FARMINGTON – Maine gubernatorial candidate Sen. Peter Mills, R-Somerset, made no campaign promises Thursday but did speak on ideas he thinks would make the state a better place to live and do business in.
Mills, an attorney who lives in Cornville and practices law in Skowhegan, met with more than 50 people at the Homestead Bakery in Farmington, one of the towns he grew up in, to explain his 12-step plan to improve Maine.
Mills’ sister, state Rep. Janet Mills, D-Farmington, introduced her older brother by giving insight to his character and work ethic, including delivering newspapers and working 15-hour days in a canning factory when he was younger.
Her brother, a Vietnam veteran has a “can-do” attitude and an “incredible work ethic,” she said, and even as child, he was a “go-getter.”
“This is a man I know who can get things done,” she said.
Among his ideas, Peter Mills, 62, said, is to look for ways to assess state services to make them more accountable and more cost-efficient.
The 12 steps he proposes to improve effectiveness of government and to save taxpayers’ money, if he wins his party’s nomination and then the governor’s seat in 2006, are:
• Sharpen human services
• Modernize pensions
• Curb debt addiction
• Ask taxpayers’ opinion
• Adjust Medicaid
• Bolster health care
• Reform tax state taxes
• Reduce duplicate services
• Cut school overhead costs
• Care for infrastructure
• Build energy self-reliance.
Mills said people need to get beyond denial to understand the state is having difficulties paying for state government and the services it provides.
He said the state needs to design a way so that public services can be measured and assessed for accountability.
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