The Bangor area has a long and distinguished record of supporting projects whose primary beneficiaries are children. For instance, Bangor is fortunate to have a very complementary mix of public and private educational institutions. While all of my children are graduates of Bangor High School, when John Bapst Memorial High School was seeking public support coming out of its metamorphosis from parochial to private school, my wife and I joined the community in helping it become established through a modest donation. We continue to believe the Bangor Public Library mskes so much difference in the lives of all the communities’ children, even though all of our children have left Bangor, we wanted to support the library’s current renovation and expansion project, which has achieved extraordinary broad-based community support. Of course we know of all sorts of other projects that have gained broad community support over the years.

All of this leaves me very puzzled by (Daryl) Rhodes and his School for the Performing Arts. Didn’t he fail in his effort to obtain enough community support to purchase a relatively small vacant-lot downtown building it had to take for back taxes, to take the building off the tax roles forever, and then make a grant of $165,000 to Rhodes? Is this the best expenditure of the taxpayers’ resources? Has the city council satisfied itself that the planning process, and the level of community support, is sufficent to warrant using the taxpayers money to take the lead?

I have serious questions about the council’s allocation of priorities and the taxpayers money to Rhodes. There is no doubt that the performing arts are a positive asset for the entire community. Wouldn’t the children of our community be better served if the resources the council is apparently prepared to turn over to Rhodes (I have yet to see just who else in the community is behind this effort, other than some members of the legislature, and after all it is re-election season), were used to make a grant of $160,000 to the school department? Wouldn’t it be better to improve existing performaing arts programs, like those in our public schools, instead of expending scarce community resources on an apparently unsupported and untested program?

Several of our children had very positive experiences in the perfoming arts through the Bangor public schools as well as through the private instruction they received at the university in Orono. All of these sorts of things help to make the Bangor area such a marvelous place to live and raise a family. I just question whether the community’s resources are going to be best expanded through supporting Rhodes. William L. England Bangor