Over the weekend, I had the misfortune to review the Town Council meeting of October 16, 2018. The meeting lasted two hours and twelve minutes. It should have taken an hour. Instead we have two Councilors trying to outdo each other in stupidity.
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Showing posts with label Town Council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Town Council. Show all posts
Monday, October 22, 2018
WHAT IS GOING ON?
Over the weekend, I had the misfortune to review the Town Council meeting of October 16, 2018. The meeting lasted two hours and twelve minutes. It should have taken an hour. Instead we have two Councilors trying to outdo each other in stupidity.
Sunday, October 14, 2018
TRULY AMAZING
It is truly amazing to me how Councilors on our Town Council can negotiate the purchase of property, the tax dollars being spent, environmental studies and more. Then turn around and purchase the property from the town for a song and turn around and make a profit. I call this abuse of their position. Currently, we have two Councilors that, I believe, fall into this category.
Friday, October 12, 2018
HERE WE GO AGAIN!!!!
By now everyone has received
the information sheet published by the town pertaining to the bonds everyone
will be voting on November 6, 2018. Naturally, this information sheet was sent
out after some absentee ballots were issued. Kind of defeats the purpose, don’t you think.
This is yet another example
of the town spending money. They have
absolutely no problems spending our tax dollars but you never see any councilor
trying to save our tax dollars by reducing the town’s operating cost.
If one was to pay attention
to documents associated with the Town Council agenda for October 16, 2018, they
would have noticed that the last paragraph of the Police Department’s report states that come January 2019, the Lisbon
Communication Center will no longer be performing dispatching for Durham. If I remember correctly, that leaves only
Lisbon performing dispatching for Lisbon.
This
means the taxpayers have to pay for the entire Lisbon Communication Center
which was budgeted for $345,246.00.
Several years ago, Councilors Garrison and Pesce
conducted a survey and determined that by joining the Androscoggin County
Dispatch, the town could save at least $200,000.00 per year. However, the
Town Council voted 4-3 not to join Androscoggin County Dispatch and again the
following year the Town Council voted 4-3 not to join Androscoggin County
Dispatch.
The reason provided was that the Town Council did not
want to give up control to Androscoggin County Dispatch. This effort both
times was spearheaded by Fern LaRochelle who neglected to inform everyone that
he was and is a subcontractor of the town who works directly with the Lisbon
Communication Center. In
my eyes, this was then and still is a conflict of interest that he should have
revealed at the time. Now that he is once again a Councilor, he
should recuse himself from any vote on this issue, if it ever came up again.
This is an excellent way for the town to save at least
$200,000.00 tax dollars and no one is willing to look into saving taxpayers any
money, just spending. It has been proven that letting Androscoggin County Dispatch
perform our 911 calls if a much more efficient and at a cost savings to
taxpayers.
I can almost guarantee you
that this will never happen because it makes sense and it is the right thing to
do. No
one, from the Town Manager or the Town Council wants to do away with Chief
David Brooks’ legacy. This has nothing
to do with logic; it is strictly a political decision. Well, political decisions do not pay the
bills or provide for taxpayers’ family.
So tell me again, why is our Councilors NOT looking for
way to save our money?
Larry Fillmore
Thursday, October 11, 2018
REVISED TOWN COUNCIL MEETING - OCTOBER 16, 2018
Council Meeting - Revised Agenda/Added Election Warrant
October 16, 2018 Agenda & Attachments
SUBMITTED BY: TOWN OF LISBON
Saturday, September 29, 2018
Friday, September 28, 2018
Friday, September 21, 2018
Saturday, September 15, 2018
MUNIS UPDATE
(1) The Town Manager and the Town Council did not seek out anyone with conversion experience to get their input.
(2) All
conversions need to have the installation and training included in the original
contract.
(3) Never
enter into a multiply year contract prior to having seen how well the software
package is working for your organization.
The Town Manager, Diane Barnes, recommended to the Town Council to
accept the software owners’ proposal for multiply years.
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
Friday, August 31, 2018
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
According to
google, these are the mil rates and population for towns in Androscoggin
County. What should stand out to everyone is the major discrepancy between
the mil rates and the populations.
TOWNS MIL RATE POPULATION
Auburn 23.68 22,948
Sabattus 17.75 5,015
Lisbon 24.84 8,846
Lewiston 28.67 36,140
Durham 18.85 3,940
Wales 14.85 1,634
Greene 17.80 4,373
Poland 14.74 5,544
Minot 15.85 2,596
Livermore Falls
21.60 3,115
Turner 17.05 5,765
As you can see Lisbon has moved into
second place in the county as far as the mil rate goes surpassing Auburn.
These figures for population are from 2016. The reason for the discrepancy is because our Town
Manager, Diane Barnes, compares populations when determining salaries instead
of the tax base for the towns. As everyone knows Auburn has many more
commercial businesses than Lisbon and yet our mil rate is higher.
There is no
way that the salaries of Department Heads in Lisbon should be as high as they
are starting out. We just do not have the tax base to support such high salaries and
the Town Manager knew this from the start but used population to establish
salaries without comparing tax bases and our Town Council believes everything
the Town Manager says as gospel.
The Town
Council needs to delay voting on spending issues until the Council can do
adequate investigations. The Town
Council needs to cut spending to include the Town Manager’s salary. The Department Heads are receiving between $1,200.00 and
$1,800.00 annually and taxpayers in Lisbon cannot afford these increases. There is no way to reduce Department
Heads salaries because the Town Manager, Diane Barnes has committed the
taxpayers into paying these outrageous salaries.
Taxpayers and the Town Council have
to pay more attention to the spending habits of the Town Manager and her
Department Heads. We have to bring down our mil rate so that it is more in
line with our population and other towns in the county.
Let’s put a halt to excessive spending
and start comparing apple to apples instead of apples to oranges.
Larry Fillmore
CENSORSHIP IN LISBON
Monday, August 27, 2018
TAX BILLS
From the chatter this weekend on Lisbon Maine Community Information website, residents of Lisbon received their new tax bills. I found it amusing that residents were shocked their taxes had increased so much. The Lisbon Reporter and LisbonMaine.net have been warning residents for several months prior to the Town Council approval of the budget.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Friday, August 17, 2018
DIG DEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WHO’S IN CHARGE????
I just
reviewed the latest Town Council video and was amazed. The video reflects that the Town Manager, Diane Barnes,
ONLY feeds the Town Council information she wants them to know instead of
presenting ALL the facts. The
Town Council can never reach a sound decision unless they have all the
information available on any subject matter.
I will explain:
2018-152
Asset Forfeiture Funds – This item
was on the agenda because during the budget prepared by Diane Barnes; she
conned the Town Council into using taxpayer dollars from the Unassigned Fund
Balance instead of using Asset Forfeiture funds available in the Police
Department. According to the
Recommendations, prepared by the Town Manager, Diane Bares, it says and I
quote: “Staff did not recommend the use of forfeiture funds since there is
uncertainty in replenishing these funds now and in the future. These assets have been used for matching
grant funds for law enforcement equipment.”
The last time I
checked, the people elected members of the Town Council to represent them when
it comes to spending their money, not Diane Barnes or her staff.
The option of using the forfeiture funds should have been presented, at
the time of the budget discuss, for the Town Council to decide which way they
wanted to go but instead this information was withheld from the Town
Council. There is $6,786.04 in Federal
funds and $13,972.30 in State funds available to be used for the purchase of
the firearms at $7,800.00. The Town Council reversed their decision
and is now using the forfeiture funds instead of the Unassigned Fund
Balance. This is the right choice, as
far as I am concerned.
This is a prime example
of how the Town Manager, Diane Barnes, manipulates information she presents to
the Town Council to get her way. At first, I blamed the
Town Council for making, what I considered poor decisions, but when I started
looking into it, I realized they were not getting ALL the information and
therefore they could not make a logical and right decision. This has happened a lot and really needs to
stop.
I thank the Town Council and
especially Councilor Allen Ward, for getting this on the agenda and correcting
this situation. Taxpayers are paying much more in taxes than
they should and the Town Council must start looking for ways to cut spending.
Thank you Councilor Ward.
Larry Fillmore
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