I was excited when I saw the renditions for the Thompson’s Point project in The Portland Press Herald on March 28. Then I started to look a little deeper.

The plans include a 2,200-seat concert hall. Portland already has two such venues: Merrill Auditorium (1,900 seats) and the Portland Expo (1,904 seats).

An 80,000-square-foot event center with floor area for trade shows sounds like a great idea. Let’s bring people to Portland beyond the weekend tourist. My curiosity is raised when you can only get 3,500 seats in that facility for the Red Claws. Is that really an improvement over the 2,880 seats in the Expo? There are 6,733 seats available at the Civic Center. Why not go there?

When I checked, office space vacancies in Portland were more than 11 percent last year, the highest rate since commercial Realtors began tracking the sector. What is the vision for adding over 120,000 square feet to that list?

What we don’t have here in Maine’s largest city is a venue for national acts. Concerts at the Civic Center have dropped from 30 during the 1977/78 season to 11 in 2009. Bangor has the Waterfront Pavilion, capable of seating 8,000-plus. The new Bangor Arena will accommodate up to 7,000 people for concerts. It will have 10 executive suites, and a convention center will be attached to the arena and include a 16,000-square-foot main room and up to 18 meeting rooms.

Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, N.H., has concert seating capacity of about 12,000 people. Is this Portland’s answer?

I applaud the efforts and courage of the investors to go ahead with this project. But does securing a hotel chain really seal the deal? Maybe there needs to be some more “developments” in this proposed development.

Wayne N. Miller

North Waterboro

Reader urges senators to sponsor toxic chemical bill  

As a mom with serious concerns about keeping my kids safe from exposure to toxic chemicals, I was encouraged to read in Monday’s Portland Press Herald that a majority of Mainers who were polled said they would favor candidates for U.S. Senate who stood up for better protections against dangerous chemicals.

I was even more excited to learn this week that Maine’s House and Senate have unanimously passed a resolution publicly calling upon Congress to fix our badly broken chemical safety laws.

I am writing to ask Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to follow Maine’s lead by helping to reform the Toxic Substance Control Act, which has been proven completely obsolete and ineffective. By co-sponsoring the Safe Chemicals Act, Sens. Snowe and Collins could help bring about a science-based approach to reducing harm from toxic chemical exposure.

As I have grown more aware of this issue, I have begun to realize how difficult it is as a parent to ensure that the products I am bringing into my home are safe. Whether I’m buying a can of food for a meal or a toy for my child’s birthday, I worry about chemicals in these items that could harm my family. As long as manufacturers can hide basic safety information about their products from consumers, I cannot be certain that the choices I make are healthy for my kids.

I applaud our lawmakers here in Maine for their leadership on this important public health issue, and I invite Sens. Snowe and Collins to please stand up in support of the Safe Chemicals Act.

Lalla Carothers

Cumberland

Bill actually would reduce money designated for blind

Maine State Education Commissioner Stephen L. Bowen appears to consider redirecting money designated for blind and low-vision youth, adults and elders an appropriate way to solve compliance issues faced within Maine’s special education programs.

The wording of L.D. 765, a bill written to fund documented shortages within the state’s rehabilitation services for the blind, was quietly changed after the last legislative work session and amended without a public hearing. These alterations to the wording of L.D. 765 may have a dramatic negative impact on the very population this bill was written to provide service to: blind and visually impaired youth, adults and elders. Legislators, who might think they are voting on a bill to fund rehab services for the blind, may in fact be voting for a bill that removes money from rehabilitation services for our neighbors with vision impairments and funnels the money into the Department of Education.

Furthermore, if this money is moved from rehabilitation services to the DOE, it is no longer eligible for federal matching funds, meaning this money will only go half as far. This sleight of hand is poor legislative policy and irresponsible use of taxpayer’s money earmarked to provide services for blind and visually impaired youth and adults.

Please call Sen. Richard Rosen and Rep. Patrick Flood, the co-chairmen of the Appropriations Committee hearing L.D. 765. And call your local senator and representative to urge them to pass L.D. 765 without the recent amended changes, just as it originally appeared in February’s work session.

Steven Kelley

vision rehab therapist, Kennebunk

Pump’s efficiency seems to defy laws of physics

With reference to the front-page article on April 1, “Pumps fuel interest in electric heat.”

Please tell me that this was your April fools joke. Three hundred percent efficiency exceeds the limit set for a perpetual motion machine by a factor of three. I can’t imagine what any 300 percent-efficient device would look like, but I think that it would explode if it stayed together long enough. I realize that your paper has a skeptical attitude with regard to “the theory of evolution,” but you should be more respectful of the basic laws of physics, which, after all, have been around longer and are more universally accepted.

Edmond R. Pelta

consulting engineer, Topsham

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