To the editor:
Prior to 1958, Caribou was governed by a town manager/board of selectmen form of government. In 1958, the citizens of Caribou adopted a representative form of government. The town was divided by two lines: north and south, east and west. This created four districts: northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast. The town of Caribou was then governed by a town manager and 10 representatives from each district, for a total of 40 members. This form of government served Caribou citizens from 1958-68. I served the Southeast District for those 10 years. The first five years ran smoothly. The sixth year and beyond became a problem to get citizens to run for office for their district seats. Citizens lost interest in running for office. Some districts had to beg citizens to fill their district seats.
In 1965, Town Manager Charles Hatch authored a new city charter for Caribou. The Maine Municipal Association termed the Caribou Charter as an efficient produced document.
The Charter was presented to the 1966 annual town meeting, only to have Caribou citizens vote it down. As president of the Caribou Chamber of Commerce, I appointed a 15-member Charter Study Committee. We felt that with a 15-member committee of prominent citizens to study the charter and report back to Caribou citizens that the city charter might be accepted at the 1967 annual meeting.
Appointed to the City Charter Committee were Ralph Allen, Ivan Bennett, Bob Breedlove, Parkin Briggs, Phil Brown, Bernard Carvallo, S.W. Collins, James Coyne, R.H. Frost, Dr. Leland White, Herb Aldrich, Jack Lancaster, Paris Snow, Ken Ginn and Wilfred J. Bell.
The first meeting was held at the Caribou Public Library with all appointed members present, plus many interested citizens. The committee elected S.W. Collins (father of Senator Donald Collins) as chairman of the Charter Committee. The committee set a schedule for meeting to study the new charter and also charters from other cities in preparing a sound and generally acceptable proposal for the subject of a local referendum.
The committee held many meetings over the course of the year. The Charter was evaluated article by article and line by line. Two small changes were made, one being that the Council Chair be given an honorary title of Mayor for official functions. The Charter was accepted by a wide margin at the 1967 Caribou annual meeting.
January 1, 1968, the town of Caribou became the city of Caribou, the 22nd city in the great state of Maine. The city of Caribou celebration took place at the General Carter Armory. Guest speaker for that event was the Honorable Ken Curtis, governor of the state of Maine. January 1 was a bitterly cold evening but the building was filled to capacity.
In the spring of 1977, the Caribou City Council appointed a Charter Amendment Committee to review the City Charter. The committee carefully reviewed every section of the City Charter.
As to the question of an elected mayor; when I served as first vice president for the Maine Conference of Mayors, a fellow mayor for a central city was an elected mayor. That city now has a city council form of government and the council elects its mayor.
In my opinion, our city council form of government has served us well through the years.
Caribou
