After seven years as a member of the Auburn City Council – and another year as a member of the School Committee – I feel some obligation to provide an “exit interview” as I take my leave of the council, and the best way to ensure that a full explanation will be forthcoming is to provide it directly.

The real and only reasons that I decided not to seek re-election to the council are entirely personal and related to my business and ability to earn a living. Changes in my business status might well interfere with my ability to continue to serve the city, and the timing of this election cycle is such that the appropriate action was for me to relinquish my Ward 2 seat at this time.

That said, however, there is much more to the story. In business, I have functioned as a “professional neutral,” totally committed to the process of collaborative problem solving, focusing on mutual objectives, benefits and consequences as well as processes to avoid disruptive confrontation. For the first five years of my service on the council, most public proceedings in Auburn were also collaborative and nonconfrontational, certainly never personal. One of the great strengths of municipal government in Maine (as distinctly contrasted with state government, for example) is that it is, by law, nonpartisan. That means that there is no party line, no party leadership, no partisan agenda. Municipal government is not about politics. It is about providing well-reasoned, well-informed leadership and management oversight to the city administration, to set policy, which staff can then implement, and to do so in ways that accrue to the benefit of all of the citizens of our city.

Is the council always right? Of course not. But for the most part, our debates were always thorough, well-informed, well-reasoned and certainly considerate of differing points of view. We often did not totally agree with one another, but we always found some way to reconcile differences in such a way as to help further the best interests of the city.

That pattern changed abruptly two years ago, however, with the arrival on the scene of a group of self-styled activists who have proven to be interested only in their own personal agendas rather than the overall welfare of the community.

The result has been not only disruptive to the collaborative process, but it has denigrated our deliberations to a personal, attack level, with unsubstantiated allegations being tossed around like confetti, with public assertions that are in direct opposition to those offered in private, with a tendency to “play to the gallery” or the press and to encourage uninformed vitriol from an audience seeded with under-informed relatives and cronies.

Everyone – councilors, staff, School Department and School Committee, public safety personnel and their unions – tries to keep the collective best interests of the city paramount in their deliberations. We all truly do want to do what’s best for the city and its citizens, as well as to provide the most generous compensation to our employees possible, and that’s why we have usually been able to collaborate and negotiate in good faith.

But when some take it upon themselves to breach the protocols of confidential negotiations and to play out labor and employment issues in public instead of at the negotiating table where they properly belong, the process falls apart.

That new tendency helped foment an adversarial relationship between the city and several of the unions representing public safety personnel, and it cost some members of the Police Department a year’s worth of salary increases, which would have been paid out a year earlier if they had not delayed accepting their new contract as long as they did. I have also been dismayed by the fact that the union representing firefighters asked for their contract dispute to be submitted to binding arbitration, but when the arbitrator ruled against the union position, the union, after the fact, rejected the notion of “binding” and squandered precious resources, which might have gone into a compensation package by bringing suit against the city in court. That’s just wrong.

The fact that those in support of the School Department budget chose to attack the motives of those of us charged with representing, equally, the interests of taxpayers and those for whom tax money is expended – in this case, those in the school system, both students and staff – is another example of well-meaning people who without having all the information they should, react in a visceral and destructive manner.

The city has never used funds, which might be used to pay teacher salaries, for infrastructure. On the other hand, the city’s investment in infrastructure has helped shift the property tax burden away from homeowners and to the new businesses that have been established in town in the most recent 10-year period. Auburn has been responsible for more job creation than any city in the state, and the greater L-A community has rightfully been called the “economic engine of Maine.”

Auburn’s bond rating was recently upgraded by a major rating agency, and among the reasons cited was the recognition of the investments the city has made in improving its business climate.

All of these factors have enabled us to increase school funding consistently year after year with few exceptions and despite declining enrollments as well as maintain a high level of municipal services, and to do it all with a stable tax rate (another factor contributing to the improved bond ratings).

On the other hand, municipal government in Maine remains at the bottom of the revenue food chain. We have been regularly shortchanged by both the federal and state governments, which historically have failed to meet their obligations. “No Child Left Behind” is a pathetic joke, and that’s just one example. Failure of the Legislature to fund the 55 percent of educational costs to which they agreed some 20 years ago is another, and that failure has helped fuel such irresponsible and plainly dangerous alternatives as the pending Palesky proposal attempt to reduce the outrageous property tax burden.

In fact, the inability of the Legislature to meet its responsibilities, as well as the lack of meaningful action on the part of our congressional delegation to deal with federal inequities both point to the deleterious consequences of partisan divisiveness that compels individual members to adhere to a centralized party leadership position (and, in the process, often subordinate their own best judgment of what they might know to be in the best interests of their constituents; in other words, fail to provide responsible leadership).

When left to function unencumbered, the nonpartisan municipal system works extraordinarily well, and it has been a great pleasure to have been part of it. Auburn has been fortunate to have had the services of a dedicated staff of thorough professionals, especially Pat Finnigan, Mark Adams (whose departure was certainly our loss and the Turnpike Authority’s gain) and Laurie Smith, among others. I will miss serving with them.

I also had the pleasure of serving with more than a dozen dedicated, responsible and knowledgeable councilors over the years, and I commend them for their unselfish service. It is remarkable that there have been as few inappropriate members of the council as there have, and I am hopeful that the most egregious exception will be removed by the voters this November.

Finally, to my constituents and those who have voted for me or otherwise supported my efforts through the years: My profound thanks for the opportunity to serve. It has never been anything other than gratifying.

Richard Livingston is the current Auburn city councilor for Ward 2.