As to the letter from the Westbrook/Windham Summer Adventure Academy or whatever cockamamie title and purpose it has, tax dollars at all levels of government come from us. Do we see a great improvement in students attending? Put those funds where it belongs – educating students that want it. Park the vans and address educating our children.

And yes, we knew that the funding is part of the No Child Left Behind – the very program educators complain about being mandatory and under-funded. Folks, it’s only mandatory if the federal dollars are accepted. Let’s do away with contracts and institute merit pay for educators.

For Alicia Merrifield of Standish who asked “How do we protest?” Attend the Second Great American Tea Party in Windham on the 24th of September. Call Lane at 893-1589.

We must respond to Representative Mark Bryant’s letter of last week titled “Maine still leading the Nation.” The statement that 8,000 more people gained access to health care through Dirigo Health is misleading. How many of those already had insurance and had the mental ability to pass the cost of their health insurance on to us? Dirigo Health is a socialist program designed to appeal to the masses but is financed by increased fees for those who pay for their own health insurance. It is not free.

Rep. Bryant then stated how the legislature managed to simultaneously work to lower property taxes, fund local education at its highest level and cut overall spending by hundreds of millions of dollars. Is that a truthful statement or a political fairy tale? Lowered taxes, increased spending and decreased the budget! This must be the “new math” we hear so much about. The Legislature and the governor must be hiding one hell of a deficit (so-called structural gap in their terms) because, in fact, the size of the state budget increased. It did not decrease!

We see nothing that is stemming the spreading of invasive plants in our lakes and ponds. The prevention methods used are just a beginning and their results will take years to come. And how have we preserved our farms and fishing industry?

Newspapers run stories that, oops, there goes another farm to developers. Our fishing industry has all but collapsed or moved to Massachusetts in order to be closer to the fishing grounds because of limits on how long they can fish and how much they can catch.

So Maine’s initiatives are leading the nation? Maine has the highest tax burden of all 50 states. Maine is near the bottom of the list for being business friendly. We have the highest percentage of young folks leaving their home state. Manufacturing jobs in Maine are departing like fleas on a drowning fox and are being replaced by service jobs lacking adequate salaries and benefits. Correct these problems and Maine will, in fact, be leading the nation. We certainly hope someone can.

Lane Hiltunen, Tom Gleason

Windham