I could not agree more with Jeff Ham’s letter (“Auburn leaders should step back, listen to residents,” May 9).
It is painfully obvious that the mayor and most members of Auburn’s City Council and Planning Board are not the least bit interested in considering what citizens want in terms of development. Why else would the council have killed the possibility of putting the code changes in town and on the lake to a vote after two successful petition drives?
The proposal to build 1,100-plus units right on Lake Auburn appears to be following the “vested rights” track laid out by Central Maine Power for its deceptively named New England Clean Energy Connect corridor: do as much work (that is, damage) as possible while aware of serious opposition to the project, then cry that lots of money has been spent and it should now have the right to go forward.
Big win there: nine jurors to 240,701 voters. At least Maine people got to vote on that, and we know exactly where public opinion stood, unlike here in Auburn.
We’ve heard lots of posturing about protecting the lake and providing housing, but it’s nothing more than a distraction from the real problems that will come from development on the lake and building only market rate (unaffordable) multi-unit housing.
It appears that some elected officials in Auburn city government suspect that public opinion is not with them, and they are trying to put in place as much development as possible before the November election.
Renee Cote, Auburn
Send questions/comments to the editors.
