economic Development Authority of Floyd County to extend public utilities to an undeveloped area for affordable housing. 
• $1.1 million for the Roanoke Regional Airport Commission to extend the airport’s runway. 
• $1 million to help small businesses within Roanoke’s health and life sciences sector access specialized biotech equipment.
• $772,000 for the Martinsville-Henry County Coalition for Health and Wellness to expand access to medical, dental, and behavioral health services in Patrick County. 
• $683,000 for Lonesome Pine Community Hospital to purchase an Ion Lung Bronchoscopy machine at Norton Community Hospital and Black Lung Clinic. 

Dana Cronkhite, executive director of Dickenson County’s industrial development authority and the county’s economic development director, said the county’s need for funding to complete its project “remains critical.”

“Our current system leaves multiple areas of the county without reliable communication between first responders and dispatch, which includes several of the areas that experienced flooding in February,” she said.

Renee Burton, director of planning for Danville’s community development department, said it was anticipated that the federal money would cover the total cost to rebuild blighted property into a housing and education center. That project has been scrapped, for now, though the city may consider reapplying for federal funding next year. 

In Floyd County, the lack of federal funding has put the effort to extend utilities to develop affordable housing on hold indefinitely. 

“Extending at least public water (and ideally public wastewater) is a foundational piece to being able to do the project. So, no, we cannot move forward with water and sewer expansion until we find funding,” Martin said via email. “Like many small communities, our PSA [public service authority] struggles just replacing and maintaining an old system, so there aren’t resources for expansion.”

Roanoke County Administrator Richard Caywood said the county plans to apply again next year for money to pave and expand parking and add a waterless restroom to the McAfee Knob trailhead, a popular hiking spot that sees about 50,000 visitors a year. 

“We’re still somewhat in limbo,” Caywood said.

What do federal lawmakers think?

Funding for community projects has been included in federal budgets since the first Congress in 1789, with a pause between 2011 and 2021. That pause took place after it was discovered that members from both parties had used earmarks to benefit themselves, rather than the communities they served. After safeguards were put in place, Congress revived the process. 

Every time a new Congress is sworn in, the rules regarding earmarks, also known as congressionally directed spending, can change. The rules or limits regarding earmarks for fiscal year 2026 had not yet been determined by congressional leadership as of Wednesday. 

Different localities and community organizations were able to apply for federal funding in 2024 for projects to be included in the federal budget for fiscal year 2025. Dozens of those projects were accepted, pending the passage of a full budget. A number of applicants were notified at the beginning of March that it was unlikely that the funding requests would be included in the continuing resolution. 

“We were pleased in 2024 when we learned that our senators [Mark Warner and Tim Kaine] had fought hard to include this request in the Senate bill,” said Tom Carroll, Lexington’s city manager, about a funding request for a health care center to serve the Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County region. 

“With the new Congress only passing a Continuing Resolution last Friday [March 14], it is my understanding that this CDS [congressionally directed spending] is effectively dead, and we are very disappointed by this outcome.”

Carroll said the localities plan to move forward with the project, which costs roughly $10 million, and will reapply for federal funding again next year to alleviate some of the financial burden. 

Valeria Rivadeneira, spokesperson for U.S. Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., said that it is difficult to quantify the effect of the lack of spending included in the continuing resolution on a particular region given the “broad nature of these cuts.” She noted that a substantial portion of the $13 billion in non-defense spending that was “cut” in the continuing resolution came from the discontinuation of funding for local projects. 

Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, pushed back against that characterization. 

“While some FY2025 appropriations bills passed in the House of Representatives, which included earmarked projects, currently called ‘community funded projects,’ the U.S. Senate did not move to pass any of them,” Griffith said via email. “Because the U.S. Senate did not move on the House bills, no funding has been enacted or appropriated to agencies on FY2025 community-funded projects. Therefore, the CR that passed Congress last week could not cut funding from these projects.”

In simpler terms: Money for community projects was simply not included in the full year of continuing resolutions passed by Congress for 2025. Rivadeneira argued that House Republicans acted alone and without input from their Democratic colleagues when drafting the continuing resolution. She said, because House Republicans chose to “go at it alone,” that they are responsible for the lack of funding for these projects. 

“We had done all of this work on these community projects and they just struck all of them,” through the lack of inclusion, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said during a roundtable event in Roanoke on March 21. “In Democratic districts, Republican districts, any kind of project, they struck all of them.”

“I’m really disappointed,” Kaine said. “A lot of folks who felt good that we were able to get them commitments now have to postpone for a year, which is very unfortunate.”

The office of U.S. Rep. Ben Cline, R-Botetourt County, did not respond to a request for comment. Cline sits on the House Appropriations Committee. 

In a statement after the continuing resolution was passed, Griffith said that the stripped-down spending bill would deliver critical funding to border enforcement authorities and will help President Donald Trump to carry out his effort to make “government work more efficiently.”

“Hopefully, both the House and the Senate will support bills this year that appropriate funds in the regular order and include community-funded projects,” Griffith said when asked about the lack of inclusion of those projects in the continuing resolution. 

What’s next for these projects and communities?

Some localities and organizations are moving forward with the projects without the federal money. 

The Roanoke Regional Airport Commission chose not to factor in the $1.1 million it requested from the federal government into the airport’s plan to extend its runway. That money would have helped to reduce reliance on aviation funds to secure property for the extension, airport spokesperson Alexa Briehl said. 

Goodwill Industries of the Valleys opted to make cuts elsewhere in its project, a high school for adults opening this year, without the federal money. 

“We are proceeding with the Excel Center even without the $2.1 million in federal funding,” said Chelsea Moran, spokesperson for Goodwill Industries of the Valleys. “However, the school will have reduced capacity for students and staff positions.”

Brad Boettcher, Roanoke’s innovation administrator, said the city opted to hold off on buying highly specialized biotech equipment, which is what the $1 million in federal money would have gone toward. The city plans to move forward with the rest of the project. 

Doug Janz, a spokesperson for Ballad Health, said the health system will be able to purchase a new Ion robotic bronchocopy machine for the Norton Community Hospital’s Black Lung Clinic without the federal money, because the project is self-funded. 

Others have opted to try again next year while looking elsewhere for other funding sources. 

Dickenson County officials are looking into various funding routes, while they plan to apply for congressionally directed spending again for the fiscal year 2026. Funding at the local level for communication infrastructure for first responders is extremely limited, Cronkhite said.

Brittany Anthony, a spokesperson for Connect Health + Wellness, said that the federal money would have helped to renovate and expand the current clinic’s space to serve more people in Patrick County. Without that money, the Patrick Springs clinic remains open, but, Anthony said, the clinic has begun to explore other funding opportunities to support renovations and increase capacity.

And some have considered multiple different approaches. 

Cody McElroy, executive director of the Wise County Public Service Authority, said that the county has been working with the town of Pound to upgrade the water and wastewater systems since 2021, when those utilities were consolidated. 

None of the money the county requested for fiscal year 2025 was received, and it would have made up about 15% of the total price of the project. McElroy said the county and the town will have to scale the work back a bit to make up the shortfall, but it may also apply for federal funding again in fiscal year 2026. 

The post Dozens of community projects halted after federal funding was omitted from Congressional stop-gap spending bill appeared first on Cardinal News.

On January 27, 2025, the White House issued a late-night directive that paused federal grants and funding in order to locate and eliminate “woke” government spending. The pause seemingly included funding for public schools, such as the Farm to School Program that provided schools with locally-sourced food.

It wasn’t long before Jared Cordon, superintendent of a rural school district in Roseburg, Oregon, started receiving calls from concerned community members. “If kids can’t eat, where can I drop a check off?” they asked.

On January 29, the White House rescinded the sweeping pause, after a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration’s order. 

One funding crisis was temporarily averted. But with mounting uncertainty and anticipated cuts on the horizon, rural school administrators are working tirelessly to balance next year’s budget. They do so for the students, families, and faculty who rely on strong public schools — and for their rural communities at large, whose well-being is closely tied to the fate of their local schools.

The Perils of Public School Funding

In addition to the Trump Administration’s chaotic management of federal grants, other funding challenges loom. 

Some rural districts are already facing steep funding cliffs, as Covid-19 emergency funds phase out over the next few years. Other rural districts are set to lose over $200 million of annual federal funding due to Congress’s failure to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools Act (SRS), which helps support school districts in counties with public lands exempt from local property taxes. 

Some states experienced underperforming returns on their Public Employees Retirement System, which will require school districts to make higher payments to the system. Meanwhile, Republican-controlled states continue to push for universal school voucher programs, further diverting critical funds away from rural public schools.

Beyond these immediate funding challenges, even more drastic shifts in federal education policy are unfolding. On March 20, the President signed an executive order to facilitate the eventual closure of the Department of Education. 

Congressional action is required to legally close the department or relocate key programs like Title I funding for low-income students or IDEA funding for special education to other departments. However, the administration already took some actions to slow the department’s ability to distribute these funds by firing half of its staff. It remains unclear what additional actions Education Secretary Linda McMahon will take to further dissolve the department.

A major role of many employees at the education department is to make sure federal dollars reach the right students, said Will Ragland, a former rural public school teacher and former Department of Education employee who now researches for the Center for American Progress, a progressive public policy institute.

“[Federal funding] is intended to target, by-and-large, low-income students and students with disabilities. There are also programs that directly target rural areas, including grants to ensure their transportation needs are met and that rural kids can make it to school.”

Ragland said he worries that programs could meet the same fate as USAID funding, which the White House continues to block, despite numerous federal court orders. The administration has continued to follow the conservative Project 2025 playbook, according to Ragland, which outlines a 10-year phase-out of Title I funding.

“Even though [Trump] said that [legally-protected education] funding is not going to be touched, I worry they’re going to start to phase out this funding,” Ragland said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. “I worry that they say what they need to say at any given moment, but the larger plan is to eliminate the federal role in education altogether, including the funding.”

Rural Administrators Working Overtime

This growing uncertainty puts rural school districts, which often rely more heavily on federal funding and whose smaller budgets are hit harder by reductions, at greater risk.

Rural school leaders, already working at a high capacity, are facing unpredictable finances by working overtime to create multiple contingency budgets.

Jamie Green is a superintendent at Trinity Alps Unified School District in rural northern California, which is at risk of losing $3.5 million in SRS funding. He and other rural superintendents he’s connected with put in 12- to 16-hour days when creating budgets or filling out federal grant paperwork.

“During the day you have to support your kids, your parents, your teachers, and your principals. [Budgets and grant paperwork] have to be worked on after hours,” he told the Daily Yonder. “It’s difficult, but you signed up to lead, you didn’t sign up to be a victim. You don’t make excuses to your community. We won’t make excuses.”

Oftentimes, the only way to balance the budget is by delaying essential maintenance or cutting teachers in art, vocational, or special education programs. In states like Oregon and California, this challenge is compounded by the fact that the final budget deadline arrives before schools have a clear picture of the funding they’ll have for the upcoming year.

Superintendent Cordon highlighted the importance of federal funding at a crowded February school board meeting in Roseburg, Oregon. About 12 to 13% of the district’s budget comes from the federal government, Cordon told the crowd.

“Not having federal funding would dramatically impact our ability to serve children,” he said.

Micki Hall, a former Roseburg teacher and school board member who now sits on the board’s budget committee was in attendance. For Hall, budget cuts dredge up memories from her time as an educator.

“Back in 2001 we faced a lot of budget crunches. The French teacher was laid off and they cut one of the German teachers,” she said in an interview. “It’s just frightening because it also has a chilling effect in the building. If you’re not cut, you might be moved into a different, unfamiliar position.”

Across the country, rural districts are grappling with similar challenges, forced to make tough decisions that affect not just budgets but the very education and well-being of students and their communities. 

It’s clear that the need for adequate and reliable support from state and federal governments is urgent, but superintendents like Cordon and Green — and the communities they serve — can’t afford to focus solely on problems or delay action. The buck, Green said, stops with them. The only option they have is to do the work, put in the time, and find solutions.

“Rural schools will not fail,” Green said. “We’re working as hard as we can for our students. We cannot fail.”

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The post Amid Threat of Massive Funding Cuts, Rural School Administrators Work Overtime to Balance Uncertain Budgets appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

Stewart Huntington
ICT

New Mexico officials are hoping that Native high school students celebrate their identity in upcoming graduation ceremonies under a new law securing their right to wear culturally significant clothing, accessories and objects during school events.

And spread the joy.

“We’re hoping to kind of run a campaign to some extent … to showcase native students,” Josett Monette, the state’s cabinet secretary for the Indian Affairs Department, told ICT. “We’re hoping we get some selfies or photos of students in their regalia as they do their different events towards the end of the year, and that we’re able to kind of highlight those” on official State of New Mexico social media feeds.

On March 19, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the legislation into law, ensuring students across New Mexico can freely express their cultural identity at school ceremonies.

“This legislation represents our commitment to honoring and respecting the rich cultural heritage of New Mexico’s Native communities,” said Lujan Grisham. “Every student deserves to celebrate their academic achievements in a way that honors their identity and traditions.”

The legislation passed unanimously through both chambers of the Legislature and took effect immediately after the governor signed it. New Mexico joins at least 18 other states that have enacted laws that enshrine Native students’ rights to express their cultural identities sartorially.

Education officials praised the new statute.

“(The bill) SB 163 is a significant step forward in honoring and respecting the cultural heritage of Native American students across New Mexico,” said Sec. Mariana Padilla of the New Mexico Public Education Department. “By ensuring their right to wear traditional regalia at school ceremonies, this bill affirms the importance of identity, culture, and self-expression of the nearly 40,000 Native American students enrolled in a public school across the state. Education should uplift and celebrate the rich traditions that make our communities stronger.”

Monette, a Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians citizen, said the bill was the first one she had initiated in her year as secretary of the Indian Affairs Department that went through to become law – and that seeing it in the formal legal registry gave her a boost.

“Very excited to have gotten the bill through,” she said. “We felt it was appropriate to put this into law to ensure that the right (to wear culturally significant clothing) remained intact, and that there was no question as to whether or not students would be allowed to do that. … I’m hopeful that this just makes one of those steps a little bit easier for students to not have to worry about it.”

Students have often had to worry about it. Across the country and in New Mexico.

Last year in Farmington, New Mexico, a Hunkpapa Lakota student had her graduation cap – that she had adorned with a traditional feather plume – removed by school administrators during her graduation ceremony. The incident, caught on video, prompted outrage and a rebuke from the Navajo Nation Council.

“No student in any school should be prohibited from wearing regalia that signifies their cultural and spiritual beliefs,” the council said. “These actions are belittling, humiliating, and demeaning to the student and her family. There is no place for this type of behavior in our educational systems. The school officials owe an apology to the student and her family.”

The Native American Rights Fund, a leading legal advocacy organization in Indian Country, has made it a priority to fight for students’ rights to wear regalia.

Last year NARF released a help sheet for students and parents – and school administrators – to navigate the issue. “Many Tribal Nations recognize leadership achievements by bestowing the person who earned the honor an eagle feather or plume,” the guidelines state. “While tribal religions and spiritual practices vary from each other, in general, a Native person who wears a plume or eagle feather at a public event has done something amazing to show that they have the maturity to pray and care for themselves and others. … This guide shares steps to help high school graduates successfully wear eagle feathers during their commencement ceremony.”

The guidelines further urge parents to seek legal advice should schools balk at allowing cultural displays at school ceremonies – a consideration that the new law in New Mexico aims to render moot.

“There’s at least 18 other states that have a similar law in place,” said Monette. “And so we thought it was time for New Mexico to be part of that as well. I always say that New Mexico should be at the forefront of what’s going on in Indian country, and across the entire country.

“I think it’s going to be really exciting. I hope the students and the parents appreciate it. I’m hoping we see lots of students wearing their regalia for graduation.”

And sending selfies to the secretary of the Department of Indian Affairs.

The 18 other states with similar laws, according to the Native American Rights Fund, are: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, and Washington.

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This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.

Seven Indigenous nations have withdrawn from discussions over an oil and gas liquids pipeline in Michigan, citing federal agencies’ failure to adequately engage with tribal governments during the process.

The move is expected to trigger lawsuits the tribes hope will block the controversial Line 5 project, a 645 mile pipeline that carries over half-a-million barrels of crude oil and natural gas liquids per day and runs between the United States and Canada. Enbridge, the company behind Line 5, has proposed a tunnel under the Great Lakes in order to replace a section of the 72-year-old pipeline.

The tribal nations have been involved with the permitting process since 2020, when Enbridge applied to build the underground tunnel for the pipeline, but have grown increasingly dissatisfied with negotiations they say ignored tribal expertise, input, and concerns, and undermined treaty rights. 

On March 20, tribes say the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency assessing the project and its environmental impacts, informed them that it would likely soon grant Enbridge a fast-tracked permit for the tunnel under President Donald Trump’s energy emergency declaration, which effectively created a new class of permit to boost energy supplies. That announcement, the tribes say, prompted the withdrawal.

“Tribal Nations are no longer willing to expend their time and resources as Cooperating Agencies just so their participation may be used by the Corps to lend credibility to a flawed [Environmental Impact Statement] process and document,” they wrote in a March 21 letter to the Corps. 

Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community, said the tunnel would destroy “not only the Great Lakes, but also an Indigenous people’s way of life, my way of life, for all Great Lakes Anishinaabe.”

“We’ll do what we need to do now moving forward, not participating in that process,” she added.

Tribal nations in Michigan — and others across the country — have long argued that the pipeline is unsafe, and that the tunnel would further threaten their way of life by extending the possibility of an oil spill into the Straits of Mackinac, which connect lakes Michigan and Huron, and potentially contaminating the largest source of fresh water in North America.

In an email, Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy said the tunnel would “make a safe pipeline safer while also ensuring the continued safe, secure, and affordable delivery of essential energy to the Great Lakes region.” But critics say that risk has yet to be properly analyzed and the Army Corps maintains that considering the risk of oil spills, or their impacts, is beyond the scope of its authority and should be conducted by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Despite that stance, in early January an assistant secretary with the Department of Defense directed the Army Corps to carry out that assessment. That will now likely be ignored under the Trump administration’s executive order, according to attorneys with the tribes.

In an email, Army Corps spokesperson Carrie Fox said the agency is reviewing the tribes’ letter and relying on existing regulations to speed up permitting for eligible projects under Trump’s executive order, adding that new procedures will be posted publicly.

The odds are heavily weighted toward Enbridge, according to Matthew Fletcher, a citizen of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and a professor of law at the University of Michigan.

“The rule of law is basically dead. Enbridge and the feds are not acting in good faith,” he said in an email. “It must be apparent to the tribes that, in this administration, no matter what the tribes say or do, or evidence they provide, etc., Enbridge will get absolutely anything it wants from the United States.”

The tribes aren’t alone. The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has repeatedly called for the suspension of pipeline operations until the free, prior, and informed consent, or FPIC, of affected Indigenous nations has been secured. FPIC, a right guaranteed under international law that says countries must consult with Indigenous peoples in good faith and obtain consent for development projects on their land, is rarely enforced and the U.S. has yet to codify the obligation.

“Any law that requires consent, or even consultation, of Indians and tribes, is a threat to this entire industry,” Fletcher said. “I guarantee this administration will ignore and/or denigrate all of these laws on behalf of their climate change-inducing and pollution-generating constituents.”

But even adhering to the Trump administration’s “America First” priorities, the tunnel project shouldn’t receive a fast-tracked permit, said David Gover, an attorney for the Native American Rights Fund which is representing Bay Mills. “You’re talking about a project, Line 5, that serves Canadian companies and Canadian interest,” he said. 

While much of the pipeline’s oil and gas products pass through Michigan and on to Canadian refineries, Enbridge says the pipeline provides jobs and other benefits to the state, including more than half of Michigan’s propane. Those benefits won’t pay off in the long run, according to opponents, and experts have said the pipeline’s continued operation would generate tens of billions of dollars in climate damages. Moreover, replacing that section of pipeline wouldn’t create more capacity, Gover said, “So there’s no extension or expansion of meeting those energy needs here in America.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

“We are multifaceted governments, and not all tribes oppose oil. But all tribes in the state of Michigan have stood up to say that this is a bad project,” said President Gravelle. “If we wanted to protect one of our most precious resources, which is the Great Lakes themselves, we would decommission this for those future generations.”

Editor’s note: Earthjustice, one of the law firms representing the Bay Mills Indian Community, is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why Indigenous nations are walking away from pipeline talks in Michigan on Mar 31, 2025.

Whitleyville, Tenn. (RNS) — On a sunny morning in mid-February, Josh Abbotoy, who describes himself as a “conservative Christian who does land deals,” drove a 20-year-old Lexus LX470 around a former farm, crossing a creek, squeezing by a run-down barn and driving along one of the farm’s roads in hopes of showing off the view from one of the ridgetops.

But there had been too much rain and the road was muddy, so he parked and hopped out for a 10-minute walk up to the ridgetop, admiring the red cedars and Bois d’Arc trees that line the hillsides.

At the top of the ridge, Abbotoy surveyed the view of the green fields and rolling hills while painting a picture of a community filled with lovely homes and families, looking down over wide fields and a stately church.

A month earlier, RidgeRunner, a real estate company Abbotoy runs, announced it had bought the 448-acre farm, with hopes of developing it into an “agrihood” — with about 30 estate-style homes dotting the farm’s hillsides.

“The fields will be filled with livestock as God intended and as Jackson County remembers,” the RidgeRunner website read in announcing the purchase. “Our goal will be to preserve the sweeping views for those who build and live on the farm’s ridgetops.”

Abbotoy said it’s too early to tell how much lots on the farm will cost but said there will be a premium for ridgetop views. A similar RidgeRunner project in Kentucky, where land prices are lower, has lots priced from $35,000 to $329,000. While the Whitleyville farm has access to city water, high-speed internet and electricity, there’s still a lot of work to do on the property’s infrastructure.

But if all goes to plan, within a few years the former farm property will be filled with conservative Christians who have moved from blue states to this rural corner of the Bible Belt.

It’s the Big Sort as a business opportunity.

A former corporate lawyer turned entrepreneur and Christian publisher, Abbotoy is fond of quoting journalist Bill Bishop’s influential 2009 book about how Americans increasingly live in like-minded clusters.

That trend has accelerated in recent years, fueled by the work-from-anywhere revolution set off by the COVID-19 pandemic and the country’s political polarization.

“It’s happening on all sides,” Abbotoy told Religion News Service during a recent visit to the farm in Whitleyville. “People want to live in communities where they have a better shot of having alignment on some really basic political issues.”

Rural Tennessee communities like Jackson County have begun to attract newcomers in recent years, according to data from the Boyd Center for Business & Economic Research at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, part of an overall pattern of population growth.

“We’ve seen more migration to rural counties so far this decade than in the entire previous decade,” said Matthew Harris, a professor of health economics who does population projection for the state of Tennessee. For example, in Jackson County, more people left than moved in from 2010 to 2020. That trend has begun to reverse.

“A couple hundred people have moved there this decade,” he said.

Abbotoy, who grew up on a small farm in Hartsville about 40 miles west of Whitleyville, sees RidgeRunner as a chance to become part of a conservative gentrification of central Appalachia, where economic decline and brain drain have left communities just waiting to be revitalized.

“If you’re considering a move out here — maybe you live in Silicon Valley and you want to move out to the country,” Ab0atoy said, “we’ll be your Sherpa.”

RELATED: How a bucolic Tennessee suburb became a hotbed of ‘Christian Nashville-ism’

A graduate of Catholic University and Harvard Law School, Abb0toy lived for a few years in Boston before practicing corporate law in Houston and Dallas — then returning home. He’s now managing director of New Founding, which invests in “American ideals and a positive national vision” — of which RidgeRunner is a project — and the executive director of American Reformer, a digital publication that seeks to “promote a vigorous Christian approach to the cultural challenges of our day.”

As Forbes recently put it, New Founding is part of a growing movement of “anti-woke” venture capitalists hoping “to remake society with a largely MAGA, tech-driven, Christian worldview.”

Standing on one of the farm’s ridgetops, Abbotoy said he’s not a Christian nationalist, adding, “that’s not my project.” He also said he is not going to let anyone tell him who his friends or his customers ought to be.

“I’ve got customers that are more right-wing than me. I’m not going to talk bad about them,” he said. “I like them. They’re my friends. And I don’t screen their religious or political views any more than I would anybody else.”

Federal fair housing law prohibits that anyway, Abbotoy noted, but the presence of a church on the property will be a signal as to the kind of close-knit community he hopes to build here. Folks are also drawn to Jackson County, he said, because of its Bible Belt culture.

“Even if they’re not Christians, they like being in a community that feels like it’s culturally Christian,” he said.

The proposed church — or at least its pastor, Andrew Isker — has been a source of controversy among locals. Isker, a podcaster and author, relocated from Minnesota to Tennessee to start Whitleyville Reformation Church, which currently is meeting on an invite-only basis during its start-up phase. The congregation plans to build on the RidgeRunner property.

Isker, co-author of “Christian Nationalism: A Biblical Guide For Taking Dominion and Discipling Nations,” with Gab founder Andrew Torba, as well as the author of “The Boniface Option: A Strategy For Christian Counteroffensive in a Post-Christian Nation,” is known for promoting the idea that Christians should dominate American culture and for his criticism of Jews and other non-Christians.

In a podcast earlier this year with Texas pastor Joel Webbon, Isker rejected the idea of “Judeo-Christian religion” and blamed Jews for the rise of secularism.

“We have to be wary of them,” he said. “We have to not allow them to have power in our culture and destroy Christian culture.”

Isker, who did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, has described his move to Tennessee as a chance to live near friends and “laugh at each other’s jokes on our front porch.” But he has also characterized the move in political terms.

“If you were able to take even a few hundred people that all think the same way and have all the same ideas about common good and politics and so forth, and you can consolidate them in the same place, you can exercise far more political power, even with a few hundred or a few thousand people, than you can on your own, widely dispersed across the entire country,” he said in a video posted on social media by RidgeRunner.

C. Jay Engel, who co-hosts the “Contra Mundum” podcast with Isker, is a recent transplant to Tennessee from California who hopes to buy property from RidgeRunner.

“We love their understanding of how young American conservative families are finding new opportunities to live peaceably and productively among themselves, and I want to involve my family in this meta-trend,” said Engel, who has described the Civil Rights Act as government overreach.

Engel, who calls himself a “Heritage American” — which he has defined as affirming “the domination and pre-eminence of the European derived peoples, their institutions, and their way of life” —  declined a request to discuss his political or social views with RNS.

When Nashville’s News Channel 5 reporter Phil Williams reported on Isker’s and Engel’s political views and their ties to the RidgeRunner project, some residents were outraged — rejecting the prospect of these outsiders taking over their community.

Sean Zearfoss is among those concerned about the RidgeRunner project. Zearfoss, a traveling musician, lives in a house he renovated just off the town square in nearby Gainesboro.

“I like the rural community,” said Zearfoss, who also has a place outside Atlanta. “It’s tight-knit. It’s a nice quiet town, right at the Cumberland River in a really beautiful area.”

Zearfoss, who grew up in a conservative evangelical home, said he is fine with the community’s Bible Belt culture, even though his politics lean more progressive.

But the type of Christian nationalism he sees Isker and Engel promoting is a different thing, said Zearfoss.

“I see it like a steamroller trying to roll into town and roll over these people who want to live quiet conservative lives,” he said.

After the backlash to the Channel 5 report, Travis Thomas, a local Church of Christ preacher, decided to host Engel on his call-in YouTube show, “Truth with Proof.” There Engel got an earful from residents who were upset by what they’d heard.

One caller in particular cited Engel’s call to repeal the Civil Rights Act, which brought an end to Jim Crow laws in the South, and asked if he wanted to return to segregation. Engel said matters of race should have been resolved by the states.

“But I’m not for segregation, and I think it’s very harmful to the soul of a nation to participate in those things,” Engel said.

Thomas, a bi-vocational pastor, said Jackson County is still shaped by the Bible Belt, though folks don’t go to church as much as they used to.

“I think it’s a good thing when people move in, especially if they are going to hold to more biblical principles and morals,” he said. “And from what I’ve seen of the individuals that are buying the land, at least they do hold to some kind of moral principles.”

That’s different, he said, than if a group of extremists were building a compound in the area. It’s not like David Koresh is moving to the community, he said.

Thomas said he has also invited Isker to appear on his YouTube channel to talk about religion — and he had some advice for the newcomer.

“He says some of the craziest stuff on his podcast,” Thomas said. “I’ve even told him, you can’t just get on here and say anything on a podcast, because people are watching you. It sounds ridiculous.”

While he appreciates Christian values, Thomas said you can’t force religion on people. And as far as politics goes, Thomas said it’s good to vote, but the church isn’t going to gain power by politics.

“Even in local politics, you can only do so much,” he said. “It’s not like they can come in and take away your freedom of religion.”

Abbotoy, for his part, worries about the decline of American civil religion. What will bind Americans together, he wonders, in the way that Protestant religion did?

“I think every society, if it’s going to stay together, needs to have one,” he said.

That has led some of his friends — and potential customers — to wonder if America was better off when Christianity was more prominent. There are trade-offs and downsides to that kind of arrangement, he said. But those trade-offs are better than what we have now, he added.

“I think you’re seeing a lot of people who are not personally Christian,” he said, “saying, the arrangement we had where Christianity was dominant public orthodoxy was better than what we have now.”

Abbotoy seems to let most of the criticism roll off his back. RidgeRunner, he said, hopes to sell property to people who want to be good neighbors and not try to impose outside views on the local culture. At the same time, new people will be coming, and that will bring change.

“Change is coming,” he said. “The question is, how do you want to direct that?”

RELATED: Decline in American Christian observance has slowed, Pew study finds

(This story was reported with support from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation.

Homes were inundated with water and cars were abandoned across the Rio Grande Valley region.

Fresno County officials notified nearly a dozen nonprofits this week that $11 million in federal grants for community health have been canceled, according to a county memo acquired by Fresnoland.

The immediate cuts – effective March 24 – are a result of the Trump Administration’s move this week to cancel more than $12 billion in funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Across Fresno County, a nascent network of about 120 community health workers for rural communities, farmworkers, and some of Fresno’s poorest neighborhoods took direct hits.

“I’m devastated,” said Yolanda Randles, executive director for the West Family Fresno Resource Center, who had to lay off seven community health workers in southwest Fresno on Friday, due to the funding cuts.

“I feel sorry for the government. They’re so naive,” said Manuel Cunha, president of the Nisei Farmers’ League, whose $340,000 grant to deliver testing kits and education materials to farmworkers was cut short.

Fresno County’s community health worker network was built with federal funds during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Community health workers don’t just link residents with information about vaccines and disease prevention, they also help them navigate healthcare enrollment, get them transportation to appointments, and link them to food and housing resources.

UCSF Fresno received some of the funds to launch 200 mobile health clinics in rural parts of the community, providing early detection and treatment for chronic disease, in addition to routine vaccinations.

The network has been essential for the county to build relationships in communities that have language, transportation and information barriers – especially rural parts of the county, according to Joe Prado, assistant director of public health for Fresno County.

“When we see issues brewing in the emergency room, we communicate with our community health worker network to get the word out,” he said, referring to recent measles and avian bird flu outbreaks.

Fresno County has been recognized for its innovative approach to making sure people with the highest risk factors for chronic disease in the region – the disabled, the elderly, farmworkers and people of color – are connected with more preventative resources, rather than just relying on emergency care.

“For someone in Huron to get to their doctors’ appointment in Fresno, it can cost $100 for a taxi. So we’re making sure people can get support,” said Sarait Martinez, executive director of Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño, an organization that serves indigenous communities in the valley.

Community health workers are often residents from the community who can more easily build trust with those who need it.

Martinez’ organization is often providing interpretation support for a variety of indigenous and Mixtec dialects rarely found in the county’s healthcare system.

“They’re the frontline workers that actually help to carry out prevention, because they’re connecting people to the immediate resources where they’re not getting stressed and their mental health is being preserved because they found food or got their utility turned on and paid,” said Genoveva Islas, executive director of Cultiva La Salud. 

Cultiva had two grants – one to address health disparities, another as part of the Fresno Community Health Innovation Partnership – or FCHIP – hub, that funded 12 community health workers in Parlier, Orange Cove, Easton, Sanger, and south Fresno neighborhoods.

Each community worker had a caseload of about 30 residents per month.

Islas said she’s trying to find additional resources to keep the workers on staff, even if their hours are reduced, for the next few months, because she’s afraid to lose a critical workforce that’s been trained for the last five years.

“My staff knows much more than I could ever hope to know about the application processes for MediCal, food delivery programs, the utility payment supports that exist in the community, right? All of that is a huge loss,” said Genoveva Islas, executive director of Cultiva La Salud. 

The goal was always to use the federal funds for community health workers as startup capital – Prado said they just didn’t expect the resources to dissipate so quickly.

“When you lose this type of significant public health infrastructure over a short period, yes, there’s going to be more risk. At the same time, I’m very hopeful that as a community, we can come together and find other resources and reach out to other groups to be able to keep some of this infrastructure in place,” said Prado.

Some of the community organizations have had luck negotiating with healthcare plans to reimburse some of the support community health workers provide, as they divert people away from emergency rooms towards preventative care, like Exceptional Parents Unlimited, who work with families that have children with disabilities, whose community workers are also supported through CalAIM, a program of MediCal.

Not all organizations that have community health workers can rely on CalAIM, at least in the short term, said Islas. 

She said that her organization, and other small nonprofits, don’t have readily trained staff to navigate the complexities of MediCal billing.

Not to mention that the state’s MediCal program – which 53% of Fresno County residents rely on for health care – is facing potential cuts from both the state and federal government. 

Prado said that the county is working on bringing a contract to the Board of Supervisors in April for additional funding through national and local private philanthropy to help plug some of the gaps created through the loss of federal funds.

Supervisor Luis Chavez said he’s working to bring community organizations and county leaders together to triage the situation.

“At the county we’ve built a great public health system. The progress they’re making is in jeopardy. People will get hurt, and this will cost them their lives,” Chavez said.

“We would be so much better off as a society if we just simply invested in caring for people to stay well instead of caring for people when they’re sick, right? And that’s the beauty of the community health worker,” emphasized Islas.

Fresnoland’s Pablo Orihuela contributed to this report.

The post ‘I’m devastated.’ Trump administration guts millions from health programs in Fresno County appeared first on Fresnoland.

On Tuesday, March 25, rural letter carriers from across the country gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. to rally in support of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), which they said faces an increasing threat of privatization under President Donald Trump.

The rally, organized by the National Rural Letter Carriers Association (NRLCA), was attended by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle as well as postal workers from the American Postal Workers Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. The event marked the launch of the NRLCA’s National Campaign to Protect the U.S. Postal Service from Privatization, which the union said is its top priority to preserve what it calls a “critical institution that serves rural America and the country at large.”

Approximately 51.3 million rural addresses would be disproportionately impacted by privatization of the Postal Service, according to NRLCA National President Don Maston. 

It is unprofitable for private companies to deliver mail to the end of long dirt roads located 50 or 100 miles from the nearest post office, Maston said. Privatization would add surcharges to such rural deliveries, which include essential goods like prescription medications and documents like social security checks and ballots.

This is not the first time that proposed changes to the Postal Service have had disproportionate impacts on rural residents. In August 2024, plans surfaced by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to eliminate evening mail pickup times in rural and remote areas as a way to cut costs. DeJoy has since resigned as Postmaster General, raising concerns about the future direction of USPS under the Trump administration. 

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“Rural Americans rely on rural carriers,” Maston said. “In fact, the entire community relies on the rural carrier, and that sense of community would be taken away, and the disproportionately impacted group in the Postal Service would be rural carriers, rural Americans, and rural communities.”

Speakers at Tuesday’s rally called for bipartisan support for House Resolution 70, a resolution in the House of Representatives that affirms the Postal Service’s role as a federal institution and opposes privatization. Since being introduced at the end of January, the resolution has garnered 180 cosponsors. 

Representative Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) helped introduce the resolution. He told the crowd that he is working to prevent privatization of the Postal Service.

“I’ve spoken to the White House and the Speaker—I said keep your hands off,” Garbarino said. “This is a bad idea. We’re going to continue to fight for you all to make sure you get the support you need, the money you need, and the protections you need to keep your jobs.”

Garbarino is among 11 Republicans to have signed on to the resolution since it was introduced. On the Democratic side, 169 representatives have cosponsored the resolution.

A similar resolution may soon be arriving in the Senate, according to Senator Gary Peters (D-MI). At the rally, Peters said it is his goal to ensure that the postal service stays independent. He said he will be introducing a resolution in the Senate for Congress to say no to privatization.  

“Our founders understood that in order to connect a great country, you needed to have a postal service and deliver to every single address,” Peters said. “You’re not gonna get that from private companies.”

The USPS dates back to the writing of the U.S. Constitution. This summer, the institution will celebrate 250 years of operation, making it older than the country itself. Some postal workers who attended the rally said that the service piece is what distinguishes USPS from a private corporation. The Postal Service is not funded by taxpayer money—instead, the sale of stamps offers a source of revenue for the institution that subsidizes a portion of its costs.

Kirby Ricketts is an executive committeeman on the NRLCA National Board. He said that the USPS was made to be a service for the American people. He said he worries that privatization will leave rural residents without access to a reliable and affordable mail delivery.

“If it’s not cost effective to take that prescription that last mile, they’re not gonna do it,” Ricketts said. “Privatization is all about the bottom line, and we’re in it for the service.”

After the rally, more than 100 rural postal workers headed to meetings with members of Congress to ask for their support in backing the USPS. Maston said that the responsibility is on all Americans to stand up for the Postal Service to keep delivery costs down. 

“U.S. mail is not for sale—it’s not just a catchy saying, it is a reality,” Maston said. “We’ve been around 250 years and we’re going to be around another 250 years.”

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The post Rural Letter Carriers Gather in Washington, D.C. to Oppose Privatization of the U.S. Postal Service appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte on Thursday signed two bills restricting transgender Montanans’ access to public bathrooms and locker rooms and participation on athletic teams, sparking legal action from civil rights advocates against one of the new laws slated to go into effect immediately. 

The news came from the governor’s office via a press release in the early afternoon and an accompanying video posted to the social media platform X. There, Gianforte said the legislation would help “safeguard fairness, privacy, and security” in sports and public places.

“Over the last few years we’ve seen far-left gender ideology sweep the nation,” Gianforte said. “But here in Montana we’ve stood up against this radical agenda and maintained equal opportunity for all Americans while also protecting women and girls.”

House Bill 121, which affects public bathrooms, locker rooms and sleeping areas, in addition to those residing at domestic violence shelters, was written to take effect immediately upon being signed into law. House Bill 300, pertaining to student athletes in K-12 and university settings, is not slated to take effect until Oct. 1. 

An attorney for the ACLU of Montana said the organization filed a lawsuit Thursday afternoon against HB 121 on behalf of transgender and intersex plaintiffs. The same-day lawsuit was prompted by the law’s immediate effective date, the attorney said.

“This is yet another attempt to demonize and marginalize transgender Montanans and we won’t stand by idly,” said Alex Rate, the organization’s legal director.

Both bills saw broad support from legislative Republican lawmakers, reflecting how the issue of strict gender roles has become a cornerstone of the state and national GOP in recent years.

Gianforte’s Thursday announcement was lauded by national groups including the Alliance Defending Freedom and Independent Women’s Voice, which has advocated for similar gender bills in other states. 

Throughout committee hearings and debates, backers of both bills consistently sidestepped opponents’ allegations they intended to restrict the lives and expression of transgender people. Rather, supporters described cisgender women feeling uncomfortable or threatened when in close proximity to transgender people in vulnerable spaces, such as locker rooms and dormitories. 

Supporters also described the hypothetical situation of predatory, cisgender men masquerading as women for the purpose of invading public spaces, an argument that Democratic lawmakers and transgender opponents panned as disingenuous and fearmongering.

“We have trans people in our communities. We have trans people who are employees, who are students. We have trans people who face abuse and come to the shelter,” said Rep. Zooey Zephyr, D-Missoula, the first openly transgender woman to serve in the Montana Legislature, during a January debate over HB 121. “‘This is not an issue’ is what was said again and again by the people impacted on the ground.”

The plaintiffs in the ACLU lawsuit include two state employees, a political intern for the Montana Democratic Party who works at the state Capitol building, and an accessibility coordinator at Helena College, a public university, all of whom are transgender or do not identify as either gender. Another plaintiff is intersex and, because of his biological characteristics, does not know whether HB 121 classifies him as “male” or “female.” 

The law creates a route for legal action against any public facility — including jails, schools and government buildings — or domestic violence shelter that do not take steps to ensure that multi-user bathrooms or locker rooms are sex-segregated based on chromosomes and reproductive biology.

In court filings, attorneys for the ACLU of Montana said the law presents plaintiffs with impossible choices about how to navigate public spaces where they work, as well as public parks and libraries. 

“Discomfort with or dislike of transgender people cloaked as a privacy or safety concern is not a legitimate basis for imposing unequal or stigmatizing treatment,” attorneys wrote in the brief for a temporary restraining order. 

Rate added that the ACLU of Montana did not have an immediate plan to challenge HB 300, the prohibition on athletic participation, though he said the latter bill “suffers from the same constitutional infirmities” as the bathroom ban.

Lawmakers from both parties this session questioned how HB 300 is legally distinct from prior bills that sought to restrict student sports participation. A bill from 2021 was struck down as it applied to colleges and universities after a judge found it infringed on the role of the Montana Board of Regents. Another bill that sought to institute strict definitions of “sex” across Montana law was found unconstitutional in February based on equal protection and privacy violations. 

Supporters pointed out that HB 300 amends a broader, preexisting section of law that prohibits discrimination in education. They also said the policy is in line with the federal government’s stance on interpreting gender discrimination, an analysis that has flipped between the administrations of former Democratic President Joe Biden and current Republican President Donald Trump. The NCAA has also recently changed its protocols for transgender athlete participation, under pressure from the Trump administration, requiring participation to be based on sex assigned at birth.

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education told Montana Free Press that it is anticipating minimal issues with complying with both laws.

“A preliminary review of campus bathroom facilities shows that minimal effort will bring our campuses into compliance,” said Galen Hollenbaugh, deputy commissioner for government relations and communications. 

Regarding HB 300, Hollenbaugh said, the Montana Board of Regents policy requires the Montana University System to “comply with NCAA regulations.” 

“Following a presidential Executive Order, the NCAA has revised the relevant regulations regarding trans athletes, neutralizing any MUS compliance issues with HB 300,” Hollenbaugh said.

The post Gianforte signs bathroom, trans athlete restrictions into law appeared first on Montana Free Press.

Mount Desert Island Hospital announced Thursday that it will close its labor and delivery unit effective July 1 — making it the tenth Maine hospital to announce such a closure in the past decade.

Chrissi Maguire, the hospital’s president and CEO, said the primary reason was a steep decline in birth rates, which in turn made it difficult for staff to keep up with required skills.

The hospital delivered 32 babies last year — a nearly 46 percent decline from the previous year. Nine babies have been delivered so far this year. A decade ago, the hospital averaged about 100 births annually.

Maguire, who said she gave birth to both of her children at MDI Hospital, called the closure a “devastating decision.”

“I have to really bifurcate myself from that emotion and think about the health and wellness of our patients,” she told The Maine Monitor.

In addition to the declining birth rate, Maguire also cited “skyrocketing costs, a shrinking rural population, and inadequate reimbursement from federal and state sources.”

The Maine State Nurses Association said Thursday that union nurses at the hospital were “fiercely critical” of the announcement.

The news comes at a time when roughly half of Maine’s 36 hospitals do not offer birthing services. 

This fits into a national trend: 537 hospitals closed their labor and delivery departments between 2010 and 2022, according to a study published in December. As of 2022, more than half of the nation’s rural hospitals did not offer labor and delivery services.

Maguire said discussions about how to prevent a potential closure began 10 months ago, when the hospital noticed a significant decline in deliveries.

Since then, she said they have held strategic planning meetings, asked for assistance from the state, worked with a regional maternal health program and coordinated with partners at Northern Light Health to figure out how to address the significant decline in births.

Then they entered the first months of 2025 with a small number of births. “We’re in this domino effect for rural maternal health and eventually we needed to make a very difficult decision,” Maguire said.

MDI Hospital has about 30 patients who are currently pregnant and will be affected by the closure, Maguire said, noting that only half of them were expected to give birth at the hospital. They called each of the patients this week and are working on a transition plan with Northern Light Health, which runs the two nearest hospitals, in Ellsworth and Bangor.

Maguire said she didn’t know how many staff would be impacted but said they would all be given the option to continue working for the MDI health system in positions that align with their expertise.

Cokie Giles, president of the Maine State Nurses Association, said the union condemns the closure.

“This is an abject failure by the hospital’s administration, particularly CEO Chrissi Maguire,” Giles said in a press release. “For the good of this community and of our state, MDIH’s OB department must remain open.”

Janice Horton, a nurse who has worked in the hospital’s obstetrics department for over three decades, called the decision short-sighted and said it was made by administrators without input from nurses and caregivers.

“Nurses are deeply concerned about the permanent, damaging effects this decision will have on families MDIH is supposed to serve in Bar Harbor and surrounding towns and outer islands,” Horton said.

The hospital responded by saying that nurses had been involved “early and meaningfully” in the process, including in meetings held from June through December.

Before official news of the closure broke, the union had scheduled a town hall meeting on Sunday to “discuss the future of our OB department.” The group still plans to hold the meeting, which is set to take place at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 30, at the Mount Desert Island YWCA at 36 Mount Desert Street in Bar Harbor.

Maguire said hospital officials had already planned on making the announcement Thursday morning and the town hall did not impact their decision.

MDI Hospital is planning to expand its emergency department to include a new room equipped with labor and delivery equipment for emergency births on the island, Maguire said.

In response to questions about why the hospital is able expand the emergency department while closing the birthing unit, Maguire said the expansion is being paid for by donations and grants that could not be repurposed, and it is in response to a community health needs assessment that highlighted a desire for better access to emergency and hospital services, primary care and mental health.

The hospital is coordinating with nearby facilities to transfer deliveries and is making plans for emergency care staff to rotate through partner hospitals to maintain their skills in labor and delivery. Maguire also said the hospital is exploring a new program that would give expectant mothers support and care coordination through prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care.

Maguire sees the statewide closures as part of a larger demographic and economic challenge. 

“This is not stopping,” she said. “I am not the only hospital having these discussions.”