Horror show
I moved to Maine six years ago. ( Gov. Paul LePage, pay attention.) I choose to move here and pay the taxes. And I donate time and money regularly to causes I believe in — causes that do not have government support.
I have never met such a caring, generous community of people as I have known here in Bangor. They care about their neighbors and take care of them in many quiet ways.
I knew little about Stephen and Tabitha King before I moved here. But it did not take long to realize that the Kings are two of the most quietly generous people in this city. The amount of money they have given back to the people of Maine is astounding and unselfish. They have empathy. Something our governor seems to lack entirely.
There is no excuse for the shameless ignorance of our governor. How he rose to the place he is mystifies me to this day.
Katie Schaffer
Bangor
Sports and safety
I wonder how the people affected by a moose-vehicle fatality feel about the moose hunt issue? Controlling the moose population for safety reasons is something I support. Otherwise, traveling on our Maine roads particularly at night would be incredibly scary and alarming. It’s not always about the glory and cash.
Debbie Clayton
Hampden
Political platform
In his March 20 column, George Smith implied that the Humane Society of the United States succeeded in getting the bear referendum on the ballot due to the efforts of “out of state petition circulators who did most of the work while a Maine resident stood by someplace in the vicinity.”
This is defamatory conjecture, not fact, and is profoundly offensive to citizen petition circulators. My volunteer colleagues and I invested countless hours to gather signatures and educate voters about the ballot question.
Smith asserted that “a lot of signers are misled about the issue by petition circulators.” This is a curious claim because he wrote in a previous column that Mainers clearly understood bear trapping and hounding and that these practices “are not supported by a majority of Mainers.”
The more than 78,000 Mainers whose signatures put Question 1 on the ballot were not hoodwinked by a fiendish agency from away — they signed with the knowledge they could provide voters an opportunity to restore ethics to Maine’s bear hunt. Sportsmen’s groups continually vilify HSUS, but I suspect most Mainers, thousands of whom are HSUS members, understand its sole intent is ending cruelty to animals.
Smith says sportsmen’s groups want to restore integrity to the citizen initiative process, but their proposals make clear that their principal aim is to undermine it with further restrictions, including removing hunting and wildlife matters from its purview.
Why does the BDN provide Smith with a seemingly unrestricted platform to promote his political objectives?
Arlene Goldstein
Sangerville
Public lands forestry
I wish to add my voice to the opinions that Dr. Robert Seymour expressed in his March 23 BDN OpEd.
I too served on the Bureau of Public Lands’ Silvicultural Advisory Committee. I was impressed then, and continue to be, with the thoughtful, scientifically-based forestry balancing all the public’s values the Bureau practiced. To disregard this long history of fine forest management in the public interest and turn the public’s forest land into a “piggy bank” that can be raided at the whim of government officials anytime they want some ready cash is irresponsible at best and a total disregard for the public’s interest at worst.
As private woodlot owners and certified tree farmers, my wife and I have been continued recipients of the fine outreach and education efforts that the Maine Forest Service district foresters provide to landowners. In a time when private woodland owners face more and more conflicting pressures, a source of unbiased, scientifically sound, and publicly accessible information is critical.
The District Foresters and the Augusta staff provide this service. To reduce their ranks and dilute and muddle their responsibilities flies in the face of reason. The proposed combination of the Bureau of Public Lands with the Maine Forest Service is a bad idea and will not promote the best forest management.
Michael Dann
Dixmont
Standard for everyone
Early in March state Sen. Michael Willette, R-Presque Isle, posted on Facebook a photo of President Barack Obama, originally posted by Conservative News Daily, that featured a caption saying, “Why haven’t I done anything about ISIS? Because I’ll deal with them at the family reunion.” Such humor.
Willette wrote on the same Facebook entry that “I’ve been very good over the last year and a half about not posting things about Obama, but this one was too good to pass up. I promise this will be the last one for some time.”
Willette later issued an apology that fell short both in sincerity and maturity. He stated: “I think many of us can identify with the temptation to not listen to our better angels and instead to lash out publicly against those with whom we disagree. As a state legislator, I am held to a higher standard and need to show restraint.”
I am so very tired of politicians attempting to explain their incivility by stating that they are being held to a higher standard. They have done nothing to be deserving of higher expectations other than perhaps being an adult chronologically. Further, there is a discernable and embarrassing whine in Willette’s inference that those higher standards verge on restrictive and unfair. Enough. Sit down and be quiet Willette.
Willette, you are not held to a higher standard than the standard to which we hold all of our high school students. Interestingly, they all passed a standard that you so clearly failed.
Paul B. Perkinson
Headmaster at George Stevens Academy
Blue Hill
Maine travel
Now is the time of year when friends and family start to visit, and we have to deal with the high cost of them flying into Bangor.
Years ago, Congress deregulated airlines to lower the cost of flying for everyone. It worked. But it allowed airline companies to jack-up the fares at rural airports nationwide.
I wish Maine’s U.S. representatives and senators would tell their colleagues that rural Mainers deserve reasonably priced air transportation to thrive.
Robb Cook
Perry