GARDINER — The top goal for Gardiner elected officials this year will be finding a permanent city manager, but they also want to take on infrastructure planning while holding the line on taxes.

Setting these priorities, along with identifying other important projects, is a part of the annual goal-setting process that the Gardiner City Council completes before they take on budget planning for the year.

“You have people asking for money — Johnson Hall, the Boys & Girls Club. Department heads are in here asking for money for their departments,” said At Large City Councilor Tim Cusick, in summing up the process. “They need new equipment, new ambulances, buy dump trucks and police cars. It’s a very fine balancing act of walking that line without driving the tax rate of your house up $800 more a year in taxes.”

For about two hours Wednesday, members of the Gardiner City Council met in a workshop to review the council’s progress on goals set for 2021, establish goals for the current year and continue the discussion about city committees and the work they do.

For 2021, elected officials focused on neighborhoods and the needs of residents, including better communication between city officials and staff and the people they serve and working to engage residents in development projects. They also wanted to improve and maintain services while keeping taxes affordable, evaluate the needs of public buildings and take on fire department staffing.

In drafting the new goals, some of the priorities of 2021 were carried forward, including evaluating the needs of the city’s buildings as part of infrastructure planning and holding the line on taxes.

But this year, hiring a city manager was set as the top priority. A little less than a year ago, Christine Landes, who was approaching the end of her three-year contract with the city, announced she was resigning.

Since then, Anne Davis, who was the director of the Gardiner Public Library and who has filled in as city manager on other occasions, has been filling in as acting city manager.

A search identified a candidate, Christopher Ryan, who came to Gardiner for an interview last year but withdrew his name from consideration. The search is continuing.

In seeking a city manager, elected officials also highlighted the ongoing searches to fill other vacancies on city staff, including at the Gardiner Police Department.

Logan Johnston, a former city councilor who attended the workshop, said the goal of finding a city manager is really finding the “right” city manager.

“It’s not something that’s really in your control,” Johnston said. “It’s not something where you can sit around and say, ‘I know just the person.'”

The other priorities are completing projects that are already underway, including the Cobbossee Trail, McKay Park, street paving, the downtown master plan and the fountain on the Gardiner Common, as well as the Johnson Hall Performing Arts Center and the Boys & Girls Clubs construction.

They also want to focus on housing in the city, which has been in short supply in Gardiner and across the region. While the city has rural areas where development is possible, the opportunities to add housing closer to the downtown neighborhood are seen as limited.

At Large Councilor Rusty Greenleaf said he has asked for a list of vacant properties in the city.

“I think it would be important to know that,” Greenleaf said. “I think we have to assume they are being maintained and the taxes are being paid, otherwise they’d come to us as tax-acquired properties.”

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