Letters
Two vital cogs
Regardless of how the votes may end up regarding TABOR and excise taxes, is it time to take another look and create a budget committee to really scrutinize the Lewiston City Budget?
Many will recall that I opposed creating this committee and may question why I now favor it. In fact, I have always been in favor of such a committee, but there were two stipulations which needed to be included that Mayor Larry Gilbert would not agree to; thus, I voted against it.
In my opinion as an accountant, two vital cogs must be in place.
First: The work of the committee must be completed before the council is provided the budget. There cannot be two groups working on the budget and making requests of staff at the same time. A better concept would be having the budget committee review the current budget from October through early December, then make recommendations to the council when it gets the budget in late January. Their time spent would provide a heavy recommendation for the city council to keep in mind as they continue discussions.
Second: Require those on the committee to have a background in either accounting or municipal government. Political patronage has no place on this committee, it must be staffed with people who understand accounting, work with large budgets and have an eye for financial details. The finished product each year will better reflect a diversity of what needs to be done, weighed against what can be done.
Robert Reed, Lewiston
City Councilor, Ward 7
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Conservative Concedes in
Conservative Concedes in Upstate Congressional Race
A staunch conservative conceded defeat to a moderate Democrat early Wednesday morning in a hard-fought contest for New York State's northernmost Congressional seat, a race that exposed divisions among Republicans over how far outside the party's base they should reach as they look to rebuild.
With 88 percent of precincts reporting, the Democrat, Bill Owens, was leading with 49 percent of the vote, while the Conservative Party candidate, Douglas L. Hoffman, had 45.5 percent.
As for "the country changing," a few boutique issues and races for governor doesn't mean the Republicans who nearly drove America into the next Great Depression are doing anything but hunting around for their next subject to smear.
That's all they can do, they're devoid of anything but serving the most ignorant with meaningless divisions. Elect enough Republicans and eventually the demage to America won't be repairable.
Oh, and in Maine ... how to the wingnuts claim "victory" when TABOR lost, among other issues the wingnuts favored.
Such small minded people, these wingnuts.
What the heck does this have
What the heck does this have to do with the topic?
. . ...Good luck with that ,
. . ...Good luck with that , Tron :)
verified Or you could just elect
Or you could just elect Councilors with the ability and guts to do it right. There's no need to have another pebble in the great cog of the machine. Dang it, people are ELECTED to do a job, if you cannot do it properly, leave, just like you did!
verified There is common ground
There is common ground between tron and the Pirate
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verified on "Local schools stand to get more state money for education"
Your first sentence makes it
Your first sentence makes it sound like the money is going to go to give all the teachers raises. If any of it is, it's very little. The teachers are doing more than enough work to earn their salaries. Many are placed in extremely challenging positions, and nothing is nearly as black and white as you present it.
verified on "School choice, public funding for religious institutions headline LePage education plan"
Its Maine
LePage's bill refer only to Maine. My experience refers only to Maine. I can't agree with you more that in some places and with some superintendents bad teachers grow like weeds. Its not a problem of teacher evaluations. The administrators know who the bad teachers are just as you and I did. The problem is they will not do their jobs and document why they are bad so that they can be fired.
Normally they use the military solution. I can't get into specifics, but we had a teacher who was worse than incompetent, worse than bad. Gave grades based on gender of the student and explicitly on their relationship. Superintendent promoted the teacher to a non-teaching position at greatly increased pay. Zero documentation.
verified on "P. Nachman: Confidence probably misplaced"
Paul Nachman has a much storied past
Paul Nachman is a featured writer on VDARE.com (named for Virginia Dare the first English Child born in Virginia 1587) The site and its editor are well known anti-immigrant propagandists who spend a good deal of time explaining why they are not white supremists and anti-semities even though they have been identified as such by reputable organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Actually, Mr. Nachman's letter says almost nothing. He agrees with the previous letter's author that the law prevents federal payments to illegal immigrants for medical care. He then suggest that illegal payments might be made because illegal immigrants illegally are paid for jobs they can't legally hold.
First, undocumented immigrants are not criminals. They have broken no criminal law. They have broken federal "civil" law.
Then he suggests that if the Affordable Care Act had mandated the use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements online program to confirm that a noncitizen applicant for benefits resides in the U.S. legally, then undocumented immigrants would be prevented from getting these benefits. Why would that work? If these people are breaking the law to be here, why wouldn't they get illegal documentation that would let them get jobs and benefits. Fact is they do. Plus nothing in the Affordable Care Act says the government won't use this system. The act merely leaves open the "how" so the government can choose the best system at the time to verify proper payments.
You have to be paranoid to read into this any problem. OOps, guess that's obvious.
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