Mayor Larry Gilbert

Mayor's Corner: Congressional City Conference Beneficial to City Officials

Twin City Times- Thursday, March 26th, 2009
Mayor's Corner #80

Last week I attended the 2009 Annual Congressional City Conference of the National League of Cities (NLC), at the Mariott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC, with Ward 4 City Councilor Denis Theriault and Lewiston Deputy City Administrator Phil Nadeau. 

Ward 7 City Councilor Robert Reed was invited to participate in the National League of Cities, Cities for Financial Empowerment Municipal Financial Empowerment Symposium. He, as the Lewiston representative, due to his participation as a volunteer in the Earned Income Tax Credit Program here in Lewiston was invited as a guest, at no cost to the city, to share the workings of the program in Lewiston-Auburn.  This was held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel directly across from our hotel.  All four of us were invited to a reception with the group of representatives from two dozen cities to share in their efforts to strengthen financial empowerment initiatives and build partnerships for the future. We found it to be most productive interacting with representatives of the National League of Cities who work on this program.  We ended the evening with having dinner with Councilor Reed at his hotel before he left on Monday morning to return home.

Monday morning, I was provided with the honor and privilege to introduce United States Senator Susan M. Collins to the 2,000 attendees at the General Session. To view a video of my introduction and Senator Collins’s speech go to the following link:
http://www.nlctv.org/events/ccc2009/090314/default.cfm?id=10791&type=wmhigh&test=0 or go to www.nlctv.org and then click on the 2009 Congressional City Conference Logo and then on the photo of Senator Collins and it will start with my being introduced by an officer of the NLC, followed by my introduction of Senator Collins and then her speech..

Senator Collins was warmly welcomed by the conferees because of her hard work on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 or as it may more commonly be known as the “Stimulus Package.”  In talking about the state of our economy, she said that all of us are in this together; Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and Green Party. As Americans, she said we have a “can do attitude.”  She said that in Washington, DC bi-partisanship is viewed as a weakness, but with her 12 years of bi-partisan participation, she said it is truly hard work and requires a thick skin.

Criticism comes easily directed at those who work across the isle. She and Senator Snowe, both moderate republicans, do work in a true spirit of bi-partisanship and as a result, they get things done.  She said that a group of about 20 senators from both sides of the isle who are moderates worked together late into many nights to develop a stimulus package that eventually became the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. 

Mayor's Corner: MaineCare Debt Hurts Local Economy & Raises Insurance Rates

Twin City Times- Thursday, March 19th, 2009
Mayor's Corner #79

As I write this column I am sitting in a hotel room in Washington, DC while here attending the National League of Cities  Conference with City Councilor Denis Theriault and Deputy  City Administrator Phil Nadeau.  Aside from the conference, we will be meeting twice with our Congressional Delegation, once for the City’s benefit and the second meeting as part of the Maine Municipal Delegation for the benefit of municipalities throughout the State of Maine.

It just so happened that Councilor Robert Reed is also here representing the Lewiston at the invitation of The Cities for Financial Empowerment and National League of Cities attending as their guest The Municipal Financial Empowerment Symposium.   Since his hotel was across the street from ours, we joined him for dinner at his hotel. Lewiston was recognized because of its outstanding work with the Earned Income Tax Credit Program, a program that Councilor volunteers to prepare income tax returns for those who qualify for this free service from volunteers.  I’ll leave it to him to explain further the work of this group of several volunteers in Lewiston-Auburn.

Now, on to the purpose of this column.  MaineCare is a combination state and federally funded program designed to provide healthcare coverage for lower income residents. Maine Department of Health and Human Services which administers the MaineCare program is proposing up to $2.1 million in cuts for hospital base physicians, physician assistants, nurse anesthetists and nurse practitioners MaineCare payments for the upcoming biennial budget.  These cuts are in additional to the $5.7 million hospital annual subsidy required to retain and recruit primary care physicians.

Since MaineCare is a joint state/federal program for insurance coverage for lower income people, each $1.00 contributed to the program by Maine, it is matched by  $2.00 from the Federal Government.  Maine has to put up dollars from the general fund to draw down the federal dollars.  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act also known as the “Stimulus Bill” will allow this to happen.

Hospitals are paid a flat amount of money every two weeks for caring for MaineCare patients based on a projected volume of patients for a year.  At year end there is a settlement of funds that must occur. If the state has over paid hospitals, the hospitals pay back the state. If the hospitals are underpaid, then the state has to pay the hospitals.

Mayor Gilbert Joins Lewiston Resident Regina Perron at Her 105th Birthday Party

Regina Perron celebrated her 105th birthday with several friends and relatives on March 1 at her residence at Maison Marcotte in Lewiston. Special guests were the Rev. Donald Gagne, who offered celebratory prayers, and Mayor Gilbert with wife Patricia, who brought red carnations for the honored guest.

Perron was born on March 6, 1904.

Twin Cities Review Shared Services' Budgets

City Councils from Lewiston and Auburn reviewed the cities shared services' budgets on Monday night March 9th, 2009. Tuesday's Sun Journal featured Mayor Gilbert along side Auburn Mayor John Jenkins at last night's meeting.

Read the full article after the jump.

[Sun Journal]

Mayor's Corner: Religious Persecution in Iran Causes Concern in Maine

Twin City Times- Thursday, March 12th, 2009
Mayor's Corner #77

Last week I was visited in my office at city hall by Ms. Parivash Rohani an intensive care nurse at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center.  I have known her and her husband Nasser Rohani, a program analyst at L.L. Bean, since my days as chief of the Lewiston Police Department in the early 1990’s.  They were members of the Hate Bias Crimes Task Force that I had created where representatives of minority communities would meet monthly with police officials to discuss concerns with the goal of enhancing police/community relations.  The Rohani’s are a wonderful couple from Auburn that I admire greatly.  They are exemplary citizens.

On this day, last week, there was great concern on the face of Parivash.  She and Nasser are members of the Bahá‘i Faith.  She gave me a photo of seven members of the
Bahá‘i Faith (see photo). They are imprisoned in their country of Iran because of their religious beliefs. Persecution of Bahá‘i’s has been ongoing in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. 

The caption with the photo read like this: The Iranian ISNA news agency has reported that this week the seven members of the ad hoc administrative group, also known as the “Friends in Iran,” who supervised the affairs of the Bahá‘i’s in that country until their arrest in early 2008, will be put on trial in an Iranian revolutionary court on charges of “espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.”  These charges are nothing more than a sham on the part of the Iranian government in an attempt to justify its documented and reprehensible intention to bring harm not only to the Iranian Bahá‘i leadership and the community, but also to supporters of Human Rights and freedom of Religion.

Parviash has told me in the past and again recently that at age 19, as part of the Iranian government’s persecution of members of her Bahá‘i Faith, burnt her family’s home. Her father, being in fear of his daughter’s safety, sent her to India to continue her education. It was there that she met the man who would become her loving husband, Nasser who was also an Iranian and a member of the Bahá‘i faith. Together they were provided with asylum in the United States. They first settled in Anaheim, California. Nasser’s family was living in New Brunswick, Canada and to be closer they moved to Maine. They live in Auburn and are the parents of three children.

Ms. Rohani explained to me how the Bahá‘i came to being. It is easier for me to explain by providing you with a quote from the Wikipedia Encyclopedia.  “The Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in nineteenth-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world in more than 200 countries and territories.

Mayor's Corner: The Arts make Lewiston-Auburn a premier community

Twin City Times- Thursday, March 5th, 2009
Mayor's Corner #76

A premier community that is alive and well, is one that has the arts as major focus, both in terms of quality of life as well as its economy. Lewiston-Auburn is such a community. It is very much a marketing tool for our community in attracting businesses and supporting our economy.

According to the Wikipedia Encyclopedia, “the arts are a broad subdivision of culture, composed of many expressive disciplines. It is a broader term than “art”, which as a description of a field usually means only the visual arts (comprising fine art, decorative art, architecture and crafts). The arts encompasses visual arts, literature, the performing arts, including music, drama, film, dance and related media, and by some definitions other areas such as fashion.”

The arts have been a means of expression since the beginning of humanity. The arts communicate messages. I remember just a few years ago visiting the Valley of Fire in Nevada and on the red rocks were ancient Native American paintings.  It was clearly evident that it was not only art through the figures that were drawn but they were also expressing a message.

I remember back when our oldest daughter was a year old. She could spend vast amounts of time sitting in her high chair and drawing with color crayons.  In grammar school, she took art lessons from Mercedes Gastonguay in developing skills by which she could express herself.  She went on to art classes at St. Dom’s High School and then earned her Associate of Art Degree in Graphic Arts from the then Central Maine Technical College. She went on to earn her Bachelor of Art Degree in Graphic Design from Salem State College in Massachusetts. She became the Art Director at WMTW Channel 8 for a period of eight years until she left that employment to start her own graphic art business called Gilbert Creative Design.

Mayor's Corner: Stimulus Package will help Maine Small Businesses

Twin City Times- Thursday, February 26th, 2009
Mayor's Corner #75

I recently read a news release from the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) which stated that “the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Stimulus Package) contains a package of loan fee reductions, higher guarantees, new SBA programs, secondary market incentives, and enhancements to current SBA programs that will help unlock credit markets and begin economic recovery for the nations small business sector.”