I understand Helen Crowe’s pleasure in her “People first” letter of April 6 that the super Wal-Mart proposal was turned down, but I am distressed by her apparent attitude that if we, as society, don’t like the laws, we shouldn’t have to follow them. The kind of lawless society that promotes is frightening, to say the least.

The laws on the books are, by definition, what the people want. And thanks to the democratic processes our forefathers set up, we, the people, have the final say by joining the process to change the laws that we don’t like. If Wal-Mart has “crossed all the t’s and dotted all the I’s” we must let them build, because that is the law that we have written.

Zoning ordinances protect communities from unregulated development. But they also must protect developers from unregulated communities.

Ray Hepler

Orono