OAKLAND — Voters on Nov. 7 will decide a three-way race for the Oakland Town Council and a two-way race for the Regional School Unit 18 board of directors.
The polls are scheduled to be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the fire station at 15 Fairfield St.
Incumbent town Councilor Robert Nutting faces challenges from Kelly Roderick and Kevin Quirion for a three-year term.
Nutting has served on the council for 17 years, beginning in 1977 and serving until 1988, and then becoming a councilor again in 2018.
He is a Republican state representative for District 66, which includes Oakland, Mercer, Smithfield, Starks and part of Sidney, and serves as Republican leader on the Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety. He is also a member of the Committee on Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services.
Robert Nutting
A Skowhegan High School graduate, Nutting, 76, also graduated from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and owned and operated True’s Pharmacy in Oakland from 1972 to 2003. He is a former member of the town’s charter commission and served on a committee that established the commission.
Nutting said he is running for reelection to the Town Council because he is on the downtown tax increment financing advisory committee that is part of an ongoing effort to spruce up and improve the downtown area, “which has been a concern of Oakland citizens since years ago when I first served on the council.”
“More recently,” Nutting said, “I was the chairman of the Comprehensive Planning Committee for the town of Oakland, which completed just a couple of years ago, so that’s all part of a project that I would like to see to the end.”
He said he thinks improving the downtown area is an important issue as is the need for a revaluation, something Oakland is looking to begin in probably 2025, because of the rapid changes of valuations for homes. It has been several years since Oakland has had a revaluation, he said.
Nutting also said working on selecting a new town manager is also a priority, following the recent departure of Ella Bowman.
Roderick, 59, a Democrat, has been active in town affairs for years and serves on the Budget & Advisory Committee, Oakland Memorial Hall Preservation Committee, Friends of Maine Children’s Home, Northern Light Inland Hospital’s Patient Advisory board, Mount Merici School board of trustees, Oakland Tax Increment Financing Committee and Waterville Sunrise Rotary Club. She is also president of the Oakland Area Alumni Association and a former member of the Oakland Comprehensive Planning Committee and the RSU 18 board of directors.
Kelly Roderick
A security officer at the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Roderick worked 30 years for a company that trained people in public safety, she said. She is a graduate of Messalonskee High School and holds an associate’s degree in medical office administration from Kennebec Valley Community College.
Roderick said she is running for Town Council to “bring new perspectives, thought processes and ideas to the council while enhancing information accessibility, making information more readily accessible to the citizens.”
Roderick said she, for example, wants to see Town Council agenda packets posted online for residents to see prior to council meetings. While agendas are posted online, the packets that include information detailing those agenda items are not. Councilors have those packets, but a resident must request one ahead of time and it will be emailed, according to Roderick. She said packets are not available for residents at council meetings.
Roderick said she also wants to propose that the council establish a charter review committee, as requested by residents.
Issues facing the town, she said, include figuring out how to continue the work started by former manager Bowman.
“Working through this transition period of not having a town manager leads me to be concerned about the budget process which is beginning, and all of the work on special committees that has been ongoing that was stopped for two months,” Roderick said. “The TIF and Memorial Hall Preservation committees — those stopped and they’re starting up again but with people who haven’t been participating.”
Quirion, 54, a political newcomer running for council as an unenrolled candidate, is a retired 30-year boat mechanic and military veteran who has been trail master of Messalonskee Trail Riders for the last three years. He served as a heavy equipment engineer in the U.S. Army for two years and finished the last 10 years in the National Guard. Quirion is a graduate of Messalonskee High School and attended various courses at technical schools to update his boating mechanic credentials.
Kevin Quirion
Quirion said he is running for the Town Council because he is interested in town operations and wants to get involved.
“I want to find out what’s going on and help out the town,” Quirion said. “I’ve have just been getting involved in that more and more since I’m getting older. I’m hearing things in the town all the time and I question it.”
Quirion said he doesn’t have any particular plans for what he would do as a councilor and wants to listen and evaluate issues before making decisions. He said he has lived in Oakland nearly all his life and has lived in the same place since 1979.
“I know a lot of people, especially working in boats for so many years,” Quirion said. “I know hundreds of people.”
In the race for the RSU 18 board of directors, incumbent Charles Stubbert III, a Republican, faces opposition from Chelsey Oliver, also a Republican.
Stubbert, 53, is deputy chief of the Oakland Police Department, where he has worked for 23 years and is known as Rick Stubbert. He has been a member of the RSU 18 board of directors for nine years and serves on its extracurricular, policy and school safety committees.
He also serves on the board of directors for the Alfond Youth & Community Center and coaches AAU girls basketball. In the past, he served on various town committees including a diversity committee, as well as the school board’s education programming committee.
Charles Stubbert III
Stubbert said he wants to serve a fourth term on the school board because he enjoys being involved in the schools and supporting academics and athletics. The Police Department, he said, takes children’s safety seriously, and he spends time as often as he can at Williams Elementary School.
“I just like being involved in the schools, and being on the school board is very eye-opening,” he said.
Stubbert said he is focused on students and supports academics and extracurricular clubs and organizations, which the schools have worked to develop. Stubbert said the schools and school board have been fortunate in that they have not faced major issues, and he does not expect this will change.
Chelsey Oliver, a Republican and former math teacher who now works for Golden Pond Wealth Management as a relationship manager, is running for Stubbert’s seat.
Chelsey Oliver
Oliver, 28, said she taught math at Messalonskee Middle School for eight years and attended Oakland schools herself and graduated in 2013 from Messalonskee High School. She holds a bachelor’s degree in secondary education from the University of Maine at Farmington. Oliver coaches eighth grade girls soccer at the middle school and does a podcast for teenagers, she said.
Having been a teacher, she said, she knows firsthand what is going on at schools and has a passion for supporting and communicating with youth. She said that when she decided to leave teaching, she knew she would be back in some way, and when the opportunity arose to run for school board, she decided to jump in.
“I’m running because I left teaching and still feel so passionate about youth and the education they get to receive,” Oliver said. “I’m hoping to bring a much-needed perspective about what classrooms look like today.”
Donna Doucette and Donna Griffin, both Democrats, are seeking reelection to three-year terms on the Budget & Advisory Committee, and Susan Leigh, a Republican, is also running for a three-year term the committee. Three positions are open.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
