By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — The Caribou City Council decided to go forward with the process of abolishing the office of Community and Economic Development as well as the human resources position within the Finance Department and, instead, replacing them with an assistant city manager and a deputy tax collector.
While it’s within the council’s scope of authority to remove the human resources position, previously held by Corlene Singletary, City Manager Austin Bleess explained that removing the office of Economic and Community Development (managed by Michael Shrewsberry) requires the adoption of an ordinance; a public hearing to adopt the ordinance was held last night. The decision to reorganize the offices occurred during the Nov. 13 council meeting.
Under the premise that the shift would better improve the workloads involved and offer better services to Caribou, the council agreed to go forward with the reorganization with little discussion.
The council had also tabled action on possible repairs to the city airport’s two runways.
As explained by Bleess, the city has the opportunity to collect $3.2 million in grant funds from the Federal Aviation Administration in 2013 to make repairs, of which the city would need to contribute approximately $175,000.
“The runways are in need of repair; if we were to repair them on our own it would be substantially higher than $175,000,” Bleess explained.
As the necessity of the city airport has been discussed frequently during budget and council meetings this fall, the council decided to table action on accepting the federal funding.
“There are so many issues outstanding with the airport right now,” Councilor Gary Aiken said, citing factors including the current renegotiation of the airport contract. “I think it’s going to be very difficult to make a decision on this one until we have all those factors in place and know where we’re at because the existing circumstances available — pay all the expenses and don’t get any of the revenues — it’s not my idea of the way to do business.”
While the council was informed that they would have to arrive at a decision relatively shortly, they agreed to table the item.
The council also tabled an agreement with the Central Aroostook Humane Society for animal shelter facilities.
The per capita amount had been budgeted for, but Caribou Mayor Kenneth Murchison suggested that the city look into alternative options.
“That’s $1.90 per capita; we don’t even give 25 cents for starving people and we’re going to pay $1.90 per capita for stray cats and dogs,” the mayor asked. “I like pets as much as the next guy, but I’m saying we don’t really need to sign this until the first of January, so why don’t we look around and see if there’s some other options for us,” he suggested.
The council agreed that the $15,559 expenditure isn’t a relatively large figure, but they agreed to look into a better solution or a lower price.
The next council meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, December 10, the same evening the council will vote on the budget adoption, at the Caribou Municipal Building.
