Article from Bangor Daily News:

— The effort to preserve Maine’s working waterfront could get a boost in 2019. While Portland sorts out conflicts between working waterfront proponents and developers during a six-month moratorium, smaller coastal Maine communities are adopting new tactics and hoping that new state funding will become available in the new year. For the first time in almost eight years, the Department of Marine Resources issued a request for proposals for up to $2 million in working waterfront projects. According to the Department of Marine Resources, the delay in awarding funding has been due to bureaucracy — transferring management of the proposals from Coastal Enterprises Inc. to the DMR, which was required to rely on existing staff. But vacancies in the department meant there were no staff to solicit projects, spokesman Jeff Nichols said, and “Commissioner [Patrick] Keliher had no alternative but to hold off on seeking new proposals until the department created the staff capacity to administer the solicitations.”