Editor:

   In the Sept. 5th issue of Sentry, the mayor of South Portland said he doesn’t usually respond to “Letters to the Editor” and neither do I. However, living in a condo I must respond. Let’s start with dropping the mayor’s inflammatory words “for profit condos.” All condos and apartments are not for profit, so Mr. Mayor if you are going to use that inflammatory phrase, please separate out the “not for profit” numbers. I live in a “not for profit” condo, as do many others. 

  The mayor listed 1,300 condos and 1,500 apartments with four or more units and quoted the cost to the city for bins for each. Does he really think that 2,800 units want their own bins? Please, come and show me where I have the space for the size bins that I see on the roadsides. So let’s do away with his cost figures for such, immediately.

    I wonder where the silver bullets are now sitting that he is so proud of. When we came to live in the city of South Portland 10 years ago, and we are proud and pleased to be here,  there were silver bullets throughout the city. After Sept. 11 they disappeared and the last thing I knew there were only two in the entire city. Are there no other places in the city where silver bullets could be placed to make it more convenient for condo and apartment dwellers? What would the cost figures be for the city to pick up the silver bullets as it did just a few years ago.

    Speaking of costs, unless I have missed reading the small print on my tax bill, I am paying the same mil rate for city services as the mayor pays for his home or dwelling. He quotes the additional cost for recycle pickup for condos, apartments, though I have questioned his premise above. I failed to see in his letter the listing of the saving the city has by not  snow plowing our complex of 140 homes, nor the saving of cost for water and sewage problems for the same number of homes for which we do pay for through our association fees. And that is just in the complex in which I live. Yet we pay the same mil rate that others do in this city and the city is saving on such  services not provided to us.

    Sounds like the same old problem doesn’t it...cost of bureaucratic bureaucracy vs. the environment and the future world of our kids and grandkids and we all know who is losing.

Robert. W. Gale

South Portland