Local Letters to the Editor

Stand-in Chairman appreciated

To the Editor:
    Hats off to Dover-Foxcroft’s Scott Taylor for his exemplary job as the stand-in chairman at the recent Wednesday evening joint Select Board/Budget Advisory Committee meeting.
    Unlike prior rancorous annual budget review meetings, this year’s “spring fling” retained a breath of fresh air as the spirit of cooperation was developed and professionally managed by the chairman. The audience was encouraged to participate; members were listened to, and their thoughts and concerns apparently weighed and considered by all concerned.
    Providing the town with an adequate budget can be a challenge in these economically uncertain times. Pulling together a clear and acceptable financial picture in the face of some very divergent views required patience, comprehension and a work-together spirit. Chairman Taylor calmly did all of this.
    Thank you, Scott, for keeping the meeting harmonious. Your easy, civil and directed leadership style prompted a free flow of information while permitting us to feel the evening had been productively spent.

Don Benjamin
Dover-Foxcroft

East/West Corridor Petition

To the Editor:
    The following petition has been signed by 227 Maine citizens from Garland and the surrounding communities, and was presented to the Penobscot County Commissioners and to the Cianbro Corporation at the County Commissioners Meeting on April 2, 2013. We urge all citizens of Maine to Stop the East/West Corridor Now.
    The petition reads:
    We, the undersigned citizens of Garland, Maine and the surrounding communities, hereby petition the legislature of the State of Maine, the Governor of Maine, the Cianbro Corporation, and all other entities involved to stop all present and future plans for the so-called East/West Highway-Transportation/Communications/Utilities Corridor.
    We, the citizens of Garland, Maine and the surrounding communities, do not want the so-called East/West Corridor to pass through our towns, or any other Maine towns. We see no benefit to the Garland area for this proposed private corporate-controlled corridor. Garland is a small, rural, agricultural town, and we like it that way. That’s why we live here. We have pristine natural resources, farms, gardens, woodlots, gravel beds, and fresh water. We do not want to see our natural resources exploited or destroyed. We have seven streams that feed the headwaters of the Kenduskeag Stream, spawning grounds of federally protected Atlantic salmon, and we do not want our watersheds polluted. We do not want high-tension power lines or cell towers, both shown to be harmful to human health, to pass through our towns. We do not want gas or tar sands oil or any other kinds of pipelines to pass through our towns. We do not want a fenced four-lane 500-foot wide highway/corridor, with an estimated thousands of tandem diesel trucks per day, to pass through our towns. We do not want to see our towns and the State of Maine cut in half for the profit of Canadian, Chinese, or other foreign multi-national corporations. We do not want our property values, which are our livelihoods and our retirements, to be destroyed. We are not the so-called “hollow middle” of the State of Maine; we do not crave “development” at the expense of our cherished way of life. And we do not want to be bullied and terrorized by the Cianbro Corporation or by the State of Maine. With this petition we demand that the Maine Legislature, the Governor, and the Cianbro Corporation stop all present and future plans for the East/West Highway-Transportation/Communications/Utilities Corridor.

Terry Crouch, Garland
Concerned Citizens of Garland Committee

LePage budget unfairly targets elderly

To the Editor:
    The Governor’s budget calls for major cuts to the Medicare Savings Program (MSP) and completely eliminates the Low Cost Drugs for the Elderly program (DEL). By proposing these drastic measures, Maine is turning to the state’s oldest and poorest citizens and demanding they come up with a way to fix Maine’s budget woes by cutting back or eliminating their health care, their life-saving medications, and for many, their ability to stay in their own homes.
    The DEL provides discounts on generic drugs for all enrollees and on brand name drugs for people with certain serious health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and multiple sclerosis. It also makes certain drugs more affordable for low-income Medicare beneficiaries. The MSP helps to pay for Part B premiums for Medicare which covers many important services including doctor visits, preventive care, ambulance services, skilled nursing care, outpatient care and medically-necessary supplies such as wheel chairs and walkers. Is discontinuing these essential programs really the answer to our state’s budget problems?
    The DEL and the MSP must be maintained. Those affected by these budget cuts are our friends and neighbors. For many of them, cutting back on their health care and their prescription drugs could endanger their lives. I am 90 years old and I find this unacceptable. Older and at-risk Mainers need to know now that their benefits won’t be taken away. I hope our legislators do the right thing and restore funding to the DEL and MSP immediately.

Jane Magnus
AARP volunteer
Windham

The natives are restless!

To the Editor:
    Mainers are coming to know the E/W Highway’s International Investors/Shareholders understand this proposed project as a “Transportation and Communication Corridor.” Worldwide interest covets investing in corridors, for they can host many generating entities, including road and rail, pipelines, high-tension wires, underground cables, windmills, fresh water, natural gas, petroleum products, fiber optics and cell-towers.
    Once rights-of-way are secured, lease contracts are negotiated within these corridor’s entities, each in dollars-per-foot relative to supply and demand. Two hundred twenty miles across Maine totals 1,161,600 feet, so at $25/ft. a petroleum pipeline generates nearly $30 million/year. This doesn’t include profits on the products themselves. Moreover, within the global marketplace, fresh water can be more valuable than oil.
    Maine resources (and Maine as a resource) are wicked valuable. Your quest for return on your investments focuses intensively upon bottom-line profits. Our concerns for traditional sense of community, air/water quality, soil stability, woodlots, farmland, wildlife habitat, endangered/ protected species, tourism, hunting, population/demographic changes, sound/light, public health, a target for terrorism, etc. directly impact competing interests.
    As Mainers understand this project’s full potential and long-term impact on Maine’s identity and resources, many insist we deserve compensation for altering our quality of life and place. Decades ago, the Permanent Fund Dividend awarded all Alaskans annual percentage of pipeline profits ($592M last year), yet now your 21st century host-of-entities has not even offered benefits/profits to any Mainers, the state, and/or federal entities within our state.
    Our state is admittedly “Open for Business,” not exploitation. The E/W corridor proposal is lacking. Wicked-smart development in Maine must incorporate economic, social, and environmental concerns, yet Mainers have been pitched a whole lot of mumbo-jumbo. Mistrust and disgust motivates consideration of alternatives. Mainers should seek Maine-based, American, and international businesses to compete to showcase their best technological, eco-friendly, and socially-responsible practices in serving our needs.
    As a “private” enterprise, Mainers are quite uncomfortable with this project having one owner possess/control the rights-of-way in three dimensions across Maine: E/W 220 miles; N/S 500-2,000 feet; and up “to the heavens/down to the core of the Earth.” The one who owns/controls this ‘Great Wall of Maine’ for perpetuity, divides Maine, and could demand those who cross it to pay the piper. Moreover, drones are the most economical/effective means to provide security for corridors, and Mainers consider them somewhat of a violation to the sanctity of “The way life should be.”
    As a “public/private partnership,” concern persists over federal use of eminent domain. International borders merits the necessity of Office of Homeland Security. When this project eventually joins in public/private partnership with the Feds, state and local eminent domain are superseded. Consequently, Mainers will not secure the rights to seize the remaining unutilized or unknown entities within this proposed corridor for municipal use for the long-term public good.
    Before this project/investment is railroaded through Maine and you’ve paved paradise to put up a corridor, it might be wise to incorporate its infrastructure within a statewide comprehensive plan involving the interests of: Maine DECD; agri-tourism; nature-tourism; Maine Native American Nations; North Woods National Park; regional/local interests; and most importantly, the genuine consensus of all Mainers after they’ve been fully informed of the corridor’s scope and long-term impact.
    Invest in Maine, but be sure to serve the best interests of symbiotic sustainability, naturally respecting Maine’s nature, identity, values, and culture.

Parkinson Pino
Dover-Foxcroft

King of the Mountain

To the Editor;
    It’s a mantra of sorts for some. It can be seen splashed across the backs of vehicles in the form of bumper stickers. Groups have formed across the Internet using the phrase as their rallying cry. The statement is “Not In Anybody’s Backyard.”
    The premise of that statement should give any lover of liberty pause. It assumes that if one body feels their beliefs and opinions are of the utmost importance, than anybody’s opinions should succumb and adhere to the mantra that the body with the loudest voice trumpets. It’s the essence of anarchy, the ruthless struggle of the strongman beating his way to the top of the heap to claim, for the moment, to be King of the Mountain. For a time, he has the opportunity to demand that anybody must embrace the belief system that his body is preaching.
    Label me an old fashioned fool if you will, but I am not willing to surrender the jurisdiction of my backyard to any mantra, emotion or activism. There is no cause so grand that makes my privacy expendable nor should my belief in private property capitulate to the so-called greater good. Do we so easily lose sight of the consequences of our actions?
    We are all creatures of passion, driven at varying degrees by the emotions attached to the things we hold dear. But when the passion has dissipated, what is the residue of our actions? What were we willing to sacrifice to gain the prize that fired our soul during the heat of the conflict?
    Our Founding Fathers valued a man’s private life, his backyard. They detested the idea that one man could encroach upon another’s privacy just because he deemed it necessary, a means to an end. They objected in strong terms to the never-ending cycle of the toppling and resurrecting of strong men, its damage upon the people.
    Are we so willing to forfeit the rights to our own land and, for our neighbor, his land, our backyards, to fulfill a vendetta we deem worthy? Does your backyard belong to anybody or does it belong to you? Which body should tell anybody what to do? My backyard is my backyard and I have no interest in allowing the opinions of others, of any stripe, supplant my authority, my rights, on my land.
    From the moment we are willing to trade our freedoms and individuality for an emotion and passion, we have begun the slide toward the totalitarian concept where the strongest and loudest dictate the beliefs of others. Where then, will the freedoms we hold so dear be found? Quite frankly, not in anybody’s backyard.

Andy Torbett
Atkinson