Mills touts 'hopeful but real' goals on housing, workforce, broadband in second term

Photo / Jim Neuger Gov. Janet Mills gives inaugural address at the Augusta Civic Center after being sworn in for a second term.

Photo / Jim Neuger Mills invoked the word ``hope,’’ or variations thereon, more than 20 times in the speech laying out her second-term agenda.

View from above of military musicians with instruments and stands with sheet music

Photo / Jim Neuger Fanfare was provided by the 195th Maine Army National Guard Band, a regular presence at official events.

Photo / Jim Neuger Let it shine: Members of the Pihcintu Multinational Girls Choir, a Portland-based group of immigrants and refugees, on stage during the ceremony.

Photo / Jim Neuger Folksy interlude: Singer-songwriter Dave Mallett warms up the crowd for Mills’s oath-taking.

Photo / Jim Neuger Escorted by lawmakers, Mills makes her entrance for the inaugural ceremony.

Write a Comment

By Renee Cordes

Gov. Janet Mills signed emergency legislation on Wednesday to enact her emergency Winter Relief Plan hours after it was passed by state lawmakers with strong bipartisan support. The measure means most Mainers are in line to receive $450 relief checks to help pay winter heating bills. The Winter Relief Plan also supplements home heating assistance for low-income consumers and funds short-term emergency housing to address homelessness this winter.
More Information

Gov. Janet Mills on Wednesday used her inaugural speech to tout broad goals of addressing Maine's housing crisis and workforce shortage and diversifying Maine's economy and energy sources in her second term. She also reiterated her pledge to ensure broadband connectivity for all by the end of 2024.

"These are our goals — hopeful but real," she said after being sworn in at the Augusta Civic Center. She used the words "hope" or 'hopeful" more than 20 times in talking about Maine's past, present and future.

"Hope is not an easy thing. It's not mere wishful thinking," she said. "It's not just trying to do what we did yesterday in the same old, same old ways. Hope is disruptive. It is a four-letter word, after all. It challenges and changes the way we do things. It calls on us to advance and adapt, while preserving who we are as a people and all the values we hold dear."

Mills, a Democrat who turned 75 on Dec. 30, was re-elected to a second term in November, defeating her Republican predecessor, Paul R. LePage.

Noting that "great things are happening in Maine," Mills said she saw that firsthand during the campaign from touring clinics and hospitals, schools, warehouses, diners and boathouses, log yards, libraries and factories and houses of worship of all faiths.

The Farmington native gave a shout-out to more than a dozen Maine companies and organizations by name from Louisiana Pacific in Houlton to the Roux Institute in Portland, declaring that "hope is very much alive" across the state.

While there was no mention of L.L.Bean, Mills complemented her white pantsuit with brown Bean Boots made by the Freeport-based company that drew notice by attendees in the room, even in back rows, and on social media.

Mills' feet in Bean Boots and white pants

Photo / Jim Neuger

Mills accessorized her white pantsuit with Bean boots, making a Maine-ish fashion statement.

The ceremony, which lasted around 90 minutes, was infused with music and poetry that incorporated the "hope" leitmotif, and touching moments like the leading of the Pledge of Allegiance by Noelle and Brooke May, the governor's young granddaughters.

Musical highlights included performances by the Pihcintu Multinational Girls Choir, two of whose members sang at Mills's first inauguration, and singer-songwriter Dave Mallett singing the title song from "Celebration," a studio album released in 2016.

Original poems written for Wednesday's occasion were recited by their authors, Maine Poet Laureate Julia Bouwsma and Richard Blanco, a Bethel resident and fifth inaugural poet to U.S. President Barack Obama.

Time travel was a common theme throughout the speech, starting with a reference to an article written 100 years ago by Arthur G. Staples of the Lewiston Evening Sun after Dora Bradbury Pinkham of Fort Kent became the first woman to serve in Maine's Legislature.

Staples at the time speculated about the possibility of Maine having "some woman as governor" in 2023 and "some legislature largely composed of women."

"Well, Arthur Staples, here we are," said Mills, noting that women make up half of Maine's congressional delegation, a black woman from Portland [Rachel Talbot Ross] is the Speaker of the House "and a woman whose own roots lie deep in Pinkham's beloved county has now taken the oath for the second time to serve as governor of the state."

Paying homage to immigrant women later in her speech, Mills referred to "hope in the faces of women shopkeepers in Lewiston and Portland selling fabrics, foods and spices from other countries, these industrious mothers of soccer champions, daughters of another continent."

Moxie and Elon Musk

In typical Maine fashion, Mills peppered her oral tribute to her home state with humor, particularly in imagining what questions future generations might ask of today's world, like "Who the heck was Elon Musk?" and "What on earth was Twitter"? and "What were all those tall gray structures that held something called 'an office'?"

And her list of things that will never change in Maine, along with "the way the surf of the mighty Atlantic pounds the granite shores of our state," mentioned "the way Moxie tickles the throat as it goes down and the way the wild blueberry finds a place in every meal."

Wrapping up on a humble note, she said, "It is an honor to lead a people where everything good is possible and where we believe always deep in our hearts, the best is yet to come."