ELLSWORTH – When local voters go to the polls early next month, they will have the chance to reshape nearly half of the Ellsworth City Council.

Three positions on the city’s seven-member panel are open, and five candidates will vie for those seats on Nov. 6.

Two councilors, Barbara Reeve and Lee Beal, have decided not to seek re-election after both served for the last six years. Each participated in their final meeting earlier this month.

Still, the crop of candidates won’t exactly be all new faces.

At the top of the list is City Council Chairman Gary Fortier, 53, who is running for re-election. Fortier, a self-employed electrician, is a longtime city leader with four prior stints on the Ellsworth council.

Also running is Jon Mahon, 49, who is finishing up his second term on the Ellsworth school committee and also has served two terms on the City Council in the past. Mahon is retired from the Maine State Police but works in security at Maine Coast Memorial Hospital in Ellsworth.

Terry Cole, 57, a retired jail administrator in Washington and Hancock counties, is running for City Council for the first time. However, in the last two elections in 2002 and 2006 he unsuccessfully challenged Hancock County Sheriff William Clark for that post.

Pamela Perkins, the youngest candidate at age 24, ran for a council seat during last year’s election but was not elected. She works in admissions for the Maine School of Science and Mathematics.

The final candidate is Bruce Tetrault, 65, who also has never been elected as a public official. Tetrault has lived in Ellsworth for more than 25 years and is retired.

All five are scheduled to participate in a public forum next week hosted by The Ellsworth American, a local weekly newspaper. It will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 29, at Ellsworth Middle School.

Whoever is elected will have the chance to make decisions and shape policy for Hancock County’s largest community, which is growing at a steady rate both commercially and residentially.

In the 2006 elections, Councilor Stephen Beathem was re-elected to his second three-year term, while Matthew Foster, a local lawyer, was elected for the first time, replacing longtime councilor Larry King.

The terms of Councilors John Phillips and John Moore expire in November 2008.