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 Local news and information from Blue Hill, Brooklin, Brooksville, Sedgwick, and Surry, Maine. |
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By BETTE BRITT Polls open at 1 p.m., after the election of a town meeting moderator at 12:45 p.m., and remain open until 6 p.m. Voting results will be announced at the beginning of the open town meeting on Saturday, March 6, at 9 a.m.
Besides activities covered at the 6:30 p.m. weekly meetings of Sedgwick selectmen, Pert is well aware of issues facing the town that require concentration, one of them keeping an eye on expenditures in order to stay within the budget approved by voters. “If we raise $10 and spend $10, we might have to raise $11 next year,” he said, noting that if less than $10 is spent, selectmen will consider themselves lucky. Pert looks forward to returning to serve his community, bringing with him knowledge of town politics gained through years of service to the Town of Sedgwick. “I love it—the people, the job, getting to know most everyone in town—it’s great,” said Cynthia Reilly, when asked why she’s running again for public office. It has been nearly 20 years since she was first elected town treasurer and, five years later, followed Anne Perrigo as town clerk. “I was honored to follow Anne,” said Reilly, paying tribute to a woman who might be one of those voting at Benjamin River Apartments when she goes there with absentee ballots shortly before town meeting. Before that date, the Sedgwick town clerk will post the warrant, and she’ll be especially busy on March 6, counting raised hands as voters indicate their views on 77 town meeting articles. Other duties of the town clerk include issuing birth and death certificates, providing marriage, hunting and fishing licenses, filing permits for such things as moorings and filling out federal and state forms. “You get used to the rhythm of it,” said Reilly of the various things a town clerk in Maine does in the course of a year.
Carter contrasted the difference between the way he maintained the roads, including 14 miles of state road which is plowed and sanded with little reimbursement, and the way he sees the job being done now. “The town is headed in the wrong direction,” declared Carter whose pay, as road commissioner, is the state rate plus $2 per hour. He indicated his willingness to resume care of winter roads if he’s reelected, “doing it right” by getting out to plow early enough so roads are ready for morning traffic. He has his own equipment, and the town would own the salt/sand mix; he’d like to sit down with the selectmen and work out a new snow removal budget. In recognition that the road commissioner’s job is year-round, Carter indicated there’s always work that needs to be done, including replacing culverts, ditching roads, cutting brush and hot-topping, aware that prices are always going up. He feels he has a good relationship with the people in town and with those who call him about road conditions. If reelected, Carter pledges to “put in a new program for winter roads, under supervision of selectmen and with adequate equipment and crew.”
“We just seem to be forgotten by the state,” he says, referring to the condition of state roads cared for by Sedgwick, the ones that draw complaints from residents at town meeting and others that require careful plowing which isn’t always right down to the tar. He is seeking to become road commissioner because caring for the roads is a year-long job—and he appreciates the community enough to want to fix the roads to the best of his ability. When it was suggested he run for road commissioner, he took out papers—he figures it will give him a good chance to do something for the town and, if elected, he can get an early start on improving the roads so they’ll take less out of vehicles, those owned by others and those he had to purchase when his contract was accepted. The initial cost of taking on the plowing job meant purchase of three trucks, plows, sanders, a loader to mix salt/sand but it indicated his commitment to the town and its winter roads. It was also an eye-opener when much time had to be spent on repairs to equipment, despite the mild weather conditions. Among costs of doing business was purchase of sand from road commissioner Carter, an independent contractor with a sand pile, to make his own salt/sand mixture using salt supplied by the town; despite “mischief” at the site, he said he doesn’t intend to put up a gate at the salt/sand pile. Gray said he realizes from experience the full importance of taking care of town roads. Gray’s question, “What do the people want?” will be answered at the polls on Friday, March 5. Share this page Return to the The Weekly Packet home page. |
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Colby Pert served as selectman for 14 years prior to his decision not to seek reelection in 2004. He changed his mind a little over a year ago and ran in a special election as one of three candidates seeking to fill the third selectman’s seat after Tom O’Connor’s death; Victor Smith won that race, edging out Tara McKechnie. This time, Pert faces no competition for the position of second selectman. Although by state statute all selectmen are equal, in Sedgwick Bill Jagger does—and Pert will—handle welfare administration. 
Paul Carter has been road commissioner for 23 years and wants to continue in that position, but he faces a challenge from the man who’s under contract with the town to plow snow. Traditionally done by the road commissioner, Carter relinquished responsibility for winter roads about four years ago, because he “needed a little break,” but as road commissioner he continued to take care of stockpiling salt/sand used in town, returning any left over to the town, he said in an interview. 
Reflecting on the relatively mild winter, Andy Gray observed, “Mother Nature has been my friend.” In the second year of his contract with the town of Sedgwick to remove snow from winter roads, Gray is aware he has been fortunate in most respects, but the roads have been hard on equipment. 