Once again, a letter writer repeats the claim that it will cost $13.5 billion to buy out Central Maine Power and Versant Power (“Actual cost of Pine Tree Power doesn’t add up to savings,” Sept. 28). Since this figure was first circulated (by a consultant on behalf of the two companies), experts have made much lower estimates.

When Mainers go to the polls in November, it should be easy: CMP has been rated the worst electric utility in the country in customer satisfaction by both business and residential customers for years running. J.D. Power also says Maine has the most power outages of any state, the second-longest period without power and the sixth-highest rates.

With its existence threatened, CMP managed to get the lights on sooner in the most recent outage, but only by importing millions of dollars worth of out-of-state labor.

Donna Halvorsen
South Portland