Andy Cline, Dick Atlee, Charlie Sidman.

Nov 02, 2025

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY

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Please Vote No on Maine Question 1 – Preserve Voters’ Rights

I have seen a great many “Yes on 1” signs posted along our roadsides, and the message seems to be that we need to require voter photo ID to secure our elections. This is a baseless concern. Maine is consistently among the nation’s top states for voter turnout with zero evidence of significant voter fraud. Most importantly, this question seeks to seriously restrict voting rights for many eligible voters—including some of our most vulnerable older citizens—by restricting their access to absentee ballots.

Question 1 calls for eliminating the opportunity to request an absentee ballot by phone, eliminating the current practice of allowing a family member to request an absentee ballot for their elderly relative, ending the practice of ongoing absentee voter status for seniors and people with disabilities, banning prepaid postage on ballot return envelopes, and limiting the number of drop boxes for returning absentee ballots. These are all current practices that are carefully and capably controlled by our towns and the state. In addition, Question 1 calls for the elimination of 2 days of absentee voting, but it doesn’t specify which days. Why this vague restriction on voters’ rights?

And the last restriction on the list (but the first and only one mentioned on the roadside signs) calls for certain voter ID before voting. In my opinion, this is on the list because it’s a hot button that invites folks to think there is widespread voter fraud that needs to be eliminated. There are no facts to support this idea, but those roadside signs sure make it look like a major concern. I believe the major concern is for our citizens who cannot come to the polls to vote in person because they face physical challenges, have no transportation, are living away from home in assisted living centers, or are simply traveling on election day.

One more thing: Question 1 begins with the wording “Do you want to change Maine election laws to . . .” followed by the list of restrictions outlined here, AND it concludes with the incredibly vague and dangerous “. . . and make other changes to our elections.”

Please safeguard all our citizens’ voting rights by voting No on Question 1 on the Maine ballot.

Andy Cline

Southwest Harbor

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The New Telecom Facilities Ordinance Does Nothing to Protect Southwest Harbor Citizens.

The new “Telecommunications Facilities” Ordinance on Tuesday’s ballot deals with applications for, and siting of, commercial wireless transmission facilities like cell towers, 5G repeaters, antennas, etc.

Wonderfully comprehensive, it is based on the experience and language of other towns who have been down this road. Comprehensive, except for one notable exception.

Section III, Paragraph G of the ordinance states one of its purposes as being to

“ensure that Southwest Harbor can continue to fairly and responsibly protect the public health, safety and welfare;”

However, the actual language of the ordinance appears aimed primarily at preservation of historic sites, visual attractiveness, and fairness to wireless providers/siters. Having read it carefully, I’ve been unable find a single instance of the words “health” or “safety” or “welfare” (we’ll call this “HSW”) in its provisions.

Even back in 2012, when I began looking seriously into the radio frequency issue, the report of the Bioinitiative research group (https://bioinitiative.org/) had already cited hundreds of research studies showing damage to just about every tissue in the body, through oxidative stress and DNA damage. In the intervening years, the reports of serious health damage from improperly placed cell towers (especially near schools and public areas) have grown legion.

The absence of any HSW protective language in the ordinance is probably due to the fact that the federal government long ago usurped local control of community HSW under the guise of the term “environmental effects” in the notorious Section 704 of the 1996 Telecomm Act — https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.pdf, p.117 for those interested.

It says that “nothing in this act shall limit or affect the authority of a state or local government regarding placement. BUT then it says:

No state or local government or instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the Commission’s [FCC] regulations concerning such emissions.

It’s important to know that the FCC regulations mentioned here

• are based on 1980s’ science relative to (irrelevant) radar,
• have not been updated in over forty years to recognize massive amounts of new science,
• do not recognize the fundamental biological difference between radar and the pulsed RF used for modern transmission of information-carrying wireless signals,
• assume all human bodies match a “standard” large-headed 225-pound male soldier,
• and in any case are far less stringent that those in Europe.

Unless the town is willing to try bucking thirty years of legal precedent by inserting HSW language in the ordinance and taking the matter to court, there probably is no way around this.

In any case, it’s too late to change the language of the ordinance being voted on. But in the interests of accuracy and honesty with the town’s residents, it would make sense in the future to remove Section III’s Paragraph G from the ordinance. Or, perhaps more informatively, replace it with language to the effect that “Consideration of the protection of the town’s health, safety, and welfare in placement of wireless facilities would be desirable, but are prohibited by Federal regulation,” in order to at least raise public awareness of this important issue.

Dick Atlee

Southwest Harbor

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Local Governmental Abuse and Dysfunction

Between last week’s simulated horror show of Halloween and this week’s upcoming state and local elections in many jurisdictions, it is appropriate for an update on the status of one of our local legal actions undertaken to defend the self-governance rights and interests of Bar Harbor’s citizens. Specifically, this month will see the first hearing of one of several cases before Maine’s Law (i.e. Supreme) Court concerning our citizen efforts to be actively involved in and ensure proper administration of the twice citizen passed and fundamentally federally court supported local ordinance limiting cruise ship limiting traffic and disembarkations.

The present case before Maine’s Supreme Court, presented clearly in the attached legal brief by attorney Robert (Bobby) Papazian, argues that Bar Harbor’s local Board of Appeals and our core town officials, supported by a state Business and Consumer Court, are all violating numerous established legal concepts and protections in their efforts to preserve the policy prerogatives and enforcement autonomy long held dear, on their own behalf and traditional powerful business interests such as Golden Anchor. Such behavior mirrors locally the ongoing and steadily increasing abuses of governmental purpose, authority and power being seen on our national stage in numerous regards. Both locally and nationally, core issues will be addressed and decided by the highest (state or federal) Supreme Courts, after which only further political action can be invoked if necessary.

In the instant local case, Bar Harbor’s Board of Appeals as well as the state Business and Consumer Court have abused their required processes, procedures, and discretion to make erroneous legal findings, all in the interest of insulating and allowing the Town of Bar Harbor to violate the land use code by disembarking cruise ship passengers at its own pier, adjacent to Golden Anchor’s similarly long-used adjacent property. What makes this even more egregious is that our town has had more than adequate time and notice to properly provide for such use by either moving this activity to its ferry terminal (in another and permissive zoning district), or to put the necessary changes to the land use code to allow this use at the town pier before the voters, as it has done for other, mostly semantic, modifications in this week’s election.

In summary, what is at stake in our upcoming Maine Supreme Court case is that our town officials, and enabling lower state courts, clearly do not want to acknowledge any legal limitations on their own power and authority, quite analogously to the behavior of the current national administration and some lower federal courts. All concerned citizens who value democracy and the protections of law are probably aware of our ongoing national trend toward autocracy and tyranny at all levels from the federal down to the local. As historians have stated, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” While the specific issues may be different, the overarching concept of a government of democracy and laws is worth fighting for, which is what we are committed to and doing here.

Charles Sidman

2025 10 20 Sidman Brief Of Appellant

398KB ∙ PDF file

Download

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