Ryan Blotnick. Tina Stein.

May 03, 2026

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY

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VOTE HESS AND LISY

Southwest Harbor voters have a chance to elect two Select Board members on May 5. I will be voting for the two newcomers, Kalie Hess and Melanie Lisy.



Last year, Kalie Hess (along with Jim Vallette) spearheaded an effort to hold town officials to the ambitious but vague goals of the Land Use Ordinance—to maintain a safe and healthy environment, and to protect our natural resources. As a part of that effort to “clean up the dump,” I quickly discovered that those pretty words in the abstract of a document do very little to combat corporate entities whose access to lawyers and their own “experts” greatly exceed the humble powers of our small town or even the state’s overworked Department of Environmental Protection.



As the town’s property values soar and we encounter an influx of outside money and power, we will need strong, legally defensible language in our town’s ordinances to ensure that we stay in control of our own destinies. It will take long-term planning and outside-the-box thinking to keep Southwest Harbor affordable and vibrant for year-round families and to protect our environment and economy from current and future threats.



I have known Mel for over a decade and she is one of the smartest and toughest people I know—with incredible people skills to boot and an amazing network. I worked with Kalie and witnessed her passion and dedication to the town first hand. I know that with her extensive public health experience and two small children at Pemetic, she will be an active voice for Southwest Harbor’s working families for many years to come. Please join me in welcoming them to the Select Board by casting your vote on May 5.

Ryan Blotnick.

Southwest Harbor

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SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS MAY BE ABOVE THE LAW, BUT HE IS NOT ABOVE THE DC BAR!

Chief Justice John Roberts and his wife took $20 million from law firms whose cases he ruled on. On April 22, Christopher Armitage, an author who writes about democracy and resistance to authoritarianism, filed a formal complaint with the DC Bar seeking his disbarment. You can file one, too!



Disbarring Roberts would not remove him from the Supreme Court and that is not the point. Shining sustained public light on his compromised integrity and the breathtaking hypocrisy of a Chief Justice who holds others to standards he refuses to meet himself has value independent of any formal outcome. The historical record should reflect that people saw what he did and refused to look away.

Here is what we can do: The DC Bar can investigate John Roberts. They just need enough people to demand it. Feel free to copy the template below, personalize it slightly, add your name, and mail it.

DC Bar Office of Disciplinary Counsel

515 Fifth Street NW, Building A, Room 117

Washington DC, 20001



Re: Disciplinary Complaint: John G. Roberts Jr.



To the Office of Disciplinary Counsel:



I write to request a formal investigation into Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and to urge disciplinary action up to and including disbarment.



The documented misconduct is serious and sustained. For sixteen years, Roberts mischaracterized his wife’s commission income as salary on mandatory federal financial disclosure forms, a potential violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 and 5 U.S.C. § 13106. He omitted a material equity interest from those forms for three consecutive years. And he failed to recuse himself from more than five hundred cases argued by law firms that were simultaneously compensating his household through his wife’s placement commissions, in apparent violation of 28 U.S.C. § 455 and DC Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(c).



[As a physician who spent decades bound by strict professional ethics obligations, and who would have faced serious consequences for conduct far less egregious than this, I find it unconscionable that bar membership should confer any less accountability to the highest justice of the land.] The obligations of bar membership exist independently of judicial office and do not evaporate upon confirmation to the Supreme Court.



This is not a record of isolated lapses. It is a pattern of dishonesty and undisclosed conflicts of interest that would warrant serious discipline for any other member of this bar. I respectfully urge the Office of Disciplinary Counsel to open a formal investigation and act accordingly.



Respectfully submitted,

[Name]

[Address]

[Date]

“All of this movement creates pressure. Pressure creates heat. Enough heat and things will change. Be the heat, be the pressure, and the system will bend. He is not a Trump lackey. He is a true believer in the almighty dollar, and he sold his judicial soul to the highest bidder. May consequences someday visit him.”

— Christopher Armitage*



Tina Stein, MD

Bar Harbor

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