Make toilet paper
What went wrong with the mill sale? On Monday, the Great Northern Paper mill in East Millinocket was sold to the wrong party. Instead of selling it to cannibals for scrap, the people of Maine should have bought it.
For about the price of a Big Mac apiece, we could have spared hundreds of people and their dependents from the agony of not being able to support themselves. We could have possibly saved a town and for sure could have saved ourselves the coming millions and millions of dollars in unemployment benefits, retraining costs, etc.
In addition, we would have had our very own source of toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, etc. for us and our state’s needs. It is not often that you can have a “startup” company with 1.5 million customers at the ready.
William Reiff
Mount Desert
Vote fraud
Let’s see if I have this straight: the Senate District 25 contest was close enough to require a recount, and during the recount, 21 more ballots (all from Long Island and all cast for the Republican candidate) materialized than were tallied by the voter roster on Election Day?
Wow. It appears that I owe our esteemed governor an apology. Turns out voter fraud is rampant in our great state after all.
Rodney L. Hanscom
Holden
Park priority
This fall, I had the opportunity to work with a photographer from Millinocket who exposed me to the proposed national park and national recreation area land east of Baxter State Park. I would like to express my support for this proposal.
As an Appalachian Trail hiker and Maine Guide, I love the Baxter State Park area, and I feel this land proposed for the national park will bring tourists to this area. Protecting this land from development is dear to my heart, and I feel that these lands should be preserved for future generations. The views and wildlife I saw in the proposed land were incredible, and I feel that this should be protected as a national park.
I know some local Mainers oppose this proposal but as a Mainer and land owner, I feel that it will bring jobs and tourism to this part of Maine that is struggling. By bringing jobs to the state, people can make a good living and not have to move from a place where their families have established roots for many generations. I feel that by protecting this land as a national park, you will help the lake and streams and the wildlife that inhabit it, survive.
Elliotsville Plantation Inc.’s proposed national park should be on the top of the agenda for Maine’s congressional delegation.
Terri McLellan
Princeton
Uninsured women
With reference to Mary Shea’s OpEd regarding uninsured Down East women in the Dec. 1 BDN: As I recall, when Gov. Paul LePage first vetoed Medicaid expansion for uninsured Mainers under the Affordable Care Act, Dr. Erik Steele, in one of his weekly columns, asked health care practitioners to let the governor know the human cost of his decision. Steele suggested a face should be put on this political decision. Has anyone in the health care community attempted to document this cost? Shea comes close.
Again, as I recall, in the last gubernatorial debate, LePage insisted that if anyone in the state of Maine could not afford their prescription costs, they should contact his office for assistance. My wife heard the same plea in that debate. Has anyone done this? Is there a documented need for the expansion of Medicaid to cover the uninsured?
John S. O’Brien
Bar Harbor