Lincoln County Republicans met Wednesday evening at the Wiscasset Communications building at 7 p.m. to discuss a myriad of issues from the 2008 election preparations to school consolidation and beyond.

Guest speaker Ruth Summers spoke to the group on behalf of her husband, Republican candidate for the first district U.S. Congress, Charles Summers. Mrs. Summers is campaigning for her husband as he serves one year in Iraq with Multi-National Forces. A Lt. Commander in the Navy Reserve, Summers was involuntarily recalled and is currently serving in Baghdad, Iraq until August 2008. Both Charlie Summers and wife Ruth are Naval Reserve members.

LCRC members registered their votes for committee officers, Dawn Gilbert was elected chairman, Christiana Poole, vice chair, John Harris treasurer, and Bill McKeen secretary.

County Commissioner Sheridan Bond shared, "(Concerning) the new Two Bridges jail, everything we said we'd do, we did, everything has gone according to plan and we have good administrators."

Dana Dow expressed that he is not against consolidation; he is against the way that it has been presented. The impetus for this decision originally came about due to a projected decrease in students statewide. Later it became a matter of dollars and cents.

"The state cannot close schools," stated Dow. He added, "They can, however take money away from schools." Dow asked attendees, "What is going to happen to the fabric of those towns, when schools close down?" Dow clearly reflected a level of frustration and concern for this highly controversial issue.

A member of the LCRC audience asked Senator Dow, if we "shouldn't be focusing on growth in the state of Maine instead of the consolidation approach," of which Dow agreed.

William Card, State Office Representative for Senator Susan Collins, briefly spoke on behalf of the Senator.

"A year out from the election and there are currently nine negative ads, you can expect a tough race (against current U.S. Representative Tom Allen), however, I think that these negative ads galvanize Republicans. Susan is our Senator with many legislative accomplishments and she never misses a vote," shared Card.