John Butler, 54

20 Ware St.

Occupation: Outside sales

Education: Lewiston High School, 1977; St. Michael’s College, Winooski, Vt., bachelor of arts in political science.

Political Experience: Lewiston School Committee, 16 years; Lewiston Planning Board, two years; incumbent, Lewiston City Council, two years.

Community Organizations: Lewiston High School Alumni foundation, member and past president.

What is broken in your city? What problem do you perceive, and how will you, as an elected leader, fix it?

What is broken is that we have a blight and a housing problem that is pretty bad now. We are in the process of demolishing nine buildings and we have about 20 more to do. We want to clean them up and make our city more appealing and safer. That’s one of the key problems. Another is getting control of that canal. It’s owned by Florida Power and Light, and if they wanted to they could just turn it off and leave it empty and smelly. So we need to get control of that.

What is your opinion of the casino? Would you urge Maine voters to support it or not? And why?

I’d urge people to support it. I’m not a gambler, per se, but Lewiston needs revenue. Between state and federal revenue cuts, we are very close to difficult times. If a casino comes in about $2.4 million (piece of revenue) to the city and that would be a really big piece for us. And I think it would be a really big catalyst for developing the downtown area.

What is your solution to improving Lewiston’s downtown housing stock, and why would it work?

The solution is, first tear it down, the old ones, and then get some lots that are usable. We need to get different kinds of housing, mixed housing going down there and business, too. I think getting some good lots would be a way of getting development going and that’s going to lead to some huge success for Lewiston.