DeBeck, Kelly win Brewer council seats

BREWER – Voters increased the debt cap for school facilities, gave the City Council the power to oust members who act against the city’s best interest and filled four local offices during citywide elections Tuesday at the Brewer Auditorium.

In City Council elections, incumbent Manley DeBeck Jr. was elected to his second three-year term with 1,178 votes, and Gail Kelly won her first council post with 1,175 votes. Mark Chambers, who nabbed 1,392 votes, was returned to his second three-year school committee term, while Alan Kochis was re-elected to a second five-year term with the high school district board of trustees with 1,401 votes.

Unlike the past several years, this year’s local elections featured no contests. Instead, most of the election night anxiety was focused on how voters would respond to two local ballot questions.

One of the questions, approved in a 1,032 to 617 vote, was a request to increase the Brewer High School District’s debt limit from $2.5 million to $5 million. According to advocates, who included school and city officials, the increase was critical to keeping the city’s aging school buildings safe and in good repair.

The debt cap for the district, which is responsible for maintaining buildings and grounds at all of the city’s six public schools, last was increased in 1973. Construction and repair costs since have risen dramatically.

Tuesday marked the second time voters were asked to approve the increase, which failed in a particularly close referendum a year ago when residents voted 2,396 to 2,376 against it.

The surprise of the night involved a city charter amendment aimed at giving city councilors the authority to remove one of their own under specific circumstances. Though most of the community leaders gathered at the auditorium to await vote results gave the amendment poor odds of passage, the measure was approved with 943 residents voting in favor of it and 671 against it.

“The vote was sent to the people and that’s what they want,” said Mayor Michael Celli, a proponent of the measure he has supported since his own council campaign last fall as a mechanism for making individual councilors accountable for their actions.

Councilor Larry Doughty, a vocal foe of the removal measure, had a different view.

“Frankly, I’m disappointed. Out of all of the people I have talked to about it, I haven’t talked to anyone who supported it. I don’t know what to think about it. Like everyone else here, I’m surprised.”

Doughty later added that he thought some voters were confused about the question. On his way home from the auditorium Tuesday, Doughty said he encountered a woman at a Wilson Street restaurant who told him she’d mistakenly voted for it when she meant to vote against it.

As a result of the amendment’s passage, a city councilor can be ousted by a unanimous vote of the other members – after notice and a hearing – for failure to qualify for office under the city charter or any state or federal law; committing an action expressly prohibited under the city’s charter, codes and ordinances; knowingly disclosing information confidential under state or federal law; being convicted of a crime of moral turpitude; or being convicted of a felony.

According to City Clerk Arthur Verow, about 25 percent of the city’s 6,892 voters participated in Tuesday’s local and state elections.