LEWISTON – Given enough time, Councilor Marc Mason is convinced the city can find a way to balance the budget without laying off people or raising taxes.

That didn’t happen last spring when the city adopted the current budget, he said. The city ultimately kept the tax rate level, but had to lay off 16 people to do that.

Mason voted against that budget.

“It was just rushed through,” said Mason, who’s running for re-election as the Ward 5 councilor. “We accepted it two or three weeks before the deadline, and I don’t think we’d done enough on it.”

Mason said he’d lobby for more traditional budget hearings next year.

“You need to have workshops devoted to one department, day after day,” he said. “It takes a long time, but that’s what you have to do to really look at the budget. This time it was Boom! Boom! Boom! And we were done.”

If he’d had the chance, Mason said he would have tried to work around the cuts.

“I think services are at the bare-bone necessity level,” he said. “No more services should be cut. What the city provides, those should be left at the same levels.”

Instead, Mason said that new tax revenues from new businesses and the city’s growing tax base should be able to keep taxes down. The city relies on economic development, but Mason said he’s not a fan of tax increment financing packages.

“There’s no point in growing the tax base if you don’t get any tax revenues from it,” Mason said. “The TIFs take money away from the city for the long term. I think I’d rather give new businesses a five-year savings program. And then everyone would be more equal (in) paying taxes.”

In fact, Mason said he doubts tax incentives would be necessary.

“I think Lewiston-Auburn is the biggest draw we have,” Mason said. “I think if we get the word out, businesses will want to be here. We have a great workforce, we have great schools. We have plenty of opportunity.”

In a similar vein, Mason said he’s eager to get the city out of the Bates Mill Enterprise Complex. Like TIFs, the Bates Mill won’t bring the city a benefit until all of it is paying taxes.

“It’s been long time, and it’s well past time that we were out of this,” Mason said. “We are getting some tax revenues now, since developers have purchased parts of it. But we need to act now to get the entire thing on the tax rolls.”

Mason also chided outgoing Mayor Larry Raymond for the way he wrote his letter to the Somalis, but not for writing the letter in the first place.

“The letter itself seemed a little harsh, and I don’t think it was meant to be harsh,” Mason said. “If he had put in a little frosting on it, it would have been a little easier to swallow.”

But Mason said the city has gotten better since the letter came out.

“If you go back and look at the city a year ago, we have adapted,” he said. “I think the schools have adapted to the issue and everyone seems happier. I think the council did the right thing staying out of it and I think the administration did an excellent job dealing with all of the pressures.”

It’s natural for people to get along, he said – even people from different cultures.

“But that comes with time,” he said. “It takes a while, but people will adapt.”

– Scott Taylor