Bangor’s future
Bangor is fortunate to have two hardworking, intelligent candidates with solid values and creative ideas running for the state Legislature: Democrats Geoff Gratwick in Senate District 32 and John Schneck in House District 16.
A practicing physician and Bangor city councilor, Gratwick is passionate about health care. At a recent candidates’ forum managed by the Maine People’s Alliance, he said health care, run by insurance companies, is broken and getting more broken. He favors a universal system with a strong focus on prevention.
At the same forum, Schneck, businessman, veteran and journalist, spoke up for tax fairness. He said trickle-down economics doesn’t work because demand rises from the bottom and that income tax cuts primarily favoring the wealthy lead to higher sales and property taxes, harming the lower and middle classes.
Both favor renewable energy and a bond to improve the state’s infrastructure. Their opponents, Republican Nichi Farnham and Doug Damon, did not participate in the forum.
Christina Diebold
Bangor
State senator
I have known Republican Nichi Farnham for more than 20 years and have watched with admiration as she has raised her three little boys into fine young men while at the same time contributing so much to her community and its institutions. She has served on the boards of the United Way, the Bangor Y, the Bangor Nursing & Rehabilitation Center and Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, and her roles as a member and chair of the Bangor City Council and as a member of the Bangor School Committee are also well known and respected.
In some of those activities, I have been privileged to be at the same table and have observed first-hand her commitment to being prepared by doing her homework, considering what is best for the constituency being affected and then making thoughtful, intelligent and fair decisions.
As our state senator, Farnham has performed her duties with that same dedication and integrity. Whether as a committee member, committee chair or as a member of the full Senate, she has voted, sometimes with her party and sometimes not, with the best interests of the people of the Bangor area and the state of Maine always her top priority.
On Nov. 6, your vote to re-elect Farnham to the Maine Senate will best serve us all.
Clifton Eames
Bangor
Vote yes on 5
Voting yes on Question 5 in November will create jobs, improve the quality of drinking water and protect our environment.
Maine is blessed with abundant and high-quality drinking water supplies. These resources are well managed by a network of independent water utilities around the state, some for over a century. Safe drinking water is ensured by a thorough system of laws and regulations. In Maine these rules are administered by the Maine Drinking Water Program.
The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund administered by the DWP and Clean Water State Revolving Fund administered by the Department of Environmental Protection were created by the federal government to provide affordable funding for public health and water quality improvement projects. Since 1997, the DWSRF has invested $179 million in Maine public water systems.
In order to qualify for the federal funds, Maine must provide a 20 percent match annually. Question 5 on the Nov. 6 ballot provides the 20 percent match for the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Funds for two years.
This $7.9 million bond referendum, if approved, will allow Maine to access nearly $40 million in federal matching funds. Funds for capital upgrades will be available to water and wastewater systems at a reduced interest rate. If the match is not approved, the federal dollars will be forfeited and local ratepayers and taxpayers will need to pay the higher cost of conventional loans.
Tom Brennan
Yarmouth
Winter in our backyard
As a winter enthusiast, I was excited to read the Bangor Daily News article recently about upcoming ski sales around the state. The Penobscot Valley Ski Club Ski and Snowboard Equipment Sale, at Bangor Parks and Rec on Saturday, Oct. 20, was among those listed. The PVSC sale is this nonprofit’s biggest fundraiser and supports winter downhill skiing, snowboarding and cross-country ski programming in the greater Bangor area.
The Penobscot Valley Ski Club supports discounted skiing and snowboarding lessons and a junior alpine racing program at Hermon Mountain. It supports cross-country ski programs in Orono, Bangor and Winterport and are actively involved in developing Nordic ski trails in and around Bangor. The club also offers discount ski trips to western Maine and Quebec.
Information about the club, programs and the sale can be found at www.pvskiclub.org. Many vendors from Maine and beyond will be at the ski sale, as well as program representatives to answer questions. Save the gas and check out the ski deals and programs right in your backyard.
Sally Burke
Newburgh
GrowSmart Maine
On Oct. 23, GrowSmart Maine will convene a statewide summit to discuss issues pertaining to forestry, farming and fisheries — how the industries have changed, their challenges and future possibilities.
Since 2003, GrowSmart Maine has worked to make progress without destroying the resources that make Maine special. Our downtowns, filled with empty mill buildings previously facing demolition, needed to be revitalized. Our working waterfronts were disappearing and being changed into elite and private lots. Large tracks of our North Woods were being sold to private owners with a trend toward limiting public access.
Over the last few years, GSM has been struggling with the economic fallout of the recession and concentrated on ensuring its sustainability. Now we have a growing membership and strong partnerships with other organizations, and we are committed to our core mission to promote sustainable prosperity for all Mainers by integrating working and natural landscape conservation, economic growth and community revitalization.
In 2006, GrowSmart Maine partnered with the Brookings Institution and commissioned “ Charting Maine’s Future,” which outlined the economic sectors that showed promise and provided details about how other sectors could grow.
This year, GSM revisited that action plan and recently released the update “Charting Maine’s Future: Making Headway,” which will be featured at the summit.
All Mainers are welcome at the summit, which will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 23, at the Augusta Civic Center. For details and to register, visit growsmartmaine.org/summit or call the GSM office at 699-4330.
Bonita Pothier
Biddeford
Talk about contrast.
Ms Diebold faults Nichi Farnham for not going to a campaign forum (for a group actively opposing her) without mentioning that Sen. Farnham was fulfilling her elected duties at a School Committee meeting that night.
In the next letter, Cliff Eames, an extremely respected member of our community writes a positive letter and gives great reasons to reelect Farnham.
The School Com. mtg. that Sen. Farnum attended was, I believe, the same one at which Com. member Kate Dickerson resigned in disgust because of the enforced consensus and the hostility toward any dissenting opinions. Nichi embraced that culture. Cliff Eames is indeed a respected community member who is also an extremely conservative businessman who always endorses Republicans. What about Farnum’s passionate leadership to eliminate same day voter registration and voting? And her leadership as well to try to impose voter ID requirements in a state devoid of a real history of voter fraud? Those anti-democratic positions don’t count, do they?
Howard, I have a couple clarifying points,
Point 1: You got your School Committee meeting dates wrong.
Point 2: Cliff Eames supported Eliot Cutler in 2010.
Point 3: I’ve heard you rant about this same day reg stuff and voter ID stuff (which didn’t receive much support) enough (in public too, you really should be more professional), so according to you, if that’s the worst thing she did, then count me in for voting for her.
I didn’t insist that the School Com. mtg. was the one at which Kate Dickerson resigned. The larger point is the enforced consensus imposed upon all Com. members, a point made in painful detail by the BDN a couple of years ago when Martha Newman chaired the School Com. No one denies the hard work of the Com., but a democracy should allow for respectful dissent–as well as for laptops! This in turn connects to what, to me, is Nichi’s greatest fault: not her embrace of the richest Americans but her hostility toward encouraging the greatest exercise of the franchise by the most Americans, esp., to repeat, when there is/was no evidence of voter fraud. Maine is not Chicago under Richard Daly or Florida in 2000 under the GOP. I can think of nothing more reflective of the need to replace our Nichi than her leadership re vote denial. Can you?
That Farnham walked in lockstep with ALEC, the Koch Brothers, the right wing Heritage Foundation, and all the rest of the plutocratic big money LIARS and VOTE SUPPRESSORS over needless voter ID and trying to eliminate same-day registration is rotten enough. First, the real reason for the national NATIONAL TeaPublican War On Voting has been to try to suppress the more progressive voting blocks and we all know it. They have been caught virtually admitting it. (i.e. The right wing State House leader in PA. YouTube it.) Simple as that, and you know it and so does Farnham and the rest of the rotten right wing LIARS who tried to LIE and LIE and LIE again about NON-EXISTENT “voter fraud.” A rotten horrid disgusting LIE and nothing more. Their real motive is obvious and crystal clear. And Mainers didn’t buy it as we crushed the LIE at the voting booth and restored same-day registration. Sorry, but we will remember in November. Farnham should go down just for getting on the bandwagon of that LIE CAMPAIGN alone. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. She violates the values of the majority of her district by siding with LeBUFFOON 92% of the time. She votes for the rich and the big insurange companies over the needs of the people. And now, AFTER being CAUGHT, at the 11th hour she is trying to squirm out of being a clear as crystal leader and participant in a right wing PAC when she is supposed to be Clean Elections. She says it was a clerical error. BUNK ! She SHOULD HAVE KNOWN and she SHOULD HAVE VETTED HERSELF when she finally realized that she actually had to run for re-election. She is on the committee that oversees this, and she has NO EXCUSE for this MAJOR BLUNDER. Bad enough she is associated with the right wing PAC at all, more evidence that she is in deep conflict with the majority’s values in the district. Nobody who shows this level of ignorance and incompetence should be in the State Senate. She didn’t even know she had to run for re-election at first. Didn’t even know the length of her own term. And this PAC scandal is inexusable. At the very least, she darn well SHOULD HAVE KNOWN. No excuses. She needs to go, and we need to get someone in there whose values better represent the people of the district. Farnham is no nicey nice moderate. She is very right wing. And her votes and actions when the cameras are off prove it solidly.
She’s obviously a Freemason, too.
I was thinking maybe KKK, Knights Templar and a major player in the Illuminati, but that’s just me.
PS: I saw a Black Helicopter parked in her back yard.
Excellent points, my friend. One might think that Nichi’s district is heavily Republican and conservative, but instead there are hundreds, probably thousands, of students from Husson and UME Augusta at Bangor, and UMaine living in it. Surely that accounts in part for her leadership in her first term in the Maine Senate in trying to reduce the no. of new district residents/new voters as the majority of such students tend to vote Democratic and, in any case, are generally not right-wingers like our Nichi. I hope that these young folks vote to oust her.
Can November 7th get here fast enough?
Comparing the first two letters, what did the R candidates have to hide that did not participate in the forum?
Tom Brennan: good letter.
Why would R’s show up at a Democrat/radical left sponsored event?
“radical left” — there’s that hyperbole again…
You fit that description also so you probably don’t recognize it.
Education? Show the flag? Show how representative you are? With those philosophies I hope for your sake you don’t try to run for office.
There would be no educating those folks on the left. They already have all the answers.
Education is wasted on conservatives. Not because they’re too stupid to learn (well, not necessarily, anyway) but because they’re unwilling to open their minds to new ideas and facts.
We on the left don’t actually “have all the answers,” we just have a far better understanding of what’s going on than conservatives do because we’re willing to learn and we make an effort to educate ourselves.
You mistake your indoctrination for education.