Gov. Janet Mills speaks to the press Wednesday after a dedication of the Picker House Lofts in the Continental Mill in Lewiston. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

LEWISTON — At an event Wednesday hailing the renovation of an old mill for new housing, Gov. Janet Mills criticized several proposals from President Donald Trump.

Mills said the president’s plans to impose tariffs “will only increase building costs” for anyone trying to erect a new home or other construction.

The National Association of Home Builders said this week that new tariffs on imported materials such as lumber, aluminum and steel might push up the price of the average home by $9,200.

Mills said the president ought to be focused on making it possible for more Americans to afford homes instead of making it more difficult.

However, the governor saved most of her ire for the possibility that the Social Security Administration, with layoffs planned, might shutter its Presque Isle office, the only one north of Bangor.

Mills said the move would force many Mainers to travel six hours roundtrip to file paperwork or resolve problems — if they have a car to make the trip at all.

The governor said that as the state with the oldest median population and the most rural one outside of Alaska, it’s not fair to expect Mainers to struggle to get Social Security payments they deserve.

“Social Security is extremely serious to the people of Maine,” Mills said. “I hope they take Social Security really, really seriously because it’s a big issue for us.”

The administrator of the Social Security agency admitted to The New York Times this week that he had targeted one Maine program because he “was ticked at the governor of Maine for not being real cordial to the president” during a confrontation last month between Trump and Mills regarding Maine’s policy toward transgender girl athletes.

Gov. Janet Mills speaks at a dedication Wednesday of the Picker House Lofts in the Continental Mill in Lewiston, a 72-unit, mixed-income apartment building at 6 Cedar St. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Leland Dudek admitted he “screwed up” when he wiped out a program to register newborns for Social Security this month, a decision he reversed as the consequences of the decision became clear and the political outcry ramped up.

Mills said the state has received many letters from the administration making threats since she told Trump at the White House in February that she wouldn’t give in to his demands about transgender athletes.

“If he truly cares about women and girls and people of this country, let’s see the economic plan. Let’s see the health care plan. Let’s see the education plan,” Mills said at an event Monday in Bangor.

Trump confronted Mills during an event with other governors in February. A social media post by Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, about a transgender girl winning a state high school track title had just gone viral, and Trump wanted to know whether Maine would comply with his directive to ban transgender athletes from girls sports.

Mills replied that she would follow state and federal law — a reference to Maine’s Human Rights Act, which was expanded during Mills’ tenure in 2021 to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity.

Mills, a former attorney general, said the courts will decide the legality of Trump’s orders and maneuvers.

Gov. Janet Mills poses for a selfie with Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline Wednesday on the rooftop deck of the Picker House Lofts in the Continental Mill in Lewiston. Mills was in Lewiston for a ceremony to mark the grand opening of the 72-unit, mixed-income apartment building at 6 Cedar St. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Since the February event at the White House, the Trump administration has launched a series of investigations into the Maine Department of Education; the University of Maine System; the Maine Principals’ Association, which oversees high school sports in the state; and MSAD 51, the school district attended by the athlete targeted in Libby’s post.

“In my conversation with the president (in February), unfortunately he made the statement — I have never heard any president say this before — that he is law,” Mills said at an event in early March. “That’s not the authority of the president. You can’t create laws by thinking them, by tweeting them, by issuing press releases, by issuing executive orders. Congress makes the laws. The president — the executive branch — executes the laws faithfully.”

Her remarks Wednesday followed a ceremony to mark the grand opening of Picker House Lofts, a 72-unit, mixed-income apartment building located at 6 Cedar St. in part of the old Continental Mills.

“Once a remnant of our city’s industrial past, Picker House is now a place of possibility,” Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline said. He called the project a symbol of Lewiston’s commitment “to reinvention and renewal.”

Nathan Szanton, president of the Szanton Co., which developed the project, thanked many financiers and government officials who helped make it possible.

“We really made a difference in this little corner of the world,” Szanton said.

Gov. Janet Mills, right, poses for a photo Wednesday with Michelina Kayombo after the dedication of the Picker House Lofts in the Continental Mill in Lewiston. Kayombo is a resident of the new apartment complex. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

The former picker house building, where several hundred workers once pulled the impurities out of the cotton the mill used, is only a portion of the huge old mill. Several officials said the rest of the property is likely to be turned into housing and commercial use starting as early as this year.

Mills, who was once a prosecutor in Lewiston, said she was happy to see Picker House Lofts “breathing new life” into “my former home turf.”

MaineHousing Director Dan Brennan said the state needs 84,000 more homes by 2030 to keep up with demand.

“This project makes a dent in that number,” he said. But it will take more money to keep the momentum going, Brennan said.

Staff writer Randy Billings contributed to this report.