Memories of Cy

A very noteworthy article which I hope will bring fruitful results (“In Search of Cyril” by Fred Karhl, The Times Record April 14). The death of Cy was a great shock to the city because it brought home the horrors of the war. Cy was one of those rare persons of whom never any disparaging word was ever uttered.

Bath was a typical small town back then when everyone knew everyone else and the older folks followed the younger folks through their four years at Morse High. So Cy was well-like by the whole town, not just his classmates.

Cy’s brother Cliff, Jr., survived the war and in the summer of 1945, I believe, he erected and summered in a surplus Army tent in the extensive beach grass area located across the main road from the Dr. Percy cottage. He was an artist (oil on canvas) and used the summer shorts he always wore as a paint rag. At the impressionable old age of sixteen I was quite impressed with those shorts but my painting abilities were limited to house or floor paints so I never got to imitate him.

Don Spear,

Portland

Bill Would Create Climate of Fear

Immigration is good for Maine. Without immigrants our population would be declining; unfilled job openings would slow our economy. As with the waves of immigrants in our past, immigrants today are bringing energy, initiative and diversity to make us a stronger and better state.

But a bill introduced in our State legislature would make immigrants feel less welcome and, in fact, afraid to be here. The bill is LD 366, “An Act to Ensure Compliance with Federal Immigration Law by State and Local Government Entities.” It tells cities and towns that their police officers must also act as immigration agents. It would punish the cities and towns that don’t comply by cutting all state funding, even though federal law does not require local law enforcement to engage in federal immigration enforcement.

This bill would not make us safer. Law enforcement works best when there is trust between the police and the community. If the immigrant community becomes afraid of their local police and doesn’t report crimes or cooperate with criminal investigations, the work of policing becomes more difficult.

Racial profiling could also occur. People could be singled out for different treatment for looking “foreign.” This would create a climate of fear.

Please join me in opposing LD 366. Contact your state legislators. Come to the rally and hearing on the bill on Thursday, April 20, at the Statehouse in Augusta. Arrive by noon. Wear blue to signal your opposition to LD 366.

Sally Regan,

Portland