Auburn Mayor Jonathan LaBonte seems to think that 4-foot snowbanks would suddenly disappear with consolidation (Sun Journal, Feb. 17). Consolidation would not suddenly change snow removal or other essential services.

As a Lewiston City Councilor in 2008, I had the opportunity (as a skeptic of the consolidation plan) to review in depth and have questions answered where numbers did not seem to add up. So I dusted off my notes to review what I found five years ago.

Total savings that I and members of the committee could agree to was closer to $800,000 annually, shared between two cities and taking five years or more to fully establish.

LaBonte indicates shared services with fire, police and public works would save money. The truth is, other than a few mid-level managers and department heads who might be eliminated (or renamed “assistants”), the same number of people are needed to do the actual work, and those managers will expect higher pay for larger staffing and area to oversee. Can the cities afford Boston wages?

If the police can be reduced by eight people as he indicates, then what is stopping city officials from doing so now? With merging, there would still be the same amount of crime, the same number of fire calls and the same amount of roads to build and maintain.

Perhaps it is time for a non-binding referendum to find what the citizens really want on this matter.

I call upon Mayor LaBonte to encourage such a referendum, without using taxpayer dollars.

Robert Reed, Lewiston