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In a letter to the editor in The Lebanon Voice, she says longtime North Berwick Town Manager Dwayne Morin, who is paid about $80,000 a year, has brought in some 1.3 million dollars in grants in the past three years.
The Town Manager Plan was approved by Lebanon voters in 2010, but when funding was attached last year, voters overwhelmingly rejected the referendum, but whether it was the price tag or the plan is unclear.
A recent The Lebanon Voice poll on the Opinion Page shows the town divided, but favoring a town manager plan. As of Tuesday, with 88 votes cast, 56 percent say they want a town manager, while 39 percent are against it. Six percent say they are unsure or need more information.
This year’s ballot will likely end the discussion one way or the other. If voters reject the $93,000 funding of the position, which includes the benefits package, a second part of the question asks voters if they want to revoke the overall town manager plan approved two years ago.
Cole says that would be a mistake. “We’ve grown so much as a town. We have a million-dollar budget. We need someone who’s educated in running a town and the different laws.”
In fact, most of the towns in Maine that have populations on a par with or higher than Lebanon’s 6,000 inhabitants, have a town manager, according to Eric Conrad, a spokesman for the Maine Municipal Association. Conrad said of the 492 municipalities in Maine, a little less than 200 have a town manager, many of them smaller than Lebanon.
Conrad said one of the biggest issues for voters to consider when deciding between the two forms of government is whether they want selectmen to decide personnel issues, including promotions, and hiring and firing of town personnel, or do they want that responsibility in the hands of a town manager.
With a town manager form of government, selectmen would still set policy, but the town manager would run the town on a day-to-day basis.
Cole thinks town selectmen have too much power now, and that a town manager would instill a system of checks and balances. She also believes a town manager would be more accessible to residents’ concerns than selectmen, given they all have jobs outside of government and aren’t expected to devote the same amount of time at Town Hall that a manager would.
“We need to have somebody we can talk to, that will answer our questions, that is accountable,” she said.
Morin said that's the biggest positive for residents, that's he's there every day if they have questions or concerns.
