St. Agatha town manager elected MMA president Ryan Pelletier to take oath at October meeting

ST. AGATHA – St. Agatha’s town manager has been elected president of the Maine Municipal Association, only the second St. John Valley town manager to rise to the position.

Ryan Pelletier, 28, will take the oath of office at the annual MMA convention at Augusta on Oct. 6. His term will begin Jan. 1, 2006.

The only other St. John Valley man to become president of the MMA was St. Agatha Town Manager Sylvio Michaud in 1961.

Pelletier has been a town manager of St. Agatha since July 1999. While a senior at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, Pelletier was town manager at Wallagrass.

He has been a member of the MMA’s executive committee since 2001, has been chairman of the Strategic and Finance Committee, and was elected vice president of the MMA in July 2004.

“It is an honor for me to serve the municipalities of this state,” he said. “I look forward to my term in office and to meeting municipal officials from across the state.”

One of his first duties as MMA president will be to attend the annual meeting of the National League of Cities in Charlotte, N.C., in December. He will also lead a delegation from Maine to NLC’s March conference in Washington, D.C.

As president, Pelletier will preside over monthly meetings of the 12-member MMA executive committee.

“Our many towns and cities [in Maine] face a variety of issues every day, from state and federal mandates to economic and community development issues,” Pelletier said Friday. “Our job at MMA is to be the unified voice for the many different problems we face.

“This can sometimes be an almost impossible task, but I know the members of the executive committee and members of the MMA’s staff are up to the challenges we face,” he said. “I am confident we will succeed.”

The MMA, started in 1937, includes the membership of all but one of Maine’s 493 cities, towns, plantations and unorganized territories. The association is headed by Executive Director Chris Lockwood. The MMA has headquarters in Augusta.

The association serves as a unified voice for Maine municipalities looking to strengthen local government. Members of the MMA staff propose legislation and testify before legislative committees on behalf of Maine municipalities.