Citizens of Lisbon Beware Of This Year's Ballot

BEWARE CHARTER CHANGES

Citizens of Lisbon beware of this year’s ballot; it contains charter changes which are detrimental to Lisbon and you.  These changes were not created by an independent Charter Commission but by the Town Council themselves or should I say Bowie (Puppet Master) and Evil Eldridge. Every one of these changes serves to advance the agenda of Bowie and Eldridge.  Below I will try and explain each one to you:

Question 1 – The charter today allows the town to legally steal your property and what this question is asking if you want them to legally steal your personal property as well.

Question 2 – The change is trying to clarify the time limits are tolled during court review.  The court system is such there cannot be any time limits because the court determines when and where they review cases.  The town is trying to kill petitions and force residents to start over again.

Question 3 – This is my all-time favorite.  This question promotes cronyism.  This gives the power to the town manager (Evil Eldridge) to hire or promotes anyone of the good old boys.  This also makes it legal for him to hire less qualified individuals over highly qualified individuals.  You know like hiring Ryan Leighton who is not a licensed professional engineer with the state of Maine or Chief Sean Galipeau who does not have a Bachelor’s degree as required by most Fire Chief’s in Maine.  In both cases the town hired them with the condition they get their respective education and neither one has done so.  Do we really want to give the town manager the power to hire less than qualified individuals?  My answer is no I want to stop the “Good Old Boys” game.

Question 4 – This question is as dumb as they are because the State of Maine required town assessors’ be certified by the state so why do we need to add it to the charter?

Question 5 – The Town Council appoints a Board of Assessment Review Board but in its absence the council can perform the tasks.  Why even appoint a Board of Assessment Review Board in the first place?  Bowie and Eldridge want the power to take over this function.  The purpose of an independent body was to ensure we have no conflict of interest and residents receive a fair assessment review.  Now they want to take this away.  Control and power is what they are asking the residents to relinquish.

Question 6 – This is a very interesting question.  Actually it should read “How in the world or under what circumstances would a capital expenditure be allowed to lapse?”  If the citizens took the time to approve the monies for a project or capital gain how is it possible to have that funds lapse.  The only reason for a capital expenditure to lapse is if management is not doing their job or misappropriation of funds.  I cannot believe Bowie and Eldridge think the residents are that stupid.

Question 7 – I do not know about you but I am not an accountant genius.  I cannot tell you what this says but I can tell you this, if Bowie and Eldridge are involved it cannot be good for the town of Lisbon.  Look at the other seven questions and then ask yourself “with their track record can this be good of me?”  My answer is no way.

Question 8 – This is another of my very favorite.  This question deals with the recall procedure.  Bowie and Eldridge are asking the residents to add additional hurdles to remove a councilor.  This is entirely useless to begin with because there is no way possible to recall a councilor now; adding more requirements makes no sense.  There is no way to recall a councilor in the town of Lisbon because there is no way to get 30% of voters who voted in the last gubernatorial elections to come out in vote in a regular election yet a special election.  This is the safe guard built into the charters to save councilors just like it did with Bowie.  The majority of voters voted to remove Bowie at the Special Election but there were not 30% of the voters required so Bowie remains councilor even through the majority of voters who voted wanted him removed.

As you can see, these Charter Changes are meant to provide the town council and town manager with additional power and control over the citizen of the town of Lisbon.  This is not a good thing and when you go to the polls on November 8th vote NO on all these questions.

HOWEVER, THE BALLOT DOES CONTAIN ONE IMPORTANT QUESTION AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF THE BALLOT.  DO YOU WANT A SAY IN HOW MUCH MONEY IS BEING SPENT BY THE TOWN.  THE QUESTION IS DO YOU WANT TO VOTE ON THE MUNICIPAL BUDGET.  COUNCILOR BICKFORD AND COTE TRIED TO GET THIS AS A CHARTER CHANGE BUT BOWIE AND THE PUPPETS REJECTED AND DECIDED TO PUT IT ON THE BALLOT AS AN ADVISORY REFERENDUM QUESTION.  PLEASE VOTE YES ON THIS QUESTION TO PUT A STOP TO INFLATED BUDGETS.

Larry Fillmore
Concerned Citizen