Tear down the house
Isn’t it remarkable that a house in Portland badly damaged by fire last November has been demolished while a house in Bangor that burned around the first of December 2013 at the corner of Hellier and Patten streets still stands? Haphazardly boarded up and graffitied — the yard strewn with trash and the remnants of the fire, as well as an abandoned motor home surrounded by old appliances, furniture and a ragged assortment of plastic tarps — this blight on the West Side Village neighborhood is fully visible from the Shaw’s parking lot, anyone passing by on Main Street and even from the sacrosanct Waterfront Concerts venue.
How much longer is the tone and value of the entire neighborhood to be dragged down by this unsightly and perhaps unsafely hazardous hulk of a ruin?
Michael P. Gleason
Bangor
ACA doesn’t work
Affordable health care? What is wrong with it? It’s by ZIP code and household income, not individual income.
The problem is that too many folks are disqualified from assistance because “household” income — even when partners file IRS separately — is the primary qualifier. Secondly, most of the health programs are regionalized, meaning that if a person travels out of his/her area, then there are no $500 per month programs that cover a person who has an emergency in Florida or elsewhere and resides in Maine. Nationwide, affordable insurance carriers are more like $700, $800, $900 per month under the Affordable Care Act.
The act was foul before the president signed it. It is more like a mandated racket run by the underworld. This is going to be President Barack Obama’s legacy?
Robert Fournier
Bangor
Collins and federal workers
I am responding to Sen. Susan Collins OpEd piece in the Feb. 11 Bangor Daily News on the humble Maine potato. I work for the United States Navy at the Cutler Naval Station. I’ve been there since 1982. I represent all workers employed there as president of American Federation of Government Employees and as chief steward of Virginia Tidewater Federal Employees. I applaud Susan’s work with the potato.
In contrast, if a federal employees were injured at work, he or she must file a claim with the Office of Workers’ Compensation, which is a division of the United States Department of Labor. Federal employees must give up their right to sue the federal government because of an injury sustained at work. The Department of Labor is their only recourse for compensation.
For years, the department did a good job at helping injured workers, but not so in the last 10 years. I represent several employees and former employees who have had no luck with their respective claims at the Department of Labor even with Collin’s assistance.
I agree that oversight of federal agencies is among the most essential powers of Congress, and I also agree that all members of Congress have an obligation to represent the people of their districts. Collins needs to assert more oversight to federal employees’ workplace injuries and continue her good work on Maine spuds.
Elmer L. Harmon
President. AFGE Local 2635
Chief Steward, Federal Employees Metal Trades Council
Cutler
Not time to expand UMaine
I was appointed to the University of Maine faculty in 1946. I am the last of the emeriti hired in that decade. One observation of university growth may be of interest. When large money-raising efforts are afoot, contributions from the faculty are sought first. The university then could go to alumnae and friends with a money-raising scheme if they could say “The faculty is interested in this project; they have already pledged $140,000.”
In 1974, the plans were being organized to build the Center for the Performing Arts — now the Collins Center — and the Alfond hockey arena. (Nice combination — attractive to the eggheads and the jocks.)
Consistent with the above, President Howard Neville called me into his office in the spring of 1974 and asked if I would lead the faculty fundraising effort. I suggested this was a bad time to expand the university — the demographic of 17-year-olds was against us. I said we should be thinking of ways to reduce the size of the university. He said that the decrease in the college-age population was the very reason we must go forward with this project. The competition for this group will be severe. We must keep the university attractive, he said. The money was raised, and a few years later the facilities were constructed.
Perhaps this is a crude metaphor for the current state of the University of Maine.
Richard C. Hill
Old Town