City
Honesty, ingenuity top traits officials want in new administrator
LEWISTON — Mayor Larry Gilbert has a long list of wants for the new city administrator, but Gilbert sums up his list with one word: professionalism.
His list includes honesty, integrity and an ability to encourage teamwork as important aspects of the job. He also mentions innovation, experience and respect from his peers in municipal government as important traits.
"I think that if you are the ultimate professional in your field, you will have touched on all of this," Gilbert said. "And that is the person I'm looking for to lead the city into the future."
Gilbert and Lewiston city councilors will meet with at least two of the four final candidates for the city administrator job on Nov. 18; they hope to fill the position before the month ends.
The interview will be conducted by Gilbert and the sitting councilors, but Lewiston's councilors-elect, not scheduled to take office until January, will be invited to listen in on the interviews.
Of the sitting councilors, only Ward 3's Larry Poulin provided his criteria for the job. In an e-mail, Poulin said he wanted an experienced administrator who is a good fiscal manager, a good listener, a good planner and one who can find innovative ways to deliver services.
Members of the incoming council had similar lists.
"We don't need a manager," said Ward 2 Councilor-elect Renee Bernier. "We need a leader, someone who can be a good team player and motivate people."
Ward 4 Councilor-elect Ron Jean said he wants a good leader.
"I want someone very different from our last administrator," Jean said. "I want someone who just does the job, but doesn't spin wheels and make plans on his own. I want him doing the city's work."
Ward 6 Councilor-elect Mark Cayer wants a strategic thinker and a strong communicator who is fiscally responsible.
"We need an administrator who has a true understanding of customer service in a diverse population and expectations that his management team will carry this philosophy to all city employees" Cayer wrote in an e-mail.
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verified on "An impassioned, diverse dialogue on wind power"
Sorry Jason, but they do destroy nature.
Just ask the birds, including eagles, and bats that fly into these spinning blades. Just ask the fish that die from the runoff of all the herbicides used to maintain the cleared sites. Ask deer and other large game who are poisoned by the herbicides when they browse. Ask all the small critters blown up by dynamite when the blasting of ridges and mountaintops begins. Ask people who get sick from poisoned well water. And, ask the trees, who give us oxygen in return for CO2s. They are living, breathing life forms, too.
All dead or dying from wind turbines.
- Agree Agree (1)
verified on "D. Corrigan: Contesting benefits of wind power"
sound
The solutions are expensive to polluters.
1) Require fair market price buy-outs or property value guarantees for property owners within two and a half miles of turbines,
2) apply Rural (20-25) dbA limits to nighttime operations immediately,
3) require the wind turbine industry to pay for the costs of noise monitoring and make all data available through web sites in real time, and
4) develop metrics that capture and regulations that protect against low frequency noise.
the fact that people, property values, and natural quiet are collateral damage
verified on "School choice, public funding for religious institutions headline LePage education plan"
Bad teachers
Just so you know bad teachers get fired all the time and put on probation in the public schools. At least they did where I worked. The only thing the union did was guarantee you a hearing and a representative if you were tenured. The untenured teachers are simply not rehired at the end of the year and no reason is given. However, as in other professions the better teachers and more highly trained teachers tend to go where they will be better paid. You can fire the bad teacher but if your salary is not competitive the next one you hire probably won't be much better. Unions are constantly advocating for better training for teachers and to allow people to collect both Social security and the state pension. As it is now, someone who worked for many years under Social Security who decides to become a teacher has to forfeit one of the pensions. There are many scientists and engineers, and technology workers who would love to come to teaching near the end of their careers but don't because of this. No one has more to gain by improving academic standards than the teachers or their unions.
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