AUBURN — The City Council will get a jump on its 2014 projects at a workshop Thursday.

Mayor Jonathan LaBonte said the bulk of the meeting will be devoted to council goals for the coming year.

“We have a lot going on, and I think we can lose track of things because we don’t update them every meeting,” LaBonte said. “If councilors have things they want to work on and I have things I want to work on, we’ll have to come to terms with how many we can reasonably get done in that time frame.”

The meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. Thursday in the city’s Community Room in Auburn Hall, across from the City Council chambers.

The first 55 minutes of the meeting are scheduled to be refreshers on council protocols, committee assignments, meeting structures and meeting calendars.

“We jumped right in to our first meeting, so we wanted a chance to sit around and talk about processes, how we’ll go about building meeting agendas,” LaBonte said.

Six of the seven city councilors returned to office after November’s election. Only Ward 4’s Adam Lee is new, and LaBonte said there is not as much need for a full orientation for councilors.

The last part of the meeting, scheduled to last up to two hours, will focus on City Council goals. City Manager Clinton Deschene said information from the meeting will help staff develop the fiscal year 2014-15 budget.

“It’s a chance to sit and talk with them and say, ‘here is what I’ve noticed and here are ideas to consider,'” Deschene said. “‘This is how I think we can begin to operate a bit better as a community.'”

staylor@sunjournal.com

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