PARIS – Both candidates for District 3 county commissioner have years of experience as selectmen in their hometowns, an avid interest in civic duty and what they describe as a pragmatic approach to fiscal policy.

So what sets them apart?

Caldwell Jackson, running on the Republican ticket, runs his own business as a furniture maker and farmer. He lives in Oxford, where his ancestors settled in 1779. He has been an Oxford selectmen for 10 years.

“If you have a chance to understand the local end of it, you can carry that right straight through to the county,” Jackson said.

Wade Rainey, who recently changed parties from independent to Democrat, is a certified Maine tax assessor with his own business. He’s been a West Paris selectman for 15 years.

“With all the problems they’ve had dealing with applications for abatements and hearings, instead of hiring a new firm, maybe we could do that without hiring anybody,” Rainey said. One of the commissioners’ duties is to arbitrate conflicts between towns and taxpayers about contested property valuations. The board has recently hired a consultant for advice with a particular case, and are discussing changing the process so that a board of appeals first hears the case before sending it to commissioners with a recommendation.

The District 3 commissioner, who will represent Albany Township, Buckfield, Greenwood, Hebron, Otisfield, Oxford, Paris, Stoneham, West Paris and Woodstock, will join two other commissioners, Steven Merrill of Norway and David Duguay of Byron, who cover the rest of Oxford County. Voters in District 3 will vote for the third commissioner Nov. 7.

“I think management experience, people skills, leadership and good-decision making skills” are some of the qualities Duguay said he believes are important to a commissioner. “It’s like running a business, you’re going to get decisions made every minute, every day.”

The commissioners are responsible for the annual county budget, and oversee county departments, including the jail, the Sheriff’s Office, the courts, the emergency management office, and the 911 call center. They also serve as municipal officers for Maine’s unorganized territories.

Next year, the county’s proposed expenditures for 2007 total almost $6.4 million, compared to $4.9 million for this year. Deducting revenues and credits, the amount to be raised by taxes would be a little more than $4 million, which is 9.6 percent more than in 2006.

Both Rainey and Jackson have similar concerns about the budget and some ideas on how to tighten spending.

“One of the things I look at as a selectman in the town of Oxford, you see how hard it is for them to pay their taxes,” Jackson said. He said he’d be interested in creating a sweep account for the county to accumulate some interest, as well as investigate alternative energy sources for fuel.

Rainey, too, mentioned that he would like to examine new fuel methods for county operations. “If we could use a reusable resource for heating for some of the buildings, it might be cheaper and help global warming, help emissions,” he said.

Both candidates also mentioned strengthening regionalization, which is a concept that entails the county and its towns buying resources in bulk, like fuel or office supplies.

Jackson is married and has three daughters. He raises red deer and elk for meat and breeding, as well as builds furniture in the Old Shaker style for sale throughout New England. He has also served on the Oxford Board of Appeals, public safety building committee, economic development committee, the Fish and Game Club, the National Rifle Association, a snowmobiling club and is vice president of the Oxford County Fair.

Rainey previously had his own construction company before he became a tax assessor. He was born in Bethel and moved to West Paris in 1976, bringing up three children. He has taken courses in computers at the now-closed Plus Gray School of Business in Portland, and attended four one-week classes on assessing law and appraisals offered by the state’s Bureau of Taxation. He also served on the County Budget Committee in 2004, West Paris’ Planning Board, and the Municipal Officers Association. He was in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam war.

Duguay said the backgrounds of both selectmen – specifically their municipal service and business management experience – provided good training for commissioner.

“But you have to look at the overall person,” Duguay said. “I think they both have good skills to bring to the table that could be helpful.”