At The Last Town Council Meeting, Councilor LaRochelle Admitted To Performing An Illegal Action.

COLLUSION AGAIN IN LISBON

At the last town council meeting, Councilor LaRochelle admitted to performing an illegal action.  LaRochelle explained he had instructed Town Lawyer Therriault NOT to work on the Charter change which pertained to putting the budget on the ballot.  The entire council had expressed a desire to have Therriault  come up with some verbiage for the council to review.

I do not understand how a councilor, NOT the Chairman, can provide guidance to the Town Attorney after the entire council had provided guidance to Therriault.  The other side of this situation is why Therriault is taking guidance from a single councilor.  A competent attorney would know which guidance to follow. Tell me this is not collusion!!! 

Also at the meeting, the council decided to perform a survey to see what the people of Lisbon want regarding having the people vote on the municipal budget.  This survey is supposed to determine if the residents really want to vote on the municipal budget.  Councilor LaRochelle stated he was not sure this is what the people want.  However, during last year’s fiasco over the tax situation Councilor Cote asked for a show of hands who wanted to vote on the municipal budget and everyone present raised their hand!  Councilor Cote asked who did not want to vote on the municipal budget and no one raised their hand. The audience was packed and standing all the way down in the hall.

During the last meeting, LaRochelle stated he knew Councilor Bickford has been gathering signatures of residents on this issue.  I asked Councilor Bickford to share  the results of his survey.  Councilor Bickford stated he had well over 200 signatures in favor of voting on the municipal budget.  I asked how many people he had approached who did not want to vote on the budget and he stated only one.

Between the survey taken by Councilor Cote and the results of Councilor Bickford’s survey, this clearly demonstrates a need to have the municipal budget on this year’s ballot.  However, the council voted to put yet another survey on the ballot instead of actually having the people vote on this issue.  Apparently, this council is trying desperately to keep this issue off the ballot.

I believe this council is trying to protect the outrageously inflated police, fire and town manager’s budgets.  If you remember correctly, this council voted a .09 percent increase in overall spending in this year’s budget.  Instead of cutting spending, the council voted to increase it.

If you took out all the municipal spending like street lights and hydrant rental from the Public Works budget you will see which departments have the largest budget: Police and Fire.  The town manager helped to cover this up by showing all the municipal expense under the Public Works on their pie charts.  Just another example of creative accounting by the town manager in order to protect Brooks' and Galipeau’s out of control spending of taxpayers hard earned monies.  In this time of economic crisis, Brooks and Galipeau should be finding ways to cut spending not increasing spending.

This council vote to provide taxpayer’s dollars to the town manager’s budget so his secretary can attend paralegal training.  Paralegal training is not in her job description so why are we providing funds for this.  There are numerous examples of the inflation in this year’s budget.  No wonder this council does not want the citizens to vote on the municipal budget.

Lastly, I want to take a moment and compliment Chairman Lunt, Councilors Bickford and Cote for doing the right thing in voting to allow Mr. Morreale a week extension in order to save his property.  This took real courage to do what was right.  I always have believed these guys to be honest and an asset to this town.  I only wish you would help Councilor Cote in putting what is in the best interest of the town of Lisbon first.

Larry A. Fillmore
Concerned Citizen