Staff Writer
CARIBOU — The Caribou City Council met for a multi-purpose evening, first for a meeting with the Board of Assessors to discuss plans for the upcoming months, and second to hold their biweekly meeting. The brevity of the meeting was by no means indicative of the agenda’s importance; though the non-executive session portion of the meeting lasted under an hour, the councilors obtained information about sesquicentennial plans from John Swanberg, discussed the authorization of an ambulance remount for the Caribou Fire and Rescue Department, received an update on the agreement to turn over a building from the Caribou Lions Club to the Fire and Rescue Department, and received updates on the Regional School Unit Consolidation and the North South Highway Project by Karla Bell and Steve Buck respectively.
Swanberg addressed the council with a brief and informative sesquicentennial update regarding primarily the creation of a book that showcases the people, history, events, and food that has shaped Caribou over the last 150 years.
Swanberg also informed the council about the 150th events occurring this weekend.
“We have two big events occurring this weekend,” he said, “we have An Aroostook Celtic Celebration on Friday night starting at 5 p.m. with An Irish Dinner. We had hoped to sell about 200 tickets for dinner, and at this point it looks like we’ve sold out. We’ve also printed 800 tickets for the performance and that’s selling pretty well,” he added. “It’s sort of to celebrate our Irish heritage a little bit, I think people are going to enjoy it.”
“On Saturday, we’re going to be holding our ski events for Caribou’s Downtown Ski Dash for the Cash,” Swanberg explained. “The middle school races start at 10 a.m., high school start around 1 p.m., and the adult races are at 3 p.m.”
There will be a concession stand selling items such as hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken stew and chili at the races to raise money for the 150th events; there will also be an available indoor dining area for individuals to sneak away from the wintry weather.
“We’d love to have a great crowd out on Saturday for the ski event,” said Swanberg. “It’s going to be a great time.”
“The idea is to get as many people involved with our 150th anniversary as possible,” said Mayor Ken Murchison, “anyone interested in additional information can go online at www.CelebrateCaribou.com.”
Chief Woods, of the Caribou Fire and Rescue Department, discussed two separate items with the Council members during the meeting; he sought approval for the 2009 remount of ambulance unit 23, and updated the council members with at status report on the agreements with the Caribou Lions Club regarding the transfer of a building from one organization to the other.
Though the council approved the remount of the unit with minimal trepidation, Chief Woods cautioned that many units might not be able to be remounted in the future.
“I will note that our units are starting to get to the point where we just can’t remount them anymore,” he told the council, “we’ve got to start replacing them; those boxes are good for two remounts and all of them have had just about two remounts already and some have had three,” he explained, “we’re going to have to start looking at total replacements in the future.”
Though the future of the fleet may be a bit daunting, the remount of unit 23 will put the Caribou Fire and Rescue Department back at full strength.
Chief Woods also gave a status report to the council members regarding the usage transfer of a building from the Caribou Lions Club to the Caribou Fire and Rescue Department.
Pending a few alterations, the Fire and Rescue Department intends to create an emergency operations center in the building.
“The service agreement for the Lions picnic ground at Collins Pond Park went through a review with the Club and they’ve signed off on that with no further amendments to the agreement,” said Chief Woods. “They did have an issue with the maintenance agreement,” he explained, “a clause was not amended to account for the fact that the city has the liability and first responsibility in booking the facilities from this point forward, the Lions do not. That was brought to my attention, and the agreement was modified to their satisfaction as well as mine, and the signed off on it,” he added.
The next meeting of the Caribou City Council will be held on Monday, March 9 at 7 p.m. at the Municipal Building.
