LEWISTON — Both candidates for Ward 7’s City Council seat say their most important job is to represent residents.

“I think 90 percent of the time, the council spends on Lisbon Street, downtown, housing, canals and Bates Mill,” incumbent Richard Desjardins. “But I never lose focus on Ward 7 residents. They are always in my mind.”

His challenger, Michael Lachance, said a councilor can do a better job.

“What I’ve heard from a lot of people in Ward 7 is that they don’t know him and he’s just not involved,” Lachance said. “I don’t know him, and I’ve made overtures to meet him and it just never came about. One thing is, there’s just not a lot of energy.”

Lachance said he’d aim to change that.

“One thing is to be available, whether that’s on the Internet or just a phone call,” Lachance said. “The complaint I’ve heard is they’ll call him and they just don’t hear back again. But I’d use phone, email, websites to keep in touch. There are all sorts of methods.”

Lachance said most of his constituents say their biggest concerns have to do with taxes and welfare.

“Welfare is a tricky issue, you can’t just attack it and you have to look it from all the angles and all the elements,” Lachance said. “But these are the issues that people in Ward 7 are telling me are up front in their mind.”

He said he hopes to explore other revenue sources to fund city services and would consider a local or county optional sales tax if it were tied to a corresponding property tax cut.

Desjardins said residents do want low taxes, but they want services as well.

“This council tried hard to maintain those this time, and I think that matters to residents,” he said. “We’ve expanded hours at the landfill, we gave them time to take spring clean up items without charge and we’ve maintained roads and plowing.”

He and other councilors have tried hard to keep those budgetary concerns balanced.

“We expanded some services this year,” Desjardins said. “And we did raise taxes, but only by about half as much as we would have had to. Raising taxes is the last thing on anybody’s mind.”

Lewiston’s Ward 7 starts in the southern part of the downtown and includes much of the River Front Island, running from Oxford Street and the Androscoggin River and expanding to include Knox Street at about Adams Avenue. Once out of the downtown proper, it runs along Lisbon Street to Cassell and Mitchell streets, ending at Webster Street in the north.

Ward 7 voters will cast ballots at Longley Elementary School at 145 Birch St. on Nov. 5.

Election coverage:

• Richard Desjardins, Lewiston City Council Ward 7
• Mike Lachance, Lewiston City Council Ward 7
• 2013 Lewiston candidates

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