Bangor councilors elect new chairman

BANGOR – City Councilor Frank Farrington was elected Monday to serve as the city’s next council chairman, a position also referred to as mayor in ceremonial circumstances.

Farrington, 73, was the nine-member council’s unanimous choice and only nominee.

Councilor John Cashwell nominated Farrington for the leadership post. Councilor Geoffrey Gratwick provided the needed second.

“I will do my best to live up to your expectations,” Farrington said after Monday’s election.

The president of Farrington Financial Group, Farrington first joined the council in March 2001, when he was elected to the remainder of former Councilor Michael Aube’s unexpired term. He was elected to his first full three-year term in November 2002.

In his first address as council chairman, Farrington outlined some of the issues he expects will be at the forefront in the coming year, including the need to regionalize some municipal services, and tax reform.

“It is imperative for the Greater Bangor area to work together to provide services to citizens without duplicating costs,” Farrington said of the regionalization concept, which would involve working with nearby communities to find ways to avoid redundancies and share costs.

It’s already occurring on a limited basis, he said. More needs to be done.

“We just need to do that if we’re going to survive together,” he said, paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin’s words at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Despite last week’s defeat of the so-called Palesky tax cap, Farrington said the message municipal officials got from voters was that public officials need to curb spending at the state and local levels. That work, he said, must continue.

Farrington also touched on the Police Department location issue, settled by voters last week.

“The referendum results clearly show the citizens of the city want to see the police station downtown,” he said. Now that the decision has been made, Farrington said, the city must find a way to cover the cost of restoring space lost to previous budget cuts.

City Clerk Patti Dubois swore in the three residents who won last week’s council election. They are incumbent Annie Allen, elected to her second three-year term; Richard Stone, a former councilor and council chairman who also served in the Maine House of Representatives; and Susan Hawes, a council newcomer.