Dear Editor:

Personal, hard-won experience counts. We’re seeing that confirmed in politics each and every day – and it counts big-time at the local level: on the islands, in the coves and throughout the communities that make up our portion of Midcoast Maine.

Holly Stover, who was born and raised in Boothbay where she has spent her life working, has experience where we older Mainers need it: in her work at the Department of Health and Human Services where for 23 years she fought homelessness, hunger, and domestic violence and helped provide support for people with mental health and developmental disabilities. Currently, she’s working with Lincoln Dental, providing dental services for area people regardless of their insurance status.

If you’ve ever had a toothache, you know just how critical this sort of assistance can be.

Holly is ready to work hard on behalf of all of us within House District 89 – including parts of Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Edgecomb, South Bristol, Southport and Wesport Island – to expand quality, affordable health care for all Maine citizens, to help elderly “year ‘rounders” remain in the communities to which they contributed so much and with the social and physical supports they must have, and to fight the scourge of the opioid epidemic in a humane and understanding manner.

We need someone who knows the ins and outs of the state bureaucracy to fix it.  I plan to vote for Holly Stover in November.

Geoffrey Bates

South Bristol