AUBURN (Sun Journal) — The City Council will consider a resolution Monday that would declare all businesses essential.
Appearing on Monday’s agenda are two items relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the resolution “declaring all businesses in the city of Auburn essential” and “calling on the Governor of the State of Maine to open all businesses.”
“Several of the councilors submitted the resolution for debate and eventual vote,” Auburn Mayor Jason Levesque said Friday. “So, it will be interesting to see what happens Monday night.”
Levesque believes there’s a 50/50 chance of the resolution passing.
Councilors Steve Milks, Leroy Walker and Belinda Gerry who sought to put the resolution on the council’s agenda.
Levesque called on residents of Auburn to reach out to their councilor prior to Monday’s meeting.
“I would encourage the residents of Auburn and the business community to reach out to their respectful councilors and talk to them on what they are feeling, what they are dealing with and what they are looking at,” Levesque said. “We cannot forget we live in a representative form of government.”
A spokesperson for Gov. Janet Mills did not respond to comment, but Mills has stated in the past that businesses that don’t comply with state orders can lose their licenses.
Auburn wouldn’t be the first municipality in the state to vote on making all businesses essential, Gorham passed a resolution June 2 on a 6-1 vote, while Calais passed one May 15.
The Portland Press Herald reported Gorham Councilor Ben Hartwell, who proposed the resolution, hoped it would send a message to Mills and hoped other towns would follow Gorham’s lead.
The Press Herald also reported the Maine Municipal Association, an organization supporting local governments throughout the state, hasn’t adopted any resolutions that allow all businesses to be deemed essential, but said municipalities should follow state health guidelines.
Another resolution on the agenda requests that Mills “immediately begin distributing funds to Maine municipalities based on $30 per capita in direct and flexible state funding.”
The funding was allocated to the state due to the coronavirus pandemic. Levesque has been lobbying hard in recent weeks for the state to disburse funding to municipalities.
“The federal government, through the CARES Act, approved revenue to be spent by municipalities in the form of grants to businesses that have their operations interrupted through the governor’s executive orders,” Levesque said. “We could actually help (businesses) make up the revenue that they have lost in that period of time. The governor hasn’t released that money yet. We have to act and we cannot sacrifice our future or our cultural future if you will because of what’s going on statewide.”
Levesque believes bringing these two resolutions to the council meeting is a balancing act between the health risk and the economic risk in Auburn, and putting the resolutions up for debate and vote is a part of that balancing act.
Those who want to make a public comment during the Auburn Council meeting on Monday can sign up for the Zoom call at shorturl.at/hiAFL or email comments to: comments@auburnmaine.gov and they will will be listed in the meeting minutes.
