Primary elections for Maine House and Senate candidates and elections for some local select boards and the SAD 44 Board of Directors will all be held Tuesday, June 14, at town offices and Legion halls in the Bethel area.
In Bethel, candidates for two open three-year terms as SAD 44 director are, in the order they appear on the ballot, Michael Clark-Pelletier, Scott Cole, Mark Hutchins and David Jones.
Jones is the only incumbent in the bunch.
There are two open seats on the Select Board, each for a three-year term.
Incumbents Michele Varuolo Cole and Neil Scanlon are both seeking re-election, and Frank Delduca, Meryl Kelly and Christopher Tyler have joined the race to challenge the two incumbents for those seats.
There are two openings for assessor.
Scanlon, who is an incumbent assessor, is seeking re-election to that post and is not being challenged. The other will be filled by a write-in candidate.
Voting will be held at The American Legion, 85 Vernon St., from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
In Newry, SAD 44 Directors Amy Henley and David Bartlett are each seeking re-election to three-year terms. Neither face challengers.
Gary Wight, who currently serves as chairman of the Select Board, is seeking re-election and is not being challenged.
There will be three questions on the ballot, all related to ordinances.
They are:
Shall an ordinance entitled “An Ordinance Amending the United Development Review Ordinance for the Town of Newry, Maine” be enacted?
Shall an ordinance entitled “An Ordinance to Amend the Town of Newry Building Code Ordinance” be enacted?
Shall an ordinance entitled “An Ordinance Amending the Shoreland Zoning Map of the Town of Newry, Maine,” be enacted?
Voting will be held at the Town Office, 422 Bear River Road, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
In Greenwood, incumbent SAD 44 Director Erin Cooley is seeking re-election, and is being challenged by Destiny Hughes for a three-year term.
There are no other items on the ballot.
Voting will be held at the Town office, 593 Gore Road, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
And, in Woodstock, incumbent SAD 44 Director Marcy Winslow is unchallenged in her re-election bid for a three-year term.
Voting will be held at the Town office from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
At the county level, Republican Richard Murray of Fryeburg is a write-in candidate challenging Oxford County Sheriff Christopher Wainwright of Canton for the sheriff’s post. Murray is currently employed as a corporal at the Sheriff’s Office; Wainwright was elected sheriff in 2018 and has been with the department for more than 30 years.
There are two candidates seeking election to serve as the district attorney for Oxford, Androscoggin and Franklin counties. They are current Assistant District Attorney Neil McLean Jr., who is a Republican from Turner, and attorney Edward Rabasco Jr., a Democrat from Poland, who launched a write-in campaign last week for the June 14 primary to secure a spot on the November General Election ballot. The two will face off in November.
Maine’s House and Senate seats have all been renamed as a result of redistricting following the 2020 Census,
What had been House District 117 is now District 78, and what had been known as Senate District 18 is now District 19.
House District 78
Rep. Frances Head, who had represented what was formerly known as House District 117, has termed out of the Maine House.
The Republican candidate for that seat is Josanne Dolloff of Milton Plantation, who is currently serving her second term representing District 115, serving on the Veterans and Legal Affairs and Leaves of Absence committees.
The Democrat candidate for the District 78 seat is David Thurston of Bethel.
Neither candidate is being challenged in the primaries, which means the two will face each other for the Senate seat on Tuesday, Nov. 8.
Senate District 19
Lisa Keim, a Republican from Rumford, was elected in 2016 to represent what was known as District 18, and has most recently served on the Government Oversight and Judiciary committees.
Timothy Carter of Bethel is the Democratic candidate for this seat. A former member of the Maine House of Representatives, he has served on the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee.
Like the House candidates, neither one is being challenged in the primary and will face each other for the Senate seat in November.
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