AUBURN — The Auburn City Council will meet in an emergency session at 5:30 p.m. Mondayto vote on a $7.9 million capital improvement package, Mayor Dick Gleason said Friday.
Gleason said a special meeting was called because a recent council vote on a borrowing package, while passing 4-3, did not meet the two-thirds requirement of the City Charter for passage.
The failed vote means as much as $6.7 million worth of road repairs would be canceled, he said.
"I didn't expect the vote to fail, or to fail in this manner," City Manager Glenn Aho wrote in an message e-mailed to councilors and Gleason.
Gleason said he and others worry the city will lose federal matching funds for road work and state matching funds for education if the city doesn't approve a $5.4 million bond package Monday. Aho's memo noted that $4.7 million of the package is for road improvements in the city and $200,000 of it is to use for matching money to leverage up to $2 million more in federal money.
"By having this motion fail, we've in effect canceled up to $6.7 million in Auburn road projects and turned down $2 million in state and federal (funds)," Aho wrote.
Gleason said councilors had ample time to study the bonding package and that a previous vote on it passed 5-2. On second reading, one councilor changed her vote, leaving the council short of the two-thirds needed.
Gleason said Friday he hoped people would come to the meeting and express their opinions on the bonding package during a public hearing before the council votes.
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Slow down with the spending!!
Slow down with the spending!! Auburn is almost 73 million in debt, then this, then the schools, where does the borrowing end? When Aho is done putting all of us in debt that we will never be able to pay off in our lifetime, he will move on.
One thing is for sure, there is enough money to buy councilors dinner at council and workshop meetings. Councilors, was that the price for Aho's raise, the price of dinner? If so, he bought you guys cheap enough!
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.It isn't just Aho
There are four councilors who voted for this during the past meeting - Councilors Hayes, Young, Berube, and Samson. Councilors Gerry, Farrell and Herrick all opposed this CIP vote. It is not Aho who is driving this vast spending spree. He isn't really slowing it either, but he isn't the one pushing for it.
The four councilors mentioned above all voted for the city budget as well. They voted to allow a single polling place as part of the final budget and now when there is public outcry they are dead set against it. If these men had discussed the budget in the first place, we wouldn't be having these conflicting votes. Councilors Hayes, Young, Berube and Samson are the ones directly bankrupting this city. They have not opposed any spending items yet. Look at the tapes of the council budget meetings, these four are practically mute. I can't recall any item they actually opposed in the various draft budgets that were discussed during budget deliberations. Please keep the blame squarely where it lies.
There are some speakers at the council meetings who are expressing disbelief at the cuts the council, at the behest of Aho, made. It should be remembered though that these four councilors actually voted for the reduced budget. The other three councilors didn't vote for the reduced budget because they actually read the document and understood this wasn't the best solution to the city's problems.
As for the unpopular "bottle water fund" that the city manager put in the budget to pay for bottled water or food prior to council meetings, it was donated to the Police Activites League (PAL) this past Monday. Councilor Farrell proposed this action and it was approved on a vote of 6 to 1 with Councilor Young the only councilor voting to keep the money for their own meals.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.In essence...
What's the point in having a vote, then? Seems the point of this meeting is to strong arm councilors to vote in favor of a bond thay don't want.
I agree with the councillors. And will someone show me where 6.7 million $$$$ worth of road repair NEEDS to be done in Auburn? What projects are on the list?
I hope the councilors stick to their guns...
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This is one of the few times that I agree with Mr. Aho. I've got a very strong feeling that this is dealing with the rotary. Let's face it! The rotary is dangerous. Also if I understand this situation correctly, the wall across from Roy's is decaying really bad. This would be included. I see people walking on the sidewalk on that side of Minot Ave. and it's a poor excuse for a sidewalk. Someone is going to get seriously injured or killed and crossing the street to use the sidewalk on the other side is not always a safe mission either. Look at the bond issue this way. Buy today with the 2 million dollar coupon or wait for the coupon to expire and pay lots more. As for Mr. Aho and his bag of money I have a couple of thoughts. First, a good administrator can go just about anywhere and find a much higher paying position. Why did he leave Lincoln? More money most likely. Why would you leave your job? More money. Second, he would have made more points with the citizens of Auburn had he refused to take a raise this year. More points than he could have ever buy with the amount of his increase.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.can Aho,and fix the roads.
When Aho was arguing for a pay raise, there was talk about how you get what you pay for as far as expertise in city administrators goes. Any trained chimp that watches the Auburn city council on tv can tell you that whole group could not agree on the temperature in the room, so for Aho to say "i didn't expect the vote to fail, or fail in this manner" is a fine example of Aho's expertise. Aho doesn't care if the roads get fixxed anyway,cause he drives a city vehicle to transport his big bag of money around.
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