AUBURN — City offices may be closed all day Wednesday, but it won’t be a day off for staff.
“We have a new department coming over, and we just need to take some time to organize our space,” City Manager Glenn Aho said.
Auburn’s Police administration, detectives and support staff are scheduled to begin moving into vacant space on Auburn Hall’s third floor in February. Auburn’s patrol officers are moving into the building’s basement floor later this spring.
Auburn Hall’s occupants will begin making room for them Wednesday, but Aho said that’s only part of the job. It’s also an opportunity for staff to take a day to reorganize their work spaces and reopen Thursday morning ready to work more efficiently.
“City governments tend to work in chaotic-crisis mode,” Aho said. “We are at the point now where we need to stop and organize things.”
The city’s Information and Communication Technology staff are moving upstairs, out of the basement, to make room for the patrol officers. They’ll move to the main floor, sharing space with the City Clerk’s Office.
On the second floor, Aho said both the human resource assistant and the assistant City Manager’s Office are moving. Acting Assistant City Manager and Police Chief Phil Crowell will be moving out of the corner office behind the council chambers. That will be turned into a conference room, Aho said.
Aho said a good portion of the effort will be devoted to the city’s basement archives, which have not been culled since the city moved into Auburn Hall in 2004.
“We have many documents and records that we have to keep for a number of years,” Aho said. “But there’s a number now that we can afford to get rid of. And then, they need to be organized. Many departments’ records are intermingled and they need to be separated out. I think if anyone looked down there, they’d see that it all needs to be organized.”
According to the city’s schedule, Auburn Hall closes for businesses at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday and will reopen at 8 a.m. Thursday. All other city buildings — including the schools, Parks and Recreation Department, Public Works and fire and police stations — will be open for the normal hours.
Many standard Auburn Hall services can be taken care of online, at the city’s www.auburnmaine.org. Those include paying vehicle registration fees, property tax payments and purchasing licenses for hunting and fishing. Maps, property tax information and service request forms are also available online.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Comments are no longer available on this story