Voters to elect three in Gray

GRAY — The five-member Town Council will look different after the June 13 election, with Councilors Richard Barter and Peter Gellerson not returning and Chairman Lew Mancini’s resignation earlier this year.

Emanuel “Manny” Archibald, Sandy Carder and Dan Maguire are running for the two full-term seats – one currently held by Gellerson and the other that Mancini resigned from in March.

The third seat is a one-year term to fill out Sturgis’ seat. He become town manager in Cape Elizabeth in January.

Barter had been appointed to temporarily serve in Sturgis’ seat until the election. Bruce Foshay is the only candidate for that seat.

When Mancini resigned in March, the council decided not to appoint a replacement and to finish out the spring with four councilors. However, with Gellerson’s attendance hindered because of a health issue, the council decided to appoint Foshay for a total of one meeting next week to ensure the body would have enough members to conduct business.

Each of the four council candidates spoke with the Lakes Region Weekly about their background and vision for the town. None of the other races in the town election are contested.

Emanuel “Manny” Archibald

Age: 36

Occupation: Director of talent acquisition and human resources information systems, as well as the Equal Employment Opportunity officer for Goodwill Northern New England.

Political experience: Serves on the Gray Community Economic Development Committee and the Gray Blueberry Festival committee

No. 1 issue facing the town: “My whole thing is kind of getting back to basics. I think that we’ve kind of gotten ahead of ourselves and put the cart before the horse, if you will, in a lot of projects and things that we want to get ourselves involved in – all with good intentions of trying to move the town forward. But I think we’ve kind of lost sight of vision and mission and what we want the town to be, and intentionally tying a lot of those things back to our main vision for what we want the town to be. That’s not to say that the projects and things that we’re working on right now aren’t good things to be working on, it’s just that I’m not necessarily sure we’ve done a really good job of making sure that everybody understands how it ties back to our vision, because I think we might have lost site of that a little bit along the way.”

Sandy Carder

Age: 50

Occupation: Homemaker, previously worked for 22 years at Liberty Mutual Insurance

Political experience: Served on various youth sports boards and committees, including the Gray Little League board, Youth Basketball Association board, and the Gray-New Gloucester baseball, softball, and golf tournament fundraising committee.

No. 1 issue facing the town: “The biggest area that I’d like to focus on is more strategic planning, and that’s around economic development, maintaining community assets, livability, traffic, and that kind of thing. That’s the area that I think I can help most in, a little bit more strategic planning – short-term, long-term.”

Dan Maguire

Age: 61

Occupation: Special education technician at Gray New Gloucester Middle School

Political experience: Served on the SAD 15 board for six years

No. 1 issue facing the town: “That’s a tough one, to pull it apart and just pick one. I suppose the No. 1 issue is coming up with a process to make it easier for people to participate in the work that the council and all the town’s committees do, and likewise to make it easier for the council to get a good sense of what direction the majority of people in town would like the town to go.”

Bruce Foshay

Age: 67

Occupation: Project management consultant in the medical device field

Political experience: None, except for current one-meeting appointment on the Town Council. Has previously served on boards and committees for private clubs.

No. 1 issue facing the town: “I’m hearing a lot of issues. But I’m new to the town, so I haven’t known what the major issues are. I’m hearing a lot about traffic, I’m hearing a lot about doing a better job of business development, and trying find a way to curb our residential taxes and supplement them in a different fashion.”