Regarding Reuben M. Schafir’s Dec. 7, Page 1 Maine Sunday Telegram story, “The bill has come due Down East,” the only question is: how come a similar situation hasn’t occurred sooner and more often in Maine towns and counties?

We send police candidates to an academy to learn the business, lawyers to law schools and even some of our municipal managers to grad schools in administration. But candidates for selectmen and commissioners are generally the poorest trained applicants trying to get elected.

I spent more than 25 years reporting and editing for Guy Gannett Publishing Co. (1965-1991) and frequently felt the best you could hope for were candidates running for such jobs catching on fast or getting bored and quitting early. Some just wanted to kick the tires on town plows. A few had
devious and obvious conflicts of interest. Most had limited or no management or administrative experience. And some worked out OK.

Whose fault? The state should, long ago, have legislated the kind of basic and advanced training it requires for other key personnel, not just leave it to the Maine Municipal Association to run its “Q&A.” CPAs ought to be a municipal requirement.

Washington County’s $11 million budget hole is scary as hell for taxpayers and more of us may be headed in the same direction if year 2025 is any warning.

Robert Moorehead
Paris