To the editor:
There is a big shakeup in the old town tonight. The city fathers want to add a new department to the city tax rolls without the benefit of input from the local citizens on what it’s all about. I’m speaking about the Caribou Development Corporation and the Chamber of Commerce, two entities that have no place or foundation in city government. These are private sector issues and should remain as such.
The Caribou Development and Chamber of Commerce, better known as the CCC&I is about to be shut down and a makeover of the organizational activities is scheduled to become a new department in our city government. I say to you (CCC&I directors and City Council) are you out of your minds? Just because the state of Maine allowed the marijuana dispensaries to open within its boundaries, didn’t mean that you should all have gotten your share and had the all-American smokeout. What are you all thinking about?
All that being said let’s get real and look at the historical data and lack of accomplishment by all affected by this rumble. If you look at all the money spent on the cockeyed programs (and it’s not just unique to Caribou) none have worked very well and the only jobs that were created with all the tax money spent were the jobs created to run the programs.
Let’s take a deep breath and let’s come up with the most rational way out of this mess. Creating a new department in this city from this flotsam should be eliminated from the thought process of the City Council and city manager. We do not need the liability of such a fiasco — lifetime bureaucracy and Cadillac benefits — that would only create more underfunded mandates in the future. Also I wasn’t aware that some of the CCC&I directors were not from Caribou. I don’t remember Caribou merging other communities under the umbrella of this community. Are we to be dictated by non citizens of this community on how to run our business or helping us down the road to disaster?
I was on the City Council at the time of the merger of the Caribou Development Corp. and the Chamber of Commerce and I can attest to the fact that I wasn’t a happy camper and was not in favor of it. I could envision the complications arising from such a folly and, voila, we are dismantling the ship. Let’s all get our life jackets on before we all drown in the depths of all the bright ideas of our city heads of state and their jolly little helpers from out of town.
Now let’s go back to the origins of life. The genesis of the Chamber of Commerce resonates from the private sector and if allowed to go back to its realm of common sense and fervor of the business community, it would be less of a burden to the taxpayers of this city and would exercise its own controls without interference of the city leaders. It has no business being a part of the body politic of this community or under its control.
The origins of the Caribou Development Corp. of which all towns and cities across the U.S.A. all had the privy of grants from the federal government to put these fiascos in place, due to the empty headed ideas of politicians in Washington who all have the bright idea that if we have a problem let’s throw a little money at it and the problem will automatically correct itself. Well it hasn’t worked and it sure as heck won’t work as a city department. How many time do you have to kick a dead horse to get it to move when you find out it’s already dead.
Community development will only come from within because the only ones who know what the problems and needs are in any community are the locals themselves. Creativity by Main Street not City Hall is the key to a thriving economy.
Our city manager doesn’t seem to have a clue about how to solve the problem we’re in by virtue of the fact that at the CCC&I meeting he made the erroneous statement that he would not do it on the cheap if it became the department of this city. This has a familiar ring of the same thought process of our federal government. Historical data proves that this would never work as a city department (which I might add would be a travesty and cost a lot more with future mandates) any better then it worked with a half baked board of directors with no magical solutions or ideas of their own but want to extend all the blame for the demise of the organization on the director who was under their watch for many years. What a sorry bunch. Of course one must understand that some on the board had no business sense or background and most likely were never in the responsible position to sign a paycheck — so we can offer some forgiveness for lack of intelligence about industrial and commercial development.
Let’s do the right thing and get rid of this dinosaur once and for all. Stop throwing money at a dead issue. Send the Chamber of Commerce on their way so they can do the right thing on their own without interference from the city manager and City Council who have enough to do with just running the everyday functions of the city. When the Chamber wakes up from their long sleep from doing their own business they will find that we’ve done them a favor. And maybe if this wasn’t hanging over the heads of the city manager and City Council they could devote more time to do a better job running this city.
Wilfred Martin
Caribou
