Four Candidates Run for Waldoboro Select Board

Two seats on the Waldoboro Board of Selectmen are up for grabs this year, and four candidates are hoping to be among those that fill them.

The terms of current Selectmen Carl Cunningham and Ted Wooster expire this year; Cunningham is not running for re-election, but Wooster is.

Other candidates include former Selectman Bob Butler, Shellfish Conservation Committee Chair Abden Simmons, and Katie Winchenbach, chair of the Waldoboro Republican

Town Committee.

The seats are both for three-year terms.

The election is scheduled for Tuesday, June 9 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Waldoboro Municipal Building, as part of Waldoboro’s referendum town meeting. See stories

this issue for information on the proposed budget and other candidates for office.

Robert Butler, a 10-year Waldoboro resident and former selectman, is a local businessman and serves as the chair of the Waldoboro Transfer Station Committee.

Butler is the founder of The Jojoba Company, which deals in the extract from the desert Jojoba plant. He developed the company with his wife, Sally.

His professional career includes serving in the Peace Corps in Afghanistan, teaching English and German in Beirut, and working in the banking and oil industry in the

U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

Butler is a member of the town’s economic development committee and served previously on the broadband internet committee and an ad-hoc culinary arts committee.

“My dream is that Waldoboro becomes a town where we don’t have empty buildings lying around, where we have a certain amount of harmony with the groups around town,”

and people talk to each other, not at each other, Butler said.

“I’m not in favor of development, but I am in favor of growth,” Butler said. “To achieve growth, you need to create a physical infrastructure that fosters growth,”

such as bringing fiber optic broadband to the village area and wireless broadband to the rest of town.

Butler is also in favor of updating the town’s comprehensive plan and adopting a town charter, so people or businesses interested in coming to Waldoboro know how

things are decided in the town.

The select board was close to putting an article on a town meeting warrant to form a charter committee the last time Butler served on the board, he said, and he

hopes the board will give more thought to the issue this year or next.

Capital budgets for town departments are also an area the selectmen need to focus on, Butler said.

Butler is advocating the town’s transfer station move to a pay-as-you-throw system for trash.

“We’re literally burning up money when we have it trucked up and burned at Orrington,” Butler said.

Changing to a pay-as-you-throw system would hopefully make transfer station users more aware of what they could compost or recycle, and in turn reduce the amount of

solid waste the town pays to dispose of, he said.

“I think a strong case can be made for pay-as-you-throw, and I intend to make it,” he said.

Butler also intends to keep an eye on the Medomak River, which he says needs to be protected and preserved for future generations.

“The river … is the most important resource we have,” he said.

Abden Simmons is a Waldoboro native who digs and deals clams, and serves as chair of the Waldoboro Shellfish Conservation Committee.

Simmons has dug clams for a living for the last 24 years, and he and his wife have been dealing with clams for nearly 19 years, he said.

He’s been a member of the shellfish committee for about the last 15 years, and been chairman for at least 10 years, he said.

Simmons also served on the planning board for several years, and on a town manager search committee, he said.

Simmons is the director of the Maine Elver Fishermen Association, and has served on the state’s shellfish advisory council and on the governor’s task force for the

invasive green crab, he said.

According to Simmons, the biggest problem in Waldoboro is that the townspeople are not being asked to help.

“I’m willing to step up and help,” Simmons said.

Simmons admits he does not know what the specific issues are in town and only hears bits and pieces, but said the townspeople face the same issue. He aims to be more

proactive in sharing information with the public, and to improve transparency and communication.

Simmons also said he is good at facilitating involvement and bringing people together to work for a common cause.

Simmons will not push his own ideas on others, he said, but does want ideas to be presented, shared, and considered.

“I’m not a very good politician because I don’t have a problem saying what needs to be said,” Simmons said.

One change Simmons would like to make in Waldoboro involves zoning. He said he does not want all the development limited to the Route 1 corridor and hopes to pursue

that change.

“Waldoboro used to be a diverse group of people … we’re getting away from that,” he said.

For pay-as-you-throw at the Waldoboro Transfer Station, Simmons said he would need to know more about the station’s budget to know if the program would be feasible.

(Photo courtesy Dave Hungerford)

Katherine Winchenbach, a 30- year Waldoboro resident, was most recently self-employed as a gardener for 15 years until she retired last June, but has held a wide variety of

positions, including co-owning a disc jockey business for 20 years, retail, receptionist, and clerk positions, newspaper typesetting, and two years as a clam digger.

Winchenbach has not served on any municipal committees or boards, but has served as chair of the Waldoboro Republican Town Committee for the last three years and has

been a member of the Concerned Citizens of Waldoboro for the past four years, she said.

According to Winchenbach, lower numbers of citizens turning out for selectmen’s meetings or referendums are an indication of a lack of trust in Waldoboro.

Part of that, Winchenbach said, is because people who run for office in the town make promises they do not follow through on. Also, the select board members have

their own agenda and are not working for the townspeople, she said.

“I just see a big problem here in town and I want to be part of the solution,” she said.

Communicating with the selectmen can also be difficult, and the voters need to have a say and be listened to, Winchenbach said.

“[The selectmen] just don’t care,” she said.

“I hope to rectify that,” she said. “My line is going to be open. You call me with a concern and I’m going to work on it.”

“I just want everybody to work well together, to make this town run efficiently,” she said.

Winchenbach said she plans to work on improving customer service in the town office.

Winchenbach opposes changing to a pay-as-you-throw system at the Waldoboro Transfer Station, because she believes people will end up dumping their trash on the

roadside instead.

“I’m against it because I don’t think it’ll work. People aren’t going to want to buy bags to go to the dump,” she said.

Winchenbach said she’s new to town politics but will work hard for Waldoboro.

“I’d like to try my hand at this and see what I can do to help the people of the town,” Winchenbach said.

“My motto is to serve the public,” she said.

Ted Wooster, who first moved to Waldoboro in 1953, is a retired local pharmacist and is running for his fourth consecutive term on the select board.

Wooster ran his own pharmacy, Clark’s Drug Store, for 27 years before selling the business about 20 years ago. He continued working as a pharmacist until he retired

a couple of months ago, he said.

In addition to his service on the select board, Wooster is a member of the town’s transfer station and economic development committees, and was a member of the

town’s planning board for a short time, he said.

Serving on the Waldoboro Board of Selectmen has been stimulating, Wooster said, and he would like to remain on the board to solve problems.

One of Wooster’s goals is to make the Waldoboro Transfer Station “as economically positive as possible,” which he said includes reducing the transfer station’s

reliance on property taxes.

However, Wooster said he is waiting for solid numbers from the transfer station’s new scales to see how that influences cash flow before settling on a plan for any

changes.

Wooster said the town should be giving as much assistance as it can to help those who recycle.

Wooster believes the transfer station is the biggest opportunity to keep taxes down in Waldoboro, but also is in favor of promoting local businesses and working on

economic development to help expand the tax base.

Wooster said he has been involved with Waldoboro’s town economics practically his entire life.

Waldoboro is moving away from the industrial age to the information age, and it can be tricky to resolve the details on how the transition should be made or what

society is willing to accept with that change, Wooster said.

The town has a tremendous opportunity to change how government relates to businesses through the upcoming comprehensive plan development process, Wooster said, and

he plans to drop in on the meetings.

About all anyone can do with a comprehensive plan, or other laws, Wooster said, is to provide the opportunity to adapt them to a new situation or change them as

needed.

Wooster aims to improve communication, which he said is key to having a community that runs smoothly.

Still, Wooster admits, it is tricky sorting out how to make use of newspapers, Facebook, and personal communications in the best manner to get the information out to

the public. The information needs to be disseminated in a way that engages the people, he said.

“I enjoy the opportunity to deal with the issues and give them our best shot with other input to make things function,” Wooster said.