Good Tidings to You & Happy New Year!

Council Corner: Good Tidings to You & Happy New Year!

By John Cloutier, Town Council 

It’s such a blessing to celebrate the Holidays in a place like Scarborough.  As the Town Council begins to prepare for 2023, I feel fortunate to take this opportunity to thank you all for the support, compassion and engagement that you showed in 2022 and to reflect on how things went.  It was a transitional year at Town Hall, one where we congratulated and thanked several legends of our Community on their well-deserved retirement or next chapters: Police Chief Moulton, Fire Chief Thurlow, Public Works Director Mike Shaw, Finance Director Ruth Porter, Planning Director Jay Chace… so many decades of experience and leadership. We also mourned the unexpected loss of key staff but continued to put the customer first and deliver the exceptional service that our residents have come to expect.  I don’t remember a year when so much change was absorbed and resilience demonstrated.  A special thank you to Town Manager Tom Hall and his staff for how well they managed this period of transition.  I’d also like to express a very warm welcome to each of our new senior staff.  I can’t wait to see what the future will bring with such capable leaders on board.  

As a Town Council, a few things that we did NOT do speak as loudly to me as the actions that were taken.  Let’s start with a few of those:

1. We issued NO new debt.
2. We approved NO new Contract Zoning Arrangements
3. We approved NO new Credit Enhancement Agreements    

There are certainly situations when it is reasonable to consider any of these, but I take a small sense of pride in the fact that we didn’t in 2022.  

Some highlights of the actions that were taken:

1. We increased the capture rate in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Districts to 100%.  This means that instead of giving the State and County 58% of each new tax dollar in these areas, the Town is able to use those funds on approved Projects.
2. We expanded the list of approved projects within our TIF districts to include a Community Center and Consolidated Primary School.
3. We took action to curtail the use of area hotels as Homeless Shelters, and to allow for the transition back to normal operations while providing needed support to those receiving Emergency Rental Assistance.
4. We took steps to proactively prepare for upcoming MAJOR capital investments by looking ahead to see what we will likely be able to afford without deviating from our long-standing tax rate goal of no more than a 3% increase.
5. We acted unanimously on 126 occasions.  The only item that passed with a simple majority (4-3) was the rezoning of a portion of land along Highland Ave.  Everything else passed with 5 votes or more.  A lot of time and effort was put into crafting actions that could be supported by a strong majority of the Town Council.    
6. We amended the Growth Management Ordinance to allow planned development to proceed within our designated Growth areas.  This development is consistent with both our zoning and the vision outlined in Scarborough’s Comprehensive Plan.   
7. We instituted new communication and engagement tools such as Councilor Corner Live that have proven to be quite popular.

As of this writing, the Town issued 52 residential growth permits for new Single Family Homes in 2022.  We also issued building permits for 91 new Affordable Housing Units, 11 Manufactured Homes and 74 Multi-Family units.  This is the lowest number of single family homes and the highest number of deed restricted affordable housing units in the past decade.  The total number of units (230) is consistent with our 10 year average of 227.  We invested a lot of our time as a Council into holding the developers of our newest neighborhood, The Downs, and ourselves accountable to commitments that had been made in the past.      

I was personally disappointed that the referendum to improve the Scarborough Public Library failed, but fully respect the will expressed by our voters.  Failed referendums are very expensive since the costs sunk into defining them do not result in a tangible asset.  In my new role as Finance Chair this year, I hope to learn from this failure and to see if there is a better way to approach our Capital Planning.  

There is good reason to be optimistic about what we will accomplish together in 2023.  It has been a privilege and honor to serve such a wonderful community.   

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Scarborough Town Council.