MEXICO — Gov. Paul LePage fielded questions on energy and education costs, and how to properly govern the state during a town hall meeting Tuesday night at the Mountain Valley Middle School auditorium.
LePage spoke on four “basic issues” he is making a priority in Augusta: reducing the income tax, reforming welfare by strengthening the state’s safety net for the most vulnerable, cutting energy costs and addressing Maine’s high student debt burden.
Hart Daley, a selectman from Dixfield, asked LePage if he would be willing to “consider a statewide moratorium on all industrial wind projects to pursue more reliable and cost-efficient sources of renewable energy.”
LePage replied, “The answer is an absolute yes.”
He said the “opposition party put a moratorium on all forms of energy of 100-megawatt limitation, with exception of wind and solar.”
“As long as the people of Maine keep sending the same people to Augusta, nothing I can do,” he said.
“Wind and solar is not the answer,” the governor said. “It’s natural gas, hydro and biomass, which is carbon neutral, according to the EPA.”
LePage turned his attention to Sen. John Patrick, D-Rumford, and House Majority Leader Jeff McCabe, D-Skowhegan, arguing that they provided no assistance in lowering the number of homes heated with oil from 80 percent to 62 percent by installing 15,000 heat pumps in homes since he became governor.
“I’m not afraid to call them out, because they are not helping your energy costs,” he said.
Regarding education costs, LePage said Maine, which is ranked No. 38 in the country in education, has 177,000 students and 127 superintendents, while Florida, ranked No. 7, has 3 million students and 64 superintendents.
“The problem in Maine is we have home rule,” LePage said. “It’s local control, and as long as superintendents have control over the parents who have kids, you do not have a chance of having a decent school system.”
“The only people losing jobs are teachers,” he said. “It’s never superintendents, or assistant superintendents, or principals. I’ll be the first to say that there’s not enough money going into our classrooms, and too much going to the top end.”
Darryl Farrington of Peru asked LePage what steps he could take to “govern the state right” with “so much fighting between party lines.”
“I’ll tell you this: I have tried to work with the opposition, but you’ll never hear about that because the newspapers will never print anything I try to do,” LePage said, “but I’ve tried to call four meetings with the opposition party. Four meetings with the leadership to work on issues that face the state, and they don’t show up.
“The first three meetings took a total of 90 seconds,” he added.
He told Farrington and others there were three types of politicians who go to Augusta.
“There are your ambitious politicians, who have personal ambitions for future, bigger things,” he said. “There are your personal enrichment politicians, who go there solely to personally advance their career. And then, there’s the third one: public service people. People who are there for the right reason. They go to Augusta to work for the people of the state of Maine.”
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