SOUTH PORTLAND – In a 5-2 caucus vote on Monday, the South Portland City Council selected Gerard “Jerry” Jalbert to be the next mayor.

The formal vote and inauguration will be held at 4 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 2, at City Hall. In a break with tradition, the council will not conduct a regular meeting that evening, meeting instead for its first regular session with Jalbert at the gavel on Wednesday, Dec. 4.

“I want to thank everyone very much,” said Jalbert, immediately after Monday’s vote. “I know that we are looking at, perhaps, an interesting year, to say the very least. There will probably be a lot of meetings.”

“We have a lot of things we have to do, not the least of which is to try and pull our community back together,” said Jalbert. “I want to be one of the ones who makes that happen, along with the rest of the council. So, I look forward to the coming year, and the challenges, and I think we need to accept those challenges.”

“No question about it, it’s going to be a long year,” quipped outgoing mayor Tom Blake, referencing the tar-sands issues which has absorbed so much council time over the past year, including nearly four hours Monday, while promising more of the same in 2014.

Jalbert also pointed out that the City Council he will lead is an historic one.

“This will be the first time in the history of South Portland that a majority of the council will be female,” he said.

“We noticed it,” said councilors Linda Cohen and Melissa Linscott, in unison.

According to Maxine Beecher, who will be sworn in to a new term on the council on Dec. 2 following a one-year absence due to term limits, Linda Johnson was the city’s first female councilor. Johnson also was the city’s first female mayor, controlling the gavel during the 1985-1986 term.

Jalbert’s tenure is not popular with all city residents, particularly supporters of the citizen-petitioned Waterfront Protection Ordinance that was narrowly defeated at the polls on Nov. 5. The ordinance was designed to ban tar sands from city ports and, following public showings of support by Blake and Councilor Patti Smith, Jalbert circulated a letter opposing the ordinance proposal that was signed by the remaining council members and then released to the press. Members of advocacy group Protect South Portland have claimed that action violated the spirit, if not the actual letter, of Maine’s open meeting law.

Chief among Jalbert’s detractors – due to the anti-WPO letter he circulated, but dating to their service together on the council – is former city councilor Rosemarie De Angelis, who spoke against his possible election during the public comment portion of Monday’s meeting.

“It would be shameful, it would be an embarrassment, it would be a disservice to the citizens of this community to choose Councilor Jalbert to represent this city as our next mayor,” she said.

At a Protect South Portland campaign rally following the announcement of election results on Nov. 5, De Angelis urged an email drive in support of Councilor Patti Smith for mayor. Blake said at that event that he would support Smith, but Jalbert later said Blake was working behind the scenes on a re-election bid of his own.

Both Blake and Smith voted against Jalbert, although there were no other nominees. Smith said she tried to convince Cohen, who nominated Jalbert, to throw her hat into the ring, “but she said she wasn’t ready for that.”

Cohen, who served as South Portland’s city clerk from 1989 to 2001, and then held the same post in Portland from 2001 to 2011, was elected to her first term on the City Council in November of 2012.

Jalbert was first elected to the council in 2011, following 12 years on the city’s zoning board of appeals and one term on the planning board. He ran unopposed that year, taking the District 5 seat Jim Hughes was forced to leave after nine years due to term limits.

In his day job, Jalbert, a graduate of Husson College, is a reverse mortgage loan officer for Reliant Mortgage. He also serves on the board of the Long Creek Watershed Management District.

Jerry Jalbert, addressing opponents of the Waterfront Protection Ordinance in October, was elected Monday night to serve as South Portland’s mayor.

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