Orono to lose town manager Nov. 26: Eaton Peabody Consulting heads up search for replacement
November 10, 2010
The Orono Town Council passed a measure accepting the resignation of current Town Manager Cathy Conlow at its Nov. 8 meeting.
Conlow, who has served as Orono’s town manager since 2004, will be replaced temporarily by Maria Weinberger while a search is conducted for a permanent successor. Weinberger currently serves as the town’s assistant manager.
“Everybody has confidence in Maria’s ability to get us through this transitory period,” said councilman Geoff Gordon.
Conlow is set to leave Orono on Nov. 26 before taking up her new role as Bangor’s city manager Nov. 29. In order to head the search for her replacement, the town agreed to pay Don Gerrish of the Eaton Peabody law firm $4,500 plus expenses.
While the proposal from Eaton Peabody was the lowest submitted — the Maine Municipal Association and Municipal Resources, Inc. bid $4,900 and $7,500, respectively — the council was quick to mention that price was not the only factor considered.
“We had the privilege of meeting and interviewing [Gerrish],” said councilman Lianne Harris.
After accepting Conlow’s resignation, council members reflected on their experiences working with her for the past six years. Harris recalled her first encounter with Conlow while walking around town early one morning. She said it seemed as if Conlow was taking a visual inventory of Orono, something that gave her the feeling Conlow “wanted to see our town from the ground.”
“So, for all of you prospective candidates, when you get here — take a walk,” Gordon said.
Also at the Nov. 8 meeting, the council considered an amendment to the town’s zoning ordinance that would make the lot currently occupied by the decrepit Webster Mill a High Density Residential district.
The amendment is one of several steps on the road to turn the run-down facility into a condominium complex. Construction on the housing development cannot move forward until the conditional zoning is approved since the property is now designated as a Medium Density Residential district, which would bar a subdivision of this type.
Among the provisions of the proposed amendment is the stipulation that occupancy in the individual units be restricted to a “family,” which is legally defined as either “one or more legally related persons” or “two unrelated people and any children legally related to either of them.”
While the draft of the amendment says this provision would only be enforced to the extent allowed under Maine’s fair housing laws, Town Planner Evan Richert told the council it was specifically worded with the area’s growing student population in mind.
“This is explicitly intended to limit this from becoming a student housing development,” Richert said. “The Supreme Court of the United States has taken this [issue] on and [occupancy restrictions] must be broad.”
Essentially, the proposed restrictions would only exclude three or more unrelated individuals from living in the same unit. As the development will be run in the manner of a condominium complex as defined by the Maine Condominium Act, a management association will be charged with enforcing the various zoning restrictions, which include recreational uses of the property and public access to the adjacent shores of both the Penobscot and Stillwater rivers.
At the meeting’s close, councilwoman Judy Sullivan raised privacy concerns about the voting procedure for Ward 2 during the Nov. 2 election, saying she felt the barriers between the voting booths were inadequate. This raised the possibility of replacing the curtains attached to the booths, from which Harris had noted the smell of mildew. While no official action was taken, the council agreed to consider the proposal to replace the booths at a later date.
“I would hope that would never happen again,” Sullivan said of the inadequate curtains. “I felt like I was back in high school and covering my paper.”
Courtesy of the Maine Campus
By Robert Stigile
