By Kerri Pepoy,Staff Writer

OTISFIELD – After 31 years of public service, Lenny Adler has stepped down as selectman while he is still able to enjoy life’s smaller pleasures.

“I’m relatively healthy and I still want to do what I enjoy,” Adler said in an interview Wednesday. “It was time.”

Adler stepped down from the Board of Selectmen last Saturday at the annual town meeting. Otisfield resident Hal Ferguson was elected to fill the slot.

Adler, 62, served on the board from 1975 to 1981, then was Otisfield’s fire chief from 1982 to 1985.

He returned to the board in 1985 and served until last Saturday. Now with more free time, he plans to work on his nine antique cars, although he still serves as the town’s assistant fire chief, so duty will still call.

Despite some thorny issues that have surfaced recently in this lakeshore town of 1,600, including a committee’s call for a town manager and tensions between a citizens’ group and other residents, Adler said his years as a selectman were, overall, rewarding.

“The town of Otisfield has been a wonderful town to work for,” he said.

Adler is originally from Massachusetts but moved at age 19 to Otisfield, where he’d spent summers and vacations as a kid. “I always knew I wanted to live there. The day I graduated (technical school), I moved,” he said.

Despite a recent recommendation by the Government Study Committee to hire a town manager, Adler said Otisfield needs to grow before it can afford one. “I don’t think the population (size) and tax base warrant it,” he said. “When we get up to 2,000 or 2,500, it might be time to change. I would rather spend money on other things right now, such as better roads.”

At the annual meeting, tensions between the Voices of Otisfield group and other residents surfaced when a petition with 143 signatures was presented, requesting that the citizens’ group remove the town’s name from its moniker.

The Voices of Otisfield group says it is trying to improve town government by making it more responsive. But petitioners said some of the group’s actions had created a divisive environment and that members wrongly present themselves as representative of the entire community.

Adler, who signed the petition along with Selectmen Mark Cyr and Tom Nurmi, said the group has the right to choose the name it wants. But he disagrees with using the town’s name because it creates a degree of resentment, he said.

“They absolutely have the right to express their opinions and call themselves what they want,” he said. “But the majority of the town’s residents do not support them and do not like the Otisfield name being used.”

When asked what accomplishment he’s most proud of during his years as a selectman, Adler does not hesitate. “The county switch,” he said. “It was the best thing we ever did.”

Otisfield was part of Cumberland County, but after a town referendum and a county acceptance vote, the town became part of Oxford County in 1978.

“Economically and geographically, we belonged in Oxford County,” said Adler. “People worked in Norway and Paris, we did our banking here, the schools were here, we hauled our rubbish to Oxford.”

One of the biggest challenges over the years has been balancing the need to spend money on town resources with a desire to keep taxes at bay for residents already paying one of the heaviest overall tax burdens in the country, Adler said.

“You don’t do some of the things you really want to do, such as road work or buy a new firetruck,” he said. “You have to balance what you feel the town needs and what people can pay for. In this state it’s difficult.”

Adler also thanked his employer, Ripley & Fletcher in Paris, for granting him the time he needed over the years to serve his town. “Civic-minded people cannot function without civic-minded employers,” he said. “They never complained about the time it took. They never docked my pay or vacation time.”