Transparency and Accountability

Happy New Year to everyone! Over the past two months, I’ve been thinking carefully about how best to turn my campaign priorities into real action. As part of that process, I’ve spent time looking at how other municipalities manage their operations and at software systems I’ve encountered through my work as an engineer working with local governments. What has become clear to me, is that many of the challenges we face as a town aren’t isolated problems, but rather, are the prod

UPDATE: I sent an email inquiry to the Town to see if they had any current or future intentions to utilize this type of technology. There is not. Here is my inquiry and their responses: ORIGINAL POST: Over the past year, more towns in Maine (and around the country) have begun installing AI-enabled license-plate cameras and other automated surveillance systems. These tools are often marketed as simple public-safety upgrades. The companies behind them promise the data won’t be

At the November 25th Town Council meeting, the Council talked about holding a Special Town Meeting so residents can vote on whether to allocate $750,000 from the Town’s undesignated funds (our savings account) as a backup fund (Contingency) for the Town Hall renovation project. The presentation we saw that night showed the project running about $382,000 over budget. After the meeting, I found out the Town had already signed a $7.083 million construction contract with Charter

In mid-October, the previous Town Council unanimously repealed Chapter 31 of the ordinances and approved an employee manual, without comment, that includes several provisions that I believe warrant further review. These are a couple of the most concerning to me: The manual instructs employees who feel harassed to “confront the harasser and ask them to stop.”  It also states that “the employer has the right to perform a wellness check”  on absent employees without defining who