I am voting no on the Palesky initiative. I have studied this bill in depth and cannot, in good conscience, vote for it.

I believe Carol Palesky had good intentions with her initiative; however, the bill is seriously flawed and is not good for the taxpayers of Maine. It will cause towns and cities to implement user fees with no caps for such things as trash collection, fire calls and higher sewer bills in some areas. Road crews will be limited due to lack of funds; thus our roads will not be maintained as well in the winter months. Police departments will be cut severely, if not completely eliminated, in some towns.

Education of our children is what will make this state competitive in the future. Teachers will have to be laid off, thus there will be more children in each classroom. This will not be conducive to a high achievement level of education that every parent seeks for his or her child.

Some schools will be eliminating bus transportation for high school students.

Students who want to participate in extracurricular activities may not be able to. If a parent has to pay a fee for their child to play baseball, football, field hockey or some other sport, then just privileged children may be the only ones who can afford to play.

School lunch programs will be cut. How fair is that to Maine’s children?

We owe our children more than that.

Larry White Sr., Jay