BREWER – Surrounded by family, Joseph Ferris accepted the nomination to become mayor and said lower taxes and increasing the city’s tax base are his chief goals.

“The taxes are high in Brewer and we need to work on it,” he said Tuesday at the city’s annual welcome reception for newly elected city and school officials. The council unanimously elected Ferris its leader for the one-year term.

To address the city’s high taxes, this year’s budget will be “closely examined” to see if there are areas that can be reduced, the new mayor said.

To help increase revenues, “We need to continue to grow our tax base,” and work on getting the former Eastern Fine Paper Co. mill site redeveloped and “back on line as soon as possible,” Ferris said.

Creating partnerships with area community leaders is another ambition of the new mayor, who is a local lawyer.

“We need to take a serious look at regionalization,” said Ferris, who earned his seat on the council in 2002. “It should involve all the communities in the area.”

Ferris said he is a 30-year friend of Bangor City Council Chairman Frank Farrington and said it was his goal to get the two sister cities working together.

After accepting his new position as mayor, Ferris thanked former Mayor Michael Celli for his dedication to the city in the past year.

“He helped steer us through the closing of Eastern Fine Paper,” he said. “It was a painful procedure … and Mike did a very good job.”

Ferris said Celli also was instrumental in getting more than 110 communities to endorse resolves that dedicate 90 to 100 percent of additional educational funds made available through the passage of Question 1 on June 8, which requires the state to fully fund 55 percent of the costs of education, for tax reduction. Ferris said these resolves helped to defeat the Palesky tax cap initiative on the November ballot.

“Thank you, Mike, for your contribution to our city,” Ferris said.

Ferris’s 98-year-old mother, Selma, daughter Jaime Ferris, sister Gayle Moores and brother-in-law Ron Moores attended the ceremony.

The lifelong Brewer resident has many fond memories of his hometown. On Tuesday, Ferris recalled one in particular that he will always cherish: the day he and his teammates received a hero’s welcome upon their return to Brewer after playing in the College World Series in 1964, while he was a student at the University of Maine.

“In a year in which the Boston Red Sox won the World Series, having an old baseball player [as mayor] may not be so bad,” the former Black Bears pitcher said. “We shall see.”

During a Brewer School Committee meeting held earlier in the evening, Mary Ann McGuire, who is in her fifth three-year term on the panel, was named chairwoman and Mark Farley was appointed as vice chairman.