Park would help Bangor
I am a business owner in downtown Bangor and I support Elliotsville Plantation, Inc.’s proposal for a national park and national recreation area east of Baxter State Park. I support this proposal not only for its outstanding conservation benefits, but also because of the positive impact it would have on Maine’s economy – including my own business.
Epic Sports, established in 1997, is an outdoor adventure retail shop and an anchor store in downtown Bangor. We are located just an hour and a half south of the proposed park lands and Bangor would be a natural stop for anyone visiting the park. Outdoor enthusiasts on their way to Maine’s North Woods already stop by our store, but a national park would put the area on the map and attract more out-of-state and international visitors. This would be good news to me, as well as to any other business owner that would benefit from increased traffic through Bangor.
Bangor’s economic vitality is on the rise with our new waterfront attractions, Cross Insurance Center and new lodging facilities. The Bangor International Airport provides easy access for many of our visitors looking for these experiences and more outdoor activities.
I look forward to recommending to future park visitors who stop by my store how best to enjoy the area – I’ve been in person and can’t speak highly enough of it. It is an exceptional example of Maine’s beautiful North Woods.
Brad Ryder
Bangor
Crosswalk logic
When legislators consider crosswalk laws (BDN, Jan. 31), they should ask whether it is wise to place sole responsibility on drivers to yield to pedestrians. The current Maine law on this subject reflects a well-meaning but ill-advised effort to extend the laudable principle of road courtesy to the point where it may be creating, rather than averting, a safety problem.
Reasonably careful drivers can easily misread the intent of a pedestrian to cross. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that even good drivers may not see crossing pedestrians for a variety of reasons.
Current crosswalk laws encourage pedestrians to assert their right-of-way and minimize the greater ability they have to assess the situation in the context of an activity which, they can instinctively sense, places them in danger.
Increasing duties and punishments on drivers will do little to promote safety. It is not the fine that coerces, but rather the potential horror of injuring another human being.
William E. Master
Thomaston
Ozone harm and costs
On Jan. 29, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency held public hearings across the country on its proposal to bring our national ozone standards up to date.
As an asthmatic, I’ve been in the emergency room at least 80 times. I’ve seen bills ranging from $3,500 to $17,500 per visit. If I accept my doctor’s recommendation, medications next year alone could cost $100,800. Keeping me — and millions of Americans like me — breathing is not cheap. Reducing ozone in our air reduces medical costs for people with asthma.
Apart from cost, these days I think the most about our kids. They are just starting out, brimming with hope, promise, and energy. I wish that no child would be down, like the young runner I once saw, with emergency personnel around her and an oxygen mask on her face. I wish that no kid was sitting with a nebulizer in the school nurse’s office instead of learning in class. I wish every kid could play any position they wanted in a soccer game, instead of always being the goalie to avoid running too much. I wish that no child ever faced that terrifying moment when you know you may not get one more breath. Asthma limits our kids’ promise and their dreams.
I support EPA’s proposal to strengthen our ozone standards. It means a lot to me, but more importantly it means a lot to all the kids with asthma in all our communities.
Jeanette MacNeille
Topsham
College should be free
A feasible solution to the soaring cost of higher education does exist and it would cost billions less than the community college scholarships President Barack Obama is proposing. Supervised testing centers for free online college courses, such as Coursera.org and Edx.org have, would legitamize these courses making them verifiable college credit.
Knowledge is hoarded by expensive universities. Education should be free (as most of the industrial world realizes) and testing centers for online courses feasible. At some point they could operate 24 hours and be located all over the place.
Education spending is not money leaving the economy, such as the large portion of the U.S. federal budget that goes to our massive military. (There’s no return on an F-35 fighter jet.) We’re spending more than the next 14 countries combined. How much will cowering from fighting ignorance cost us down the road when could have an educated workforce now?
Knowledge is light and superstition is darkness we should have overcome by now.
Dan Fitzgerald
University of Maine ’93
Providence, Rhode Island
Tourism and wind don’t mix
So Angus King has joined a Senate committee to help Maine’s tourism, through policymaking. His posturing would be laughable if it didn’t indicate how short he thinks our memories are.
King once said, “In the process of rebuilding Maine, we must never compromise the integrity of our environment. It’s not only immoral, it’s bad economics.” As governor, he signed wind power into law, later founded Independence Wind, and his son, Angus S. King III, took a job as vice president for mergers and acquisitions at First Wind.
In 2011, Sen. King’s company received $102 million for development of Record Hill. The loan came through the same stimulus program that funded Solyndra. Shortly after King announced his Senate candidacy, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a report citing Record Hill as a loan that shouldn’t have happened.
Two days before the report was released, King dropped his association with Record Hill, dumping all of his stock. He told a Maine news outlet the timing was an “amazing coincidence.” It was later revealed that his company received a letter of notification from the committee two days before King sold his stock.
So, King — after reaping financial gain from laws he got passed, by being a leading force behind the destruction of Maine’s wildest, unspoiled places — is going to promote Maine tourism? Who does he think he’s kidding?
Jack Gagnon
Lakeville