PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The five candidates running for Presque Isle City Council gathered Thursday for a forum to discuss issues ranging from property taxes to economic development.
Don Gardner, Doug Cyr, Jeffrey Willette and Maureen Hanley are vying for two four-year seats on the council, while Jacob Shaw is the lone candidate for a seat that has one year remaining.
The forum was hosted by the Central Aroostook Chamber of Commerce and held at the University of Maine Presque Isle on Oct. 25. Moderator Floyd Rockholt, president of the chamber’s board, asked the candidates about their biographies and their views on the city budget and property taxes, economic development and population growth, and their long-term visions for Aroostook County’s largest municipality.
Don Gardner, a retired retail manager and Defense Finance Accounting Service employee, previously served as a city councillor and planning board member, and said he is interested in balancing spending and saving.
“My first concern always will be and always has been: How does what we do affect the working person?” Gardner said. “I will be able to hit the ground running. I believe we need to get a handle on our fiscal responsibility.”
Doug Cyr, owner of Leisure Village retirement center, worked in insurance at Unum, Prudential and MMG before returning to Presque Isle after college and taking over the retirement center from his grandfather. Cyr has served on the City Council for one year after being appointed to the seat formerly held by Natalee Graves.
“When I put my mind to something I do it, and I do it as best I can,” Cyr said. “I am a very large taxpayer in town. There are a lot of things that I see the government, that as a private business owner, I would not want to spend the same amount of funds on.”
Cyr described himself as a fiscal conservative and also noted that he was the only councillor to vote against the controversial decision to endorse United Airlines’ service to Newark to replace service to Boston.
Jeffrey Willette, owner of Willette’s auto service in Presque Isle, said he would bring his experience in running a small business to the City Council.
“One of the main concerns with the budget is revenue,” Willette said, referring to revenue sharing from the state government, which has declined in the last decade. “For example, revenue sharing allocations, I would like to see be more than what they are.”
Maureen Hanley said that she grew up in Presque Isle, graduated from the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s education program, and went on to work in office management and real estate.
“Economics took me away,” she said, explaining how she has twice returned to Presque Isle, first to raise her children and again five years ago.
“When I came back, I saw the property taxes. We are the fifteenth highest tax town in Maine.”
Hanley said that Presque Isle’s median annual income is approximately $33,000, a figure that makes it hard for people to afford tax bills of more than $1,000 for modest homes.
“I think we can turn it around. If we can cut the budget a little bit, be careful with our spending, we can generate some incentives for our businesses that allows them to grow, allows them to employ more people and allows them to give a better wage to people.”
Jacob Shaw is a graduate of Northern Maine Community College’s accounting program and is currently enrolled in the University of Maine Augusta’s online degree program.
“I want to show young people that there is economic opportunity here. I want to test the waters here to see if I can help,” he said. “We should be working with the school system to show college graduates that they can stay here. … I’m a young individual who wants to stay here and I think I can help reach other young, college educated families who want to stay here.”
The final question of the forum asked the candidates to share their vision of Presque Isle in five years.
“The work is just beginning,” said Gardner, suggesting that the city can tap into “ideas and visions that maybe we haven’t thought of.” Gardner said the city has a good opportunity to expand on recent developments at Riverside Park, where the seasonal farmer’s market is held and across the road from the new Sargeant Family Community Center.
Gardner also suggested that new housing would be a positive in terms of adding to the city’s housing stock and fostering construction jobs.
“In five years, we could get into a good cycle of what we want to do,” Gardner said.
Cyr said that his vision of Presque Isle in five years involves both new housing and new jobs.
“Five years down the road, we’re going to need some more housing. We’ve got a lot of people migrating in the from the smaller towns because we’re a service center and where the jobs are,” Cyr said.
“We’ve got a lot of land that’s not really developed. If we could get a good incentive plan, we could bring a decent-sized employer to the Presque Isle limits.”
Willette said he’d like to see the city build on its assets and current successes.
“Presque Isle is a pretty amazing place to live. It’s beautiful, the people are nice,” Willette said. “We really have a lot of positive attributes here in Presque Isle. The growth and expansion of the industrial area of Presque Isle is really something to see. I recommend anyone take a ride around the [Skyway Industrial Park], it’s very impressive the economic activity that’s taking place up there.”
Hanley said she can envision Presque Isle growing its population to its historic peak of 12,000, or on the flip side, managing to still be successful if population decline continues. Presque Isle could do more to work in public-private partnerships that market the area and attract residents through tourism events such as the BikeMaine tour.
“We absolutely could grow our population,” Hanley said. “We can certainly gentrify and improve our downtown and neighborhoods. There are definitely people looking for what we have.”
Shaw said he thinks Presque Isle “is in a good place in terms of the services it provides and the citizens it attracts.”
However, he said, the region’s workforce needs to be boosted. “People want to retire and people can’t retire. It would be nice to see the city bringing in the younger crowd and aggressively pursuing college graduates and families that want a place safe to settle down. We can start rebuilding the workforce from the ground up.”
