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Oct 10 council meeting comments <br /> <br />Kim Carswell <br />261 Cygnet Place <br /> <br />As a resident of Orono I will continue to comment on how the city is proceeding to build a new <br />fire department up to the next election, so our citizens continue to engage and understand what <br />is happening. Tonight, I will share 4 points: <br /> <br />1. The council has adamantly refused to truly listen to the residents of Orono. Open houses <br />sound good on paper, however, they have been handled in a way to stifle comments and <br />collect data that is not deemed valuable. <br /> <br />2. The benefits of Orono building a fire department from the ground up have not been <br />clearly articulated. Yes, we are the bigger city and yes, we pay a larger portion of the cost <br />with Long Lake. This is acceptable to many who value partnership. Response times that <br />were cited by our fire chief without data were disputed by the Long Lake Fire department <br />with sound data. The costs seem to be more. What are the true benefits to the citizens? <br /> <br />3. The mediation session yielded nothing as Orono did not truly go into that process <br />constructively as the mayor indicated they would in earlier council meetings when <br />asked. <br /> <br />4. The financial picture of this endeavor is high level and obtuse in the public eye. How can <br />a city the size of Orono with the current budget assume such a cost without significant <br />risks? <br /> <br />Thank you