Local Letters to the Editor

Knowledge really is power

To the Editor:
    November 5, 2013 is the date we will once again exercise our right and responsibility to voice our choice as to state and local issues. Dover residents will have the opportunity to elect a school board member and vote on a proposed amendment to our Land Use Ordinance pertaining to electronic signs.

    We are all aware of the critical need for additional raised local revenues as state revenue sharing has and probably will continue to decrease. Most of us would like to see the growth of business which would generate additional tax revenue and spending.
    I had the pleasure of joining six members on a committee to consider drafting a proposal to the existing sign ordinance allowing for electronic computerized signs. The issue germinated from requests to the Planning Board and Board of Selectmen to make exceptions in our zoning ordinance to allow the erection of signs where they are currently not allowed.
    We agreed to operate by consensus and found the process challenging as we forged ahead with respect and determination. The committee created a proposal which delineates the areas in town where electronic signs will be allowed and outlines performance standards of those signs such as size, pictorials, words, flashing or not, scrolling or not, etc. There were two ever-present themes in our discussions: maintaining the character of our town and supporting business. Those themes proved to be the true challenge.
    I understand that students were polled as to the number of prospective voters for the Nov. 5, 2013 elections at a recent Foxcroft Academy assembly. I endorse that young adults should be apprised of their civic responsibility to vote and how to register. I also believe it is necessary to urge young (and all) voters to become informed of the issues in order to reach the decision they believe is best for them and their community.
    I was disappointed to hear that the students were simply urged to vote “yes” on the sign ordinance article as it would be “good for the school.” I am disappointed because this amendment to the ordinance is not just about Foxcroft Academy. Students were not urged how they might gain necessary information to make an informed decision and the impact that a “yes” vote would have on the entire community.
    Please call any one of the members of the sign ordinance committee for details. The members are Chairman Fred Muehl, Will Wedge, Mary Merchant, Elwood Edgerly, Cindy Johnston, Scott Moulton and me. You can see the proposal on the town’s website or pick one up at the town office.
    As the motto of Foxcroft Academy suggests, “Knowledge is Power.”

Gail D’Agostino
Dover-Foxcroft

Make a lunch date with the kids

To the Editor:
    One of my strong beliefs is that adults need to be involved with our kids and our schools. In fact, the theme of my book, “Small People – Big Brains,” is that the benefits are very mutual. While the kids benefit from our interest in them, they also have lots to teach us. A few years ago, we were a bit obsessed with the headline “Why Johnny can’t read.” Surprisingly, it didn’t occur to us to ask Johnny what he thought.
    I’m very excited that Piscataquis Community Secondary School here in Guilford started the Pirate Specials Program last year by asking those students what they thought. The questions were about what they are interested in and what sorts of education and work they are considering after graduation.
    The program continues this year with Pirate Specials delivering what kids want and need to learn. The program also comes with a promise to connect students and community, helping our students discover the myriad of opportunities available to them and helping our community discover the talents and energy that exist in our kids.
    These “Specials” require some adults who can spare a half hour at lunchtime to visit with some kids. It’s really quite simple — the adult volunteer gets paired with a teacher and visits with a group of students who are interested in what he or she does for a living. The volunteer does not need to be a great public speaker or teacher — just someone who can talk for a few minutes about his or her career or job and freely answer questions the kids might have. The teacher handles the classroom management and depending on where everyone wants to go with it, may follow up with activities and further research as well as a return visit by the volunteer.
    Please note this is not just about the glamorous “professional” careers. These kids are interested in a variety of things ranging from cooking to police work and forensic science to fashion design, basket weaving and dancing.
    As long as your vocation (or former vocation — you can be retired!) is legal, there’s probably a kid who’s interested in it and an opportunity for you to be a positive influence.
    The commitment is minimal and the payback is huge. We have an immediate need to schedule some of these specials from the middle of October through the middle of November. Take a look at your calendar and find some days when you can invest a half hour in some kids, then call (876-4378) or e-mail MSAD 4 Curriculum Director Elaine Bartley at ebartley@sad4.org to see what’s available.
    Stacia Tauscher observed, “We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.” This is a great opportunity to remember.

Walter Boomsma
Abbot

We must do better

To the Editor:
    A few days ago the taxes that you must pay to the state government were increased. The sales tax went from 5 percent to 5.5 percent or a 10 percent increase.
    The tax you must pay on food in a restaurant went up from 7 to 8 percent or about a 14 percent increase. There also were new taxes such as the tax on newspapers.
    Programs affecting our industries were adjusted this will cost many of our local industries thousands of dollars. The total tax package means state government is taking millions and millions more out of the private sector. Industry will not have this cash to hire more people as industry will have to turn the cash over to state government.
    Our future prospects are dim, Forbes magazine recently stated that Maine was the worst state in the country to do business in. The publication “Rich states Poor States” has Maine at no. 41 in Economic Outlook rank. These ratings 1 through 50 with 1 being the best and 50 the worst. Being no. 41 is a solid improvement from the no. 48 and no. 47 Maine was rated at in 2011 and 2012. This improvement reflects the change of policy put into place in the last three years. Even reducing the income tax slightly Maine still has one of the highest in the nation and the top marginal rate is 7.95 percent (from 8.5 percent which is no. 40 in the ratings. Our property tax burden is at no. 47 in the ratings.
    We must do better. Our young get a good education in Maine but have nothing to turn to for employment here and they soon leave in search of opportunity. We are rapidly losing our seniors and with them go the lifetime of wisdom that we desperately need.
    Government will never look inward to find waste and inefficiencies as long as we hand it tax money.
    The one industry that is doing well is the “for sale” sign company. Ride down any street in any of our villages and you will see what I mean.
    We must do better.

Rep. Paul T. Davis Sr.
(R-Sangerville)

Not your father’s engineering

To the Editor:
    U.S. coal-fired power plants are generally not located at the mountain mine. They are down where the water and the people are. In many parts of North America long, long railroad trains of hopper cars move the black carbon between mine and hearth, soiling home curtains along the way. Then they burn the smokey stuff.
    The ingenious Navajo tribe moves their coal downhill with smokeless electric train power, the engines also pushed downhill by coal’s massive gravity within the cargo make electricity, The locomotives powerful tractor/generators, with enough surplus power put on the grid wires along the way are ready to boost the whole train, engines and empty cars, back up to the mine for free, with a little surplus for folks along the way.
    Peter Vigue will need to find enough rich folks who “don’t give a damn for Maine air quality — “an investment crowd from away” — to build his old fashioned winter salted tar road through our Maine woods so he can collect $100 each and every day tolls from 4,000 giants roaring noise and CO2-emitting peace and quiet wreckers. So far we haven’t heard of any big diesel trucks capable of creating diesel fuel . Have you?
    Last month we celebrated the 39th anniversary of the first ascent of New Hampshire’s Mount Washington by an electric vehicle, a Corbin motorcycle. Great strides have been taken in the almost four decades in-betweeen. In 1974 lead acid batteries just barely had enough capacity to covered the scant 8-mile course in three and a half long dragged-out hours. Two weeks ago lithium batteries lifted the 2,200-pound electric smart car and 168-pound driver 4,700 feet in 22 minutes using up only about one third of its battery charge.
    But on the way back down the mountain, whenever driver foot pressure was relieved on the “gas pedal” the engine switched function, becoming a generator, slowing the vehicle, and by the time the car reached the bottom of the mountain its batteries were recharged back up to 82 percent. The Auto Road owner of the car believes that this new smart car might make four complete round trips to the summit and back now on a single charge.
    Driving the electric smart car to Bangor and back, such a car wouldn’t need to worry much about Charleston Ridge. A lot of the cost of climbing one side of the ridge could be salvaged by “electrical re-generation” down the other.
    Mr, Vigue is a long time ago graduate of a good Maine engineering school — Maine Maritime Academy — but a lot of water has passed beneath the bridge since he sat in the classroom. These days we need to keep up, with post-graduae courses! Old ways aren’t always best forever.
    Anyway, in a tourist state like Maine, the natural odor of birch smells better than diesel smoke and doesn’t threaten the whole world’s laundry or glaciers. Also, for transporting heavy cargo there may be a coastable bargain railroad available, much cheaper than $2 trillion. Perhaps that railroad might work with very economical safe management clean gravity power? Oil is finite, will run out. But Cosmic Gravity never runs out.
    Two jobs in every cab. No skimping.
    Pipelines have greater hauling capacity than rail, but the road to hell is of supply exhaustion makes us worry, “Why are the greedy in such a hurry to waste everything?” Don’t they expect to have great grandkids too, like the rest of us? Hasten-wasten?

Charles Mac Arthur
Sangerville