Thank you for Scott Taylor’s excellent coverage of the presentation of the L-A Commission on Joint Services to the Auburn and Lewiston City Councils on Aug. 22. Our goal, as the Sun Journal’s article makes clear, is to make municipal services in the two communities high quality, cost-effective and accountable.

We do want to clarify one point. The headline states that we are recommending a “joint city power” to “oversee the Twin Cities’ committees.” That gives the impression we have decided more than is actually the case. What we say in our report is that the two cities already have 10 inter-municipal organizations, and that we can’t afford to keep creating new boards and organizations every time we want to cooperate in a new area. Our preliminary recommendation is that we create a new governmental framework for inter-municipal efforts that would be simple, accountable and flexible. There are several ways to approach this, and we haven’t decided which one would be best at this point. In other words, we have agreed on a goal, but have made no decision about how it should be accomplished.

We welcome any citizen ideas on this or any other aspect of Auburn-Lewiston cooperation.

Thank you for your continued interest and coverage.

Bob Clifford and Donna Steckino, co-chairs, Lewiston-Auburn

Commission on Joint Services