Biddeford, Maine City Hall To Taxpayers: Up Yours

By Ted Cohen/Patch.com

If the newly elected Biddeford, Maine mayor really wants to serve the public he needs to revamp City Hall’s hours, which are an insult to every city taxpayer.

“In an effort to minimize public confusion, the council will consider streamlining business hours at City Hall,” the Biddeford Gazette reported.

Minimize public confusion? There is no public confusion. City officials do not want to serve the public. That's not confusing.

Blaming the public for being “confused” is a cynical stunt by city officials to accuse taxpayers of being too simple-minded to understand what hours a building is open, even if the hours vary from day to day.

So let's drill down on the insanity before us.

Reducing hours on Mondays and Tuesdays, besides opening a half hour later on those days, makes it harder for people who need to get to work early and would appreciate the 7:00 a.m. start to be able to get into City Hall.

Better yet why don't they open at 6 a.m.?

On those same days, meanwhile, the elected cynics are proposing to reduce by a half hour the closing time by which a taxpayer must get in and conduct business.

On Wednesdays and Thursdays it'll open and close a half hour earlier. Again just complicating the lives of taxpayers who can't get there in the morning and need to come later in the day.

And City Hall is not open on Fridays? WTF is that all about?

Does the average working stiff in Biddeford get to work a four-day week?

Who do these clowns think they are?

The government should be serving the taxpayers, ergo, it should be open late at least one night a week until 9 and maybe also Saturday mornings from 8 until noon.

The Gazette needs to ask the mayor some real questions such as proposed above.

If he's really claiming to serve his constituency then he'll expand the hours of City Hall in favor of those who need to use it and not in deference to those who “work" inside it.

If the mayor had any real balls he would do it by executive action and just ignore whatever the council considers to be its role in setting City Hall hours.

And if the councilors want to sue him for exceeding his authority then God bless him - let them do it.

They never will. They're too busy blaming taxpayers for being too stupid to understand the definition of operating hours.

Let's see a mayor who actually has some leadership ability rather than just standing by and accusing taxpayers of being too dumb to understand when City Hall is open.

Again, it's not the alternating hours that's the problem. That's a canard - just a convenient distraction from the real issue that city officials don't want to talk about: failing to serve the public so the people who staff the counters inside City Hall can get their beauty sleep.

The problem is that city workers couldn't give a rat's ass about serving the needs of the good hard-working taxpayers of Biddeford, Maine.

That means they have something in common with the City Council.

Let's see if the new mayor can change that narrative.

It'll never happen.

The lives of Biddeford taxpayers will not change one iota in their favor under the new leadership.