10 Bangor residents to vie for 5 offices

BANGOR – Ten residents met Friday’s deadline for submitting nomination papers for the five elective offices that will be filled during local elections Nov. 4.

Two positions on the seven-member school committee and three of the City Council’s nine seats are up for grabs.

All three council incumbents – Mayor Nichi Farnham and Councilors John Rohman and Michael Crowley – are prohibited from seeking another term under the city charter, which requires councilors to take at least a year off after serving six consecutive years.

Seven residents had taken out nomination papers for those positions. They are John Cashwell III; former Bangor International Airport Director Peter D’Errico; Dr. Geoffrey Gratwick; John Hiatt; Michael J. Robinson; former Councilor James Tyler; and Torvic Vardamis.

Three-year terms also are expiring for school committee members Ellen Tobin and Martha Newman, who has been the committee’s chairwoman for more than a decade. Both incumbents are eligible to run again, as there are no term limits at this time.

Three residents are seeking the seats on the education panel – the two incumbents and Pamela D. Stokes.

Other local issues city voters will decide include charter amendments pertaining to term limits for the city’s elected officials.

One amendment would extend from two to three the number of consecutive three-year terms councilors can serve. The other would, for the first time, impose term limits on school committee members.

Members of both bodies could seek re-election after taking a year off.

Voters also might be asked whether Bangor should join the Penobscot Regional Communications Center. City councilors will explore the possibility of an opinion referendum during a workshop at 6:30 tonight at City Hall.

The center now dispatches for most of Penobscot County, with the exceptions of Bangor, Lincoln and the University of Maine.

As things stand, emergency calls for police, fire and ambulance services in Bangor are directed to the Bangor police station.

If Bangor decides to sign onto the county program, emergency calls would be handled by dispatchers at the Penobscot Regional Communications Center.

In addition, a local taxpayer group is working to put seven separate referendum questions on the ballot.

If the group collects the minimum 2,274 valid signatures needed, Bangor voters will consider recalling up to seven members of the City Council’s nine members.

The group is targeting councilors who voted to contribute $381,000 toward improvements at Husson College’s Winkin Sports Complex.

The improvement would enable the Bangor Lumberjacks, a locally owned independent minor league baseball team, to play its home games in Bangor. The team, which recently completed its first season, has been using the sports facilities at the University of Maine.