Do unto others?
When the citizens of Orland vote Jan. 20 whether to put in place a 180-day moratorium on the town’s proposed industrial wind turbine project, they will have an opportunity to protect their friends and neighbors in North Orland and Dedham, who will be the most affected by their close proximity to three turbines that would be raised atop Dodge Hill and Whites Mountain. These towering industrial-scale machines will be completely incongruous in the unspoiled, rolling mountains of the rural, residential setting.
Should the project go through, the majority of Orland and Dedham residents largely would be unaware and unaffected by the day-to-day visual and auditory presence of these turbines while the families in the 90-plus dwellings in North Orland and Dedham, within 1 mile of the turbines, could have their lives and their properties changed irrevocably for decades to come. Orland’s wind ordinance establishes a modest half-mile setback from a resident’s home, not property line, making it one of the weakest protective setbacks in the state.
Ordinances can and do include “good neighbor” policies designed to consider those in surrounding communities who have no voice in the matter. It could be said that such policies are built upon the Golden Rule of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Voting yes to a short moratorium to potentially strengthen the wind ordinance and better protect the health, safety, welfare and quality of life of all citizens in the communities of Orland, Dedham, Ellsworth and Bucksport is the right thing to do unto others.
David Sims
Dedham
John Malone and taxes
In November, the BDN published an article written by Jesse Drucker of Bloomberg News that featured Liberty Global’s billionaire owner John C. Malone, Maine’s largest landowner. Ordinarily I would have passed over the article as just another puff-piece about some billionaire with far too much money. But then something caught my attention. On reading further into the story, I was taken with Malone’s apparent single-minded drive to avoid paying any business taxes in the United States. This individual sounded a bit like a male version of the late Leona Helmsley, who reportedly said only poor people pay taxes.
After reading the Malone article, it appears she may have been right. Most of us have read stories about America’s financial royalty, or ruling class, but the one issue in the Malone piece that really stuck in my craw was that while Malone avoids paying his share of the nation’s taxes, he’s ready to seek $300 million in taxpayer subsidy to underwrite the cost of his new Atlanta Braves baseball stadium.
If I were a Georgian, I might be a tad upset with such an unabashed misuse of taxpayers’ money.
Donald C. Grant
Stetson
Lower taxes, more paperwork
When it comes to taxes, paying them is one thing but doing the paperwork with the overriding fear of making a mistake and an audit is quite another. I think everyone can relate to this.
Reducing the income tax does not reduce the paperwork, but expanding the sales tax means thousands of Mainers, like you and me, will be forced to become unpaid tax collectors for the state, keep extra records of the collections and file reports to the state. The state will have the added expense of processing those reports.
Another downside to paying my taxes as sales taxes instead of income taxes is that income taxes are deductible on my federal taxes but the sales tax deduction was eliminated years ago, so I will pay more in federal income tax.
Fred Otto
Orono
TANF drug tests appropriate
I read that the state is ready to drug test some welfare applicants, which is more than resourceful for where money is being used and where the focus is for the welfare of the state and the well-being for individuals. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families would be remiss to not take into consideration where individuals are using their other personal assets, thus mandating programmatic support for addicts is more than resourceful.
Lawmakers also need to acknowledge and accept the fact that marijuana is a “gateway drug,” even if it becomes legalized. So, with legalizing marijuana, why not legalize other hallucinogenic drugs, which are known to simply “alter communication between brain cells.” Then, depending on the phase of use or how frequently it is used, marijuana shares qualities of depressants and/or stimulants in the psychoactive drug category.
Legalizing marijuana for recreational use and/or resisting the drug test for welfare applicants would be a way of enabling addicts just as Gov. Paul LePage stipulated and thus would neglect the literal part of “assistance for needy families.” Because assistance in addiction(s) for families is paramount, families with addicted individuals clearly qualify for need, yet not assistance in being able to afford their addictions.
Greg R. Stacy, M.Ed.
Denmark
Pay police more
The median pay for a police officer in Maine is around $45,000 a year (source: HR Reported data as of January 2015). A nurse, by comparison, makes around $49,000. Both jobs are extremely stressful — the big difference, of course, is that nurses run a much lower risk of being shot, wounded or killed.
So, what is living with that risk on a daily basis for, say 25 years, worth? Violence against the Thin Blue Line is on the increase. They are the only profession that keeps the rest of us somewhat safe, given certain built-in limitations.
Police officers in Maine make less money than most much safer office-type jobs. Do we value them that much less? So what’s going on here? We have high expectations that we will be protected but are not willing to pay a decent salary for the men and women who risk their lives for us.
If you don’t understand this, try walking in a police officer’s shoes for one week. You can do that by reading real-life stories or just your local paper or read other newspapers. Here in Maine, you can access the Bangor Police Department’s Facebook page. The stories there are very typical of what every officer faces in this state.
We need to pay all of them more. Personally, I am on a fixed-income, but would pay higher taxes gladly in order to increase the pay of all law enforcement officers. Want to know what law enforcement actually gets paid? Visit the website lawenforcementedu.net/maine/maine-salary.
David Winslow
Brewer