Biographical information

Name:

Belinda A. Gerry

Office Sought:

Auburn City Council, at large

Home Street Address:

143 Mill St., Apt 100#

Campaign Phone Number:

207-784-8458 (H)

Campaign Email Address:

PoliticsME@aol.com (H)

Facebook page:

My website is BelindaGerry.com

Twitter Account:

YouTube Channel:

Occupation or primary source of income:

Auburn City Councilor, Notary Public

Education:

GED (High School Equivalence) and non-credit college courses

Family:

I have a cute cocker spaniel named Shadow whom I have raised from a 6 wk old puppy to a now 12-year-old. I enjoy doing things with my brother and my nephews. When I can, I also enjoy going out with friends and having lunch or visiting places that are diverse in culture. I take pleasure in meeting people, listening to various types of music and trying different types of foods.

Public offices sought or held?

 In 1994, I was elected to represent Auburn in the Maine House of Representatives. I was honored to be re-elected for two more terms before deciding not to run as to allow someone else the opportunity and privilege to serve the city. In 2000 I ran for the Auburn City Council and was elected to serve as Councilor for Ward 5 and was re-elected again in 2002 and 2004. Then after a two term break I ran in 2009 and was elected as Auburn City Councilor, At-large and re-elected in 2011. I have served in that position until now where I am seeking re-election.

Civic organizations:

1. I am a member of the Good Food for Lewiston Auburn Council. We intend to assist citizens in obtaining information as to where they can obtain high quality and nutritious food products and plan to announce our mission statement and more details about our group’s endeavors in the coming weeks.

2. The United New Auburn Association – This group was organized to bring neighbors and local businesses together through fun activities, public awareness of issues that affect all Auburn residents and to help everyone stay connected and updated on what is happening around us. It was also created to foster, enhance and share that “neighborhood feeling” that New Auburn Residents cherish.

3. The New Auburn Social Club – This is a club where women and men can go to play pool, play cards, participate in sports or watch them on TV, and to chat about current social and political matters. The club also promotes civic participation and raises money for various causes. When you become a member you join an extended family. You share Holiday meals together, plan activities that have something for everyone and you are looked out after.

4. City of Auburn Community Development, Citizen’s Advisory Committee – This group has been assigned the task of coming up with a five year plan to insure that money received from the Federal, State and City Government is spent in ways that improve the quality of life for various targeted income areas throughout the city. Projects such as the Curb Appeal Program and the Lead Paint Removal Program are considered, plus decisions will be made on what to do with money sometimes used as seed money requested by nonprofit agencies to obtain matching funds from other sources and other funding available for summer recreation programs, Meals on Wheels, park improvements and projects to take down blighted homes. These are just a few of the projects or programs that we focus on. Every year we monitor our progress as to how we are doing in achieving our goals.

Ice breakers

What is your favorite food?

Any combination of vegetables made into hummus and served with pita or flat-bread, and sometimes I sneak in a big juicy hamburger!

What is your favorite movie?

What is your favorite book?

The scriptures.

What is the best political advice you have received?

Combining things I have learned from people I respect it boils down to this: “Always do the best you can. Bring honesty to all deliberations. Treat people and other points of view with respect and consideration.”

What Maine political figure do you admire most?

Margaret Chase Smith and  John Jenkins – Both were leaders who continued to break down barriers for women and minorities. Both were willing to lead with new ideas.

Senator Smith exhibited bravery when she was one of the first U.S. Senators to stand up to Joe McCarthy and his bigotry. I never met Margaret Chase Smith but wish that I could have.

I did and do have the pleasure of knowing Mayor Jenkins. He is a passionate and empowering speaker who treats others with respect. His demeanor kept what could have possibly been politically charged city council meetings in check and to a productive conclusion.

Local politics

What has Mayor Jonathan LaBonte done during the past two years that you agree with? What has he done that you disagree with?

I have agreed with the mayor on most of the issues that we have worked on during the last two years. The only time I balk at what he is trying do while he is conducting our meetings is when he tries to rush through the meeting and is short with some of those residents that come before us at open session or when he tries to cut short what I have to say on an issue. If I feel it is important and I haven’t got my point out I will stand up to him until I have. When it is minor point and no diverse impact to Auburn residents or the city I let it go. I must admit he is trying to learn more how I think and where I am coming from when I do speak and has even added positive comments to re-enforce a statement or point I just made. I have not liked, on a few very rare occasions, the positions he has taken as he keeps track of what is going on in the city and state and tries to move the city forward. I feel that we should have workshops/sessions with the Mayor to keep us apprised as to what he is working on and the direction he is leading our city. At these meeting we need to be allowed to offer our input and possible assistance to help solidify the position he is taking if that is the direction the majority of the council supports so its not just him but we are acting together as a team. This adds more credibility to what is trying to be accomplished. I intend to encourage closer communications in the future between the mayor’s office and the council and will be requesting that we have workshops to catch the council up on what’s going on in the city and to review present ideas as well past one and plans that were never fully implemented and to consider them for current possibility. There may be ideas that we should look at again to spur job creation, such as the passenger inter-modal facility that was planned near the airport, and the second industry park that is still being worked on by Auburn Business Develop Corporation. Auburn’s duty-free rail zone should be more powerfully promoted and Auburn’s ADAPT Plan that was created over ten years ago to revitalize the downtown, is collecting dust on a shelf. It should be reviewed and updated to fit today’s downtown needs.

What has the city council done during the past two years that you agree with? What have they done that you disagree with?

We, as a council, have tried to provide Auburn Residents with more ways to connect with their city government and council and have their voice heard through various mediums – on-line and in person. We are becoming more transparent, have more information on the website, have become more accessible and have engaged the public on several proposed and planned projects ranging from street repairs to building parks to school budgets and now we have neighborhood listening meetings being held in various locations to accommodate Auburn residents and business owners as well. The council works together fairly well. I am disappointed that the city’s budget, even though it was given to us early in the process, still ended up to going to the wire again before we took the final vote. The budget that we did pass was given to us just before that meeting’s workshop. Both the council and the public didn’t get a chance to fully read and understand it because we needed to implement it that night in order for it to go in effect before the end of June or the City Manager’s budget as according to our City’s Charter would have gone in to effect. His budget, being the higher one, would have caused the mil rate to increase more than the one we passed. With our next City’s budget, we as a city council, will have to take the position that we won’t allow this to happen again, that we will work on it better in the early stages in its process and that we must receive copies of the final proposed budget in time for the council and the public to review and have a clear understanding of what it contains. We need to allow Auburn residents a chance to weigh in on it well before the end of June.

What has the city manager and the city staff done during the past two years that you agree with? What have they done that you disagree with?

The City Staff/Employees has done extremely well handling the heavy load that was placed on them, given that they were short staffed due to budget cuts designed to keep the taxes tolerable. They supported the city and council when the council had to make the cuts and tough decisions in order to keep the city together and operating during hard economic times and even suggested ways to make the system more efficient by saving money in their individual departments. I appreciate our employees and am thankful for having them even though I was almost driven crazy as we tackled the new dual-ice arena project. It seemed to drag on and on as the planning and information was given to the council by the staff. The information that we were given changed almost weekly to a minute to minute bases every time the council took it up at each meeting it was brought back to us for action. A tighter planning process with the arena might have allowed the citizens of Auburn to more easily embrace the project instead of feeling leery of it at times. Whether I have agreed or disagreed with the City Manager during the time he has been in the position all I will say at present is that he is new and is still finding his sea legs. The city council is still in its process of working with him on his 1st year’s evaluation. We are going over performance, proposed goals and his work plan.

What has the school committee done during the past two years that you agree with? What have they done that you disagree with?

I agree with the school committee that we need to provide opportunities for the children of Auburn to get the best education each student can achieve. I feel that if the School, teachers, parents, students, residents and businesses think and can agree that the School’s new age method of education – Mass Customized Learning – as well as the traditional component of reading a real book and doing math and writing with a pencil or pen, is the way we should educate our children; then the school has to do more to get everyone up to speed on these methods because we are all stakeholders in this endeavor. At this point the school committee’s educational method shift is not being sufficiently communicated to the community. Education of our children should encompass the all-important participation of home education as a starting point and also look at creative ways to involve the families in the school system. Just throwing money at education will not cause excellence in education. I hope to see Auburn enter a new era of partnership with coalitions of parents, students, teachers, business, innovative education experts and online and Internet resource utilization. Education is a community project and whenever we succeed in attracting wide interest and participation, we have good education. The Auburn School administrator/School Committee should take their own advice and NOT put labels out there to describe the different school neighborhoods. Parents and students don’t have to be constantly reminded that they are “low income” or any other prejudice. Children are like flower seeds. They don’t care which store you bought them in. They just need the same tools and learning environment to grow. As I have talked with some parents in the target neighborhoods, they feel self conscious about attending their children’s school meetings and school activities so they make up excuses not to attend and their children miss out. We are one community and should strive to have all Auburn residents feel that they are part of our community. I was talking to a few parents a little while ago and it was mention that some children would rather go without lunch than be teased because they receive free lunch. Kids hear these negative comments and it has an effect on them. Ideally, we should be providing school lunches for every student free. That way well-off families’ children and low income less income families’ kids can all eat together in good esteem. We already have a progressive tax in place to fund much of the school budget – the property tax. A wealthy person or large business pays more, a small homeowner pays less and renters pay no property tax directly. Therefore school lunch for all the kids should be part of the budget.

What is your solution for Auburn’s high school?

1. While we wait for the State to move us up on their list for proposed building funds, I would start a real fund-raising campaign now to generate some money to be put in reserve to work with in case another unforeseen event happens and the State doesn’t come up with their money. That way we would be in a better position to move forward and not have wasted valuable time while we waited. If we do wind up having to rebuild or repair E.L. ourselves, we might consider doing so in phases, building first what we must, to get off the accreditation probation list and then build the rest as resources become available.

2. If the Mass Customized Learning curriculum is implemented, there will be many changes to the way education is delivered. The School Department will need to re-calculate the number of propose High school students up or down, that are likely to move through the system in the future, as well as the possibility for additional students from the other grades factoring in the number of subjects covered and space needed (like study halls) for their independent study learn at your pace labs in order to know how big or small this building has to be built.

3. Again, if we must fund the new building ourselves, doing so in phases will allow us to adapt to the changing educational concepts than are unfolding with Mass Customized Learning and avoid expenditures being wasted on old concepts that may be changing.

Any last words?

I have always considered it a privilege to serve as one of Auburn’s city councilors and have taken this responsibility seriously. A good councilor needs to be on call almost 24/7 while trying to sustain a regular work and family life. I have learned through my constituent work that what folks want is someone to help them through the process of how to connect to the right department to get answers to their questions and concerns. Then there are sometimes they just want to pick up the phone or stop me where ever I am to voice their concern and all it takes to help them is the need for them to know that someone in their local government is listening and values what they have to say. I always try to be of service and there for them. When it comes to my council activity, I try to always vote in the best interest of all my constituents. At budget time I also try to make better use of taxpayers’ dollars and spend them as wisely as possible given the information we receive. With the school budget making up almost half of our budget, residents and parents want us to make sure that the school is also held accountable, and make sure their dollars are spent wisely. I do support students and want them to have the best education but I also have to be mindful of the Auburn Taxpayers and how much that they can afford without being taxed out of their homes and businesses. I enjoy going to the National Night Out events, the band concerts in Festival Plaza, the neighborhood events in New Auburn, the Balloon Festival, and various local venues. Mingling with Auburn Residents gives me the most pleasure and helps keep me informed and hopefully a better councilor. I encourage everyone to call or email me any time with questions, concerns or ideas. My home phone number is 784-8458. My home email address is PoliticsME@aol.com, and I’m just starting my website at BelindaGerry.com I’d like to thank everyone who has been so supportive, given me advice as well as guidance, helped to keep me informed as to things happening in Auburn that I might have missed as well as issues that needed to be address – all of which I feel helped me to become a better City Councilor.

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