Address: 43 Royal Oaks

Personal: N/A

Occupation: City councilor

Education: B.S., University of Maine

Political experience: One term on Auburn City Council

Community groups: Auburn Sewer District; University of Maine A.A. adviser

Mennealy hopes to keep asking tough questions

AUBURN – After four years, Bob Mennealy says he’d do it all again.

The conflicts, the ethics investigations and all of the controversy surrounding the City Council during his first term were all part of the job.

“Some of it could have been handled better, but it was the right thing to do,” Mennealy said. “I asked a lot of tough questions. Even if I didn’t get the right answers, at least somebody asked them – regardless of the consequences.”

His goal is to make the city more friendly to average Auburn citizens.

“The big guys, the developers, they get what they want,” he said. “But for the little guys and small businesses, the city of Auburn isn’t all that user-friendly.”

He favors a zoning change councilors have been looking at since May that would make it easier for smaller businesses to get city-approved expansions. That matter has been off and on the City Council’s agenda several times.

“If you build a Hilton Hotel, we’ll go out of our way to help,” he said. “But if you just want a second story on your business, we make it almost impossible with all the red tape. All the resistance from city councilors, that just boggles me.”

Mennealy said he’d like to see the city settle some of the conflicts it has with the schools and the labor unions. Different groups can have different opinions and goals and that doesn’t mean the world is going to end, he said.

“If you don’t expect your educators to be advocates for education, who is going to do it?” he said. “If teachers and parents don’t do it, nobody else is going to.”

In many ways, city councilors are out of step with their constituents, he said.

“On one hand I see people point to our Taj Mahal of a new city hall,” he said. “On the other, we have public employees without contracts. It’s a time of contrasts.”

The contrast was most apparent at a public budget hearing in June, with 150 people urging councilors not to cut the school budget.

“The room was packed with people facing a property revaluation and rising taxes and they’re saying they’d bite the bullet and pay more, if it means better schools,” Mennealy said.

He also questions how the city has spent some of its money. Although the money used to create Festival Plaza and renovate Auburn Hall was not directly from property taxes, the projects were paid for by the city.

“A citizen dollar is a citizen dollar, whether it is bonded, general fund or a federal grant,” he said. “That’s how people look at it, and I think that’s why we’re facing this tax cap, that attitude.”

Copy the Story Link