By Natalie De La Garza
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — Roughly 8,000 residents in Caribou means 8,000 ideas, opinions and perspectives — and city officials are interested in tapping into those ideas to help make Caribou even better.
The Community Revitalization Committee is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, June 12 at 7 p.m. aimed at focusing ideas for improvement around what people are interested in implementing.
“In my time here, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with a lot of people and they all have great ideas about things that the city can do to help make Caribou a better place,” said City Manager Austin Bleess.
City management and city councilors agreed that creating a committee to help turn some of these ideas into a reality could mean good things for Caribou. One of such ideas is improving the look and flow of the downtown areas, from Bennett Drive to High Street down to Sweden Street.
“Trying to make that all flow a little better is going to be one of the areas that the downtown portion of the committee is going to look at,” Bleess described.
Diversity of ideas is encouraged, as the committee is looking to improve the city’s housing stock and even possibly holding O.P. Pierson Days, aimed at celebrating the inventor of the frozen french fry who lived in Caribou.
The committee will even look at what improvements can be made to already existing events, like the Caribou Cares about Kids Festival.
The time commitment is pretty small, and any interested parties are encouraged to attend the first meeting.
“We’re looking for people from all aspects of life,” Bleess encouraged. “There’s so much potential and so many possibilities for the city of Caribou, we just need the people to come together and make these things a reality.”
