RECAP TOWN COUNCIL MEETING – JUNE 19TH

On Tuesday night at the Town Council meeting, the agenda was the same as usual. It appears the town council believes in concealing information from the Public in order to either keep the Public in the dark or just plain incompetence by the Town Manager. In any case, the Agenda Documentation was missing documents on the following agenda items: GA Ordinance Amendment – Attachments 1 & 2 (Appendix A); Revolving Loan Fund Application; School Capital Reserve Request (which was withdrawn from the agenda); Davis Cemetery; Upper Dam and the Town Manager’s report. By not providing these documents, the Public could not address any of these items during the Audience Participation. This is a simple method to silence the Public which is against the town’s own Mission Statement. The Mission Statement has a portion which reads “We are committed to sharing information with our citizens and including them as partners in the decision making process.” This is pretty hard to do without knowing what is going on.

During the Audience Participation, a lady informed the council of a situation she was involved in where neighbors were shooting off fireworks all during the day and night. She explained to the council the Maine statute on “Noise” and the restrictions. She had called the police, who came and spoke with the offender, and as soon as the police left the offender started shooting off fireworks again. She was wondering why the state statutes was not being enforced. The council had no answer for this lady because the town’s Firework Ordinance was passed to the Community Policing Advisory Group back on February 21, 2012 for review. Since there is no timely administrative follow-up by our town manager, there has been no action taken and from what the council said this group was not going to address this issue until September. The council stated they would move the priority on Firework Ordinance up to a workshop on July 31, 2012. It is a known fact, the police are not going to enforce any Maine laws or town ordinances because Chief Brooks runs a Protection Agency for his friends and not a police department dedicated to serving and protecting all the citizens of Lisbon equally.

The remaining agenda items were business as usual; Bowie makes a motion and the puppets votes. All votes were 6-0 because Councilor Mason was not present. The issue on the GA Ordinance Amendment as passed. The town authorized a loan of $100,000 dollars at 5% for 5 years. The town accepted a bid from Harry C Crooker & Sons for $278,070.10 to repair the Douglas Bridge on Fisher Road. The town approved a bid from Mid-Maine Waste Action Corporation for $63.77 per ton for the next 5 years.

During Other Business there were discussions on the Davis Cemetery, Upper Dam and the Town Manager’s Report. Mr. Packer, who has been taking care of the Davis Cemetery, asked the town to take over the responsibility because he was unable to do so. The council asked for a workshop to further discussion this situation. Ryan Leighton asked the town for a short and long term solution to the damage caused by recent rains on the Upper Dam on Webster Road. The council stated they needed more information before making a decision. The town manager spoke on the progress of Chief Brooks in providing Dispatch for other towns. He also commented on the outstanding job the Library staff had done on presenting the “Bug Show”. I took two of my grandkids to the show and they loved it. The staff did an outstanding job during the two shows which contained approximately 30 young people at each.

Larry Fillmore
Concerned Citizen