LePage, the dictator
Gov. Paul LePage continues to demonstrate that he wants to dictate how things go, both within and outside of the scope of his authority. A dictator is the most dangerous kind of leader.
Clyde Tarr
Bangor
Role models
While I applaud the dedication of our police and fire officers, I’ve seen two examples of officers engaged in unsafe behavior in the past week. The Bangor Daily News reported on Monday on a police and fire department burger eating contest in Bangor to raise funds for charity. Given the obesity problem our country faces, this is not good modeling behavior.
Last week, I saw a police cruiser with a dog leaning out one of the rear windows. This put the dog at risk of eye damage. Since our youth generally look up to our safety officers, they need to be careful of the messages their behavior sends.
Thomas E. Martin
Ellsworth
Help older Mainers
Stockton Springs recently approved a school budget that will once again increase taxes in our town. According to the Statistical Atlas, 160 school-age children live in Stockton Springs, but also residing in town are 370 adults over the age of 65 and 350 adults between the age of 50 and 64. Basically, 720 members of our 1,404 person population are seniors.
Stockton Springs’ average age is 49.9. We have an old and rapidly aging community, and that trend is expected to continue well into the future. There are only 61 children under the age of 4 living in our town. Is it really sensible to spend the amount of money that we will need to support a fully functioning RSU 20 in the next few years for so few children when there are other perfectly good school systems to which they could be sent within 10 miles of our town?
Shouldn’t we be looking at how we might help support the elderly who want to and plan to stay here for the remainder of their lives? As someone who works for an agency that advocates for issues that affect older Mainers, I find it surprising the town is doing very little to support its aging taxpayers. No transportation, no senior housing and certainly no long-term care options are being discussed. Instead, we are presented with constantly increasing school budgets for fewer and fewer children.
The time is now to really think and act local and start talking about reducing the school budget and committing some significant money to services that will help the majority continue to live here.
Noelle Merrill
Stockton Springs
MBNA’s legacy
I am both pleased and grateful that the BDN and the Island Institute published Tom Groening’s recent article about the life of MBNA and its founder, Charles Cawley. To me, Cawley exemplifies the persona of a true visionary leader. He created MBNA from an idea: that people are more closely aligned to places and organizations that they were connected with from other times in their lives, and they would remain true to those places and organizations. It was an idea that worked.
Cawley, through his experiences, saw the need for job opportunity in Maine. The growth of MBNA and what that development brought to Maine doesn’t happen just anywhere; it was a strategic vision, enormously well executed that made MBNA and Cawley so effective and successful. Cawley’s personal and corporate generosity, as well as his renowned business savvy, left an indelible mark on Maine.
To some, Cawley was seen as outspoken, driven and perhaps occasionally over-assertive. That’s because he knew what he wanted, had a vision to get there and let little or nothing get in his way. Visionary leadership is rare and difficult; the midcoast and, indeed, the entire state benefitted from what Cawley, his company and its people brought to our region of the country. We should be so lucky to experience this again.
Peter G. Vigue
Chairman & CEO
The Cianbro Companies
Pittsfield