Recap of Special Town Council Meeting and School Budget Presentation April 30, 2013

RECAP SPECIAL TOWN COUNCIL MEETING

Last night, the School Board joined the Town Council and presented both the School and Municipal budgets to the residents of Lisbon.  There were very few residents in attendance.  When you say Lisbon is a sleepy community you are right on the money.  Apparently, the residents could care less about how much their taxes are going to go up this year.

The School Board’s budget was presented by Mr. Richard Green and was very detailed and precise.  The Municipal Budget was presented by the Town Manager Stephen Eldridge and it was entertaining to say the least.  A few of the charts were incorrect like the breakdown by departments had Public Works with the largest budget but it is the Police Department which has the largest budget.  The town separates the Communication Center as a department in order to make the Police Department’s budget appear smaller than it is.  The pie chart did not even have the Communication Center on it at all this time.

Approximately 10 individuals asked questions after the presentation.  I asked several and Chairman LaRochelle double talked a few but never answers several questions like:  (1) Why the town raised taxes last year and turned around and carried forward over a million dollars?; (2) Why there were no TIF payments in the budget since these are contractual agreements?; (3) Are you going to add in wage increases later?; (4) When are the people going to be able to vote on the Municipal budget?; (5) Is the Town Council going to review the carry forward before raising our taxes this year?   

Chairman LaRochelle looked everyone in the eye and said that the lines in the budget in which no money had been spent this year or the lines that had half or less spent in them were being looked at by the council.  You know this is not true because there would never have been over $1.1 MILLION dollars left over from the previous year. 

Mrs. Fitzgerald asked Chairman LaRochelle about when the people were going to vote on the Municipal budget.  Chairman LaRochelle stated the council was working on this question but had problems determining how to implement this change to the town Charter.  The last time any discussion took place was over eight months ago when David Bowie and others who worked on the original Charter spoke about this.   

Eight months ago, the recommendation was to establish a Charter Commission and make the necessary Charter changes.  This was the last time the council has worked on this at any Meeting or Workshop.  Now they may have discussed this at Chummy’s over breakfast but not publicly.

  If the proper method to ensure the people can vote on the Municipal budget is by establishing a Charter Commission, then why wasn’t this done months ago?   

I’ll tell you the reason and that is the council does not want this to happen because the Police Department Budget will never get approved again.  This council’s primarily mission is to protect the Police Department’s budget at all costs.

Mrs. Fitzgerald would not let Chairman LaRochelle double talk her or evade the question.  Chairman LaRochelle finally ended up by saying that Mrs. Fitzgerald’s question had nothing to do with the Municipal budget. 

 Moments later, Ross Cunningham gave a great presentation as to what the town needs to do to make the community look better.  Ross gave examples to make the community more presentable to people to make then want to start a business or move their family to Lisbon.  None of Ross’s comments pertained to either budget and lasted approximately 5 minutes.  Don’t get me wrong Ross was right on the money with his presentation but Chairman LaRochelle had just cut Mrs. Fitzgerald off because he could no longer double talk her about the Municipal budget and then Chairman LaRochelle allowed Mr. Cunningham to speak on a totally unrelated subject. 

Chairman LaRochelle’s actions were totally out of line and disgraceful.  The Chairman of the Council should set the example instead of promoting more double standards in Lisbon.

Larry Fillmore