To the editor:
I remember very well in the last election how candidate Stewart campaigned hard on being a graduate of Presque Isle High School and would staunchly support education completely. He used SAD 1 in a controversial campaign promotional four-page insert in The Star-Herald called The Wildcat Press Weekly, in which he portrayed to Presque Isle voters that SAD 1 endorsed his election as Presque Isle state representative to Augusta. He even had an SAD 1 educator campaign vigorously for him wearing a Stewart T-shirt at events and wrote a letter of support for him that was mailed to voters days before the election to sway them his way.
I understand that political hopefuls will say anything a voter wants to hear to get elected but he or she should stand by their campaign promises. Rep. Stewart has participated in a coordinated effort by the House Republicans to repeal the people’s law passed in the last election where a large majority of the state’s voters passed a 3 percent measure to raise $300 million on net income over $200,000 to fund education at the 55 percent level which is state of Maine law. He voted on the education committee not to fund education at the 55 percent level and to shut down the state and put state workers into a layoff situation. It turns out that Democrats and independents agreed to repeal the law and fund education with $162 million of new funding to open the state back up and put workers back to work.
SAD 1 received over a million dollars in additional money but also lost approximately another million dollars to the SAD 1 budget due to the revenue loss of the other $138 million. The irony of this whole ordeal put the burden of the additional funding on the backs of the low- and middle-income wage earners and not the well-off. It appears that nothing will change unless voters get out and vote for people who will represent us and not special interests.
Rep. Saucier’s voting record in the two terms he served as Presque Isle’s state representative supporting education is 100 percent, just like his campaign signs reflect. He was endorsed by the Maine Education Association for his past strong support of education and of his future commitment. Looking at the Maine Education Association scoring records of present legislators Stewart voted 90 percent of the time against education. I am a voter in Presque Isle and am extremely upset about how Rep. Stewart has misrepresented himself to us. Photo ops and campaign event appearances misrepresenting his actual agenda are disturbing. If you are an educator, cook, custodian, management, bus driver, and other SAD 1 workers you should support someone who supports you.
Please vote for the Honorable Bob Saucier for his hard work, integrity and honesty in his 100 percent support for SAD 1 and education for all the state of Maine.
Loomis Craig
Presque Isle
