AUBURN – City councilors looked back to a November 2005 tax revolt and the surrounding controversy to help make their decision about who to hire as the new city manager.

“If you look back at those days, the community had imploded,” Mayor John Jenkins said. “People were just beside themselves, and there was no trust and a lack of communication. Well, we’ve tried to do a lot to change that and mend those fences, and this is part of that.”

Councilors are scheduled Monday to sign a contract and introduce Glenn Aho as the new city manager after a year-long search. Aho comes to Auburn from Lincoln. He was one of several candidates councilors interviewed this winter to replace Pat Finnigan and is expected to take over the job in June.

Finnigan was manager in 2005 when the city’s revaluations were made public. Those showed property tax bills for many homeowners increasing sharply. Public outcry culminated in an impromptu Nov. 14 rally, drawing hundreds of residents to the street surrounding the American Legion Post 153 in New Auburn.

A public meeting a week later at Central Maine Community College drew more than 1,000 residents.

Those people blamed Auburn officials at the time, Jenkins said. That included then-Mayor Normand Guay, the City Council, and Finnigan and her staff, including then-Assistant City Manager Laurie Smith.

Guay chose not to seek re-election in 2006, and Councilors Bob Mennealy and Robert Hayes are the only members left on the council from that time.

“People in the community look at who was in charge then, and they blamed them,” Jenkins said. “Is that fair? Not always, but it’s what people do.”

New direction

That’s why Jenkins and the City Council chose to hire from outside the community, rather than hiring Smith, who has been interim city manager since Finnigan stepped down.

Jenkins said the decision had nothing to do with Smith’s abilities or the council’s confidence in her.

“She’s always done her job in a superior way – so well that sometimes it gets taken for granted,” Jenkins said. “So we are not discounting her qualifications when we say it’s time for a new direction.”

Smith declined to comment Friday on her plans.

“I intend to continue doing what I’ve been doing every morning, and that’s get up and try and do good,” Smith said. “I feel the need to do meaningful work, and I hope to continue to do that work wherever it’s needed.”

Jenkins said he hoped Smith would remain on the city staff.

“She’d be a tremendous asset,” he said. “With her skills and experience, she can do any job. And with Glenn Aho’s vision, they’d make an incredible team, a tremendous one-two punch for the community.”

Aho ‘admirable’

Aho said Wednesday that he hopes to bring a sense of transparency to Auburn’s municipal government and build trust with city staff and residents. That’s what Jenkins wanted to hear.

“He came to the interview saying he wanted to have ward meetings out in the public, and we said we’d just started doing them,” Jenkins said. “And he responded that he’d like to see more. I think that was extraordinary.”

Councilor Mennealy said Aho’s experience in Lincoln also convinced councilors that he was the right fit. Aho dealt well with two municipal disasters – a pair of fires in 2002 that devastated Lincoln’s downtown and the closing of the Eastern Pulp and Paper Corp. in 2004 – during his 12 years in the job.

“He didn’t have an easy row to hoe up there, and he did an admirable job,” Mennealy said. “He was clearly qualified, and had taken that town through a lot of problems.”

Councilor Bruce Bickford agreed.

“He really rallied support to get the town built back up, and we hope he can bring some new ideas here.”