By Natalie De La Garza
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — Downtown business owners were adamant about one thing during their special meeting with Caribou City Councilors on July 23 it was this: selling the city’s downtown parking lots would be a bad idea.
The city put seven municipally-owned parking lots in the downtown area out to bid last week — the parking lots of the Downtown Mall, those at 7 and 37 Hatch Drive, 6 Water Street and the lot behind the American Legion — and agreed after meeting with the business owners to hold off on selling the parking lots.
“One of our best economic development tools is our municipal parking lots,” said Councilor Kenneth Murchison. “I would propose that we postpone the process now, seek legal opinion as referenced earlier and maybe reassess the entire plan,”
The public input session lasted shy of an hour and a half, during which business owners potentially affected by the sale as well as community members shared their opinions on the matter. Among those vocalizing concerns and objections was Attorney Hugh Kirkpatrick, whose office is located in the Downtown Mall.
“In addition to the legal situation which prohibits the proposed sale of the urban renewal parking lots, the idea of attempting to sell these parking lots is so blatantly anti-business that it’s damaging to the city’s reputation and could affect the decision of any business considering moving here,” he said. Kirkpatrick offered as a witness of this situation, “one only has to look around this room,” he said. “Caribou doesn’t have many small businesses that call Caribou home, and those that are represented here today, I strongly suspect they’re all here to oppose this proposal.”
Business owners from County Quick Print, Small Steps Dance Academy, S.W. Collins and others vocalized their objection to the city’s intent to sell the parking lot, and owner of Soderberg Construction Company Carl Soderberg asked the councilors how they thought the sale of the parking lots would turn out,
Emphasizing that he could speak for all of council Mayor Gary Aiken expressed his thoughts that the parking lots would be sold to the local abutted businesses. Should an outside entity have wished to purchase the parking lots, as the example was presented, Aiken vocalized his opinion that council would not have accepted the outside bid — even if it was more than twice the offer of a local bid.
The decision to sell the downtown parking lots stemmed from efforts to make up an anticipated $700,000 shortfall in next year’s budget, and business owner Sam Collins empathized with the councilors on the arduous budget process facing them this fall.
“I fully understand the city’s effort and the council’s effort to keep the tax base low, and I applaud that. We all applaud that. It’s a difficult job, and I thank you all for serving and trying to work toward that, but I don’t think this is the message or the way to attain that goal,” he said, emphasizing that selling the parking lots to the business owners would be a tax shift.
Collins was also concerned about the message the parking lot sale was sending about Caribou.
“Our message is that we want to be a business friendly community, and I can’t think of a worse way to get that message out,” he said. “We have the Caribou Revitalization Committee, and we have the vision statement of the city of Caribou which says that ‘a community that promotes and aggressively pursues innovative business and economic development,” I don’t see that being true in the sense of the council of burdening businesses with the cost of owning those parking lots when it’s not necessary.”
The council is expected to hold a workshop on the parking lot situation at a later date, and the next regularly scheduled City Council meeting will be held on Monday, Aug. 12 at 7 p.m. in the councilors chambers.
