Staff Writer
At the March 29 Caribou city council meeting, a public hearing was held allowing for residents to address the panel with concerns and recommendations pertaining to the 2010-11 municipal budget. Following a review of the expense budget by Steven Buck, Doug Morrell, chair of the Concerned Citizens for Responsible Government group, suggested that council members and Buck were doing little to protect the residents of the city, calling attention to the one-year union contracts that were recently agreed upon.
Morrell continued with a list of proposed changed created by the Concerned Citizens members that would tighten the municipal budget’s belt. Some of these changes included: turning over the maintenance of the snowmobile trails to area snowmobile clubs; consider consolidations in various city departments; privatizing services including plowing/snow removal; refurbishing city vehicles instead of replacement; and scheduling furlough days in all departments.
Morrell ended by asking councilors to consider these recommendations and reminded Caribou residents, that “No one will mind your money better than yourself — get involved.”
Wilfred Martin, also a member of the citizens’ group took advantage of the public hearing, questioning as to why there had been no representation from the council at any of their(CCRG) meetings, stating the invitation had been offered and criticized the idea of expecting residents to sit through an entire city council agenda in order to be present during a budget workshop. Martin also questioned how many meetings/hours the city council had spent on budget issues.
Council member David Martin took exception to the idea of postponing a vote on the budget draft regarding Morrell’s suggestion for changes citing that no one from the citizens group attended any of the budget workshops but now expected the council to hold off on voting in order to consider further recommendations.
As printed in last week’s article, the council voted to adopt the third draft of the municipal expense budget allowing for further adjustments prior to the June tax commitments.
