Opinion & Comment
October 27, 2011, The Bridgton News, Page D
Viewpoints
Letters to the editor Pondicherry Park
To The Editor: Citizens of Bridgton, I first would like to make it clear that I am writing as a citizen of Bridgton. I have been reading over the Stewardship Committee Agreement and the Quitclaim Deed for Pondicherry Park. I must say that I have some serious concerns and encourage you to read up on this before stepping into the ballot box on Nov. 8. Allow me to go over reasons as to why. Going over the Stewardship Committee Agreement, Lakes Environmental Association (LEA) and Loon Echo Land Trust (LELT) want a two-thirds majority control of the committee. They say the committee would be that of the town and would make all minutes of their meetings available to the public, but there is no mention of an agenda being made public. This is something that is mandatory by the selectman for all town committees. There is a problem though, for a committee of the town, LEA and LELT would choose their own members and the selectmen would choose people from Bridgton to represent the citizen side. If this was truly a committee of the town, then let selectmen choose all members of this committee just like all the other committees in town. Now, I am going to move on to some points in the Quitclaim Deed. Any improvements that we want or need to make to Pondicherry Park that require state, federal or municipal permits and approval, we would have to provide copies of these to LEA. This could get expensive over time. This is in point #1. Also in point #1, any upgrades or repairs to utility work requires that we bury the lines underground. Now, I am looking at Salmon Point Campground as a comparison. They make money and it is going to take quite an amount of time and money to upgrade that system. If we have to repair anything in the Park, according to Section 9, we would only be given 45 days unless they grant special permission that says otherwise. We would be responsible for mowing, cutting and bush hogging Keene Field at least once every two years or face a penalty and or fine from LEA. This is in Sections 5 and 9. We would be responsible for the removal of all invasive plant and insect species, whether it be in water, land or trees. This in Section 5. Section 6 talks about abutters’ lands and waste disposal and what is stored on these lands. We would no longer be able to keep the salt shed for the town where it is because the town is an abutter. We also would not be able to dispose of snow there during the winter months like we have for the past several years. Repeatedly through the document, it says how no motorized vehicles would be allowed in Pondicherry Park, except LEA would be allowed to for inspections, monitoring and enforcement. As a friend of mine said the other day…do as I say, not as I do. Also Section 9. Also mentioned in Section
9 is that if we don’t act upon repairs or maintenance in a timely fashion, they can impose a penalty on the town and even take the town to court. Let us not forget that we are voting on something that is supposed to be a gift to the town if the town’s citizens choose to accept it. I have only pointed out a few things. There are even more. Normally, a gift is something you give somebody with no strings attached. Go to the town website (www.bridgtonmaine.org) for more information. Peter Morrison Bridgton INTERESTING PUMPKIN IDEAS — The Black Bear Café in Naples held a pumpkin auction to help raise money for Lake Region Vocational Center’s SkillsUSA and Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) students on Oct. 18. The event was organized by Nichelle Gardner, Diversified Occupations teacher at LRVC. The auction raised over $400 dollars for the high school vocational center and was a fun and successful event. (Photos by Alexa Hathaway)
Civic Center bond
To The Editor: The Harrison Board of Selectmen at their October board meeting voted unanimously to go on record as opposed to the Civic Center bond issue. While one could suspect the board’s issue with the bond is Harrison’s distance from the Civic Center and the cost, let us tell you that this is but a minor issue. The board views the issue as one directly related to the problem with the Civic Center when it was built 34 years ago. The location for the facility was a poor choice to begin with. The location is not easily accessible from a countywide perspective, the footprint was insufficient in size limiting layout and design, and parking is insufficient for such a facility. The concept of spending $33 million on what was an $8 million structure 34 years ago does nothing more than apply a Band-Aid approach to what was an erroneous decision to begin with. Simply put, the facility upon completion of the renovations will remain a poorly located facility, difficult to access from outside of Portland and with no improvements in parking. As we look ahead, the project becomes less inviting as one has to ask how much money will need to be spent in the future, short and long term, to continue to meet the deficiencies in the current proposal. The board believes if the trustees are so desirous to have the Civic Center remain at its current location, they should consider negotiating a deal with the City of Portland and any other communities happy with the current location relieving the county of the financial obligation. The desire for a county Civic Center should be fulfilled with the building of a structure in an easily accessible location with sufficient parking and of size and shape to meet the growing needs of the area. With the current Civic Center, we are in a hole that is too deep so it is time to stop digging and come up with a better plan. George “Bud” Finch Harrison Town Manager, Harrison Board of Selectmen
The tired man and the sparrow
In the dim twilight inside the old barn, the man stood on the stepladder holding the screaming circular saw waist-high and pushed the blade along the blue chalk line in the old dry boards. The late afternoon light bore in through the raw slice; a laser of gold teeming with swirling sawdust, tracing a perfect horizontal line along the far wall of the new horse stall. The man stepped up higher on the ladder and pushed the saw again, this time along the top chalk line, and each severed board tipped outward and tumbled 15 feet onto the 200-year-old granite foundation blocks. When the last board fell, the man lowered the saw to the floor by its cord, its blade spinning down in a metallic whine, and then he stepped down off the ladder. He took off his leather gloves, held them together in his right hand, and smacked the dry pine sawdust from his jeans and from the sleeves of his torn work shirt. He skidded the ladder away from the bright new rectangle of light in the wall of the barn and then he crossed his arms on the sill of the opening and looked out. The opening would be a window for a horse that was due to arrive any day. A window the horse could look out from so it wouldn’t be bored. The man had To The Editor: been working on the stall for two As a lover of kids and sports, I weeks because his daughter was am always eager to check out the 14 and she dreamed of having a Sports section of The Bridgton horse — and the man knew that LETTERS, Page D
h i s daughter would be 14 exactly once, and he knew that he would be her father exactly once, and he loved her so. Those three things made it all worth it. But worth it wasn’t easy. The lumber for the stall had cost more money and the project had taken more time than he had expected. He had burned up a bunch of vacation days from work. Was getting behind on other things. Was tired and his back hurt from working off the ladder. So, he leaned heavily against the new window opening and caught his breath. The circular saw had gone quiet, now. The October air was warm and sweet and the afternoon hung limply like a wet blanket on a line. The man’s wife and daughter had gone to town. There was no breeze. Only stillness. In the stillness, the man began to think. Think about the
“We have the poor, and the poor have us.” An old selectman with whom I worked twice a week for several years repeated this often when we discussed “General Assistance” cases, the only issues we kept confidential. Everything else was on the public record. He was almost old enough to be my grandfather and first served on the board back in the 1940s — before President Johnson’s “Great Society” transformed welfare. Welfare existed at the
local level then. The federal government wasn’t involved. Selectmen were “overseers of the poor.” His refrain had subtle implications. Regarding the first part, “We have the poor,” we have them to test us — to see what we’re made of. If it’s more blessed to give than to receive, we helped ourselves by giving to them. However, our judgment was also tested when deciding how much to help, ever cognizant that it was possible to help too much
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Letters to the Editor We welcome your views!
Letters should not exceed 600 words, and will be edited for libel, proper punctuation and taste. All letters must be signed and indicate the writer’s residence. The deadline for letters is Monday at 5:00 p.m. Letters should be addressed to: Editor, The Bridgton News, P.O. Box 244, Bridgton, Maine 04009. E-mail submissions should be addressed to: bnews@roadrunner.com and must contain a phone number to verify authenticity. The Bridgton News will attempt to publish letters received in a timely fashion.
Views from the Uppermost House by S. Peter Lewis News Columnist
Welfare fraud
mortgage and that busted windowpane in the shed and that funny noise his car had been making lately. About insulating the back room and digging the last carrots and buying propane and coiling up hoses before they froze. About time and money and energy and just not enough of any of them. As his mind swirled, the man caught a tiny movement at the edge of his vision. He shifted his eyes, but saw nothing. He kept looking because he was certain he had seen something, a tiny twitch down among the fallen leaves and dry grass. He stared hard. For a minute. For two. Then, the something moved again, perhaps an eighth of an inch, and he saw it. A tiny chipping sparrow the color of fallen leaves and dry grass was perched on the tipped edge of an old rusty bucket buried in the weeds and half filled with black rainwater. The twitches had been the mere turnings of the bird’s tiny head. For 15 minutes, the man didn’t move. Didn’t shuffle his feet. Breathed deliberately. Hardly blinked. Every minute
or two, the sparrow would take a cautious lateral step along the rim of the bucket. Then, it would dart its head north and south, to the sides and behind, up and down. Watching. Listening. Wary. At last, when it was sure the world was good, the bird took a final small step, bent, shut its shiny black eyes, dipped its beak into the old, rusty water and sipped. That’s what I really want, the man decided as the sparrow drank. Clarity. Simple clarity. The kind of focused purpose that means you can spend a quarter of an hour deciding to take a drink of water. Imagine that kind of single-mindedness, the man thought, and his tiredness pulled down hard, and for a moment he longed to be the sparrow. Then, a car pulled into the dooryard and the spell was broken. The man’s daughter came bouncing into the barn and ran up to him. “Oh my gosh Dad a window for my horse!” she said, and then she wrapped one arm around his sawdusty neck and laid her head on his shoulder. The man was still quiet and still hadn’t moved and his daughter caught him staring down into the fallen leaves and dry grass. “What are you looking at, Dad?” she asked. “Nothing. Nothing at all,” he said, and then he turned and kissed her forehead. His tiredness had lifted with the sparrow, and both were gone.
Front Row Seat by Tom McLaughlin News Columnist
and cause the poor to become dependent — to lose the initiative to help themselves. The second part, “The poor have us,” implied that not only did the poor have us to support them, they “had us by the short hairs,” as well. Basic human compassion obligated us to help when they faced existen-
tial threat, but we had to summon the toughness to say no when they were gaming the system. Such judgments were difficult enough to make at the local level, but even more so at the state level — even in a small state like Maine. When federal government mandates WELFARE, Page D