Saco citizens should mark their calendars for a 7 p.m. Saco Citizens for Sensible Taxes meeting on Sept. 11 at Saco City Hall. This will be our first meeting after the summer break. We are recruiting new members and would also like to introduce our present members.
This meeting will include discussion of the lack of leadership in City Hall. We will also talk about the $80,000 fire boat with Saco picking up the entire cost. As of this summer, there is no rescue boat at Camp Ellis, and Biddeford did not put a boat in the water this year.
Another item to be discussed is the new contract for the soon-to-be-resigned city manager, Rick Michaud. Few people showed up outside of our members and only one person spoke at the Aug. 11 city council meeting, and while the council was taking comments on what the citizens wanted, the council had already planned to go into executive session and give Michaud a new contract.
Other items to discuss will be a hiring freeze. Biddeford already has an unofficial one. There is a need to trim the number of white-collar management positions and reorganize some departments to run more efficiently. Another topic is to try to reduce the $750,000 overtime accounts by at least 10-20 percent.
We are also planning a meeting for the public on Oct. 9 to be held at City Hall. Many of these issues will also be discussed at that meeting. We will be looking for input from the citizens as to what areas they would like us to work on as well. We are looking forward to a large attendance and will be actively recruiting new members to help us work on the FY 2016 city budget.
At these meetings, we will be revealing to the public how their councilors are voting on important issues ”“ in other words, who is supporting the taxpayers and who isn’t.
Ron Zehner, SCST vice chairman, Saco
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