Legislature shores up finances of emergency medical service providers around the state
As part of a larger budget deal, state legislators have approved $31 million in funding that will provide breathing room for the roughly 275 emergency medical services (EMS) statewide, some on the verge of collapse. The aid will be distributed in two batches, 40% possibly by October for emergency relief and 60% thereafterin the form of grants.
Renée Gray, the newly appointed Washington County manager and also the ambulance chief for Moosabec Ambulance Service in Jonesport-Beals, said the relief cannot come soon enough. One Washington County ambulance service closed earlier this year and others have merged due to low staffing and depleted revenues.
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“The people that work in this field are problem solvers, and they’ll kill themselves trying to fix this problem. That’s basically what’s happened – EMS has finally revealed its holes,” Gray said.
The long-negotiated funding — EMS officials originally requested $70 million — got caught up in a legislative battle over a proposed budget addition to the governor’s $9.9 billion, two-year budget that was approved in March.
A blue-ribbon commission, formed last year to study the issue, made recommendations to the legislature. Rick Petrie, the interim executive director for Atlantic Partnership EMS, a statewide EMS collaborative, was a leading advocate in the effort to secure state funding.
“It’s not what we would have hoped because the blue-ribbon commission was pretty clear that EMS providers needed $70 million,’’ Petrie said. “OK, so we compromised, but now let’s turn this (money) out really quickly with very little red tape.”
How much red tape there might be is unknown because no further details about the allocations were announced. Also, the budget measure did not pass by a two-thirds majority that would have allowed it to go into effect immediately. The budget addition, which still needs the governor’s signature, passed 80-58 on Thursday in the House and by a 22-9 vote in the Senate.
Still, Petrie said approval of the funding indicates that lawmakers recognize providers are struggling and seem to understand that $31 million is merely a down payment toward building a better system.
Another promising sign, he said, is that the commission will reconvene, possibly this summer, to further assess EMS needs statewide.
House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross in a statement agreed that access to emergency medical response services across Maine is an essential part of the state’s healthcare system that must be funded, although she did not say if that will be with continued state support.
“In some cases, it’s quite literally a life-or-death situation,” said Talbot Ross. “The funding in this budget will be a major step forward to help services stay open, attract new providers to the field and start the process of redefining what emergency medical services look like in Maine.”
The Maine Bureau of EMS, which operates within the Department of Public Safety, will be key in determining how the money is divided, according to Petrie. Maine EMS had urged lawmakers to support not only the emergency funding, but additional funds to assist EMS and ambulance services as they shift into new funding and operational models.
With few exceptions, EMS providers across all 16 counties have been largely, but inadequately, self-funded by low insurance reimbursements and small taxpayer contributions from individual cities and towns.
They are often staffed with underpaid EMTs, paramedics or volunteers.
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Sam Hurley, the Maine EMS director, said that model is no longer sustainable. Although optimistic, Hurley agrees the devil is in the details.
“Maine EMS is excited that the governor’s office and Maine Legislature have identified the needs of the EMS system in Maine as a funding priority. That said, we too are anxiously awaiting the final action of the Legislature as to the specific language surrounding any funding introduced to the system,” Hurley said.
In May, Maine EMS released its 2035 EMS Vision & Plan, outlining what it sees as the steps needed to achieve true sustainability over the next 12 years for the state’s roughly 275 EMS providers that are operating at a loss or barely breaking even.
Many EMS providers are struggling due to a host of factors, including lagging reimbursement rates, recruitment and retention challenges, training, and an aging and rural population.
As a result, some services are routinely “out of service” when an ambulance can’t be fully staffed. Some other providers, such as Petit Manan in Washington County, which served Milbridge and Steuben, have ceased operations.
But it’s not only rural EMS providers that are suffering.
A University of Southern Maine national study released in May by the Maine Rural Health Research Center revealed that 15 of the 16 Maine counties have so-called ambulance deserts, where people are located more than 25 minutes from an ambulance station. In the Northeast, Maine was ranked as the second-worst ambulance desert state, behind only Vermont, where every county contains at least one.
Only Androscoggin County has an adequate number of ambulance stations to provide reliable, fast responses. Even higher-density counties such as Cumberland, encompassing Portland and its environs, and Penobscot, which includes Bangor, have pockets that lack adequate ambulance response times, according to the MRHRC geographic disparities study.
Petrie said he got a call this past week from the service chief for “a fairly large metropolitan department in the state,” saying they were drowning in overtime expenses trying to cover the increasing number of calls and mutual aid requests. Petrie said the money would be allocated to any EMS department providing 911 response that shows it needs help — even metropolitan departments.
He said that the situation in rural communities is even more dire. Petrie said he knows that in places like Washington County and Aroostook County — virtually anywhere north of Augusta — EMS departments are “barely there” and doing everything they can to hold on.
“This money will be a lifeline to them while we work out the longer term,” Petrie said.
He and other EMS officials said the solution is multi-pronged, requiring state assistance, better insurance reimbursements, realistic financial contributions from municipalities being served and a more regional approach, with fewer, more robust, strategically located providers.
That assessment was echoed by Yvonne Jonk, associate research professor at the University of Southern Maine and deputy director of the Maine Rural Health Research Center. Jonk, the lead researcher for the ambulance deserts study, said the data proves that regionalized services are needed, particularly in rural areas with large geographic footprints and low populations.
“With regionalization you’re able to triage and determine the optimal location of an ambulance service, and to have each other’s backs instead of all this ad hoc community goodwill,” Jonk said.
Slowly, EMS providers and municipalities are heeding that warning, organizing and financially supporting regional services such as the new Bold Coast EMS department in Washington County, pressed into a regional model out of necessity after the closure of Petit Manan and regular staffing shortages in the Cherryfield ambulance department.
Bold Coast EMS opened June 12 with an inter-local agreement between the towns of Cherryfield, Milbridge and Steuben, each paying an equal share of the roughly half million-dollar annual operating budget. The smaller outlying towns of Beddington and Dubois kick in a donation for their coverage.
Mariah Curtis, the former Cherryfield service chief who is also a full-time nurse, is service chief for the new consolidated ambulance department. She said they are entirely taxpayer funded and didn’t bank on getting any state support.
“We built it to be self-sufficient, just with our community supporting us, and they’re very receptive to that,” Curtis said. “We will be open and appreciate anything we can get that makes the burden less on our taxpayers, but we don’t need it to bail us out.”
Bold Coast employs four full-time people during the day and uses part-time, on-call EMTs at night. The pay is $20 an hour for an EMT with 100% employer-paid health insurance and a zero deductible policy, all of which Curtis said keeps morale high.
The regional service is the second of its kind in Washington County; the first was Downeast EMS, which serviced the far eastern half of the county, with nine ambulances out of bases in Baileyville, Lubec and Eastport. Answering about 1,900 calls last year, Downeast EMS has operated in the black for the past decade.
Regionalism advocates say the local examples show there is strength in numbers. Data presented to the blue ribbon commission showed that of ambulance services performing less than 1,800 calls per year, most run less than 500, losing roughly $2,000 per call, largely due to poor insurance reimbursements.
Seventy percent of all ambulance runs in Maine are paid for by Medicare or Mainecare. Those services only reimburse 85 percent of the cost.
But there also is a glimmer of hope on that front coming out of the Legislature. Private insurers will begin paying higher reimbursements, according to Petrie. He’s hopeful that the next session and the blue-ribbon commission will make changes to the government reimbursement rates as well. He said that is critical, especially in places like Washington County.
“I believe that the blue-ribbon commission coming together again will start to attack those issues, or start down that pathway,” Petrie said. “They are going to have to come up with a fairly significant, radical way to deliver EMS up there — and the hospitals need to be involved as well.”
Sign up for the Downeast Monitor, a free newsletter produced by The Maine Monitor, to stay informed of what’s happening in Washington County.
Machias reaching a “critical mass” for growth, boosters say
If you ask Bill Kitchen what’s going well in Machias, you’ll need to sit back because you’ll be listening for a while.
Kitchen is a passionate booster for the shire town of Washington County. In fact, five years ago, during his campaign for a seat on board of selectmen, Kitchen penned an op-ed titled, “What’s Right with Machias.”
He won in a landslide, and he hasn’t changed his position yet.
“I knew it had become fashionable to say how downtrodden and poor we are in Machias, and once you slip into that, it’s very hard to get out of,” said Kitchen, who for two years has served as Machias town manager. “The point of that letter was to say, look, most of the pieces are already in place.”
Those pieces include what Kitchen calls the town’s “signature assets,” like the Machias Dike, where vendors set up impromptu flea markets along Route 1, and Bad Little Falls Park, which wraps around twin waterfalls in the center of town, and the Machias Wild Blueberry Festival, now in its 46th year and set for Aug. 18-20.
They also include key infrastructure, like the expanding Machias airport, where planning is underway to construct a longer runway, as well as Down East Community Hospital, and the University of Maine at Machias, standing high on College Hill since 1909.
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Even with these assets, Kitchen acknowledges that by another measure, Machias is a poor town. In fact, according to the latest five-year data from American Community Survey, it’s the poorest town in Maine, with an average median income hovering just above $20,000 a year, compared to almost $65,000 statewide. At least in part, Machias’ low number is explained by the concentration of low-income housing units located near the services it offers.
But no matter the reason, it’s a number that motivates Kitchen. Working in his office just a stone’s throw from the Middle and Machias rivers, he waves his arm across a map of Machias, the smallest town in Washington County, and lays out the question he’s always working to answer —how can he create a more vibrant Machias without raising taxes?
“Here we are, the service center of this county that is bigger than some states, and yet we’ve only got 14.8 square miles to work with. And a lot of that is already in use by entities that pay little or no taxes,” Kitchen said. “There are very limited amounts of space in which to build, assuming you have people that want to build here.”
Chris Meroff wants to build in Machias. He fell in love with the area in the late 1990s while visiting with his grandparents. For years now, he’s made his home here for five months of the year, spending the rest of his time in Austin, Texas, running his 30-plus businesses and venture capital firm.
But one day, Meroff and his wife would like to retire to Machias. Before they can, he says, he has some investments to make, and his end goal is nothing short of “flipping Machias.”
“I love the people, I love the land, and I love the scenery, and we want to put our money to work here,” said Meroff. “I have flipped homes, I have flipped businesses, and now for me, it’s time to flip Main Street.”
The Meroffs’ investments in Machias are already almost too numerous to count and still growing.
Four years ago, they started work on a 65-acre farm in the rural Kennebec District, where today they operate the Coffee + Crisp Cafe at West Branch Farm, overlooking West Branch Little Kennebec Bay and acres of blueberry barrens. Below it sprawls a large white tent, which will host multiple weddings this summer, until it is replaced by a two-story event venue modeled on a 1925 chicken barn.
A you-pick apple orchard is planted, an enormous catering kitchen is under construction now, mini-cattle and ducks are en route for the petting zoo, and a master organic gardener has been retained to oversee next year’s gardens, which will supply all of it, including a mercantile for shoppers, with food.
To say nothing of Meroff’s near-term plans for a drive-through coffee shop, a large Machias lumber mill, or the creation of a global lifestyle brand, Maine Woods Outfitters, planned for another retail location in Machias and, quite possibly, to be the subject of a reality TV show.
“Machias’s downtown is why I’m doing this,” said Meroff. “We’ve seen this work in rural towns in Texas that have the same isolation issues, but they don’t have bones like Machias.”
Valdine Atwood, widely acknowledged as the unofficial town historian of Machias, knows everything about its good bones.
Fittingly, her home stands downtown near Machias’ best-known historic site, the Burnham Tavern, where in 1775 local patriots hatched plans to capture a British warship and its crew. They succeeded, and the Battle of the Margaretta is now celebrated as the first naval battle of the American Revolution. Every June, the Machias Historical Society sponsors the Margaretta Days Festival and Craft Fair, complete with reenactments of the famous battle.
When she and her family moved to Machias in 1962, Atwood recalls large numbers of retail shops lining Main Street, including two dress shops and two shoe stores, plus the local bureau of the Bangor Daily News, where she and six others reported the news from Washington County.
“You did not have to leave Machias at all to get what you needed,” Atwood recalled. “At one time, there were five car dealerships in Machias.”
David Whitney agrees that, like almost everywhere, today there is less retail on Main Street, but says there is also growth happening here. And Whitney has a lengthy perspective. His family moved Downeast in the 1700s, and his grandparents and his father operated one of the car dealerships at the base of College Hill.
Today he runs Whitney’s Tri-Town Marine in the same location, selling boats and, more recently, lots of ATVs, including the Argo line, which features a popular amphibious model.
“We’ve added this Argo dealership, and we are hovering between fourth and fifth in volume across North America out of 300 dealerships,” Whitney said. “And we’ve been at it for less than a year.”
Some of those sales are to locals, but many are not. That’s a model Whitney and many other local business owners aim for because it brings in outside money and employ local people.
“Most of the revenues that we generate in all of my companies come from outside Washington County,” said Whitney, who also owns Machias Glassworks, Downeast Packaging Solutions, and Whitney Wreath, a large balsam wreath company which enabled him to move home from Boston for good, in his early 20s.
“And since that time, I have struggled happily. And the struggles are real, and they are continual, and they are many,” said Whitney. “But first and foremost, my entrepreneurial attitude has always been one of optimism. I’ve listened to local pessimistic viewpoints, and I’ll have nothing of it.”
Whitney’s optimistic outlook and diversified business strategy are shared by many investing time and money in Machias today, like Sandi Malagara and her husband Ryan, who moved here from Connecticut almost 20 years ago.
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They run multiple businesses from Crows Nest Shops on Dublin Street, including a gift shop, Expressions Floral, a gourmet bakery, an electronics store, a shipping outlet, and the headquarters for Ryan’s drone videography business, Drones Eye View, in steady demand by Maine realtors.
“Right from the beginning, we’ve looked around to see what was missing. We asked, ‘What can’t we get here?’” Sandi recalled. “And then we would fill that need. Then once we’d gotten that piece established, we’d say, ‘What else?’”
This year, the Malagaras have added ATV rental to their business list, including an Argo they purchased from Whitney’s Tri-Town. They join another new business, Downeast Adventures, which this spring opened an ATV rental company to cater to a growing sector interested in the Downeast Sunrise Trail, an 87-mile multi-use offroad trail that carries walkers, bikers, and ATV riders from Ellsworth to Calais, by way of downtown Machias. The trail was at the center of June’s Machias ATV Jamboree.
Diversification was also on Ben Edwards’ mind when, in 2019, he decided to start a business on his family’s 200-year-old Machias farm, Schoppee Farm. Visiting from England, where he worked, Edwards met and fell in love with his now-wife, Allison, and knew he wanted to make his living in Machias in a way that might help the region, too.
“I’ve always been concerned about Machias’s primary revenue-generating industries, like blueberries and lobsters. We have no control over pricing, no manufacturing, and we take the smallest piece of the pie,” said Edwards. “I knew I wanted to form a primary industry that generated revenue from outside Downeast Maine, and the farm seemed like my platform to do that.”
Today the Edwards have diversified Machias’ business portfolio with their organic line of CBD oil products grown and manufactured on the farm. But a few close calls with state hemp legislation showed Edwards they needed to diversify their own offerings, too.
“I had been looking for other business opportunities because I realized how fragile my position was. An act of the legislature could put us out of business,” Ben recalled. “That’s what led me to purchase the elderberry business last summer.”
Now, as owners of Seattle Elderberry, Schoppee Farm manufactures its products, too, sourcing organic elderberries from other Maine farmers while they work toward growing their own. But they’re not stopping there. This summer, in the farm’s original milking shed, they’ll open a cafe, including a French-inspired bakery, enlisting the talents of Chef Ross Florance.
“One of the things I thought I was giving up when I moved here was a cafe,” said Edwards, who recently sat down with Meroff to share ideas. “The overall attitude of collaboration in Machias is entirely different from what I remember as a child, and I think it looks better than I have ever seen it. That might be in contrast to things looking relatively dire, but I think what Bill [Kitchen] and some of the other local people have done has not only turned things around but really built some momentum for Machias.”
In June, Edwards was elected to the Machias Board of Selectmen, where he joins another local son who moved home to invest in Machias. Selectman Jake Patryn works as director of operations for Acadian Seaplants and, together with his fiancée Morgan-Lea Fogg, farms sugar kelp and manufactures a line of kelp products under the brand Nautical Farms.
“When we showed up saying we were going to start a seaweed farm, people thought we were insane. But now there’s a growing interest, which is exciting,” said Fogg. “There’s a need to figure out how to continue our working waterfront that doesn’t rely on only one product.”
In June, Patryn and Fogg opened their first storefront stocking Nautical Farms’ line of kelp-based food and bath products, as well as books and other seaweed-related gifts.
For Patryn, doubling down on Machias was an easy decision.
“Machias has always been a part of me. I knew I didn’t want to leave again, so I started to think, how can I get more involved?” Patryn said, recalling what led him to run for selectman. “A big part of it is Bill Kitchen. I have a lot of respect for Bill, and as a leader, he really makes me want to be there beside him and help in any way that I can.”
Kitchen, whose background is not in municipal management but corporate and brand strategy, says he thinks of himself as Machias’ cheerleader, facilitator, and expediter rolled into one.
“It’s my job to get everybody to believe to a point where they are willing to invest their money and their time because it takes both,” he said. “Nobody wants to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. I think that for a long time, people felt this was a listing ship, and that’s changed. I think we have reached a point of critical mass.”
This article first appeared inThe Working Waterfront, a publication of the Island Institute, and was republished with permission.
Five takeaways from an investigation into Maine’s assisted living facilities
Building Publicly Owned Broadband Starts with a Low-Tech Approach: Community Buy-in
This story is part of a series.
On a Tuesday afternoon, standing in front of the Islesboro Sewing Circle on an island off Maine’s MidCoast, Jane Wherren holds up items recently completed by members for the annual fundraiser. The president of one of the nation’s oldest sewing circles, called simply “circle” by locals, Wherren begins every meeting with show and tell. As sewing machines hum and knitting needles click, a dozen women glance up from their work to watch. “Look at these potholders with blueberry pie.” A woman calls out, “Who knitted those cute mother and baby socks?”
Standing in a 120-year-old building with one of the oldest sewing groups in the nation, you’d almost think you had stepped back in time. Then a voice calls out, “Those are gorgeous, can you zoom in?”
Sewing Circle president, Jane Wherren, displays completed items for annual sale to Zoom attendees. (Photo by Carolyn Campbell)
The voice isn’t coming from the women in the room; it’s coming from a computer held by the circle’s secretary. To zoom in the woman walks closer to Wherren, turning the screen to capture the purses. Later in the meeting, when women sing happy birthday to one of its members, women both online and in person sing along.
“We’ve been having hybrid meetings since the pandemic,” Wherren said. “We still do. We want to include everyone from our community, whether they’re homebound, in another state, or just unable to attend. Soon we’ll be teaching online sewing classes.”
Ten years ago, long before today’s unprecedented amounts of federal funding in rural Internet infrastructure, Roger Heinen watched Islesboro’s population drop precipitously. “We were facing an existential crisis,” he said. “There’s nothing like young people moving away to threaten the survival of an island community.”
In 2014, Heinen formed a small volunteer coalition to come up with a solution for the island of under 600 year-round residents.
“Our coalition spent two years talking to lobstermen, selectmen, the hunting club, the school, and power brokers like the sewing circle,” he said.
In 2016, voters approved a $3.8 million bond to fund the construction of a fiber-to-the-premises infrastructure capable of speeds of 1 gigabit per second. By 2018, Islesboro Municipal Broadband construction was complete and service was installed for all home and business subscribers.
“Getting the network off the ground was the hardest work I ever did,” Heinen said. “We (the town) knew that at the end of the day when the last ferry left, there was no government to save us. We were on our own.”
It’s been nearly five years since Islesboro’s Municipal Broadband connected those first subscribers. Today, as unprecedented federal and state funding is funneled into high-speed broadband access, increasing numbers of coalitions are attempting to build publicly owned networks. In the last two years, numerous attempts in rural Maine have failed. Lack of financial resources is often cited as a factor. Some say campaigns by large telecommunications companies to undermine broadband utilities are another reason.
Heinen says another issue is the most important barrier to getting municipal broadband off the ground.
“When I talk to towns, I tell them money is not the primary issue,” he said. “What’s most critical is the ability to create strong social capital. There is money out there. There are technical and financial consultants out there. Social capital building, though, that must come from the inside.”
Peggy Schaffer, Maine’s first director for broadband funding, now a strategic consultant and board member on the American Association for Public Broadband, echoed Heinen’s advice.
“Though there is no clear path to success, strong community engagement is at the heart of most successful publicly owned utilities,” Schaffer said.
In June, one of Maine’s newest town-owned fiber optic networks, Leeds Broadband, will start marketing their service after nearly four years of navigating the murky challenges of garnering support and overcoming incumbent provider opposition. Joe McLean, the organizer of the network, building community understanding and support was important at every stage of the process.
PowerPoint presentation at Eastport City Council meeting. (Photo by Carolyn Campbell)
“It’s been a long haul of hard work,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of coalition building as we’ve worked alongside our selectmen. Each stage has another level of community buy-in, from basic education to the benefits of high-speed internet, to why we can offer it cheaper and better.”
Both Heinen and McLean said the political disagreement between local elected officials and publicly owned broadband committees can be another impediment to implementation. “I’ve watched broadband committees who are on a completely different page with their selectmen and other people in town, arguing about the two different ideas rather than just getting to one good idea and trying to push it,” McLean said.
Having worked with dozens of coalitions promoting publicly owned broadband, Schaffer said one of the biggest mistakes coalitions make is presenting fiber-optic broadband as very technical.
“In reality, it’s a very human infrastructure,” she said. “When asking for money for publicly owned networks, committees need to realize that just because they’ve picked the right technology for their community, that doesn’t mean the community is going to buy into it.”
There’s no substitute for spending time to build local support, she said.
“There’s so much work to do, committees often forget the importance of public outreach. If committees don’t (get buy-in), when the cable companies and the Spectrums come with their flyers, mailers, newspaper ads, and online attacks, run by people who make their living running these reaching people on a seemingly personal level, it’s too late to start to build support.”
Relieved to have weathered some of these incumbent campaigns, McLean’s team is excited to begin marketing. “We’ll be putting up displays in the town office, at the farmers’ market, and other events around town,” he said. “We want everyone to understand that with this nonprofit model, the more people sign up the cheaper it can be. We are going to focus on being a local provider for our local community. We want people to know that in comparison to the incumbent provider, we can provide far better service for far less.”
Schaffer said the benefits of building strong social capital as part of municipal broadband projects are worth the effort. “We see it across the country,” she said. “Community-owned networks … put revenues back into the community. They increase speed and service while reducing prices. For communities who can bring these networks to fruition, the profits always exceed the costs. The challenge is getting the community on board.”
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Maine will receive at least $235 million in settlements from companies accused of fueling the opioid crisis
Maine stands to receive at least $235 million over the next nearly two decades as the result of national settlements with some of the companies accused of supercharging the opioid epidemic.
The settlements end years of litigation filed by dozens of states and other plaintiffs against the companies, alleging they led a misleading, dangerous and ultimately deadly campaign for more than two decades to put pharmaceutical opioids into the medicine cabinets of people across the country.
This campaign, the plaintiffs say, created the opioid crisis and contributed to the situation that saw 105,000 people die of drug overdoses in the United States last year, largely fueled by increasingly lethal drugs like the synthetic opioid fentanyl. More than 932,000 people have died from a drug overdose between 1999 and 2020, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly two-thirds of those deaths involved an opioid.
“Our communities have suffered tremendously,” Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said in a statement last December.
“While no amount of money can ever remedy the pain experienced by so many, I’m hopeful that a settlement could mean more funds for critical treatment, prevention and recovery efforts that can make a meaningful difference in lives across the state,” he said.
The complicated task of how to distribute the money to municipalities, recovery groups and others has begun in Maine. The state has received approximately $28 million with millions more expected.
The Maine Monitor examined the web of legal agreements and spoke to key players to understand who stands to benefit from this money and why it matters.
Purdue Pharma’s role
To understand the significance of these settlements, it requires going back to December 1995, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved OxyContin, Purdue Pharma’s extended-release formulation of the powerful synthetic opioid oxycodone.
The formulation doled out the drug every 12 hours instead of every four to six. The FDA by its own admission said at the time it believed this formulation “would result in less abuse potential, since the drug would be absorbed slowly and there would not be an immediate ‘rush’ or high that would promote abuse.”
Oxycodone, however, is a highly addictive substance, one-and-a-half times more powerful than morphine and hydrocodone. And someone looking to get that rush could easily bypass the controlled-release mechanism by crushing or dissolving the pills, which ranged from 10 to 160 milligrams, to snort or inject.
The FDA said there was “no evidence to suggest at the time” that doing so “would become widespread and lead to a high level of abuse.”
Over the years, Purdue spent hundreds of millions of dollars on an aggressive marketing campaign. Drug representatives camped out in doctor’s offices to offer lavish lunches, free gifts and a chance to hear about Purdue’s new wonder drug. Unsealed documents show the manufacturer often targeted primary care physicians with little to no formal training in pain medicine.
They encouraged providers, many initially reluctant to prescribe an opioid painkiller, to think of pain as the “Fifth Vital Sign” and pushed the misleading claim that “less than 1% of patients” treated with an opioid became addicted, according to court documents and reporting.
In 1997, just one year after OxyContin came on the market, 30 people in Maine died from a pharmaceutical drug overdose, 16 involving opioids, according to reports from the University of Maine Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center. In all, 34 Mainers died from a drug overdose that year.
Last year, 715 Mainers died of drug overdoses. Slightly more than a fifth, or 155 deaths, involved pharmaceutical opioids, alone or in combination with other drugs. Illicitly manufactured fentanyl, which first showed up in toxicology reports in Maine in 2013, claimed nearly 80% of drug deaths in 2022. There were 9,859 reported nonfatal overdoses, though that number is likely higher.
This April alone there were nearly 800 fatal and nonfatal overdoses in Maine.
“Purdue and the Sackler defendants misled Maine consumers, and in doing so played a significant role in accelerating the opioid epidemic,” Frey said in a June 2019 statement announcing he had filed a complaint against the OxyContin manufacturer and its billionaire owners, members of the Sackler family.
“Our complaint alleges that their unrelenting sales visits to doctors and deceptive practices led to a marked increase in opioid prescriptions, and a corresponding increase in the number of Mainers suffering from opioid use disorder,” he said.
In filing suit, Maine joined nearly every other state, plus about 2,000 local and tribal governments, in pursuing legal action against Purdue, Frey said.
The settlements
Maine’s suit was just one of thousands of complaints filed against Purdue and other companies accused of fueling the opioid epidemic. The lawsuits have been playing out in courts across the country for years. Nationwide, they have led to some $50 billion in settlements.
In 2017, a federal judicial panel ordered that thousands of pending lawsuits be consolidated into a massive multidistrict litigation case called the National Prescription Opiate Litigation. In 2021, a $26 billion settlement agreement was reached with the “big three” wholesale pharmaceutical companies who distribute 80-90% of all prescription drugs in the United States — McKesson Corporation, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health — and pharmaceutical manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals.
Maine signed on to the agreement and in January 2022 executed a “Memorandum of Understanding” with political subdivisions — counties, towns and cities — and separate MOU with school districts that were part of the consolidated opiate litigation case. Maine stands to receive at least $130 million over the next nearly two decades from this batch of settlements involving the “Big Three” and Johnson & Johnson.
Litigation against Purdue has yet to reach its conclusion. In September 2019, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, just days after reaching a tentative settlement with more than 2,000 local governments. Purdue’s bankruptcy case remains caught up in appeals, with the latest decision in a federal appeals court, granting members of the Sackler family legal immunity, coming down late last month.
Separately, Maine was part of a multistate agreement with manufacturer Mallinckrodt, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020. Maine is slated to receive $5.8 million over nine years under that agreement, which will also be governed by the MOUs.
About $819,000 in payments have already been made to Maine in the Mallinckrodt case, though future payments may be in limbo: Earlier this month, Mallinckrodt floated the possibility that the company could file for a second bankruptcy.
In March, Frey announced another $100 million in payments as part of five additional settlements reached earlier this year. The settlements are with manufacturers Teva and Allergan, and three retailers, CVS, Walgreens and Walmart.
Frey’s office confirmed earlier this month that 100% of eligible subdivisions — all 16 of Maine’s counties, and 23 cities and towns — have signed on to the five additional agreements, which will pay out over 15 years.
One pending settlement remains: Endo International, a manufacturer, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last August. While the restructuring process remains in progress, Frey’s office said last week it expects about $500 million to be distributed to states, though the exact allocation hasn’t been determined.
“There’s a lot of money here and there’s also a lot to learn in regards to how the money can be spent and what the money can be spent on,” Pat Kimball, the chair of the Maine Recovery Council, which oversees half of the money coming into the state, said earlier this month.
Another $3.3 million will go to Maine’s five federally recognized tribes over 15 years as part of a separate set of agreements between Native American tribes and tribal health organizations and the same companies. The Maine Monitor’s analysis does not include those agreements.
‘Due diligence’
Although payments from the Distributors and Johnson & Johnson settlements brought in approximately $28 million since last year, some recipients are getting restless with the slow progress to actually put dollars toward combating the opioid crisis, according to some involved in the process.
Yet the Maine Recovery Council — which has yet to disburse any of the approximately $14.5 million already in its coffers — insists it’s doing “due diligence,” Kimball, the council chair, said earlier this month.
A Hermon resident, Kimball retired in 2016 after 15 years as executive director of Wellspring in Bangor, which provides inpatient and outpatient mental health and substance use disorder counseling.
“As frustrated as everyone is, including the Council members, it takes time,” Kimball said. “And we’re trying to push it as quickly as we can, but at the same time being responsible to make sure that these dollars are well spent.”
The council has met nearly every month since its first meeting last November, though the MOU only requires they meet twice annually. At its latest meeting June 8, the council was still settling into its role overseeing what will amount to nearly $118 million in settlement payments over the next decade and a half, spending most of the meeting discussing officer elections, potential subcommittees and a remote meeting policy.
There was no discussion during the 90-minute meeting on how to disburse the funds and to whom.
Kimball said the council is focused on “getting ourselves organized” and “getting to know what’s going on around the state” to understand where funding gaps exist.
“Part of it is that we want to spend this money, we want it to get to people, we want to save lives. But at the same time we don’t want to put money where money has already been spent,” she said.
The council needs to create a “fair process as to how people can tell us, to share with us, what their needs are.”
Asked about a timeline for when the council expects to have a process to begin disbursing funds, Kimball said her goal would be by the fall.
“I’m not sometimes a patient woman. Sometimes I think the process is slow. But I also know from experience that slow and steady wins that race,” she said.
Because the direct share subdivisions do not have public reporting requirements, it is not immediately clear how each of the 39 counties, cities and towns have spent or plan to spend the $9 million already paid out.
Council members at the June 8 meeting said they heard from some counties and towns that they don’t know where to even begin.
“There’s a lot of collaboration, a lot of conversations that need to be taking place,” said Bruce Noddin, the founder and executive director of the Maine Prisoner Re-Entry Network.
“Municipalities are in the dark right now. They have no idea what they’re doing and they’re just begging for somebody to give them some guidance. And they want to collaborate,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Office of the Attorney General said they have spent a portion of the approximately $5.8 million it received as of the spring, but did not provide a detailed breakdown.
“The Attorney General will continue to work closely with the legislature, the Mills administration, community partners and impacted communities to use the settlement funds allocated to the Office to enhance treatment, prevention, recovery and harm reduction efforts across the state,” according to a statement provided by spokesperson Danna Hayes.
“The AG has already committed over $4 million to expand family drug court dockets and the OPTIONS program, in addition to the naloxone the Office has been purchasing and distributing to law enforcement agencies across Maine since 2016. The OAG’s share of the settlement funding is, by design, intended to be flexible and responsive to meet urgent programming and resource needs and as such, the OAG will be paying close attention to opportunities to make an impact for Maine communities.”
Who are the settlement agreements with, and how much money will Maine receive?
The “big three” wholesale pharmaceutical companies, Texas-based McKesson Corporation, Pennsylvania-based AmerisourceBergen and Ohio-based Cardinal Health, collectively known as the “Distributors,” will pay $106.7 million to Maine over 18 years. Payments began last fall and total about $10.7 million so far.
New Jersey-based pharmaceutical manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary, Belgium-based Janssen Pharmaceuticals, will pay $24.6 million over nine years. Payments began last fall and total about $16.8 million so far.
Maine expects to receive about $5.8 million as part of manufacturer Mallinckrodt’s bankruptcy restructuring plan, which has its operational headquarters in Missouri. The state has already received $819,000.
Allergan, a global pharmaceutical manufacturer headquartered in Ireland, will pay $11.3 million over seven years beginning this year.
Teva, an Israeli multinational pharmaceutical manufacturer, will pay $20.5 million over 13 years beginning this year.
Rhode Island-based CVS Pharmacy, the largest pharmacy chain in the U.S., will pay $25 million over 10 years beginning this year.
Illinois-based Walgreens, the second-largest pharmacy chain in the U.S., will pay $27.3 million over 15 years starting this year.
Walmart, the Arkansas-based multinational retail corporation and pharmacy chain, will pay its entire $14.2 million settlement this year.
Who controls the money?
Maine has two memoranda of understanding with the political subdivisions and school districts that were independent of the Attorney General’s complaints party to the multidistrict litigation.
These MOUs determine which bank accounts the money is deposited into, how the money can be allocated or spent and any oversight. The settlement payments, with some caveats, are divided as such:
20% to the Office of the Attorney General, which will oversee the “state fund.”
30% to the litigating subdivisions (the “subdivision fund”), otherwise known as “direct share subdivisions.” Payments from the settling companies or trusts go directly to these 39 counties, cities and towns.
50% to the Maine Recovery Council, which oversees the Maine Recovery Fund, or “abatement fund.” (More on this later.)
The caveats:
To pay for litigating subdivisions’ attorney fees, the settlement agreements for the Distributors and Johnson & Johnson state that 7% of their payments must go into a “backstop fund.” Each subdivision’s allocation is calculated from the net total (the total subdivision fund minus the backstop fund.)
Per the MOU with school administrative districts, at least 3% of the Maine Recovery Fund must go to school districts for special education purposes. The MOU states that any school district can apply, but the 30 litigating school districts will be given a “reasonable plus factor in consideration of grants.”
What’s the Maine Recovery Council?
The 15-member Maine Recovery Council will oversee the Recovery Fund, which accounts for 50% of all payments coming to Maine. Gov. Janet Mills signed into law LD 1722 in April 2022, establishing the council. The MOUs govern the scope and power of the council.
The members are appointed by the governor, Senate President, House Speaker, litigating subdivisions and the Office of the Attorney General, and are limited to two consecutive two-year terms.
The council’s primary task is to distribute the Recovery Fund and ensure that the funds are being spent in compliance with the MOU. While it has no rulemaking authority, the MOU also tasks the council with facilitating “collaboration” among the state, subdivisions and other “stakeholders for the purposes of sharing data, outcomes, strategies and other relevant information related to abating the opioid crisis in Maine.”
How can the money be spent?
The settlement funds must be used for opioid abatement strategies. Examples of abatement strategies are treatment and prevention, such as the expansion of medication-assisted treatment for uninsured individuals or harm reduction initiatives, like education on and distribution of the opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone. Other strategies include research, training and technical assistance.
The state subdivision MOU provides a list of potential strategies that come directly from the National Opioid Settlement and filings from the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy case.
Does spending have to be publicly reported?
Only 15 states have explicitly promised to publicly report 100% of their settlement expenditures, according to a 50-state survey from OpioidSettlementTracker.com author Christine Minhee. Maine is not one of them.
Maine has only committed to publicly reporting on 50% of its settlement expenditures, all from the Maine Recovery Council, which oversees the Maine Recovery Fund. The council is required to develop a “centralized public dashboard or other repository for publication of expenditure data,” according to the MOU. The council can request fund recipients submit certain data, including on outcomes to support this.
The Recovery Fund also appears to be the only bucket of money with any reporting requirements. This includes various annual reports to the state legislature from the Attorney General, whose office provides legal counsel and administrative support to the council.
There are no requirements under Maine law or the MOUs that the Office of the Attorney General or the direct share subdivisions publicly disclose how they are spending settlement money.
The last maternity unit in Washington County gets creative to stay open
Behavioral teletherapy for students in rural Maine brings ‘hope to the hallways’
Students and staff in rural Maine are using teletherapy to help access much-needed behavioral health services.
Baileyville, Maine (pop. 1,318), was experiencing a youth mental health crisis in their community and a severe shortage of mental health providers.
The problem reached a precipice in 2021 and 2022, said Kate Perkins, deputy director for U.S. program development at MCD Global Health. Of the more than 4,500 fully or conditionally registered clinical social workers in Maine, fewer than 4,000 live in the state, and fewer than 50 in Washington County.
“One of the things that we were seeing is the result of Covid,” Patricia Metta, superintendent of AOS 90 school district, which includes the Woodland Elementary and Woodland Junior-Senior High School, told the Daily Yonder. “We saw kids not returning back to school, many of them had gotten so used to being in their homes for at least a year, that their social issues, they couldn’t handle being social. They didn’t know how to deal with social issues.”
There were also several suicides, both within the school system and the community at large, she said.
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The country as a whole is grappling with a lack of physicians, but it is more acute in rural areas. A 2021 Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) study found that the U.S. could see a shortage of between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians by 2034.
To combat the negative health effects, a collaborative effort coordinated by MCD Global Health now gives students and staff at Woodland Elementary and Woodland Junior-Senior High School in Baileyville, and across the county’s AOS 90 school district, access to virtual behavioral health services and other needed resources.
A $500,000 matching grant from Point32Health Foundation helped the community get started on the initiative. Additional funding helped the program reach a total of $1.5 million in resources.
Since the program began, 30 students have been matched with behavioral health providers in person and virtually. The program is on track to serve a total of 80 students by July 31, 2023. The school district has 380 students across four schools.
“We do see kids reaching out for help. They’re asking to see their provider. They’re asking for their teletherapy sessions,” Metta said. “We see them talking to people. And we do believe that eventually that will lessen their anxiety. And we are seeing kids come to school more. Attendance has really improved.”
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The program started through a community assessment in August 2021 that found access to behavioral health resources as an urgent need, Metta said. Initially, officials put teletherapy equipment in both schools and weren’t sure what the result would be, she added.
“We thought, there’s a couple of kids that will take advantage of it,” she said. “Well, since then, we’ve lost our full-time provider. And every day we’re picking up more and more kids on teletherapy…And if they can’t relate well with the in-house provider, then they have the option of teletherapy as well. So it’s a win-win for everybody.”
Jessica Melhiser, children’s program manager at Aroostook Mental Health Services Inc. and care navigator for the program, said in a statement that the program has transformed health and well-being for students and families in the communities.
“Students are getting the support they need and sharing the benefits with their classmates, their families, and others who need help. It brings hope to the hallways,” she said.
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Perkins said they haven’t solved all the problems, nor are they trying to.
“What we have done is rebuild confidence and re-ignite belief that it can get better,” she said. “The early work was really slow. It took a long time to build trust. It took the local leaders seeing us deliver, in terms of getting matching funds or equipment, for them to believe us when we said that this or that was viable and could get funded.”
Metta said the program had initiated other positive movements, like creating a food pantry and a garden for students.
“I think as a result of the teletherapy program, and the community, the rural community getting involved, that’s what it took, in order for this to be successful.”
This story was originally published in the Daily Yonder. For more rural reporting and small-town stories from across the U.S. visitdailyyonder.com.
Behavioral Teletherapy for Students in Rural Maine Brings ‘Hope to the Hallways’
Students and staff in rural Maine are using teletherapy to help access much-needed behavioral health services.
Baileyville, Maine (pop. 1,318), was experiencing a youth mental health crisis in their community and a severe shortage of mental health providers. The problem reached a precipice in 2021 and 2022, said Kate Perkins, deputy director for U.S. program development at MCD Global Health. Of the more than 4,500 fully or conditionally registered clinical social workers in Maine, fewer than 4,000 live in the state, and fewer than 50 in Washington County, the easternmost county in Maine where Baileyville is located.
“One of the things that we were seeing is the result of Covid,” Patricia Metta, superintendent of AOS 90 school district, which includes the Woodland Elementary and Woodland Junior-Senior High School, told the Daily Yonder. “We saw kids not returning back to school, many of them had gotten so used to being in their homes for at least a year, that their social issues, they couldn’t handle being social. They didn’t know how to deal with social issues.”
There were also several suicides, both within the school system and the community at large, she said.
To combat the negative health effects, a collaborative effort coordinated by MCD Global Health now gives students and staff at Woodland Elementary and Woodland Junior-Senior High School in Baileyville, and across the county’s AOS 90 school district, access to virtual behavioral health services and other needed resources. A $500,000 matching grant from Point32Health Foundation helped the community get started on the initiative. Additional funding helped the program reach a total of $1.5 million in resources.
Since the program began, 30 students have been matched with behavioral health providers in person and virtually. The program is on track to serve a total of 80 students by July 31, 2023. The school district has 380 students across four schools.
“We do see kids reaching out for help. They’re asking to see their provider. They’re asking for their teletherapy sessions,” Metta said. “We see them talking to people. And we do believe that eventually that will lessen their anxiety. And we are seeing kids come to school more. Attendance has really improved.”
The program started through a community assessment in August 2021 that found access to behavioral health resources as an urgent need, Metta said. Initially, officials put teletherapy equipment in both schools and weren’t sure what the result would be, she added.
“We thought, there’s a couple of kids that will take advantage of it,” she said. “Well, since then, we’ve lost our full-time provider. And every day we’re picking up more and more kids on teletherapy…And if they can’t relate well with the in-house provider, then they have the option of teletherapy as well. So it’s a win-win for everybody.”
Jessica Melhiser, children’s program manager at Aroostook Mental Health Services Inc. and care navigator for the program, said in a statement that the program has transformed health and well-being for students and families in the communities.
“Students are getting the support they need and sharing the benefits with their classmates, their families, and others who need help. It brings hope to the hallways,” she said.
Perkins said they haven’t solved all the problems, nor are they trying to.
“What we have done is rebuild confidence and re-ignite belief that it can get better,” she said. “The early work was really slow. It took a long time to build trust. It took the local leaders seeing us deliver, in terms of getting matching funds or equipment, for them to believe us when we said that this or that was viable and could get funded.”
Metta said the program had initiated other positive movements, like creating a food pantry and a garden for students.
“I think as a result of the teletherapy program, and the community, the rural community getting involved, that’s what it took, in order for this to be successful.”
A landscape dotted with pastures, grazing sheep … and self-storage facilities
Meandering country roads skirt a half-dozen pristine lakes and waterways along Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge in the Washington County town of Charlotte, home to 334 year-round residents. All along the way, lush woodlots, furrowed fields and blueberry barrens, bursting in orange and raspberry sherbet-colored blossoms, tell the rich story of this 200-year-old agricultural community.
But the bucolic journey comes to a jarring halt across the road from the town’s old grange and white-steepled church. In a former pasture, atop a sprawling gravel pad, is a row of new, steel self-storage buildings, sporting 76 bright-blue garage doors.
“Used to be a time, you could stand in the pulpit talking about Jesus being a good shepherd and look out the window to see sheep grazing right there,” said Ernest James, a town selectman for 40 years – and from time to time the assessor, road commissioner and cemetery caretaker.
But changing lifestyles are driving the demand for self–storage facilities, with more than 50,000 scattered across the country, according to Forbes. At last count, and climbing, Maine had 211 facilities, reports SelfStorage.com, an online self-storage comparison and reservation site. Garages, attics and basements are overflowing, and the self-storage industry is reaping the benefits.
There are about a dozen self-storage facilities scattered throughout Washington County from Princeton in the northwest to Steuben near the Hancock County line. There are at least a couple of new ones planned, including one in Machias, as well as expansions at existing facilities. But some town officials say those numbers might be low because many facilities have no vacancies, therefore no longer advertise.
Stephen and Paula Farrar are Calais business owners who said they researched the industry for a few years before building their units in 2022. The couple, who live a stone’s throw from their 76-unit facility in Charlotte, run the business with their son Jamie and his wife Lea.
Since the facilities require little maintenance other than snow plowing, investing in a self-storage business — north of $400,000 at current construction prices, according to Farrar’s estimates — made good business sense to him.
“We’re getting a bit older and we’re getting ready to retire, so it seemed like something that would be easier than most kinds of rentals to manage,” Stephen Farrar said.
There are about a dozen self-storage facilities scattered throughout Washington County from Princeton in the northwest to Steuben near the Hancock County line. Photo by Joyce Krysak.
The family outsources much of that management, including rental reservations and payments, to a company that does all of it for them online.
Companies such as Easy Storage Solutions provide packages that include management software, call answering, online marketing, search engine optimization and tenant insurance plans. There are online companies that do the research, then offer from-the-ground-up packages, including building schematics, customizable business plans, financial spreadsheets, and “how-to” guides.
According to Mordor Intelligence Research, as reported in Forbes, the self-storage market reached $87.65 billion in 2019 and continues to grow. Although the owners interviewed for this story declined to say how much they earn, MRA reports that in Maine the income for the units, which vary in size, range on average from $90 to $163 per unit, per month.
The facilities also are proving to be a good deal for municipalities, according to several officials, including James, the Charlotte selectman. James, a farmer with over 600 acres not far from the self-storage facility, laments the changing landscape, but as a selectman said he sees the benefit of a self-storage business, especially in a small town like Charlotte.
Built less than a year ago, the facility has not been assessed so James couldn’t say how much it will add to the town’s coffers. But similar facilities bring in fairly substantial tax revenues for Washington County towns.
Thirty-three miles away, the town of Lubec has been collecting just under $4,000 a year in taxes from Lubec Safe Space Storage, built about two decades ago, according to treasurer and tax collector Suzette Francis. The facility on Route 189, owned by Christopher and Rachel Goodwin of Pembroke, sits next to the Eastland Motel, with a fence and row of apple trees in between.
Heather Henry Tenan, the motel co-owner with her husband, said the facility has been an excellent neighbor.
“If anything, it has given our business a little boost,” Henry Tenan said. “Oftentimes, (people) that lease a storage unit stay with us at the motel while they work on unit contents.”
She added that she and her husband even rented a unit themselves when they had a motel storage emergency. Although the motel pays more in taxes than the storage facility, around $7,000 a year after lot size and assessed value are considered, Francis said the tax revenue from the two businesses is comparable.
Tax assessor Jacqueline Robbins, who calculates property values for Lubec and several other towns in the county, said the facilities are a steady source of tax revenue.
“They certainly don’t require much,” said Robbins. “They don’t require anything in the way of education or even police, and that kind of thing. They just kind of sit there and give us some tax dollars.”
East Machias Self-Storage on Route 1, among the oldest self-storage businesses in the county, has brought East Machias thousands of dollars in taxes each year, just over $5,000 this year, according to the town clerk’s office.
Another facility, built last year by former BBS Lobster Company owner Blair West of Machiasport, is also on Route 1 in East Machias. West paid roughly $2,600 in the latest tax bill, based on an assessment of the property and the original 100 units.
West, who does much of the construction and all of the management himself, is grading land for an additional 45-unit building. As soon as that goes up, West said he’ll get working on another building in the back, for a total of 200 units.
“It’s been amazing. I’ve saturated the market for the larger units, but I do have a waiting list for smaller sizes. That’s why I’m putting in this building,” West said while catching his breath after raking trenches at the site.
Machiasport resident Blair West is grading land for an additional 45-unit building, and plans to construct another building next. Photo by Joyce Kryszak.
According to West, the only way to make a decent profit, or be able to hire help, is to scale up. In the meantime, he handles everything from construction to hauling stuff to the dump if tenants are delinquent. Some facility owners occasionally call on the local used furniture store, Re Find Furnishings, to help with those situations.
“We do clean out storage units from time to time when it’s needed,” said Channing Johnson, who works for West and is the daughter of the former owner. “We have gotten some very nice and valuable items from these units.”
But who exactly are all of these people with so much stuff and nowhere to put it? Municipal officials and facility owners say there are a mix of tenants with myriad reasons for renting, ranging from a surge in Downeast newcomers to those displaced by the county’s housing shortage. Then there are residents who flow in and out with the seasons along Washington County’s increasingly popular Bold Coast.
Betty Jean and Stim Wilcox temporarily borrowed space in one of the two units their friend rents in East Machias. The retired couple recently decided to sell their home and soon will head to California to be near family. Betty Jean said they had to find storage in a hurry to make the house more attractive to buyers.
“We’ve packed up some things that we’ll eventually be taking with us and put in the unit for now,’’ Betty Jean said. “This way there isn’t so much clutter in the house when we show it.”
Still others, facility owners said, might store motorcycles, ATVs and even cars, drained of any fuel, in larger units over the winter. Traveling the length of Washington County, code enforcer Kevin Brody, who serves several towns, said he frequently sees people putting their units to creative use.
“Just driving by the storage units in Columbia Falls, there’s always somebody every Saturday and Sunday having a yard sale out of their storage unit,” Brody said.
Brody said that type of use doesn’t violate state or municipal codes. He said the structures are simple to deal with for the most part because they don’t have electrical wiring, water or plumbing. Rain runoff, the biggest issue, is easily mitigated with retention systems and additional drainage.
When there is an issue, Brody said he’s happy to work with the owners he described as mostly hard-working people trying to make money by providing a service people seem to need.
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