Bully tactics
I grew up in Brooklyn where Tammany Hall politicians punished those who disobeyed and rewarded those who did as they were told. I grew up in New York where the Mafia exacted its terrible revenge on those who failed to follow its orders and enriched those who did its bidding.
But now I live in Maine where, until now, civil dialogue was the norm. My husband, Ole, and I are active politically and have good relationships not only with those who share our policy concerns but those who differ from us philosophically.
Gov. Paul LePage has attempted to personally destroy Rep. Mark Eves and his family because Eves dared to disagree with him on policy issues. LePage threatened to withhold hundreds of thousands of dollars from Good Will-Hinckley if the school employed Eves. (This would have also meant about $2 million of other funds would not materialize so the school broke its contract with Eves.)
LePage’s personal hatred and vindictiveness have reached out to cause pain to Eves, his wife and young children and interfered with the private life of an honorable man who was trying as a legislator to serve the people of Maine. This cannot be allowed to stand. My husband and I are heartbroken for Eves and his family and all they have endured because of an out-of-control, powerful bully.
Sandra Jaeger
Georgetown
Ranked-choice voting
The idea that elections for public office boil down to two choices is reluctantly accepted by most people, and the belief that we cannot vote our consciences without the fear of a wasted vote has gone on long enough. The lesser of two evils philosophy is a moral tragedy. We need a more democratic system, one that works well especially when more than two people run for an office. This is why I support ranked-choice voting.
Maine’s voting system does not work well in races with three or more candidates because the winner often fails to receive a majority of the votes cast (50 percent plus 1). Three- and four-way races are common in Maine and, as a result, winners in nine of the last 11 gubernatorial elections failed to receive majority support.
Ranked-choice voting would give voters the opportunity to rank candidates in order of individual preference for the offices of U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, governor, Maine Senate and Maine House of Representatives. It is a simple process and creates a more representative democracy that restores majority rule and empowers voters to make more meaningful choices.
Let your representatives know you want a voting system that allows majority rule no matter what. For more information about how ranked choice voting works and how you can get involved in this movement, visit fairvotemaine.org.
Kimberly Hammill
Levant
Dredging Searsport Harbor
There are so many common sense reasons to oppose the project to deep dredge Searsport Harbor and dump the potentially dangerous soils in the vicinity of the lobster beds of the western part of Penobscot Bay. So many that it seems amazing that we have to go to the effort of opposing it. The fact that we do is yet another sign that so many in authority simply “don’t get it” about environmental issues or even long-term economic ones.
State governments, especially the current administration in Augusta, seem to be so accustomed to heeding the bidding of corporations, in this case Sprague Energy and Irving Corp., that they no longer pay attention to scientific evidence, the needs of local fisheries or democratic processes.
The supposed gain from this project is that it will save less than a million dollars per year by keeping a small number of vessels from waiting no more than six hours for high tide.
What is to be dredged may well contain mercury. Penobscot Bay contains some of the richest lobster beds in the entire world. It is literally insane to jeopardize the fragile combination of environmental, economic and cultural resources to serve the profits of a few corporations.
We can be sure that when all the mistakes have been made and the damage done, it will not be Sprague and Irving that pay the costs. It will be the lobster industry, the local communities and an already stressed environment.
Larry Litchfield
Belfast
Confederate flag debate
A comment on the Confederate flag controversy: Why are certain factions trying to rewrite history? The Civil War happened. If I have a U.S. flag with 48 stars, does that mean I “hate” Alaska and Hawaii?
Bill Painter
St. George
Good Will-Hinckley debacle
How far is Good Will-Hinckley’s board of directors willing to let the governor go? Gov. Paul LePage’s recent attack on Mark Eves and his family is despicable. This shows beyond a reasonable doubt that our governor is a bully of the worse kind. Attacking people for no other reason than that they disagree with him politically is not a value our country was founded on.
What message does this send to the students? It teaches them that if they are bullies they can get their way, and that by threats they can make others succumb to their desires. It teaches them that in the face of controversy they should surrender to the loudest voice whether they are right are not.
Chairman of the board of directors Jack Moore said, “the basis for this decision is grounded in the institutions desire not be involved in political controversy that will divert the attention away from our core mission of serving children and has the potential to jeopardize the future of our school.”
By capitulating Moore has done the children of the school an even worse disservice. He has taught the students that they don’t need to act in a moral way and that as long as they chase the money, all decisions they make are fine, even if they fail to keep a commitment they made.
Good Will-Hinckley needs to do the right thing by bringing Eves back on in the capacity it had hired him for.
Emery Deabay
Bucksport