Many races to watch on Tuesday
This week’s issue is packed with useful information that should help local voters choose a worthy candidate on Tuesday. Profiles of local races appear on pages 7 through 11, and Republican gubernatorial candidates appear on pages 18 and 19. Please invest some time to read through the profiles of candidates who will be representing you.
While the Republican primary is particularly tight with no clear favorite established, locally, Windham and Standish each have pretty intense races. Each is worth you getting to the polls to vote. One of the more interesting races includes Carolyn Biegel for Town Council in Standish. Biegel has been the canary in the mine concerning the Pit Stop gas station in Standish.
A year ago, Dana Lampron removed the strip of trees between his proposed station and the Biegel residence. Biegel was right to protest the gas station owner’s disregard for his neighbors as he constructed the station. She asked questions and got few answers from town officials. What happened next door to her home and the lack of communication she experienced prompted her to get into the race, and it’ll be interesting to see how she does.
But Biegel is up against one of the most active members of the Standish community, Paul Mosley. Serving in multiple municipal and civic capacities, Mosley, who ran for council last year against Phil Pomerleau, has given many good years to the residents of Standish. Mosley and Biegel are not new to the political battlefield, however. Mosley served as chairman of the Planning Board when the gas station issue heated up. He and Biegel sparred during that process, and they’re doing battle again (this time at the polls). It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
An at-large Town Council seat in Standish has two qualified candidates vying. Jeffrey Richardson and Lou Stack are neighbors (Stack lives across from Richardson’s Boat Yard on Whites Bridge Road), and the two will be close neighbors on the Standish ballot come election day. Both are longtime Standish Town Hall watchers, with Stack involved heavily with town budget and Portland Water District issues and Richardson a former councilor and SAD 6 school board representative.
And former Councilor Gerald Spencer’s widow, Margaret, is also running for council. It’s good to see politics runs in the Spencer family. A few years before his passing, Gerald lobbied for a tax break for those seniors on fixed incomes, but failed. With taxes on the rise and Standish becoming another suburb of Portland, Margaret has taken up her husband’s torch to protect seniors.
In Windham, there is a three-way contest for Windham’s at-large seat. There are three candidates from which to choose, each with his or her own strengths. What’s interesting about the race, as revealed by these candidates’ stated concerns, is the town’s growth and how leadership will manage it.
Liz Wisecup is the incumbent and known for her conservative platform. She aims to hold the line fiscally, and has been very active in the comprehensive town planning process, making sure Windham develops responsibly.
She is also one of the hardest working councilors, and prides herself on being vigilant and thorough. Unfortunately, her work on the comprehensive plan has so far been mostly for naught because Windham is so slow to take appropriate steps to update ordinances. A prime example of the ineffectiveness of the comprehensive plan update is the quarry debate on Nash Road. But, there is a push to remedy this – the PRIORITY Task Force – so we’ll see what the future holds for this important issue Wisecup has championed.
Challenger Brian Butler is also a candidate to watch. He sounds like he has some good ideas, particularly the need for Windham committees to communicate better. It’s easy to criticize as an outsider, so if Butler is elected, it’ll be interesting to see if he is able to improve communication.
Butler also says he’d like to improve bicycle and motorist safety along busy roads like River Road. With the deaths last year of two Windham men who were walking across the road, that’s an admirable goal and one the whole council should take up. The Maine Department of Transportation is notoriously slow to act, and the council has made it plain that River Road is a problem, so maybe Butler’s campaign plank will reap rewards.
The third challenger, Ryan MacDonald, made a name for himself a few months ago with Nash Road neighbors trying to fight a proposed quarry in their neighborhood.
“As for the character of the neighborhood, yes, that’s going away,” he said during a contentious Planning Board meeting in April. “But it’s not because of the quarry, it’s because of the neighbors.”
However you interpret this comment, MacDonald believes development is Windham’s future. He’s not afraid to embrace development, and he wants to channel Windham’s potential before it’s too late.
What makes this race one to watch is that each candidate is focused on Windham’s growth. And many of their criticisms hearken back to the lack of a good planning process for the town. Let’s hope whoever is elected does more than talk about the problems and does something to solve them.
Obviously, there’s a lot happening in Windham and Standish and each community needs doers, not talkers, on its councils and school boards. Here’s hoping residents this Tuesday get out and cast a vote for one of the former.
-John Balentine, editor
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