On Feb. 4, Seth Johnson asked how an unvaccinated individual is a threat to the vaccinated (“Letter to the editor: Questions remain despite reporting on vaccination”). Let me take a shot at that. To answer, I’ll have to use math – sorry! Imagine 1,000 people in a room with a person infected with measles. Ninety […]

Why is it that the city of Portland is spending 50 percent more on General Assistance welfare than it was during the height of the recession? Why does Portland account for 5 percent of the state’s population but 63 percent of all General Assistance spending in Maine? These are some very inconvenient questions for Mayor […]

As a Portland taxpayer, it bothers me to see our city’s leaders respond with excuses to news of our outlier-status General Assistance welfare spending. To me, no amount of excuses can justify the fact that we spend more than 10 times what Lewiston-Auburn spends. Lewiston has audited its General Assistance rolls and found that many […]

Re: “Downeaster train arrives in Boston 6 hours late after breakdown in Maine” (Feb. 12): Patricia Quinn of the Northern New England Rail Passenger Authority blames last Thursday’s Downeaster delay on the lack of a layover barn at Brunswick. This kept car men from removing ice to do maintenance, she said, claiming that “these situations […]