Proud of UMF
Ever since an unfortunate incident at a building dedication April 26 at the University of Maine at Farmington, where I teach, I have been listening to the campus community and what I hear makes me proud to work here.
What I hear is respectful support for our current president, our former president (for whom the building has been named) and two students who silently and peacefully protested Gov. Paul LePage’s presence. While the governor may have ended up trying to make this event about him, the university community fortunately made sure it was about honoring teaching and learning.
Allison Hepler
Woolwich
Addressing food insecurity
Recently, the Legislature passed LD 1471, Resolve, To Facilitate the Distribution of Food Harvested in Maine to Residents with Food Insecurity, into law. The law tasks the Finance Authority of Maine to choose an agency to oversee the process of buying, processing, storing and transporting Maine-produced food products that will then be provided to Maine residents with food insecurity. The Fund for a Healthy Maine will provide the $3 million necessary to underwrite the program, so it will not burden the state’s taxpayers.
Food insecurity is the inability to obtain sufficient, healthy food because of inadequate resources. Maine ranks among the top 15 states as having one of the highest food insecure populations in the nation. Paradoxically, being food insecure leads to obesity and malnutrition, which can, in turn, contribute to chronic and costly diseases.
Aside from addressing food insecurity, the bill also will prove to be economically beneficial to the state by reducing health care costs and increasing the sales of the state’s homegrown products. While the state’s agricultural sector is robust, some smaller producers have trouble finding outlets for their products because of an insufficient infrastructure. This law will help remedy this situation by providing new markets — venues that help people with food insecurity — and creating a reliable distribution network.
So, the new law will benefit the state’s economy and our most disadvantaged residents — at no expense to taxpayers. Join us in celebrating the wisdom of Maine legislators in passing this important piece of legislation.
Sara K. Martin
Bangor
Favour Akidenor
Old Town
Solar energy is the future
In 1879, Portland had the first telephones in Maine. By the mid-1880s, Dirigo Telephone Co. in Farmington was busy extending telephone lines to rural parts of the state. Cooperation of government was required because lines crossed private property. Portland in 1882 passed an ordinance to allow “the erection of poles and wires for telegraphic and telephonic purposes in the streets and public grounds of the City.”
I can’t imagine municipalities, the Legislature or the governor at that time not having done everything possible to facilitate this new technology. Fast forward to 2016, and we find another new technology: solar technology. Germany now gets 7 percent of its power from solar panels. China plans to triple its solar capacity over the next five years. Have we become a country with second-rate vision?
We have a governor opposed to fast-tracking solar and a Legislature that apparently can’t see the future. The Legislature was unable to override Gov. Paul LePage’s veto of the solar bill. But congratulations to Rep. Norm Higgins, R-Dover-Foxcroft, who clearly sees the future in solar and the Internet and was an energetic supporter of the bill, as was Sen. Paul Davis, R-Sangerville.
David P. Frasz
Dover-Foxcroft
Mainers have a right to know
The open-meeting section of Maine’s Freedom of Access Act often is taken for granted, but it was conceptualized by common citizens. For example, Aldene Gordon was a newspaper reporter who championed the enactment of the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law and testified for its passage in 1958.
Her activism stemmed from her own experience as a local reporter. She attempted to cover a routine selectmen’s meeting at the town hall but was escorted out by the local police. Not to be deterred, she found her way to the basement, dodging the pipes in the process. She stood directly under the floorboards where she could clearly hear the proceedings. With a flashlight in her mouth, she recorded the entire meeting in shorthand in her notebook. The newspaper account was published the next day and the three members of the board of selectmen were at odds about who leaked what to the press.
When she later served as a member of the board of selectmen, Gordon refused to sign payroll warrants because cemetery commissioners held their meetings in private. The standoff ended when the commissioners publicized the agenda and opened their meetings to the public — in the tomb of the local cemetery. Few members of the public attended, but the point was made.
Thanks, Tom McCord, for reminding us in a May 3 BDN OpEd that transparency is preferable to secrecy and that our predecessors fought hard for the right to know what is really going on in our communities.
Dale J. Gordon
Caribou
Collins should denounce Trump
All Mainers heard last Thursday that our longtime senator Susan Collins has essentially thrown her lot in with Donald Trump. Until now, Collins has deserved a lot of respect from her constituency. She has served on so many Senate committees, including the Appropriations Committee and Select Committee on Intelligence, and championed the cause of Maine’s military industry, among others. She has shown, along with several other distinguished women in the service of our country, that politics is not simply a male arena.
She says she is “conditionally” supporting Trump, provided that he cuts down on his “gratuitous personal insults.” Those bad qualities are in his very nature. I know it’s important to stand by the party line, but there are times when you must not. This is one of those times.
Trump’s remarks about Hispanics, blacks, Muslims and women have truly set him apart from other candidates. He has no problem drumming up the support of the lowest common denominator with callous racism, bigotry and misogyny. It doesn’t matter what he says in the next six months; he can’t turn himself into a decent human being, nor can he become the leader of the free world.
Bowen Swersey
Southwest Harbor