Councilor Blanchette MIA
I am furious beyond (decent) words that one of our city councilors, Pat Blanchette, has walked off the job without resigning. I have talked with the council chair, the city clerk and am waiting for a return call from the city solicitor about this.
When I was first elected to the council in 1983, we all received a booklet containing “rules of procedure” for councilors. It clearly stated that extended absence from meetings without the consent of the chair and a majority of the council was grounds for expulsion. More times than I can count, I have heard Blanchette deliver one of her patented lectures about a councilor’s responsibility to show up and do the job. Obviously she considers herself beyond that principle.
The city charter stipulates that councilors shall be elected from among legally registered voters of the city. Well, she can remain a legally registered voter for a short time, but how does this give her the privilege of abandoning her duties to the citizens who elected her? I smell a political plot here to allow her to reappear at some future crucial meeting during the remainder of her term to cast a crucial or deciding vote on some issue.
Whether that’s the case or not, she owes the citizens of Bangor a formal resignation. This is all too typical of the incompetence of the current council and its lack of strong positive leadership. Bangor voters who fail to resent this obviously don’t care how their city is governed.
Hal Wheeler
Bangor
Racism has returned
I am a “transplant” to Maine and have been for the past 15 years. I work for the state. I pay my taxes, vote in every major election and am a veteran. I have never been arrested, detained or served time in correctional facilities. I love the United States of America, faults and all. I do not want to live anywhere else in the world.
I say all this before identifying myself as a black man, an African-American male with an opinion about racism in this, my beloved country.
The long silence about racism is what breeds suspicion. America has lost its desire and ability to listen and talk about racism without criticism, blame or punishment. Things were not rosy, but neither were things uncomfortable enough to look at the silent elephant in the corner of our collective past. That silent elephant in the corner was racism, though not as vicious in the past, still unsettled, unresolved and neglected. As all things neglected too long, racism has returned with a vengeance. Everyone is surprised; we thought that passe.
I lived through the civil rights struggle in Chicago, the violent marches and the courage of the Freedom Riders, the voters registration movements and the assassinations, the days of riots in the summer.
America has come so far in these 40 years. However, we have lapsed back into the ugly howl of racism. This time the long silence is a deafening roar of outrage.
I love America. I love our ability to rally in the darkest of times, to band together and solve the most uncomfortable, insurmountable problems of advanced citizenry. Now is the time to talk and listen to one another.
James Weathersby
Augusta
Bangor’s hope
Bangor needs new blood. People are losing hope. Hope means less wasting of money completely supporting families instead of giving them a chance to make ends meet and get an education, and invest in rent, consumerism, community and population. Gov. Paul LePage is killing most of the programs that support sick or out-of-work residents. A lot people here fall into that category.
If there is no help for people who need these services, we lose our community, we lose businesses, we spend money on rushed answers and we have a ghost town. Bangor is a beautiful, safe and thrilling environment to start a new family or rent an apartment and go to school.
If there aren’t programs that support struggling residents, all across our country and throughout the world, the once beacons of community turn into a cesspool of criminals and really bad drugs. The only income to the state is from the court system and police, not to mention to state-run probation and housing.
When you go for a picnic — if you were someone who had a job and a family and a hopeful reason to do so — you don’t just sit in the plain grass on the hill; you find a spot by the trees, with the rock and pretty patch of moss. Bangor is that lucky rock and rightly has been so for hundreds of years. It just has the ability to bring cheer and prosperity to new people. It is that river, the “Venice of the North.”
Francesca Havre
Bangor
LePage improved road
“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,” because the Department of Transportation has installed rumble strips almost the entire distance from Bangor to Ellsworth. About five years ago, a family was killed by a head-on crash on this road. Then, the DOT installed rumble strips along this particular curve.
Last year, after another second or third fatality on this roadway, I wrote the governor and suggested the rumble strips should be put on every curve along the highway from Bangor to Ellsworth. The governor did imply that he would encourage the DOT to investigate. Well, one year later, the job is 99 percent complete. My archenemy, the governor, together with the DOT, did this job.
Now, I read police are giving out warnings instead of tickets. Over the years, the state had been collecting big bucks with convictions. My question is, how many written tickets resulted in court convictions? The BDN reported convictions were down but couldn’t cite the percentage of convictions versus tickets issued because the state does not track this.
Again, safety is paramount. My belief is that those speed-indicator machines remind the drivers about their speed and a road’s speed limit. The police could be relieved of many dangerous stops if more of these machines were put to use. Problem is that the state would have to sacrifice earnings.
Robert Fournier
Bangor