Asylum seekers who have been living at the EXPO, on Park Avenue, were preparing late this afternoon to move to hotels in either Freeport or Lewiston tomorrow morning at 9:00 am promptly. The woman in the photo at left said she was moving to a hotel in Freeport tomorrow morning at 9:00 am, althoughe she did not know the name of it. Her English was limited.
Several other women who spoke excellent English said they were also from Angola. They had both learned English in this country and not before they came here. One of the two women said that conditions had been poor inside the EXPO. That included food. But the city stepped in and the situation improved.
Meanwhile, city spokeswoman Jessica Grondin has confirmed that a contract has been signed with a hotel in Freeport. to take in displaced residents of the EXPO. Asylum seekers will also be housed at a hotel in Lewiston with which there is no contract currently. Neither hotel was named by Grondin. The expense of the two hotels will cost roughly $500,000.. “We expct to be reimbursed 70% by the State as this expense is GA eligible,” Grondin said in an email.
In the meantime, a man on site at the EXPO came up to this blogger near the street on Park Avenue where this blogger was standing with another media crew.. When I asked the man who he was he insisted this blogger knew him. I said I did not remember him so would he kindly identify himself. He refused to do that. This blogger had no idea whether or not he was a member of the press. He became highly aggitated and verbally out of control when I repeated I did not know him – it appeared that he believed I should remember him from sometime in the past somewhere. That I did not recognize him was highly upsetting to him.
In the course of several conversations on the EXPO property, he said: “The city does not like you.”. I said: “That’s okay. I do raise a lot of questions.” He said he was in a position to “hurt me or help” me. I continued to ask for his identity and he continued to refuse to tell me who he was. His remark to me about helping or hurting me sounded threatening to me, so I tried to get away from him. (A tv crew from Channel 13 also on site told me his “dog tags” around his neck indicated he worked for the city of Portland.) When I tried to read his “dog tags” he covered them up with his hand. Then Mr. Nameless vanished into a side door at the EXPO yelling that when the authorities arrived to remove me from “my” property, this blogger would find out his identity. With that easy entrance into the EXPO building, I assumed he worked for the city of Portland.
“Hmmm. Why would any city employee refuse to identify himself?”
The stress level in the city is on high alert! Someone give this guy, whoever he is, a long vacation!