Le Journal

Bangor police are investigating complaints about a property management company that reportedly owed thousands to landlords when it abruptly closed last year. Roland “Chip” Foss told clients that he planned to file for bankruptcy when he shut down his company, Real Property Management Acadia, in January 2025. The sudden decision alarmed his clients, many of whom had been reaching out for months about missing rent payments, security deposits and other complaints about how the company managed their properties. Some of his former clients eventually contacted Penobscot County District Attorney Chris Almy, who confirmed the police investigation. A landlord who trusted Foss’s company to manage a rental home in Old Town, Michael Bunker of Cumberland, said a detective contacted him in December. It represents a major development in the effort by Foss’ former clients to recoup their money and hold him accountable for his conduct. There is no record that Foss or his company ever filed for bankruptcy in the year since he shuttered the business, a move that prompted at least seven former clients to describe their troubling experiences in a Bangor Daily News article. “The fact that he hasn’t filed for bankruptcy an entire year later? It shows he doesn’t plan on it,” Kristen Al-Sharafi, who told the BDN last year that Foss owed her more than $5,000, said. “It’s not showing any accountability. It feels like he’s getting away with it.” Foss could not be reached for comment. He did not respond to an email at a personal address, and an email sent to the address associated with his former company bounced back. The phone number he gave to his former clients has been disconnected. He did not respond to a message sent to his LinkedIn account. A Bangor police spokesperson declined to comment because the department does not confirm or deny ongoing investigations that have not resulted in criminal charges. Landlords mostly described positive experiences with Real Property Management Acadia when the company came online in 2018. But the relationship soured in the months leading to its closure as Foss gave vague answers for why he wasn’t sending them rental income. When he informed his clients in an email that he was closing for business and filing for bankruptcy, he acknowledged “financial obligations that we will work to resolve, as that is a [sic] something we find morally responsible, but that will take time.” He never provided a clear explanation of the company’s problems to landlords who followed up with him, according to interviews with former clients and corroborating documents they shared with the BDN. He eventually stopped responding to their questions entirely. Two former clients said in interviews last week that they had not heard from him since, although they suspect he remains in the Bangor area. Another former client sent them an email in December saying he had spotted Foss at the Bangor airport in a uniform signifying that he now works for a private company.

The University of Maine will receive $45 million in congressionally directed spending for a health and life sciences complex to be built on the Orono campus, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced Tuesday. This is the largest federal award for a single project in Maine’s history and will better position UMaine to build a public medical school in the future, the release, shared exclusively with the Bangor Daily News, said. “The new health and life sciences complex will expand educational opportunities, research capacity, and workforce training while better positioning the University on a path toward one day establishing the first public medical school in Maine,” Collins said. This funding comes two weeks after the University of Maine System released a study that said building a public medical school in Penobscot County is not financially feasible because it would cost at least $210.5 million. The study recommended actions UMaine could take to prepare for a medical school and close the physician gap Maine is facing, which included constructing a health and science complex in Orono. The health and life science complex was something UMaine President and Vice Chancellor Joan Ferrini-Mundy said the university was looking into following the study’s release. It’s not immediately clear when the complex will be constructed or what programs it will house. The complex will be important to health care across the state, not just in Orono, and will prepare students for the “evolving world of modern life science, health care and innovation,” Ferrini-Mundy said. “[Collins’] support for the planned UMaine Health and Life Science Complex will lead to transformation for our flagship university and the health and well-being of the people of Maine and beyond,” Ferrini-Mundy said.