The city of Portland should evict the Lincoln Park campers from the park. They are overlooking the law and showing how left-leaning the city leaders are. What if I were to go to City Hall and pay for a permit to hold a gathering of tea party members at Lincoln Park? Would the city have to move the unlawful campers out?

If the city denied me a permit to gather at the park only because they were unwilling to move the protesters, could I claim that the city is unfair and sue them? Would the ACLU come to my defense?

Additional Photos

Occupy Maine members who have set up an encampment should be evicted from Lincoln Park in Portland, a reader says. Gabe Souza/Staff Photographer

The city is opening itself up to legal action. If I were a resident in the city, I would be outraged at my leaders for not doing the job they are paid to do. The Press Herald should be asking these not-so-hard questions.

Anthony Palmer

Scarborough

My daughter, who grew up in Maine but now lives in New York City, took her daughter to Zuccotti Park to witness our American right to assembly and to witness history happening in their city. She also wanted her daughter to know what she had experienced when I used to bring her and her sister to demonstrations in the 1970s.

My granddaughter is a button collector, and discovering that there were no buttons at the park, she went home and she made buttons: “I came, I saw, I occupied”; “Employed and Still Broke” and (best of all) just simply “99%.”

My granddaughter opened my eyes to the key to the power of this movement – that almost all of us are part of the 99 percent. Those who complain that there isn’t a clear message, in spite of any 5-year-old’s ability to recognize unfairness, aren’t seeing that this movement is just beginning to gather its momentum, and that once everyone who is part of the 99 percent realizes that they are part of the 99 percent, there will be an unstoppable force for change.

Sally Barrows

Falmouth

Snowe and Collins veered off course with jobs vote

In Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe we have the two best Republican senators in the Congress. We have a long tradition of excellent representatives in the Senate. After all, we had Margaret Chase Smith, who was the first woman in the Senate.

Our senators have been the most reasonable moderates of the Republicans in office. But I am diappointed in their recent negative vote against the jobs bill. Everybody knows the Republicans are trying to unseat President Obama. But this is no reason to punish Americans who need work.

Sens. Collins and Snowe should consider what is best for the citizens of America, and not what is best for the Republican Party and millionaires. Our future is in their hands. We need their help to make America strong again.

Michael Boccia

Eliot

Both elderly and the young are part of the 99 percent

I’d suggest a different subtitle for your recent article on the wealth gap between the elderly and the young. Try this: “Young adults bear the brunt of the economic downturn and it is time to expand safety net programs to them.”

The basic thrust of the article was a cynical and typical regressive analysis of the non-rich. How can anyone possibly suggest that safety net programs for the elderly be reallocated to other age groups when we have underfunded all safety net programs in this country for decades? There is very little income that separates me from someone who cannot put food on the table.

There is a huge income gap that separates me from the very wealthy. Yet we seem unable to resist the temptation to divide up the 99 percent, who are more alike than different, into opposing camps.

Jo Ann Myers

Waldoboro

Make your voice heard on South Portland land uses

On Nov. 17, the residents and businesses of South Portland will have an important opportunity to help shape the city’s future. The Community Land Use Forum will be held in South Portland’s Community Center (6-9 p.m.) to collect and explore public input for the city’s new comprehensive plan.

The comprehensive plan will guide the city’s development for the next 15 to 20 years, presenting a vision of what the community wants and helping to define the steps needed to achieve that vision.

How should South Portland balance the needs of automobile drivers with those of pedestrians and bicyclists?

What implications does projected growth have for our public facilities, including schools?

What zoning changes are needed to promote and facilitate preferred patterns of growth and development?

These are but a few of the questions the city must grapple with in drafting the comprehensive plan.

South Portland has been transforming itself into a livable destination city. Mill Creek Park used to be the city dump. The now beautiful Bug Light Park used to be the site of a byproduct processing plant that compelled people across the city to keep their windows closed. Committed individuals have banded together repeatedly to imagine the future and make a difference.

Now it’s your turn. If you live or work in South Portland, come to the Community Land Use Forum on Nov. 17. The Comprehensive Plan Committee is considering future land use issues and opportunities across all areas of the city, and it is critical that your voice is heard.

More information is available at www.southportland.org.

Dawn Roberts

South Portland

Article made key point on impact of overseas plants

Thank you for printing the article of Robert Patterson on Nov. 5. The capitalist side of society’s equation should not be surprised by a recession if manufacturing processes are sent overseas.

Reducing the purchasing power of the public is no way to create prosperity.

Francis Madeira

Falmouth

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