By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

AUBURN – More public workshops and better advance notice about City Council business might be two top priorities, councilors said Monday.

Getting meetings on cable television should help to keep the public more informed about what the city is doing, said Mayor Normand Guay.

“At least if the meetings are on TV, the workshops and the regular meetings, that will give people the opportunity to keep informed,” Guay said.

Councilors went over the list of goals from last year, then discussed their priorities for the coming year. They’ll send their top 10 priorities to City Manager Pat Finnigan this week, who will collect them and combine them in time for another discussion at next Monday’s workshop meeting.

Opening up council business, keeping taxes level and filling top positions were mentioned as top goals Monday night.

Councilors agreed that getting more information out to the public is important. Councilor Eric Samson suggested discussing difficult topics in a workshop at least a week before a vote is scheduled. That gives councilors time to get feedback from the constituents.

“It just looks odd to the public when the council comes in and votes on something they’ve just discussed,” Samson said. “There have been a lot of changes in the past year. Those changes, at the City Council level, look like they’ve happened really fast. To the public, it doesn’t look like they’ve been considered.”

Guay said installing video cameras in the council chambers should help. Those cameras should be installed by next week, and the city should begin broadcasting City Council meetings live in the next few weeks.

Samson also said he wants councilors to commit to keeping property taxes level. Last year, councilors set a goal of keeping a tax rate increase down to 2 percent.

“I just think we should at least try to do better,” Samson said. “Shouldn’t our goal be no tax increase?”

Councilor Kelly Matzen agreed, suggesting the council accept increases in locally generated revenues only. New property taxes from newly built businesses would be acceptable; raising the mill rate wouldn’t.

Matzen said the council had to send that message to the school committee, as well.

“We need to make it clear that additional state aid is to be used to buy down the tax rate, not pay for new school programs,” Matzen said. That would be tough to sell to the school committee, he predicted. School officials are scheduled to present their budget to the City Council by the end of April.

City Manager Pat Finnigan said she was interviewing to fill two top jobs, the director of finance and the assistant city manager. Filling those jobs is another priority, councilors said.