As a current Mexico resident, and a former Rumford resident, I have had the pleasure of seeing how both towns work and have observed the divide that is obvious between the older residents, who want services to stay the same as they were 20 years ago, and the younger residents, who want services to change with the times.

Both towns, together, don’t equal the population that Rumford alone had 25 years ago, and yet the budgets for both towns have reached a point of being unsustainable, given their number of tax-paying citizens.

With that in mind, maybe there should be real and productive talks about consolidation of services and, perish the thought, consolidation of the towns themselves into a more functional whole with a broader tax base.

Mountain Valley, Maine. I like the sound of it.

Ed McCaffrey, Mexico