To the editor:
On the evening of Dec. 15, I had the occasion to attend a meeting at the Caribou Performing Arts Center to provide input to our newly set up charter commission. Our group (the Caribou Coalition for Responsible Government) attended and had already provided beforehand recommended changes that would be beneficial to the citizens of Caribou as a whole.
Approximately two weeks prior to this meeting in a newspaper publication the committee chairperson asked that any citizen of Caribou who wanted to provide input to the city charter could do so in letter form prior to the meeting and to also attend the meeting to possibly answer questions that may come from the charter commission members that would be germane to their recommendations. One must conclude that this committee elected by a majority vote of the citizens of this community was for a good reason and would have drawn a crowd that had concerns about how our city charter functions, but it didn’t. Other than recommendations from our group, only one letter of recommendation from a citizen was provided to the committee unsigned and the chairperson did the right thing and declined to accept or present it to the committee and discarded it. I must also add that the chairperson did a great job in setting the rules of engagement on how the meeting would be run.
Presentations were made from two members representing the Caribou Citizens for Responsible Government in the form of what we as a group would like to see in the charter. We as a group were also very pleased at how we were received by the commission members and everything went very well. One would have to wonder though why the low turnout, this being such a crucial issue. Is it apathy that envelops the mindset of the citizens of Caribou or is it that they just don’t care?
Our group has a longstanding following that we could have programmed to be there and possibly filled the CPAC. But we didn’t want to do that to not be perceived as wanting to stack the deck. I also would like to say that I have a lot of respect for this charter commission for giving up their valuable time to the daunting task ahead of reviewing this charter and recommending the necessary changes that will be of great benefit to the citizens of our community.
We as members left out recommending changes of a crucial area of the charter regarding conflicts of interest in order that the commission would take the ball on this one and come up with something on their own.
I hope you all have a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
Wilfred Martin
Caribou
