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Portland Mayor Mark Dion used Monday's State of the City address to highlight the need for more infrastructure investment and better collaboration with local institutions of higher learning to boost Maine's workforce.
"Infrastructure investment is a mainstay to creating a successful local economy," Dion said. "It provides the necessary foundation essential to our capacity to build in and travel through the city."
Initiatives include taking the first steps toward building a new intermodal train station on St. John Street and studying how traffic congestion and the construction of a $25 million road improvement plan supporting the Roux Institute's future headquarters will affect Portland's East Deering neighborhood.
He said the Council will also need to consider expansion strategies to accommodate the increasing number of travelers coming in and out of the Portland International Jetport, which peaked at more than 2.4 million passengers last year.
"Every arrival represents dollars that will be infused into our economy," said Dion, a Lewiston native elected to the Portland City Council in 2020 and as mayor in November 2023.
On the workforce front, Dion underscored the need for collaboration with the University of Southern Maine including the school's Muskie School of Public Service, the Maine College of Art and Design, the Roux Institute of Northeastern University, the University of Maine School of Law and the University of New England.
"These institutions have and can develop a class of future community leaders trained in the arts, medicine, law, public policy, education, business and hard science research," he said. "We need that emerging talent pool to move forward.
"We can no longer afford, as a city, to be passive consumers of the future potential represented in these students," he continued. "No other city in the region has access to this much intellectual firepower in their community. These students present a resource that can expand our economic capacity or help solve problems that today do not seem in reach of a solution."
Hailing the contributions of small businesses to the local economy, he urged Council members to help them "actively seek opportunities for extending our hand in partnership and develop our mutual interests in creating a thriving city economy."
Regarding development, Dion highlighted the need to protect areas exposed to rising sea levels and called for a study into the impact of the Green New Deal, which mandates that certain new residential construction in Portland meet affordability requirements or be subject to a fee. The ordinance applies to eligible city projects or those that receive municipal funding.
Dion also pleaded with the Council to do more to protect piers, buildings and waterfront business operations not just from storm surges but also from rising sea levels.
"These climate conditions will continue to have an adverse impact on the Commercial Street corridor as well as threaten the integrity of key infrastructure in our island neighborhoods," he said. "We need to do more to protect these ocean-involved districts of our city."
During a more lighthearted part of his speech, Dion mentioned being approached by a woman outside of City Hall who gushed at meeting Dion although she mistook him for the sheriff of Bangor.
"Given her excitement, we all let her go with a chuckle," Dion recalled. "It was important reminder to all of us that it's not the title you carry but the work you do that counts."
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