Dear Editor:

Downloading Proposition 4 from Maine.gov — law and legislation — resulted in a shock to this taxpayer. The state proposes to issue $10 million in bonds to build a new structure for a private nonprofit corporation so they can expand their business. The bill language is a bit misleading both in the legislative version and the proposition version. It implies that the money will be used to discover the cure for cancer — not really.

Their research programs predominantly deal with mice genetics and are funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The $10 million is for construction only and it is not on public property for public use.

Why isn’t this building being placed on a University of Maine campus and all funds contributed would then be working on behalf of Maine students and new jobs would still be created? Jackson Laboratories (JAX) already added a new structure in Connecticut and that was placed on a Connecticut campus — why don’t we do the same?

More important why are we proposing to give $10,000,000 to a private corporation while cutting the University of Maine’s budget? The top 12 medical school research sites are universities from Harvard to UCLA, For every state dollar spent at UCLA the economy receives $15. Research universities with schools of medicine are today’s investments that grow. I left UCLA’s school of medicine in the 1970s when research dollars were at $85 million — today it is in hundreds of millions.

This is not about JAX who has been very successful in expanding their research mice business. They have done that in collaboration with universities and both they and the universities have benefited. Research on campus has a multitude of benefits including patent royalties, educational benefits, as well as future research grants for Maine.

The proposition does not even ask for proof of benefits to Maine and it is taking money from Maine’s University system. This is not a loan, it is a gift of public dollars. Public dollars are not for private corporations. Vote no on Prop 4 — also Props 5 and 7.

Jarryl Larson

Edgecomb