AUBURN — Don’t expect to hear a lot from members of the Lewiston-Auburn Charter Commission on Thursday night.
“Essentially, we are going to introduce ourselves and say ‘Ok, ladies and gentlemen, what do you want to tell us?'” Chairman Gene Geiger said. “We’re going to try to say little or nothing. I’m going to write stuff down on a flip chart and it’s going to become our community thought list.”
The commission has scheduled its first public meeting for 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 28, in Auburn Hall.
This will be the fourth meeting of the commission since they were elected in June. So far, the meetings have been organizational in nature. Thursday’s meeting is designed to find out what residents want.
“The only thing we want to get out of this is we want the public to have an opportunity to tell us what they think,” Geiger said. “Do they have any ideas or suggestions? What concerns do they want to voice? What do they want the commissioners to know about from their perspective.”
So far, member Chantel Pettengill said the group has set up a Facebook page, a “LAJointCharter” Twitter account and is working to create a Web page. The Web page will be hosted by the city of Lewiston and will have meeting minutes and working documents.
Pettengill said she hopes that website will be up before November.
Twin Cities voters elected the six commission members in June. The commission is expected to spend the next two years or longer researching and discussing methods to combine Lewiston and Auburn and writing a consolidation plan and new charter.
The group has no deadline, no budget, no staff and whatever plans they come up with go the public for debate and eventual vote.
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