To the Editor:
This letter is in response to Amanda Novak’s Letter to the Editor published Nov. 5 on LymeLine under the title, “Re-elect Powell-St. Louis to Region 18 BOE, Her ‘Passion and Track Record’ Make Her ‘Outstanding Choice’ for Lyme.”
While she is a doctor, Mary Powell-St. Louis has not endorsed women’s rights to control their own healthcare, including access to abortion and the need for sex education. For students and their parents, these are important issues about which they should be informed and have choice.
Mary has signed the petition that circulated in Old lyme to ban books, hardly an expression of tolerance or understanding.
At a 2018 rally in Haddam, Mary and her husband, dressed in American flags, joined a protest against the Freedom of Speech rights of the Haddam Selectwoman who had chosen to demonstrate against Donald Trump‘s embrace of Putin. Again, hardly evidence of Mary’s tolerance or her defense of the First Amendment.
More recently, Mary has sent a letter to Lyme residents admitting she is a conservative Republican, but claiming she is not in step with national Republican leaders. She did not elaborate about what she opposes or whether she believes Joe Biden won the 2020 election fair and square. Mary’s claim about the distance between her views and the extremism-dominated national Republican Party is hard to believe.
On land she owns, Trump‘s biggest financial supporter – Timothy Mellon – had his orange electric road sign flashing right wing messages.
Now, I believe in free speech, so that display was not the problem. The sign’s presence simply shows there is little evidence that Mary does not support Trump all the way! Trump’s national education policies, his lying and his persistent intolerance and bigotry are hardly qualities we in Lyme want represented in any way on the Board of Education.
Sincerely,
Lillian King,
Lyme, CT.