By jack armstrong, unverified — Mon, 11/16/2009 - 10:46
Current council leadership had nothing to do withthe decision to build council offices. They simply inherited the building and debt as well as current financial difficulties.
I do not suspect rank incompetence or malfeasance in current financial woes and Councils problems are in fact mine as well.
I simply ask council to work with local scouts and scouters to come up with a better win win solution other than divesting from our camps.
Council serves a vital part in the Scouting program and we definitely need them to be there with us. There is definitely a lot of hurt feelings and a sense of Betrayal almost in the mentioning of selling camps, but we can move past that and heal the rift and be stronger for it. If council makes the next step to work with us for the greater good...
I stand ready to put my shoulder into it and help right the financial problems. I ask Council to allow ius to shoulder the burden with them and to protectthe camp from further consideration of sale.
This is a temporary financial problem. It behooves no one to solve it with a sale of a permanent asset.
By jack armstrong, unverified — Mon, 11/16/2009 - 10:46
Current council leadership had nothing to do withthe decision to build council offices. They simply inherited the building and debt as well as current financial difficulties.
I do not suspect rank incompetence or malfeasance in current financial woes and Councils problems are in fact mine as well.
I simply ask council to work with local scouts and scouters to come up with a better win win solution other than divesting from our camps.
Council serves a vital part in the Scouting program and we definitely need them to be there with us. There is definitely a lot of hurt feelings and a sense of Betrayal almost in the mentioning of selling camps, but we can move past that and heal the rift and be stronger for it. If council makes the next step to work with us for the greater good...
I stand ready to put my shoulder into it and help right the financial problems. I ask Council to allow ius to shoulder the burden with them and to protectthe camp from further consideration of sale.
This is a temporary financial problem. It behooves no one to solve it with a sale of a permanent asset.
By jack armstrong, unverified — Mon, 11/16/2009 - 10:31
2007 membership details.
Listing below is number of scouts in troops chartered by various organizations.
While the moromon church is indeed the single largest organizing group, they in no way reflect any sort of majority stake in BSA.
In 2007 roughly 2.5 million Boy Scouts were registered, of those 400 thousand were in the moromn church or roughly 20% in the US as a whole.
The Mormon troops are by my understanding closed troops where one has to be a member of the mormon church to enroll in those troops. My scouting exposure to the mormon troops has been exceedingly limited as I have only had one visit with any of them in my entire scouting career.
I can speak far more elaborately on the non mormon troops and movement of scouting as I have had much more exposure to that.
While I attend a troop that is chartered by a local catholic church my son and I are not catholic and are in fact a protestant denomination and are accepted openly by our troop as such. Scout vespers at weekend camping trips and grace are decidedly ecumenical and not sectarian. Boy Scouts support the missions of the churches and are supportive but do not indoctrinate in any one faith. There are also Muslim troops in other countries and if any Muslim or Jewish group or in fact any religion, locally would wish to organize a troop I would be very willing to assist them in any way I could. They also would be very welcome at all camp gatherings of scouts.
While in my youth adult leadership in program areas had to be male this is no longer true. I have served with female Assistant scoutmasters and they provide a valued perspective and ability and are not discriminated against and are in fact welcomed adn valued fellow scout leaders.
I am constantly amazed at the preconceptions people ahve about scouting who are not involved.
I would welcome any who wish to come and learn more about the movement.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 400,729
United Methodist Church 368,420
Roman Catholic Church 297,311
Parent-teacher groups other than PTA 192,732
Groups of citizens 129,516
Baptist churches 106,576
Lutheran churches 122,224
Presbyterian churches 125,101
Business and industry 73,338
Private schools 92,512
American Legion 72,915
Lions Clubs International 74,709
Other community organizations 61,284
Parent-Teacher Associations 1 80,382
Community centers 31,233
Rotary International 45,856
Fire departments 35,024
United Church of Christ 41,229
Episcopal Church 43,094
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) 34,713
By jack armstrong, unverified — Sun, 11/15/2009 - 19:30
Clearly Tron you have an axe to grind with Bob Reed.
He is neither saint nor satan. He has good and bad attributes just like all of us.
I support to the hilt his actions in this matter.
Bob has not once mentioned any name change at all, Never came up.
And Bob is certainly not responsible for Pine Tree Council coming forward withthe idea of selling camp Gustin. No collusion there at all.
Bob Shares my horror and revulsion with the idea of losing Gustin.
I would stand by Bob and seek donations to permanently take the sale of Gustin off the table into the future...
The reason we would seek to buy it and deed restrict it as opposed to simply holding a fundraiser for Pine Tree council would specifically be to prevent the threat of a sale of Gustin from ever being an issue again.
If we only hold a fundraiser for PTC with no strings attached we could well be facing this issue again in 5 years or so.
Personally I woudl support renaming camp Gustin. I would rename it to Camp Charles Gustin.
I am in the4 debt of Charles Gustin and his family for the gift they gave to me and so many other scouts and scouters.
By jack armstrong, unverified — Sun, 08/09/2009 - 20:26
Does the city have an introduction session ofr new councilors led by the cities attorney on what their duties and responsibilities are to be under state law?
One where the councelors elect can question and get a feel for whattheir role and responsibilities are?
If not there certainly should be.
And if The Cities Attorney charges $3,000 for a 3 hr session, then perhaps the city ought to investigate a more cost effective attorney.
If the Attorney was billing for research and prep time, then perhaps the fee is more reasonable than would appear at first blush..
In any event it would be nice to capitalize on the Attorneys investigation and create even a video presentation and handouts to brief all incoming members of a new council on their roles and responsibiolities and what would constitue stepping over the line... This followed up by a question and answer session would be most usefull in helping to tamp this down before it occurs.
I see no reason why any of us should expect incoming members of a council to know this stuff instinctively.
By and large I suspect most members who run for council are honorable people with no interest in skirting the law or subverting the law.
Grantedd there are strong personalities in any legislative body as well as nearly all city administraters. That is par for the course. In order to desire to be involved in city adminsitration or politics one has to have a healthy ego anyway and maybe a mildly to moderately inflated sense of importance. Easy for those egos to be bruised as they bump up against one another.
I would encourage the current members of this council to get together to Pass some sort of directive, or direct the acting city administrator to have an appropriate briefing for every member of the new council. Returning members too would benefit from rehearing the same information every few years.
As to the Sunb Journal it seems their reporting of this was not so un biased to my reading but intended to reflect the councilors in the worse light possible without andy mention of a need for preempitve briefing to knwo what their roles and responsibilities are and their boundaries. The Sun Journal could have investigated other communities who have had similar issues and how they have been improved , or ask the "experts" on their take of a possible solution.
My reading of the article smacked of sensationalism to sell papers. But then again, that is what the paper is in business for.
By jack armstrong, unverified — Thu, 08/06/2009 - 22:59
I personally have been well pleased by this council. Granted there is personal friction amongst the members , but having been a lifelong resident I have to say that has not been the least bit out of line for most councils.
By and large this council has been head and shoulders above prior council that was mostly a Jim Bennet rubber stamp.
I read a lot of comments about what a wonderfull administrator Mr Bennet was, and how smart and talented he is.
Could someone please tell me what he accomplished that was positive in this city?
From pushing the takeover of the Collissee and sinking how many millions of dollars in it.
I remember when he pushed the council to undertake this he assured us all that he the MBA had run the numbers and could see where we could make some real money with it. When he wanted the expensive facade he said we needed to run it like a business and invest in it.
What we got was swelled heads and self important administrator and yearly subsiudy bills to the tune of 100 grand a year . We finally got out by sellinhg for what, 1 Mill? And at that no paymnet for 4 years?
Oh Yeah, Man was that a sweet deal or what. Jim is so smarht! Bates mill complex deal weren't much bettah!.
What economic develpment has been announced since Greg Mitchel left and Mr Bennet decided he was going to take on that mantle as well and not give Linc Jeffers a raise for his extra responsibilities?
Thank goodness Mr Bennets plan to have the city take over ambulance service whithered on the vine or we would be having another black hole of financial loss there as well.
Thank you Mr Bennet also for the Rain tax. that was a sweet deal as well.
Nope, other than Mr Bennets handling of crowd control when the racists wanted to come to Lewiston to speak after mayor Raymonds letter to the Somali community I really can't see where he did so many great things.
Perhaps some of you could give specifics on what he did that was so great to back up the platitudes.
All American City? What has that done for the city?
I mean concretely what has it gotten us???
Yeah, I want a councill that carefully considers the budget and asks the dept heasds for their input without having everything filtered by the City Manager.
I want the City manager to take direction from the council and work in the direction our elected officials give to him.
i don't much care for a City Manager who eggs the council on with a "cryptic It only takes four votes to buy me out"
Who among you would put up with that from an employee day in and day out?
I want a City manager who is not playing one faction off against the other in the council.
Mr Gilbert ran for mayor on a strong anti Bennet platform and overwhelmingly won against mr Rousseau who ran on a More fo the same platform. Mr Bennet ticked off large parts of this city.
The current council all mostly ran on a platform to not be a rubber stamp to Mr Bennett.
thank you current council for freeing us of the Collissee Black hole.
Thank you for removing that stupid law requring Building owners to shove l the sidewalks owned by the city and not the building owners. (What a piece of excrement that law was... Why not make us shovel the cities streets for them too, and sweep them after the snow melted)
Thank you for holding Mr Bennet's feet to the fire and deciding on your own if his plans and desires were good.
Thank you for Firing Mr bennett and going in a new direction.
Current council leadership
Current council leadership had nothing to do withthe decision to build council offices. They simply inherited the building and debt as well as current financial difficulties.
I do not suspect rank incompetence or malfeasance in current financial woes and Councils problems are in fact mine as well.
I simply ask council to work with local scouts and scouters to come up with a better win win solution other than divesting from our camps.
Council serves a vital part in the Scouting program and we definitely need them to be there with us. There is definitely a lot of hurt feelings and a sense of Betrayal almost in the mentioning of selling camps, but we can move past that and heal the rift and be stronger for it. If council makes the next step to work with us for the greater good...
I stand ready to put my shoulder into it and help right the financial problems. I ask Council to allow ius to shoulder the burden with them and to protectthe camp from further consideration of sale.
This is a temporary financial problem. It behooves no one to solve it with a sale of a permanent asset.
Current council leadership
Current council leadership had nothing to do withthe decision to build council offices. They simply inherited the building and debt as well as current financial difficulties.
I do not suspect rank incompetence or malfeasance in current financial woes and Councils problems are in fact mine as well.
I simply ask council to work with local scouts and scouters to come up with a better win win solution other than divesting from our camps.
Council serves a vital part in the Scouting program and we definitely need them to be there with us. There is definitely a lot of hurt feelings and a sense of Betrayal almost in the mentioning of selling camps, but we can move past that and heal the rift and be stronger for it. If council makes the next step to work with us for the greater good...
I stand ready to put my shoulder into it and help right the financial problems. I ask Council to allow ius to shoulder the burden with them and to protectthe camp from further consideration of sale.
This is a temporary financial problem. It behooves no one to solve it with a sale of a permanent asset.
2007 membership
2007 membership details.
Listing below is number of scouts in troops chartered by various organizations.
While the moromon church is indeed the single largest organizing group, they in no way reflect any sort of majority stake in BSA.
In 2007 roughly 2.5 million Boy Scouts were registered, of those 400 thousand were in the moromn church or roughly 20% in the US as a whole.
The Mormon troops are by my understanding closed troops where one has to be a member of the mormon church to enroll in those troops. My scouting exposure to the mormon troops has been exceedingly limited as I have only had one visit with any of them in my entire scouting career.
I can speak far more elaborately on the non mormon troops and movement of scouting as I have had much more exposure to that.
While I attend a troop that is chartered by a local catholic church my son and I are not catholic and are in fact a protestant denomination and are accepted openly by our troop as such. Scout vespers at weekend camping trips and grace are decidedly ecumenical and not sectarian. Boy Scouts support the missions of the churches and are supportive but do not indoctrinate in any one faith. There are also Muslim troops in other countries and if any Muslim or Jewish group or in fact any religion, locally would wish to organize a troop I would be very willing to assist them in any way I could. They also would be very welcome at all camp gatherings of scouts.
While in my youth adult leadership in program areas had to be male this is no longer true. I have served with female Assistant scoutmasters and they provide a valued perspective and ability and are not discriminated against and are in fact welcomed adn valued fellow scout leaders.
I am constantly amazed at the preconceptions people ahve about scouting who are not involved.
I would welcome any who wish to come and learn more about the movement.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 400,729
United Methodist Church 368,420
Roman Catholic Church 297,311
Parent-teacher groups other than PTA 192,732
Groups of citizens 129,516
Baptist churches 106,576
Lutheran churches 122,224
Presbyterian churches 125,101
Business and industry 73,338
Private schools 92,512
American Legion 72,915
Lions Clubs International 74,709
Other community organizations 61,284
Parent-Teacher Associations 1 80,382
Community centers 31,233
Rotary International 45,856
Fire departments 35,024
United Church of Christ 41,229
Episcopal Church 43,094
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) 34,713
Clearly Tron you have an axe
Clearly Tron you have an axe to grind with Bob Reed.
He is neither saint nor satan. He has good and bad attributes just like all of us.
I support to the hilt his actions in this matter.
Bob has not once mentioned any name change at all, Never came up.
And Bob is certainly not responsible for Pine Tree Council coming forward withthe idea of selling camp Gustin. No collusion there at all.
Bob Shares my horror and revulsion with the idea of losing Gustin.
I would stand by Bob and seek donations to permanently take the sale of Gustin off the table into the future...
The reason we would seek to buy it and deed restrict it as opposed to simply holding a fundraiser for Pine Tree council would specifically be to prevent the threat of a sale of Gustin from ever being an issue again.
If we only hold a fundraiser for PTC with no strings attached we could well be facing this issue again in 5 years or so.
Personally I woudl support renaming camp Gustin. I would rename it to Camp Charles Gustin.
I am in the4 debt of Charles Gustin and his family for the gift they gave to me and so many other scouts and scouters.
Does the city have an
Does the city have an introduction session ofr new councilors led by the cities attorney on what their duties and responsibilities are to be under state law?
One where the councelors elect can question and get a feel for whattheir role and responsibilities are?
If not there certainly should be.
And if The Cities Attorney charges $3,000 for a 3 hr session, then perhaps the city ought to investigate a more cost effective attorney.
If the Attorney was billing for research and prep time, then perhaps the fee is more reasonable than would appear at first blush..
In any event it would be nice to capitalize on the Attorneys investigation and create even a video presentation and handouts to brief all incoming members of a new council on their roles and responsibiolities and what would constitue stepping over the line... This followed up by a question and answer session would be most usefull in helping to tamp this down before it occurs.
I see no reason why any of us should expect incoming members of a council to know this stuff instinctively.
By and large I suspect most members who run for council are honorable people with no interest in skirting the law or subverting the law.
Grantedd there are strong personalities in any legislative body as well as nearly all city administraters. That is par for the course. In order to desire to be involved in city adminsitration or politics one has to have a healthy ego anyway and maybe a mildly to moderately inflated sense of importance. Easy for those egos to be bruised as they bump up against one another.
I would encourage the current members of this council to get together to Pass some sort of directive, or direct the acting city administrator to have an appropriate briefing for every member of the new council. Returning members too would benefit from rehearing the same information every few years.
As to the Sunb Journal it seems their reporting of this was not so un biased to my reading but intended to reflect the councilors in the worse light possible without andy mention of a need for preempitve briefing to knwo what their roles and responsibilities are and their boundaries. The Sun Journal could have investigated other communities who have had similar issues and how they have been improved , or ask the "experts" on their take of a possible solution.
My reading of the article smacked of sensationalism to sell papers. But then again, that is what the paper is in business for.
Oh Mna, I almost
Oh Mna, I almost forgot...How could I forget the ultra sweet deal Mr Bennet tried to get for us selling the Dump to Cassella.
Oh Yeah man was there an outcry from the Citizens of Lewiston upset withthe Council for voting that deal down too.
Yeah, That Mr Bennett is soooo Wicked Smarht!
I personally have been well
I personally have been well pleased by this council. Granted there is personal friction amongst the members , but having been a lifelong resident I have to say that has not been the least bit out of line for most councils.
By and large this council has been head and shoulders above prior council that was mostly a Jim Bennet rubber stamp.
I read a lot of comments about what a wonderfull administrator Mr Bennet was, and how smart and talented he is.
Could someone please tell me what he accomplished that was positive in this city?
From pushing the takeover of the Collissee and sinking how many millions of dollars in it.
I remember when he pushed the council to undertake this he assured us all that he the MBA had run the numbers and could see where we could make some real money with it. When he wanted the expensive facade he said we needed to run it like a business and invest in it.
What we got was swelled heads and self important administrator and yearly subsiudy bills to the tune of 100 grand a year . We finally got out by sellinhg for what, 1 Mill? And at that no paymnet for 4 years?
Oh Yeah, Man was that a sweet deal or what. Jim is so smarht! Bates mill complex deal weren't much bettah!.
What economic develpment has been announced since Greg Mitchel left and Mr Bennet decided he was going to take on that mantle as well and not give Linc Jeffers a raise for his extra responsibilities?
Thank goodness Mr Bennets plan to have the city take over ambulance service whithered on the vine or we would be having another black hole of financial loss there as well.
Thank you Mr Bennet also for the Rain tax. that was a sweet deal as well.
Nope, other than Mr Bennets handling of crowd control when the racists wanted to come to Lewiston to speak after mayor Raymonds letter to the Somali community I really can't see where he did so many great things.
Perhaps some of you could give specifics on what he did that was so great to back up the platitudes.
All American City? What has that done for the city?
I mean concretely what has it gotten us???
Yeah, I want a councill that carefully considers the budget and asks the dept heasds for their input without having everything filtered by the City Manager.
I want the City manager to take direction from the council and work in the direction our elected officials give to him.
i don't much care for a City Manager who eggs the council on with a "cryptic It only takes four votes to buy me out"
Who among you would put up with that from an employee day in and day out?
I want a City manager who is not playing one faction off against the other in the council.
Mr Gilbert ran for mayor on a strong anti Bennet platform and overwhelmingly won against mr Rousseau who ran on a More fo the same platform. Mr Bennet ticked off large parts of this city.
The current council all mostly ran on a platform to not be a rubber stamp to Mr Bennett.
thank you current council for freeing us of the Collissee Black hole.
Thank you for removing that stupid law requring Building owners to shove l the sidewalks owned by the city and not the building owners. (What a piece of excrement that law was... Why not make us shovel the cities streets for them too, and sweep them after the snow melted)
Thank you for holding Mr Bennet's feet to the fire and deciding on your own if his plans and desires were good.
Thank you for Firing Mr bennett and going in a new direction.