Paul Violette, the former executive director of the Maine Turnpike Authority, almost certainly knew exactly what he was doing while partying at taxpayer expense.

There are many people in Maine living in poverty who must pay Maine taxes. Maine has been an impoverished state for decades. Gov. LePage tries to balance the budget, while poor people, people without any authority, must live in fear.

It appears Paul Violette has no sense of mature, ethical responsibility, yet he (was) head of the MTA for 23 years. How much money is really involved here, I wonder?

The news says he has a constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination. He won’t answer to any questioning about his irresponsible traveling and outrageous expenses. An ordinary citizen would be prosecuted within 24 hours for far less.

It is no wonder turnpike tolls are so high. Perhaps tourists in Maine should learn who they are supporting when they travel to this state.

Why did Paul Violette decide to resign? Why does he not want to answer questions? How many people of “authority” are bleeding the Maine taxpayer while honest people pay the price for what could well be criminal, amoral behavior?

Paul Violette very likely knew exactly what he was doing, and perhaps there are other people who also were aware of his behavior.

This abuse of authority by so many people in Maine, in America, must come to an end. A verbal reprimand is not enough.

Joe Ciarrocca

Brunswick

Reading about the Maine Turnpike Authority and its former executive director, Paul Violette, makes my head hurt.

As an E-ZPass customer and a very frequent driver on the turnpike, I find it appalling that the MTA in 2010 spent less than 4 percent of its funds on asphalt. Out of the $107 million it collected from us, that’s all it spent on paving (or not paving) some of the worst interstate in New England.

The northbound lanes from Kittery to Saco should have been repaved years ago and are unlikely to be repaved this season. I drive from Portland to Providence, R.I., and all around eastern Massachusetts, and our turnpike is Third World in comparison to what I drive on in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

This really begs the question: What is the MTA doing with the other $103 million? Oh, that’s right, travel and entertainment so the board and Violette can learn about toll roads while dining in Europe.

What a load of crap. To have the hubris to give that answer in public is just flabbergasting. Fire this whole board today.

When a board member can testify that he knew nothing, heard nothing and saw nothing, was it because no one asked him to read a file occasionally to see how the customers were bankrolling Violette’s spending on the good life?

This board and Violette should repay the MTA for all nonqualified spending, and do it now. Ignoring your duty to the public is not a pass to keep ill-gotten benefits from the users of the turnpike.

Violette’s pension should be 100 percent impounded until all misspent money is recovered.

I’m sorry, I forgot — the MTA is primarily a payroll, health insurance and pension machine for the lucky few, with repaving at the very end of the very long list of priorities.

Michael Doyle

Falmouth

Planned Parenthood critics fulfilling their own agenda

The April 12 column, “Planned Parenthood doesn’t need any taxpayer funding,” is a masterpiece of dishonest use of facts written by a group with a simple agenda — to revoke the current legal right of a woman to choose abortion as an option.

The “questions” ask about things that are not, and never have been, part of Planned Parenthood’s remit, such as building day-care centers.

It glosses over the fact that only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s work concerns abortion, and the rest offers vital reproductive health services, including family planning, annual exams, lifesaving cancer screenings, contraception visits, and testing and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, to women who could not otherwise afford it.

Every public dollar invested in family planning saves $3.74 in Medicaid-related costs to both federal and state governments — vitally important in hard economic times.

The article correctly refers to a Gallup Poll last May that says a majority of Americans consider themselves pro-life. It does not mention a Pew Research poll from September in which only 17 percent of respondents said that abortion should be illegal in all cases. It doesn’t mention a CBS poll of this January in which 77 percent of respondents said that abortion should be either generally available or available under stricter limits.

Planned Parenthood is not a for-profit organization. Money is plowed back into services. By law, Planned Parenthood cannot allocate federal money for abortions, so cutting federal funding would simply make it harder for poor women to access vital health care.

Jenny Doughty

Gorham

Teresa McCann-Tumidajski’s column concerning Planned Parenthood in the April 12 Press Herald was inaccurate in that no federal money can be used to fund abortions by this agency. That limitation is already in place by law.

But what is more striking is her lack of any apparent concern for the children of the lower-income families that Planned Parenthood serves, children who have been born rather than having been aborted.

She makes no mention of the money needed for their health care, for their feeding, for their clothing, for their education or any other costs that such parents will incur in the raising of these children. If she were truly concerned about the lives of these children, she would be concerned about them as living people who need to be able to grow into adulthood with the blessings that more affluent families provide their children.

Her understanding is not only incorrect, but her supposed compassion is very limited.

William J. Leffler II

Kennebunkport

Cutting back on benefits won’t keep faith with unions

I’d like to respond to the letter to the editor titled “Public unions should not prosper at state’s expense” (April 10).

It’s not often we get to see the personal opinions behind some of today’s political actions. The writer lets us know his opinion — that promises of the past don’t have to be upheld by the successors to the promise makers.

With that new insight, I have a new outlook on life:

If my company changes presidents, I should not be surprised or upset if my pay is slashed. Social Security was started under Franklin Roosevelt, so it can be canceled (and the funds kept by the new administration), and to heck with the people who have paid into it.

Some of the Founding Fathers lost elections, so who cares what they wrote in the Constitution? And the Ten Commandments? God was talking to the Israelites, but my people were on another continent, so the commandments should have no bearing on me.

I thought keeping promises was a conservative value. It certainly used to be a Maine value.

David Brown

Raymond

City resident finds daily trips to Peaks always challenging

I enjoy playing games with myself. And being that I live in Portland and work on Peaks Island, opportunities for my hobby arise every day.

“Where’s the car?” is a gem. This involves me reaching back to the abyss of my brain and trying to recall on which floor of the Casco Bay Lines garage I parked the car.

Another is “will I make it?” This is more of a timing game, leaving the house with the exact amount of time to fly out the door (inevitably managing to spill coffee all over myself), zoom down Commercial Street, screech into the garage, deposit my car on an unknown level and dash onto the boat.

Which leads to my favorite, “dodge the pothole.”

If you have ever driven the length of Commercial Street, you are familiar with and perhaps have even participated in my game.

It begins with the classic dodge and weave by Benny’s Seafood. This goes on with an intermingling of swerving and straddling until you pass under the bridge.

At this point, the game turns from “dodge the pothole” to “dodge the incoming traffic” due to the woefully faded lane markings and folks gunning it out of the Irving station. The game ends when the street lights begin at the Union Station mall.

Here, we begin “dodge the oblivious tourist,” but we can share more about that game another day.

Maureen Cott

Portland

Let Biddeford Downs proceed without another public vote

I’m writing to add my voice to the many who are asking that the Legislature vote in favor of allowing Biddeford Downs to move forward without going to another statewide referendum.

Why? For starters, the Biddeford Downs project is a revenue-generating venture. Maine needs such ventures. Biddeford Downs, with a resort hotel, would generate an estimated $28 million for the state’s General Fund in the first year of operation. That’s not a typo: $28 million.

Secondly, Scarborough Downs, which provides about half of all harness racing in the state of Maine (about 110 days per year), is being decimated by high-tech gaming and will fail if it is not allowed to compete.

If the Downs fails, the 4 percent fund from Bangor that helps commercial tracks pay operating expenses terminates by existing law. Enter the domino effect: If the Downs is gone, Bangor will have to cut back racing to its statutory minimum of 26 days, which is not sufficient to sustain horse farming.

Eventually the industry will be out of business. That translates to $191 million in Maine-based sales associated with the equine industry, $26 million in tax revenue paid to state and local governments, and about 4,000 current jobs — gone.

If we don’t carry out the will of the voters of the 2003 statewide referendum for fully integrated racinos, our horsemen will leave Maine for Delaware, New York and Pennsylvania, where harness racing is thriving (slot revenues supplement purses and purses pay horse owners, trainers and drivers) and things in Maine will remain status quo as the most non-business-friendly state in the union. I see tumbleweeds in our future.

I invite anyone who isn’t sold on the value of harness racing to come to the races any day this season as my guest. I will be your tour guide and I promise you’ll enjoy your visit.

You can reach me any time at shiggins@scarboroughdowns.com, and once you’ve experienced the magic, you can lend your voice to this endeavor as well.

Susan Higgins

Director of marketing, Scarborough Downs

Scarborough