To those Bristol voters who cast their vote for me to return to the Bristol School Committee for another three-year term, thank you. Those who run for office do so for a variety of reasons and my goal is to make a concerted effort to give our rural children of Bristol the best education possible.

We have almost made it. It’s March. We have survived the deepest, darkest doldrums of what, by most accounts, was an exceptionally dark and dreary winter. The clocks spring ahead this weekend, spring is on the horizon, and honest to God, these days you can hear birds chirping in the morning, if you are lucky.

Just a short response to a statement made in a letter from Craig Elliott in the Feb. 19 issue of The Lincoln County News. Maine does not have the most millionaires per capita of any state.

I am one of those terrible grammar grouses who deplore the sapping of strength from the English language.

Words cannot express the amount of love and support we have received from our friends and neighbors in Whitefield and beyond.

Others have testified to Frank Avantaggio’s contributions to the community and the hospital, and they were immense; and to his surgical skills, which were formidable.

Recent transplants to the Damariscotta area may best know Dr. Avantaggio, if at all, as the kindly old man who tended Skidompha’s Secondhand Book Shop in recent years. By then, Dr. Avantaggio was long established as a pillar of the community.

It is unfortunate that Mr. Craig Elliot felt compelled to send a rant to the LCN (“Is this the change Obama promised?” LCN, 2/15/15. Page 4), just because one young man and his hard working family pursuing the American dream were able to acquire affordable healthcare.

The Internal Revenue Code now contains 3.8 million words, or the equivalent of 13,000 pages of a 300 words per page book. The Internal Revenue Service Rules and Regulations are about twice that size. With all the exemptions, deductions and incentives, this vast tax code is much too complicated and makes it very difficult for citizens and corporations to calculate and pay their taxes without computer software, or an accountant, or lawyer.

I am writing this article to all those companies who want you to pay your bills online. If, however, there are those of us who prefer to pay by check, it takes you at least an hour of your time to straighten out a mistake. It is almost impossible to get a representative to help you understand what is going on.

That poverty disappeared is hard to believe, but true. Not here in the United States, where elections are won by how much we can condemn those receiving benefits, but in Manitoba, Canada during the 1970s.

Governor Paul LePage laid out a convincing case for his proposed budget in Waldoboro last Wednesday. Granted, he had a receptive audience in the form of the Lincoln County Republican Committee, but it was still an impressive performance given the budget’s complexity.

The state of Maine spends millions of dollars every year fighting drug abuse; from enforcement to care and treatment to broken families and ruined lives.

On Feb. 18, at the Bristol Consolidated School, a propane leak was discovered and reported during the early morning hours. Bristol Fire & Rescue, under the leadership of Paul Leeman and Jared Pendleton, worked in great collaboration with mutual aid towns Bremen, Newcastle, South Bristol and Damariscotta to identify the issue, cordon off the area so that no one had entry to the building and assured the safety of all.