Walter Voskian and long-serving incumbent Wendy Pieh are both seeking one seat on the Bremen Select Board, the only contested race for voters to decide at the annual town meeting on Saturday, June 24.
In other races, Christa Thorpe is running unopposed for reelection to a three-year term on the Bremen School Committee and Walter Radloff runs unopposed for reelection to a three-year term on the Bremen Planning Board.
Bremen Fire Chief Bruce Poland is also running unopposed for a three-year term on the Bremen Harbor Committee, which he has served on for more than 40 years.
Polls will be open at the Bremen town office from 8 a.m. to noon on June 24, followed by the open portion of the annual town meeting to begin at 2 p.m. at the Bremen fire house.
Wendy Pieh
Wendy Pieh (LCN file photo)
Wendy Pieh, current chair of the Bremen Select Board and a 19-year member, said her experience on the board and collaborative approach to problem-solving would continue to benefit the town if she is reelected.
“It has been an honor and privilege to serve as a Bremen Select Board member for the past 19 years,” Pieh said in a recent letter to the editor. “I am seeking reelection because I believe that while much has been accomplished, there is work to do.”
Pieh has sat on the select board continuously since 2004 and has served as its chair since 2005. Previously, she was a member of the Bremen School Committee and a legislative liaison to the Maine School Management Association.
She has lived in Bremen since the 1990s and has a background in education, working for Outward Bound programs in Minnesota, Canada, and Africa and rising to senior positions there. At home, she raises cashmere goats with her husband, physician Peter Goth, and is president of the Cashmere Goat Association.
Pieh also served four terms in the Legislature, where was a member of the Marine Resources, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry committees.
She separately sought office as a Democrat earlier this month in a special election for a seat in House District 45, which was won by Republican Abden Simmons.
She said the slogan “Working hard, working together,” which drove her House campaign, has been central for her approach since she first entered elected office in the 1990s.
At the town level, she counted as notable accomplishments her involvement in expanding broadband access, working with other organizations to reopen the Broad Cove clam flats to harvesters after contamination closures, maintaining the town’s solid financial standing for many years, and staying involved with community groups.
Expanded town support for programs at the Bremen Library is also a recent development, according to Pieh.
Maintaining opportunities for small business owners, particularly those making their living in fishing, shellfish harvesting, logging, and agriculture, is also a priority for Pieh.
She said the development of the town’s first land use ordinance in 2016 and 2017 was also a significant experience for her as an elected official.
That ordinance failed as presented at a town vote. It was revised through public work sessions with input from the ordinance review committee, planning board, a consultant, and resident input, and ultimately passed unanimously by town voters when presented with revisions.
This process demonstrated what can be accomplished when groups work together, Pieh said, and brought extensive community turnout and involvement.
Pieh said she wishes to continue the momentum and collaborative governance on the select board and keep working with residents, something she said she enjoys.
“My whole thing is to listen and to learn about people, because I really care about people,” Pieh said.
Walter Voskian
Walter Voskian (LCN file photo)
Walter Voskian, current chair of the Bremen Planning Board and a nine-year member, said his experience in municipal government and his work ethic would make him an effective selectman.
“I take concerns seriously, I act on them, I find solutions, and I treat people with respect,” he said.
Voskian has lived in Bremen full time since 2013. He was elected to the Bremen Planning Board the following year and has served as its chair since 2016.
He spent most of his adult life in Purcellville, Va., working for the CIA managing and analyzing intelligence reports for senior positions in the United States government, including the president.
In Purcellville, Voskian spent eight years as a councilman and about 30 overall in local commissions, committees, and boards.
During his planning board tenure in Bremen, Voskian said an increasing year-round population, both before and after the pandemic, contributed to complicated building expansion and shoreland stabilization applications, among larger proposals. He counted a number of changes to the board’s operation and governance documents that he said were designed to increase transparency.
The planning board has in recent years started an informal discussion process for applicants in early project stages, created comprehensive meeting minutes, and planned a program for updating board documents.
No planning board decisions have been appealed in the last several years, Voskian said, which he credits to a focus on basing those decisions in town ordinances and legal opinions.
He is also Bremen’s representative to the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission and attends select board meetings to report on the board’s activities.
Voskian said that his choice to run, which would require him to resign from his planning board seat if successful, was “a wrenching decision,” but one he felt was necessary for the good of the town.
He said he has concerns with the existing board’s communication with residents, addressing concerns, and openness to ideas.
Specific concerns include increasing detail provided in meeting agendas and in the meeting themselves, taking on responsibilities he said have been pushed onto town staff, and increasing public accountability for the town’s code enforcement officer.
Voskian said he would also want to start a comprehensive planning process and push the state for lower speed limits on Route 32.
Overall, he said, he wants to be plan and prepare for the future rather than being reactive to problems.
Voskian said he wished to stress that “listening is not an end in itself.”
“You can listen forever and not do anything,” he said.
He said he feels it is difficult to be a volunteer in Bremen due to a lack of support from the select board.
“I’ll give the select board credit; they do what’s necessary,” Voskian said. “But … to me, the measure of good leadership is going beyond what’s obvious and what’s necessary.”
