YORK - Voters have a full slate of candidates to choose from for the two three-year terms open on the Board of Selectmen.
Whether you will be voting at home with an absentee ballot or waiting to head to the polls at York High School on May 17, the Board of Selectmen Election 2008 is all about choices, with four local residents seeking a term on the town's governing board.
The candidates for the two seats on the board are incumbent Board of Selectmen Chairman Mike Estes, Greater York Region Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Cathy Goodwin, former Selectman Torbert Macdonald and 2005 New Hampshire Superintendent of the Year Chuck Ott.
The candidates recently shared their views on serving the town of York if elected as members of the Board of Selectmen, as well as information about their education, experience and interests.
MIKE ESTES
After my first term, we highlighted the problems of the next three years. We will be trying to fix these problems.
Have you ever served on this or any other town board or committee before? If so, which one and for how long?
Budget Committee for three years, School Committee for five and a half years, Recreation Department for four years.
What do you see as the most important aspect of serving on the town's governing board in the term ahead?
Being a voice for the people of York, and fighting government - both local and state - in protecting peoples land rights.
What do you hope to accomplish during your three-year term?
1.) Providing a home for working families.
2.) Fixing town infrastructures needs.
3.) Provide leadership for the town and fight with MTA.
4.) School consolidation issue.
5.) How to properly manage growth in the community.
What do you see as the greatest challenges the town is facing in the next three years?
Being able to address the infrastructure needs with limited tax dollars.
Estes is the owner of Estes Oil Company and a York High School graduate. He and his wife, Terry, have two daughters, Erin and Kate.
CATHERINE R. GOODWIN
What prompted you to run for the Board of Selectmen?
There are three major reasons behind my decision to run for a selectman's seat:
1.) Over the past three years, I have worked with other citizens to improve the York Beach downtown, improvements that are long overdue. It became very apparent that the process we use to make decisions is based on confrontation instead of collaboration, and that this negative process is an obstacle to getting anything accomplished. I hope to bring a more facilitated and positive approach to bear so that we focus on the ideas that unite us, and not on the things that divide us. We should be working together to find the common ground on which to build our future.
2.) There are many important issues facing us in the next few years, including the proposed relocation of the York toll plaza, the need for a new police and public safety building, the development of the Wild Kingdom and revisions to the growth ordinance, to name just a few. These issues will require broad thinking and active public debate. Again, if we don't change the process we use to get to final decisions, it will be extremely difficult for us to manage the work that lies ahead.
3. I was taken aback by the number of people who were against the zoning changes at the beach because they believed that a group of citizens should not have done the work. They felt the responsibility of writing ordinances and design standards should be the responsibility of the selectmen or the planning board. I believe that we are still a government of the people, by the people, for the people. I strongly support citizen participation in the governance of our community. It is the duty of the elected officials to lead and guide the process of citizen involvement. It is the duty of the citizens to participate in that process.
Have you ever served on this or any other town board or committee before? If so, which one and for how long?
I served for nine years (elected to three three-year terms) on the MSAD 35 School Board of Directors (served as vice chair and chair) representing Eliot. I was the chair of the Eliot Comprehensive Planning Committee in the early 1990s. I was appointed by Gov. John McKernan to serve on the statewide Task Force on Defense Realignment and the Economy, and I am a founding member of both the York Beach Renaissance Committee and the Community Wellness Coalition. I have served twice as co-chair of the bi-state Save Our Shipyard Coalition. I was the Social Committee chair of the state committee for the commissioning of the USS Maine in 1995. I was elected to serve as trustee of The Foundation for Seacoast Health, serving for 11 years.
What do you see as the most important aspect of serving on the town's governing board in the term ahead?
Leadership. We need to get to "YES" much more frequently! Issue after issue is fraught with conflict and negativity. It doesn't have to be this way. It is a disincentive to public participation. We need to work together to get the job done in a positive environment. We must build on our strengths.
What do you hope to accomplish during your three-year term?
My greatest hope is that by changing the way we approach issues, governing will become less divisive, resulting in many more citizens who will want to run for office to serve their community.
What do you see as the greatest challenges the town is facing in the next three years?
See item #2 above.
Is there any other information you would like to share with our readers?
Most people in York know me through my work at the chamber and know that I support business, but I am not a one-issue candidate! I've raised a family, founded a childcare program, was a school volunteer, coached a softball team and helped save the shipyard from closure. People need a place to live and a good job. They want their families to be safe and happy. If elected, I will work to make sure that York remains a vibrant, safe, family-friendly community. Personal well-being is tied to economic well-being, and both of these are tied to a healthy community.
Goodwin had her husband, Michael, have three grown children, Alicia, Benjamin and Gabrielle, and one grandson, Drew. She is a 1968 graduate of Marshwood High School and attended the University of Maine in Orono and the University of Southern Maine.
TORBERT H. MACDONALD, JR.
What prompted you to run for the Board of Selectmen?
I have observed in the year that I was away that the board lacked leadership in terms of public policy. They were continuing to allow private interest to guide the policy directions. That is not only bad policy but it's not the legal practice we need to follow. I would hope to bring back to the board a focus on policy as indicated by the Comprehensive Plan. My health enables me to be able to come back; I didn't want to resign in the first place, but I had to take the time off to get well.
Have you ever served on this or any other town board or committee before? If so, which one and for how long?
I have served as Conservation Commission member and chairman; on the Comprehensive Plan Subcommittee for the 1991 plan, which became the basis of the current plan; served a term on the Planning Board, and one full term and more than one year of a second term on the Board of Selectmen.
What do you see as the most important aspect of serving on the town's governing board in the term ahead?
I think we have our continuing struggle to control and manage growth. I'm not anti-growth. It's a natural function of life to grow. It's the manner in which you do it. The Comprehensive Plan outlines how we should be controlling and managing growth, and I see a lack of leadership in those areas. Equally important is the need to find ways to keep a diverse and healthy community as we are obviously trending toward the rich and the super-rich as a private playground for them. The middle class and everyone else is going to get squeezed out eventually. We have to develop housing policies for real people.
What do you hope to accomplish during your three-year term?
I hope to get the town and the board back on track in terms of seeing the obligations for public policy through the rule of law and not the rule of men. I would like to work on the so-called workforce and affordable housing issues, and continue to assist small businesses to survive and keep as much of the economy local. I think we need also to encourage the development of micro-agriculture in this era of insanely rising food prices. We need to get the Soil and Water Conservation Service and all the other authorities that can teach people to utilize their land - to create a sustainable community to pass on to the future generations.
What do you see as the greatest challenges the town is facing in the next three years?
Obviously, there's tremendous development pressure focusing on York Beach. What is the meaning of town government to be? Is it to be the creation of sustainable community for its residents, or a playground for economic interest with no community roots? Obviously, the implication for the residence base here is profound. If (potential York's Wild Kingdom developer) Oscar Plotkin has his way, we'll go overnight from still a relatively middle-class community to a true yuppie enclave. He has no intention of serving everyday people. The "market" won't provide clear air and water; it won't provide sustainable agriculture, and it won't provide affordable housing. We're lacking in all those areas. If the market could fix those problems, it already would have.
Is there any other information you would like to share with our readers?
I think that we're entering into the most important period of modern human history in terms of our ability to create and maintain a sustainable culture. The hard work and the wonderful heritage that we've received from our ancestors is definitely in danger of being sold in the marketplace to money with absolute indifference toward community values. To save our community, it's going to be in the next few years.
Macdonald is a self-employed natural resource policy consultant. He and his wife, Caroline, have three grown children. He is a graduate of Phillips Andover Academy and Harvard College.
CHARLES A. OTT
What prompted you to run for the Board of Selectmen?
I decided to run for the Board of Selectmen because I believe I have the knowledge and experience to help the Board of Selectmen perform well as a board, and because I believe it is our duty to leave this town to our children and grandchildren as whole and as healthy in every respect as the "better angels of our nature" (Lincoln's First Inaugural) may guide us.
Have you ever served on this or any other town board or committee before? If so, which one and for how long?
I have been involved in government since I was a student at Indiana University 40 years ago. The bulk of my professional work has involved the practice and study of organizational culture and leadership. I served as assistant superintendent of schools in Portsmouth, N.H., and then as superintendent of schools in Somersworth and Rollinsford, N.H. Both positions involved working closely with municipal and state government. As superintendent I acted as chief executive officer overseeing budget, personnel, policy development and legal affairs. In 2005, I was named Superintendent of the Year in New Hampshire.
What do you see as the most important aspect of serving on the town's governing board in the term ahead?
Overall, the most important challenge is to build faith in local government. To accomplish this requires openness, a willingness to listen to all sides of an issue, and a steadfast commitment to enforcing the rules fairly and even handedly. I believe in modest government that does not try to do too much, but performs extraordinarily well what it undertakes.
What do you hope to accomplish during your three-year term?
During my term I would like to see our community continue to articulate what we mean when we say we want to maintain York's small town character and to make decisions that live into that vision. Because of my life experience I am particularly interested in programs that nurture our children and youth and honor our elderly. I support economic development that circulates wealth rather than accumulates it.
What do you see as the greatest challenges the town is facing in the next three years?
Our greatest challenge will continue to be unplanned and unwise development that erodes the character of the town. Most immediately this includes the unwise proposal of the Maine Turnpike Authority to move the tollbooth location. We must continue to meet these challenges with the kind of unity we have witnessed with the citizen response to the Maine Turnpike Authority. For today it is our neighbors' homes that are threatened with seizure through eminent domain, but tomorrow it will be our ground water, our coastal forest or our beaches.
Is there any other information you would like to share with our readers?
Finally, I believe our greatest strength lies in our love of neighbor and reverence for the public good. I continue to believe strongly that "government of, for, and by the people" is ours if we seize it.
Ott is a retired superintendent of schools and currently works part-time for Strafford Learning Center as a dropout prevention and high school reform consultant and teaches educational leadership at the University of New Hampshire as an adjunct faculty member. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Indiana University, his Master's degree in Education from U.N.H., a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study from the University of Massachusetts-Boston and a Doctor of Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is also a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, serving in Sierra Leone, West Africa.
