AUBURN – City Manager Glenn Aho on Wednesday defended the Auburn City Council’s move Monday to shelve the recommendations of the Citizens Commission on Lewiston-Auburn Cooperation by saying the process was outdated.

“The people on the commission are good people,” he said, and the mission of the group was good. But it was overly formal and unfriendly to Auburn residents, and did not do enough to involve city administrators and residents, he said.

“We have a modern society and the structure of the commission was based on the 1980s” format of study and formal recommendation. “Things have changed,” Aho said.

The city could institute 100 more commissions exactly like the one on cooperation and they would end up the same, he said. “It’s not the people. It’s not the ideas. It’s the process.”

He intends to change that.

Aho has drafted a 17-page special report titled “Looking Forward,” outlining the history of the city’s cooperation with Lewiston, how he sees his role to deliver “superior services at an affordable cost,” and the creation of a round-table style Innovative Solutions Commission that will look at cooperation efforts with Lewiston and other cities. The ideas of cooperation will not be bound by city borders, and the city’s organizational structure will come under review.

Cooperation and collaboration and reducing property taxes have become the city’s mandate, Aho said.

“Whether it’s a joint commission, TABOR 1, TABOR 2, TABOR 75. I get the message that my task is to reduce the property tax burden. I get the message that our tax rate is choking the community. I get the message that people are fed up with inefficiencies. I get the message that they want better service. I have to take this message and work with it,” he said.

The city has already begun the task of restructuring two city departments, including Planning and Permitting, with a preliminary evaluation of Public Works.

The result of any reorganization, Aho said, could mean fewer services, but the taxpayers’ clear mandate is to control spending. “We have to determine we’re making the best use of our money.”