Local Letters to the Editor
Feeding the Elephant — continued
To the Editor:
Back on Jan. 9, “Feeding the Elephant” appeared on page 4 in this paper under Local Letters, and predictably, the following week, Jan. 16, a letter providing background on the Dover Central Hall project defended the undertaking and wove an eloquent tale of the “elephant’s” growth.
Then on Feb. 20, the Observer carried a front-page story describing the progress being made on the conversion of the Central Hall building, “…into an adult day services center.” Included in that article were details Dover readers/taxpayers might find interesting and worthy of more in-depth consideration.
Suddenly the notion of the term “community” was enlarged from that of a single town to include, as Mr. Maas suggested, “We think of the community as the highlands and all these towns as the community.” With its expansion from a Dover-Foxcroft Historical Society driven project to a regional entity involving groups like Charlotte White and the Eastern Area Agency on Aging, it would appear that “feeding the elephant” has become an even greater challenge.
Yet, in the Maine Highlands Senior Center Financial Overview document of Oct. 15, 2012, the author looks to Dover taxpayers to supply the subsidies from an estimated $18,000 in 2014 to $52,000 in 2016. This concept together with its required funding looks like a similar problem Dover taxpayers have with the YMCA.
Lots of folks from neighboring towns love the “Y” but the local taxpayers continue to be taxed increasing amounts each year to support it and then they are charged again to use it. Seems like a consortium of groups like the Maine Highlands Senior Center, Friends of Central Hall and the Historical Society are pushing town residents down an all too familiar path into a long-term commitment the citizens will be unable to afford.
Like any business, a population base is essential to make and keep it viable. It’s questionable whether the Senior Center can draw enough people to justify supporting a projected payroll together with fringe benefits that will exceed $222,000 yearly. That figure does not include the cost of operating and maintaining the physical plant. Then too, based on an average 25 clients served daily, the annual cost of providing that service will be in excess of $9,000 per client. Is that a practical cost-benefit ratio? Shouldn’t we wonder why the town of Dover-Foxcroft would even entertain being involved with an enterprise destined to hemorrhage red ink well into the future? Has sentiment for an historical landmark completely blurred financial facts and common sense?
In the same Feb. 20 article, Selectman Matulis is quoted as saying, “You haven’t been using town money.” Since the town doesn’t actually earn its money he must be suggesting that town funds acquired by taxation were not used. That simply is not true! He’s neglected some key taxpayer inclusions such as: the local taxpayer-paid town manager’s salary throughout the transfer of property negotiations, taxpayer paid legal fees for drawing and filing of the deed, taxpayer funding of property and liability insurances, and taxpayer owned Public Works equipment used on the project which included town trucks and the fuels to operate them. And finally, what about the loss of tax revenue because the property will retain its tax-exempt status?
More than a million dollars have been invested in Central Hall and the project is far from complete. So now the elephant, that creature of considerable sentimental value, is growing larger and still more white. Let’s not forget, the Historical Society wanted to preserve this white elephant, the one they couldn’t afford, but accepted as a gift anyway because a handful of residents had an unyielding nostalgia for it. Grant funds appear to have dried up and the town is left with a desperate looking elephant, a pile of discarded roof materials on its front porch and a flat tired blue mechanical lift gracing one of the more attractive sections of East Main Street.
Times have changed: the town is in deep debt, the nation is broke, grants may be a thing of the past and white elephants are no longer in vogue. “We the People” are being told to tighten our belts — it’s time for Dover taxpayers to heed that message, abandon the tax and spend philosophy, and recognize the million dollar folly Central Hall has become.
Don Benjamin
Dover-Foxcroft
Plans to beautify our town
To the Editor:
The Dover-Foxcroft Gardeners want to beautify our town by landscaping various areas like the downtown, Morton Avenue and the Municipal Building. We will welcome and appreciate any donations of bulbs and perennials to help us accomplish our goals.
If you would like to donate or have any questions please call me at 564-7256 or Janet at 564-3316 or Ana at 564-3301.
Thank you for your help.
Dotty Hadler
Dover-Foxcroft
Some good news
from our schools
To the Editor:
One of the best uses for our precious dollars in the school budget is to provide pre-kindergarten for our kids. It has big long term payoffs. Early educational interventions really matter, and have long-term consequences. According to the Institute for a Competitive Workforce, an affiliate of the United States Chamber of Commerce, found in a 2010 report that “for every dollar invested today, savings range from $2.50 to as much as $17 in the years ahead.”
Several years ago the school board and superintendent of SAD 68 made an effort (and spent some money) to increase pre-K enrollment. At that time, only about one third of children enrolled in pre-kindergarten. Since then, we have doubled the number of pre-K places in our district. This year two thirds of the sixty five children in the 1st grade have attended pre-kindergarten. As a member of the school board, I’d like to see all of our children in pre-kindergarten, and we are working to achieve that goal. It is the single best investment we can make in our community’s future. In these ugly financial times, there are still things that we can do locally to make a difference — if we all work together.
Chris Maas
Dover-Foxcroft
Have we stepped away from civil dialogue?
To the Editor:
For everyone, regardless of our persuasions on the East-West Highway proposal, resolving differences between us becomes increasingly difficult if collectively we step away from civil dialogue. If Monday evening’s Channel 13 News interview with Sen. Doug Thomas (http://www.wgme.com/news/top-stories/stories/wgme_vid_15640.shtml) concerning dead fish, and obtaining a concealed weapons permit is true, what is also true, unfortunately, is such action taken in frustration and fear makes talking from heartfelt concerns, and being heard, ever so much harder.
Bruce McAfee-Towl
Dover-Foxcroft
What does Cianbro have to hide?
To the Editor:
I would like to respond to the East\West corridor proponents concerning allegations that the only people opposed to the E\W utility corridor are “radical environmental groups.” The proponents of the corridor have repeatedly declined to attend public meetings to address the concerns of Maine citizens. Were they to have attended meetings like the one held in Garland on Feb. 23 at the Town Grange they might have thought differently. One hundred seventeen Maine citizens, 111 of which were Garlanders, attended. None of these citizens were representing any environmental groups.
Let it be known that, with the exception of two neutral persons, all were adamantly opposed to this project. Senator Thomas and all the Maine legislators need to start listening to and acting upon the concerns of the Maine citizenry and not just listen to the very one-sided reasoning of the Cianbro organization and its partners, who, as of now, remain veiled in secrecy in order to protect their interests.
Cianbro is working hard to protect its deep-pocketed multi-national investors. Who is working hard to protect the Maine citizens from this threat to our way of life and our legacy to our generations to come?
P.S. I do not belong to any environmental groups.
Al Poirier
Garland
E-W Highway
would interrupt
some local roads
To the Editor:
Would local roads be cut off by the East-West Corridor project? This question can be answered two ways. One is to listen to the ever-changing verbal promises of the proponents of the project. The other is to look at their actual written plans for the project submitted to the State of Maine.
Recently at a presentation in Washington County, the proponents of the project claimed that they would build overpasses for all local roads that the road might cross including dirt logging roads on the Stud Mill Road. Building overpasses for every road would obviously be in the public’s interest, if this road ever gets built. But, building overpasses for every local road would not be in the interest of the developers as the price tag for this promise made by Cianbro’s Darryl Brown would significantly increase the project’s budget. In fact, according to their most recent document on the project, the developers intend to build only 30 road crossings across the whole state. According to Cianbro’s own estimates each road crossing would cost $2 million in 2008 dollars.
Who would choose which 30 local roads would get overpasses over the proposed East-West Corridor? Which roads would have to dead end? Looking at the Maine Gazetteer map, one can tell which roads were cut off by the Maine Interstate 95. Many have dwindled to a single dotted line. Others have butted up against a frontage road that detours traffic along the side the highway.
Who would decide if the Bacon Road in Charleston, a gravel road, would get an overpass or would be forever cut off? Who would decide if the Oliver Hill Road in Garland would get an overpass or would cut off many people’s most direct route to the Bangor area? What of the dozens of other minor roads it would cross?
Cutting off roads divides neighborhoods and communities. Cutting off roads alters driving patterns including routes to and from towns and work. Which roads were cut off by the East-West Corridor project would have a tremendous impact on our local communities and economy.
Unfortunately, the proponent’s claim that they would build overpasses over every local road is just that: a promise. It is nothing written in stone. No contract or agreement has been signed or is planned to be signed that none of our local roads would but cut off.
The proponent’s most recent study includes the details of the oft-touted $2 billion budget. It only includes 30 road crossings, 1.5 lanes each way non-divided, and the money to purchase the right-of-way on only 170 miles of the 220 mile-long corridor. How would the proponents pay for their recent promises of a four lane divided highway, overpasses for every local road including gravel roads, and no use of eminent domain? This same study shows that even at $2 billion in 2008 dollars the tolls will not pay back the investors!
The Cianbro 2008 study’s conclusion? Use taxpayer dollars.
Mary Margaret Ripley
Dover-Foxcroft
Stating the obvious: Lies by silence
To the Editor:
“Why should Maine taxpayers, who are having a hard time keeping a roof over their head and food on the table, be subsidizing cars that are this expensive?” Sen. Doug Thomas raised this question in response to the latest tax break for the wealthy scheme by the Democrats. Tax breaks for the wealthy, you ask, by the Democrats? Yes, it is actually more the norm than you would think.
Republicans have long been labeled the “Party for the Rich” because they believe in incentives for business to create wealth that in turn creates jobs. Democrats also believe in creating wealth — their own — at your expense. It’s bought and paid for by the American taxpayer.
That is why Maine Democrats have sponsored a bill that would give tax subsidies or tax breaks to people who buy electric cars. And by their own admission, it is only the very rich that can afford these cars. Yet the media is strangely silent when the Democrats cater to the rich. Or the lies by silence when the President sells access to himself for $500,000 a person. So it begs the question, why?
Why, when the Democrats have done everything in their power to avoid paying the hospitals of Maine? What have Democrats got against paying their bills? Hospitals such as Eastern Maine Medical and Mayo Regional are staggering underneath a mountain of unpaid medical expenses, forced upon them by legislative mandates. The Governor has come up with a plan to pay them off. The Democrats counter plan is to do nothing. They refuse to pay the hospitals and are trying to block or stall the Governor from implementing his plan, which would pay the debt to our medical institutions. Why?
In the real world, if a strong man came to your community and forced a local institution to provide a service to your community at a loss of profit but promised to pay restitution to the institution for the service they were being forced to give in writing by legal contract, and then never paid that institution, yet continues to force that institution to provide that service at a loss, what would that be considered? A crime.
The Democrats have no intention of paying their contractual obligation to Maine hospitals, but while we’re on the subject of money and legislation, they would like to force you through legislation to buy their rich friends some electric cars. Just another crime against the people of Maine.
Andy Torbett
Atkinson
Journalists should focus on the bad guys
To the Editor:
Some within the media have wrapped themselves in the flag of the freedom of access law. They are rallying to oppose legislation proposed by the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine (SAM) and sponsored by Rep. Corey Wilson, Augusta that would make concealed weapons permit holders’ names and information private. Critics of this legislation are ignoring recent history in New York.
Just after the Connecticut school shooting, the Gannett-owned, Journal News published the names, addresses and a detailed map of concealed permit holders in two New York counties. The action was obviously a provocative attempt to label law abiding concealed permit holders with a scarlet letter.
In a Fox News story titled: “Burglars Hit Home of Gun Owner ID’d by Newspaper”, New York State Sen. Greg Ball was quoted: “The Journal News has placed the lives of these folks at risk by creating a virtual shopping list for criminals and nut jobs,” said Ball. “If the connection is proven, this is further proof that these maps are not only an invasion of privacy but that they present a clear and present danger to law-abiding, private citizens.”
The response from the New York legislature and Americans was swift and overwhelming. Under intense pressure, New York passed legislation protecting this information. Twenty-three states ban the release of any information about permit holders another 12 states limit the release in some form. The Journal News then pulled the map from their website. What was absent from this debate was an outcry from journalists and editorial writers regarding the misuse of the Freedom of Access Law.
In the case of the Journal News, reporters didn’t use the information gathered to hold government officials accountable. Instead, in the wake of the Connecticut shooting, they used the information to expose law abiding gun owning citizens for some political motivation — the very opposite of the intent of the Access law.
The Maine Freedom of Information Coalition makes this statement on their website, which reinforces my point: “The Maine Freedom of Information Coalition believes that government best serves the public when it operates in the most open manner possible. We seek broad access to information of and about government and the actions of government in order to do that. Government in the sunshine, we believe, is the best guarantor of a strong democracy.” The entire state freedom of access statute speaks of citizen’s rights to access the work of government, not the right of individuals or groups to use the public’s information for political purposes!
In the wake of this controversial scandal SAM introduced legislation to make concealed permit information confidential here in Maine. Just one day after running a story about this bill, the Bangor Daily News (BDN) revealed they had requested the same information, but did not plan to make it public. Again, the firestorm was swift and just a day later under pressure from Maine people, the BDN rescinded their request.
We thought the crisis was over. However, just hours later, I learned that two anonymous entities had made identical requests of Maine police departments. In a surprise to many, it appears that state law does not compel individuals requesting FOAA information to reveal their identity. Could we surmise these latest FOAA requests for concealed permit holders are also press outlets attempting to avoid the same backlash as the BDN?
Does anyone else recognize the incredible hypocrisy of journalists using a loophole in the FOAA law to hide their identity and then claiming they support transparency and accountability for everyone else?
There are several indisputable facts in this debate:
Law abiding Mainers have, by law, subjected themselves to a federal background check, a mental health screening, character examination and a host other investigations to receive a lawfully mandated conceal permit.
According to recent newspaper accounts and law enforcement statements, concealed carry permit holders have never been linked to violent crime in Maine.
Concealed carry permit holders are being used as political pawns in the gun control debate.
Some unethical members of the media have created this crisis. Worse, the rest have failed to police their ranks.
SAM introduced this bill because we were concerned for the safety of Maine citizens and their property. Maine law enforcement has confirmed on many occasions they also share that public safety concern. We just wish the press would spend as much energy outing the bad guys as persecuting the good guys.
David Trahan,
executive director
Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine