To The Editor:

I am so excited that Ken Morse is running for Representative for Maine House District 71, which includes W. Paris, Norway, Waterford and Sweden. Ken Morse is a good ethical man with skills for connecting, collaborating and facilitating discussions that invite everyone to participate to be heard and get to decisions together. In this day and age I think we need more of that, especially in the political arena. I believe Ken will be a moderating voice that can bring people together with different opinions to listen to each other and work together.
I have known Ken for over 30 years and have worked with him to engage the community in cooperatively maintaining the Fare Share Market and co-creating the Alan Day Community Garden. Ken has been a strong advocate for healthy, safe food production and access for everyone for as long as I have known him.
Given a lot of the issues we are facing locally with food insecurity and poverty, having more people like Ken with deep roots in our community and agriculture become state representatives can really help address some of these issues. We are so lucky in Maine to have a wide contingent of people who are working on saving farmland, helping young farmers get established so we can provide more food locally, create more jobs and not be so dependent on the 80% of food we import from out of state.
The more self-sufficient we are able to be agriculturally, the less we are importing, the less fuel is being burned to fly or truck food here, the more control we have over what kind of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and genetically modified seeds we want to risk eating and putting into the environment. We have a beautiful state with so many natural assets that will support our community’s health for years to come, if managed well.
I believe Ken Morse will be a wonderful representative and I hope you will find out more about Ken and join me in voting for him. www.kenmorse.org.

Katey Branch
Paris