Randy Billings is a government watchdog and political reporter who has been covering Portland City Hall for the Press Herald since 2012. His beat touches on a wide range of topics, including immigration, homelessness, education, tourism, real estate development and the economy in Maine’s largest city. He has been a Portland-based journalist since 2005. A life-long Mainer who loves the outdoors, Randy is also a bassist who brews his own beer at his North Yarmouth home, where he lives with his wife and two children.
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PublishedNovember 21, 2019
About 70 more asylum seekers expected to arrive in Portland this week
The African families released at the border in Texas will be offered overnight shelter in local gymnasiums, and city officials are making contingency plans in case the influx is larger than expected.
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PublishedNovember 19, 2019
Portland council decides to ask voters whether to expand ranked-choice voting in city elections
The effort to expand ranked-choice voting to all city elections was initially led by Fair Elections Portland, but the group failed to gather enough signatures to put it on the ballot.
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PublishedNovember 17, 2019
Portland poised to ask voters to expand use of ranked-choice voting
The City Council on Monday is expected to set a date to ask whether they want to expand the voting method to all council and school board elections.
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PublishedNovember 17, 2019
Portland considers ban on face-scanning technology
Civil rights advocates fear the proliferating facial recognition technology will be used to conduct mass surveillance of innocent civilians without probable cause.
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PublishedNovember 5, 2019
Kate Snyder wins heated race for Portland mayor, unseating incumbent Ethan Strimling
After taking a commanding lead, the former school board chair wins a late-night ranked-choice runoff.
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PublishedOctober 14, 2019
New ICE office in downtown Portland draws protests
A spokesperson says the the Homeland Security Investigations office will specialize in transnational criminal probes, not deportations.
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PublishedSeptember 9, 2019
Sale of student lodging house in Bayside triggers backlash
Affordable housing activists say hundreds of low-cost Portland units will be lost and want the city to step in. The developer plans traditional apartments, but at workforce housing prices and says he’ll help anyone who’s displaced.
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PublishedSeptember 5, 2019
Deferment of deportation order makes Portland man ‘feel like a dead person who came back to life’
Abdigani Faisal Hussein of Portland had been detained for 9 months and was about to board a plane returning him to Somalia when his attorneys won a last-minute delay in a deportation order.
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PublishedSeptember 4, 2019
Portland accepts, allocates donations for asylum seekers
The city received more than $900,000 to help cover shelter and basic needs of more than 400 asylum seekers who arrived over the summer.
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PublishedSeptember 2, 2019
Driver charged with manslaughter in rollover crash that killed 3 in Acadia
According to a National Park Service officer, the man had been drinking and was driving too fast.
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