Veterans tax check off
Veterans are our heroes. They were there for us, and it is time for us to be there for them. We can help by putting food on their tables and ensuring they have roofs over their heads. We owe them. For this reason, I am writing to support Rep. Jim Davitt in his appeal to the Maine Legislative Council’s rejection of his bill to increase funding for programs that support Maine veterans and their families.
Davitt’s bill would create a simple check-off box on the existing form Maine residents use to file their income tax returns. By checking the box, filers could choose to donate $5 or more to fund nonprofit veterans’ services programs through grants to be administered by the Maine Bureau of Veterans Services.
Too many veterans, service members and their families are struggling. Nearly 8,000 of our state’s veterans live in poverty. No Maine veteran should go hungry or without housing. By working with organizations that are already serving veterans, such as Easter Seals Maine, the effect of donated funds will be maximized.
For the Legislature to consider Davitt’s bill this coming session, it must receive bipartisan approval. It is of vital importance for lawmakers to vote on Nov. 19 to support our veterans who have sacrificed so much for the freedom we can all enjoy. Helping struggling veterans is simply too important to wait.
Larry J. Gammon
President and CEO
Easter Seals Maine
Portland
National park support flawed
The rationale for a new national park in Maine seems flawed. We already have the large and expansive Baxter State Park, which is located adjacent to the proposed park. As for national recognition, we also have that in Baxter as it is the terminus for the increasingly popular Appalachian Trail.
The promise of continued use by hunting, fishing and snowmobiling enthusiasts also is flawed. Many national parks have outright bans on firearms. Yellowstone National Park is highly restrictive for snowmobiling. Some national parks set their own rules for how fishing can be done. In addition, national parks have set their own wildlife management programs — Yellowstone’s wolf management plan, for instance. Maine’s highly effective wildlife management professionals should not have interference from outsiders.
Finally, we should not let the federal government have control over more land in our state. Maine should take care of Maine’s land, not a bureaucracy in Washington.
Dale Landrith
Camden
Future depends on funded schools
As a society, we should feel very blessed by the youth turnout for the vote for the mayor of Lewiston. Not only do we need to applaud them, it is the older generation’s responsibility to educate young voters about their power in politics.
Communities, whether it be local, state or national, should welcome the ideas and opinions of the generation who will be affected the most. Preparation for this right to vote should begin in the elementary schools.
One such program, such as that suggested by Stand Up For Students, is to attempt to produce educated voters by bringing to fruition the people’s vote to fund schools at the approved 55-percent level. We’ve never made it. Why? Because it hasn’t been a priority for many Maine lawmakers. And, unfortunately, for many generations of Maine families.
Sheryl Lee
Portland
Inmates’ free speech rights
We resolved long ago, as Americans, that unfettered freedom of speech was a right not to be interfered with and now, after having endured 200 years of challenges to that unfettered condition we find ourselves, thank goodness, right where we started — that freedom of speech is not to be abridged. Or did I speak too soon?
Maine’s Department of Corrections has proposed a 26-page amendment to its prisoner discipline policy. It provides that unauthorized correspondence with a pen pal, the media or the outside world for that matter will be a Class B or C offense, punishable by extended periods of isolation and a fine up to $75.
It’s taken 200 years to cement the right to freedom of speech, but we’ve only begun to understand and appreciate the wisdom of less solitary confinement and isolation for prisoners, not more, of less blanket incarceration, not more, and of the greater likelihood that meaningful redemption and reassimilation will result from more interaction with humanity, not less, from other humans and programs such as Restorative Justice that aim realistically for rehabilitation, not revenge.
These unconstitutional restrictions on free speech apparently results from some prisoners having received colored paper mail on which Suboxone strips had been superimposed. I hate to think that the department’s limited powers of invention will not allow it to come up with a solution to this problem that is more imaginative than prohibiting communication with the outside world.
Phil Crossman
Vinalhaven
Bombast bursting in air
In a Nov. 7 Bangor Daily News article, Rep. John Martin criticized House Speaker Mark Eves for not meeting the governor’s bombast with bombast. Curiously, he proudly points to his time as speaker where his cage-match tactics led to a government shutdown. This is not successful governing but a colossal failure.
Eves has chosen to ignore the governor’s tantrums. This allowed him to build a coalition with another reasonable person, Senate President Mike Thibodeau, and make the government work for the people of Maine. Did both sides give in on some issues? Yes. But both also were able to make government work for the people. In the end, it is the governor who is inconsequential to the legislative process.
Martin’s and the governor’s tactics make politics a dogmatic zero-sum game, with a clear winner and loser. Only in Martin’s case, there was no winner. When the government shuts down, only the people of Maine lost. Eve’s approach never loses sight of the fact that government is there to work for the people. The Democrats do not control both houses of the Legislature, and the governor’s obstinacy makes a compromise palatable to Democrats impossible. Only by working with Senate Republicans could compromise be found and the government work for the people.
As a Democratic town chair and local elected official, I do not know who those lawmakers are, other than Martin, who advocate zero-sum politics, but the speaker’s approach has been in the best interest of Maine.
Charles Galemmo
Chair, Board of Selectmen
North Berwick