To the editor:
The Caribou City Council held its regular meeting June 8, and among the items on the agenda was one to consider setting a public hearing date of June 22, 2009 to receive written and verbal input on the setting of the 2009 mil rate. That idea was quickly shot down by all but one councilor. They felt that a public hearing had been held on the budget, the budget had been set, and there was no need to hold a public hearing on setting the mil rate, because, basically, it is what it is. The city needs X amount of dollars to operate, and in order to do that, it needs a mil rate to match.
And, while I was irritated at first at how quickly this motion died, I couldn’t argue with the logic. The council was right. We had our chance to voice our opinions, and we blew it. But, you can be sure, it won’t happen again. We were also told that we could request time to speak to the council at the next meeting if we wanted to voice our opinion on this subject.
Well, I feel that an editorial can reach more people than speaking before a council who will look at you and pretend to be interested, and then politely say “thank you” and quickly move on, never again giving a thought to what you said.
To keep it simple, last year’s budget was approximately $8.25 million. This year’s projected budget is approximately $8.5 million. That’s approximately $250,000 higher this year than last year. No matter how many spins are put on the figures, you know it’s got to hit us, in these difficult economic times, right in our wallets.
So, what do we do to keep these figures down? Well, first, let’s cut out some of the waste. These are just a few of my observations of late: the council directed the highway department to pick up brush in the city one week only, during the week of May 4-7. However, they actually started going around to at least one neighborhood that I know of the week before. And when asked by a resident of that neighborhood why they were there a week earlier than they were supposed to be, that resident was told not to worry, that they would be back. So apparently, the brush pickup was at least a 2-week process instead of the one-week time period the council agreed on in order to save money. Ka-ching!
About three weeks ago, the highway department sent a crew to fill the potholes and patch our road. During that process, I observed them nicely patching the end of the driveway belonging to a city highway employee. Ka-ching!
Last winter, I saw the city sand truck heavily sanding a rather steep driveway of a private residence, so I inquired as to why this was being done, and was told that the city owned the driveway of the residence. Not the house, just the driveway. Huh? And I was also told that the city was in the process of acquiring said house. Huh? Why doesn’t the city just sign over the driveway of that house to the owner? Why on earth do we need to take the house? Ka-ching! Ka-ching!
And speaking of city-owned properties, it is my understanding that we, the people of Caribou, are the proud owners of approximately 165-170 properties. We could give the real estate agents in this town a run for their money! Why isn’t the city putting these properties out for bid? Now I am not so naïve as to believe that all of the properties are viable, but I’m sure some of them are. And people in town have told me that they would be willing to bid on some of these properties if they were ever put out to bid. What are we waiting for? Ka-ching! Ka-ching, Ka-ching!
I could go on and on, but I have another subject I want to touch upon in this dissertation — televising the workshops held by the council. Another item on the agenda was to consider televising the council workshops, and except for Councilor Martin and Councilor Goughan, (kudos to them!) that idea was quickly shot down as well. It was mentioned that they are open to the public and anyone can go, so why not televise them? Now, I think we all know that very few people will actually watch these workshops on a regular basis. Certainly if the Red Sox are playing at the same time as the workshop is being held, I’m not going to trade the Sox for the workshop. But the option to watch these workshops in the comfort of our own homes should be available to us, as taxpayers of Caribou.
One councilor mentioned that he was all for transparency, but then quickly voted against televising the workshops. My only question is: What are you afraid of?
Caribou
