BATH — It was a quiet weekend in the midcoast, at least it was after the power failed virtually everywhere in our service area.

Thursday night's storm downed trees, some of which fell on Central Maine Power lines and caused widespread power outages in Lincoln County, Sagadahoc County, and coastal Cumberland county. A total of 130,340 homes and businesses were without power throughout the state, but the majority of the outages were in the midcoast and coastal York County. Lincoln county had 16,977 customers without power, and Sagadahoc County had 12,382 customers without power. Coastal Knox County also had some 8000 customers without power.

by Gina Hamilton
Coastal Journal staff

BATH — The long-running M.W. Sewall bankruptcy has entered its final chapter.  However, this chapter is not Chapter 7, according to Trustee Mark Stickney.

There have been serious changes at M.W. Sewall & Co. since the beginning of February.  Phillip Sewall was fired on February 5, accused of ‘mismanagement and self-dealing’, and using proprietary M.W. Sewall information to establish a competing business.  Because the company was under trusteeship of the bankruptcy court at the time, any resulting legal issues will be handled in federal court, rather than state court, according to court documents.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court approved a restraining order and injunction against Phillip Sewall on February 8. which prohibits him from using or disclosing the estate’s confidential information, speaking to employees, customers, vendors, funding sources, or other business relationships, and from competing with M.W. Sewall in violation of the Maine Uniform Trade Secrets Act.

BATH — After almost two years of trusteeship, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers has handed management of BIW's largest union back over to workers here, in effect putting the “local” back into Local S6. The international union suspended S6 officers and imposed the trusteeship after citing allegations of financial and electoral mismanagement, as well as the presence of pornography on union computers.

Following what some local union members dubbed the St. Patrick's Day Massacre, on March 17, 2008, the union's affairs were largely conducted from its Maryland headquarters, until September 2009, when a new spate of officers was elected by union members. Local control of  day-to-day operations was reestablished last week.