By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — The charter-mandated budget vote was the biggest item on the agenda during the Dec. 10 council meeting, based on the fact that half the room cleared after the council passed the expense and capital expense budget for 2013 at $9.3 million.
But the council deliberated other items of high importance to community members, like whether or not fill two currently vacant city employment positions.
The council said “not right now” to filling two jobs — an assistant librarian job at the Caribou Public Library and part-time janitor at the Wellness and Recreation Center. The decision to leave both positions vacant was approved in a 6-2 vote, with City Mayor Kenneth Murchison and Councilor Philip MacDonough opposed.
Addition issues surrounded the janitor position at the recreation center, particularly since not funding the position can lead to decreased hours of operation for the facility.
Superintendent of the Parks and Recreation Department Kathy Mazzuchelli describing how not filling the position will mean only one person at the building during the morning — and that person needs to clear the parking area and sidewalks first thing in the morning before opening the building.
Currently, Mazzuchelli explained that her options include not plowing the snow and having someone in the building to monitor it, or plowing/removing ice before opening the building.
“I can’t open a public building and allow people to go in and out without having somebody there,” she explained.
As the council ultimately chose to not fill the janitorial position at the rec, there was discussion about working with the community around the weather to open the rec at 6 a.m. on fair-weather days and at 8 a.m. on icy, snowy days.
“I feel like we have to do the same as we [did with] the library,” said Councilor John Boone. “It’s a tough juggle. I would not want to close down any portion of the rec and I respect people’s right to use it… but I’ve said it before, it’s much easier to not fill a position that it is to let someone go.”
Toward the conclusion of recreation position discussion, councilor David Martin addressed a concern about the public’s perception of the Dec. 5 workshop regarding the department.
“I’d like to clarify a point that nobody on this council said anything about closing from 6-8 a.m.,” Martin said, “I’ll take all kind of heat for what I do say, I don’t want to take it for what I don’t,” he good-naturedly told the crowd.
One community member, Carol Pierson, was so concerned about the possible reduction of hours that she addressed her concern during the public comments portion of the meeting.
“A comment was made by a councilor that this is a ‘feel good’ program, and that is absolutely true,” she said. “I feel great because I exercise first thing every morning, and who doesn’t want to feel good?”
As a lot of things were discussed during the Dec. 5 workshop, Mayor Kenneth Murchison also attempted to clear the air.
“I think a lot of people are excited about the conversations last week, and it went viral that these things were discussed in a workshop situation where no voting could take place — this was a discussion,” he explained. “It’s gone from one end of the state to another that we’ve done all these bad things, and quite frankly all we did was put things on the table to discuss,” the mayor added.
Lots of things were put on the table during the workshop — even the possibility of charging a fee to use the rec center. The discussion of that fee was motivation enough for David Hansel to address the council during the public comments.
“We enjoy going there,” said Hansel, who’s the president of the Cribbage Club and Bingo Club, which meet twice and once a week, respectively. “[Mazzuchelli’s] doing a heck of a job, all the employees there are doing a heck of a job, and I can’t see any changes. If it ‘aint broke, don’t fix it,” he added. “Never mind $100,000 for some audit.”
The audit Hansel referenced referred to fellow public comment speaker Milo Haney, who has addressed the council multiple times this fall regarding lowering the budget and did so once more Dec. 10.
Haney again asserted that the council needs to reduce the budget by 5 percent and also advocated for a forensic audit to be conducted. He read aloud portions of a story that ran in the Oct. 29 edition of the Bangor Daily News titled “embezzlement rising in Maine,” and asked the councilors for their opinions on having a forensic audit conducted in Caribou.
“If you have something that the council’s not aware of that would justify this, I think you should bring that forward to council at some time here for us to take into consideration, but based on everything that I know at this time, I would have a hard time justifying [the audit] because when I check into this myself, I was told we’d be talking somewhere between $75,000 to $100,000,” Councilor Gary Aiken said. “We’re all sitting here trying to cut costs, and now we’re talking about spending $75,000 — if there was a justification for doing this, if someone has more information I’m not aware of, I would be more than happy to listen to it and consider it on that basis.”
Aiken also stated that the city is required to have an audit conducted annually — which costs over $20,000 every year.
Offering reason for the forensic audit’s necessity, Haney said “based on what I’ve been seeing over the last 5-10 years, we had quite a bit of money in reserves in this town. All of a sudden, there’s no money in reserves,” he said. “that’s my justification — where did the money go?”
“RSU 39,” Councilor Martin responded.
Haney agreed that “quite a bit” of the money went to RSU 39, “but it didn’t all go there,” he said. “There’s a lot of money that seems to have disappeared, that people are asking questions ‘where did it go?’”
Due to the high price tag accompanying a forensic audit, Haney was asked if he felt taxpayers would be willing to spend $75,000 – $100,000 to get it done.
“I’m saying talking to the amount of people I’ve been talking to, they will be willing to sign a petition if that’s what it takes to have you guys act on it to get an audit done, yes,” he said. “I have not talked to one person who didn’t agree with me.”
“Did you mention how much it would cost to them?” Aiken asked, and Haney replied “no.”
Aside from requesting a tax reduction and asking for a forensic audit to make sure no embezzling is taking place in Caribou, Haney also asked the council to investigate the $4,000 car allowance for the city’s Tax Assessor Elizabeth O’Bar.
“In my estimation, that’s about $75-$80 a week that she’s getting, so taking that into context, that’s saying she would have to be out and about three times a day or more doing tax assessments,” Haney said. “I’m asking the councilors to investigate this because there’s a lot of people who feel her statement last week was not true.”
Also speaking during the public comments was Jan Murchison, who expressed her displeasure in the way city employees have been treated during City Council meetings.
“Where all citizens are entitled and encouraged to offer suggestions at these public meetings, the behavior toward city employees has been poignant and shameful and it needs to end now,” she said. “Our city employees work hard with the tools and the budgets that they are given. In good faith, the department heads came to present their budgets and then had to sit and listen to insults, criticisms and accusations of robbing the taxpayers,” Jan Murchison added. “Why would anyone want to work in that environment.”
During the Dec. 10 meeting, the council also approved spending $175,000 to bring in about $3.3 million in grant money to repair the runways of the airport.
Though the council has tabled action on allocating the funds for a few meetings, the council was advised that the city would still be responsible for making sure the runway was in good condition even if they turned down the Federal Aviation Administration funds.
Though Aiken expressed his disbelief that the city wouldn’t be able to obtain grant funding again in the next 5-20 years if they turned down the grant now, Councilor Mary Kate Barbosa believed it, based on past experience.
“I think we need to take those runways now, because we’re not going to have an opportunity in the near future to do that,” she said.
The council also approved an agreement with the Central Aroostook Humane Society for the city’s stray cats and dogs.
“We worked with the humane society and were able to negotiate a decrease in the per capita fee to $1.80 per capita — that’s a 10 cent decrease,” City Manager Austin Bleess explained.
Though the council passed the new agreement, Mayor Murchison made a similar comment to the initial one he made when the council discussed the topic this fall.
“I think that it’s a sign of the times when the state tells us we need to provide for stray animals, but not for hungry people,” he said.
The council also reviewed the report from the Ambulance Committee, which was created “to determine whether it is beneficial financially, for the citizens of Caribou to maintain the ambulance service under the control of the Caribou Municipal Government,” the report states.
Councilor Aiken, who served on the committee with fellow councilors Joan Theriault and MacDonough and community members Carolyn Reschke and Paul Camping, succinctly presented their findings.
“The bottom line is, if we did away with the ambulance department in Caribou and just ran a fire department on its own, the increased cost to the taxpayer would be $874,000,” Aiken said. “The committee unanimously felt we could carry on with what we have existing today,” he added, thanking his fellow committee members for their hard work.
“I think it was a very worthwhile process to do, and probably a very worthwhile process that could be done with other things in the city as well,” Aiken mentioned, referencing the tendency for individuals to question whether various services are worthwhile or not.
The City Council won’t meet again until next year — specifically, Monday, Jan. 7 at 7 p.m. in the councilors’ chambers for an organizational meeting.
The next regularly scheduled council meeting will be held on Monday, Jan. 14 also at 7 p.m. in the councilors’ chambers.
