Alna has two candidate contests for elections this Friday; one each for the second and third selectman seats.
Three candidates, Donna Wallace, Troy Giroux, and Tom Smith vie for the second selectman slot for which current office holder selectman Louis “Butch” Brown decided not to seek re-election.
David Seigars is competing against incumbent selectman Brian Lawrence for the third selectman position.
Each position on the board is for three-year terms.
Polls will be open at the Alna Firehouse on Friday at 10 a.m. to elect a moderator and vote on the candidates on the ballot (Articles 1-2 of the annual town meeting) and remain open until 7 p.m.
The business portion of the annual town meeting (Articles 3-41) will be held on Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Alna firehouse.
Wallace, the only candidate who has held public office as town clerk, wants to see some changes if elected second selectman.
“What I’d like to focus on is to make the town office a friendly office again,” she said.
Another aspect of town government she said she’ll focus on concerns the budget and spending.
“I will try to keep spending at a minimum so we can lower taxes and make the people happy again.
Wallace has been living in Alna for a number of years and shares many concerns with her fellow residents.
“I love the town,” she said. “I wouldn’t have lived here for 35 years for the heck of it.”
Troy Giroux, a newcomer to local politics, targets the roads as an area of concern upon which to concentrate.
“Hopefully we can get some money for the roads,” he said. “The roads are rough.”
Giroux also stated his willingness to help in the local school consolidation process with the Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit.
Giroux has concerns for the education of local students and currently has employment as a residential counselor at a group home for troubled teens in Litchfield. “Education is important,” he said.
Tom Smith, the third candidate for second selectman, served on the school board in Boothbay where he grew up and has an interest in public service.
“My main interest is keeping the taxes down,” he said.
Smith serves on the local Head Tide Church Committee, which raises money for the preservation of Alna’s heritage, which he said concerns him as a town issue.
“I also have the intentions of trying to make the town more accessible online so that more people can be informed about meetings if they can’t attend them,” he said.
Smith said he has been following the school consolidation process closely and wants to support it, and at the same time, make sure it will benefit the education of the town’s children and fairly deals with the town’s involvement in the new school unit.
For the office of third selectman, David Seigars opposes Lawrence, who has held the position on the board for the past three years.
In a political climate that hails the word “change,” Seigars also makes use of the word.
“I know we need changes in the town office,” he said. “A lot of spending there is needless.”
Like another candidate, Seigars complains about the condition of the roads in town and desires to do something about it. “We need to do something to obtain more money to take better care of our roads.”
Seigars works as a carpenter both self-employed and part-time as a contractor.
The first part of last year, Seigars became a familiar face at the town office while serving as interim town clerk.
Lawrence has held the position of third selectman for the past two years after Les Fossel’s term of office expired.
Lawrence has been actively involved in bringing the office up to professional standards. “We have been developing procedures and policies, job descriptions, and a bidding process.
“Those are the kinds of things I did when I was at the Sheriff’s Office,” he said. “The point is the job gets done.”
While on the board, he said there has been no more nepotism in jobs to be done since the establishment of a bidding policy, and he would like to see more of the same kind of professionalism.
“I’d also like to see people get a chance to vote on a big ticket item,” he said. “I want to make sure the town gets plenty of notice.”
Having retired from the Sheriff’s Office as jail administrator, Lawrence has been serving as a court officer at Lincoln County Courthouse.
Mike Trask seeks re-election unopposed for road commissioner for a one-year term.
School committee member Elizabeth Brown is running as a write-in for school committee. The committee will no longer exist after June 30 because the new school unit board will be taking the place of all local school committees of towns in the unit.
The town report for the past year speaks about “the end of an era” for the school committee and past participation of the town in the education of its children.