Lisbon Leaders Need To Make The Right Choice

MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE IN LIFE

Life is all about making the right choices and this Tuesday night our town council will have to make a choice on retaining our town manager or letting Eldridge go.  As you all know, I am in favor of letting him go because it is the right choice.  I am going to spend a few minutes reviewing Eldridge’s CHOICES as our town manager.

 

 Lisbon Police Chief David T. Brooks

aka:
"Blog Boy"

 Since Eldridge was hired as town manager, on the recommendation of Interim Town Manager Chief Brooks, the town of Lisbon has been going downhill.  There are numerous businesses which have closed causing a large loss in revenue to the town.  This loss of revenue forced the town to increase taxes.  The amount of taxpayers’ dollars for legal fees has skyrocketed because of poor choices on the part of Eldridge.  Also let’s review the individuals Eldridge hired such as Rosie Bradley, Pat Dow, Scott Benson and finally William Van Tuenin.  We all know about the loans Mrs. Bradley made only to have them fail and the town wrote them off such as Maria’s.  Pat Dow could not even perform a simple task such as a valid commitment and the town had to redo the commitment costing the taxpayers approximately $10,000.  The book is still out on Scott Benson and William Van Tuenin but I do not see an improvement in the town since Scott Benson took over instead I see the closing of the Lisbon Falls Florist, Inc,; T&A Variety; Firehouse Diner; and Kitty Korner.  Also, there were two loans which matured in 2008 still on the books.  This clearly demonstrates Eldridge’s inability to hiring competent personnel to handle our tax dollars.

Now let’s review Eldridge’s managerial skills or the lack thereof.   Eldridge has violated more than twelve provisions of the town charter. In June Eldridge sent an official correspondence to the head of Public Works calling one of the town employees an idiot.  Publishing such a document defaming an employee is not in any managerial handbook and does not present a good working environment for town employees. A citizen came into the town office to pay back taxes he owed on property and the town, under orders from Eldridge, would not accept his payment.  The council had to overturn this decision and allow the individual to pay his back taxes.  This is not managing our tax dollars very effectively when a resident is trying to pay back taxes and is refused.  If the town council had not stepped in; the town probably would have burned his house to the ground too.  Instead of working with the people to find an equitable solution, it is much easier to turn your back on the people of Lisbon who pay Eldridge’s inflated salary.  Do you really call these examples of good management; because I surely do not?

 
The latest example of Eldridge’s decision making process is the consolidation of Public Works, Solid Waste and Waste Water Treatment Department under the town engineer.  This was clearly a mistake as stated by the town engineer at the last workshop.  When asked by Bowie, Leighton stated he was experiencing problems with the employee’s not following his orders.  This is a problem because Leighton has absolutely no experience managing personnel.  Why in the world would you place an individual who has no experience managing personnel in this position?  Eldridge tried to defend his decision by explaining to the council all department heads are receiving management training.  You can be assured this training is costing the taxpayers, when in fact; these department heads should already possess this trait because the town is paying their inflated salaries.  Keep in mind, the department heads, which were already in place and were doing an outstanding job, retained their same salaries; so where was the cost savings to the town? 

Now for my favorite and very personal to me; I submitted two requests for information under the Maine Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) which was ignored by Eldridge.  I then sought the services of an attorney to determine why I did not receive a written denial within 5 days which is required by Maine law.  My attorney contacted the town attorney and was ignored by Therriault.  The only course of action left was to file a law suit against the town for not complying with Maine Law.  As stated by Eldridge in one of his monthly managerial reports it had cost the taxpayer over $7,000 to defend my law suits.  This cost to the taxpayers could have been eliminated if Eldridge had reached out and offered to discuss this with me or my attorney.  This is the first rule of a manager; try and resolve any confrontation informally but since Eldridge has no managerial traits this was not done.  A good manager has to be able to identify potential situations and to informally try to resolve them.  This course of action probably would have eliminated both law suits and saved the taxpayer a great deal of money because I won both cases. 

 Town Attorney Therriault

The real tragedy here is that two individuals in key positions in this town are making decisions which  cost the taxpayers a great deal of money and they do not live in Lisbon or pay taxes here.   Both Therriault and Eldridge have no vested interest in how they spend our tax dollars.  Last year our legal fees were over $46,000 dollars and this year they are already over $37,000 dollars.  I cannot believe this figure is accurate because the law suit filed against Celotex would have exceeded the $37,000 dollars.  By the way, do you ever hear about any law suits or their results; NEVER.  In my case, Therriault delayed the preceeding’s two or three times adding to his legal fees paid.  This is his normal process in hopes you either run out of money or will give up because it is taking so long but the whole time he is collecting his legal fees from the taxpayers.  Truly a perfect scam!!!!!!

 

 Councilor Mark Lunt

As you can see Eldridge has not made many good choices for the taxpayers of Lisbon so why keep him around.  The town of Lisbon cannot begin its healing process and move forward until we get rid of Eldridge.  Eldridge is mirroring his actions the same as he did in Rumford and they are still suffering from his reign there.  Let’s end the damage he has done to this community and begin to rebuild Lisbon.

 

 Councilor Lisa Ward

Councilor Lori Pomelow

 Pay close attention to the vote Tuesday and see which councilors really have the best interest of the town at heart.  This vote is the first test for Councilor Ward to demonstrate if she will put the people first or turn into a puppet for Bowie.  

Councilor Gina Mason

Will these councilors make the right choice?

Larry Fillmore
Concerned Citizen