Calling consolidation/collaboration talks between Lewiston and Auburn a “marriage” is premature. They’re better described as roommates, sharing a roof because eating together is preferable to starving separately.

Marriage, in legal terms, is a binding contract. It creates a new entity, while roommates retain separate identities, united by fiscal necessity. This is right for L-A.

Not marriage, though it’s fun to imagine other Maine cities that tried consolidation and collaboration, such as Biddeford and Saco, Winslow and Waterville and Brewer and Bangor, as bridesmaids, or the city of Dover-Foxcroft – which was the last Maine city to emerge from consolidation – donning an ill-fitted tuxedo as best man.

Lewiston and Auburn need to reside together for a while, and acclimate to sharing living expenses. Finding ways to consolidate and collaborate will follow, as areas of fiscal duplication are identified, analyzed and rectified.

Unfortunately, these potential roommates are government entities. Whereas people can make quick decisions, bureaucracies talk loudly, but act slowly. Movement toward consolidation and collaboration, since February, has been plodding, but one obstacle is cleared: the cities know it’s time to live together.

The two city councils have had dalliances. A joint services coordinator, Steve Eldridge, has started his 18-month mandate toward recommending ways to collaborate. The Citizens Commission on Joint Services is ready. In lieu of actual progress, institutional inertia within the cities is peaking.

It looks, L-A, it’s happening here.

It’s happened here before, though.

In 1996, a group called L/A Together started muncipal apartment hunting, only to see Lewiston and Auburn head home alone. L/A Together’s work is the foundation for today’s talks, as consolidation and collaboration was a good idea then, and an even better idea now.

Yet L/A Together failed because of reasons most municipal consolidation/collaboration efforts do: a lack of leadership inside the city governments. L/A Together was lauded, then shelved, because it’s far easier to ignore change than embrace it. The memory is bitter for many in the Twin Cities.

Today’s effort cannot fail, as L/A Together did, which is why incremental progress is tolerable. Asking for too much, too fast, could doom consolidation/collaboration talks for yet another decade.

There are many sensible ways for the cities to collaborate and consolidate – technology investments, common building codes and partnerships for capital improvements, for example. By finding success with low-hanging ideas, the cities can solidify their positions in moving ahead with more.

In this consolidation report card, the Twin Cities’ grade remains C-minus. L-A has held steady, having neither made gains, nor shown losses. This grade is based more on the potential for improvement, than the work completed so far, and our expectations for improvement are high.

From here, Lewiston and Auburn need to take measurable steps toward consolidation and collaboration.

While we don’t want the cities to marry, we do expect them to make this commitment.