Two councilors, a former councilor from the 1990s and a newcomer are running to fill three vacant Orono Town Council seats in the election next month.
Jacob Baker, Rob Laraway, Matthew Powers and Scott Thomas are competing for the seats held by Laraway, Powers and Geoff Wingard, who served as the council’s chairperson. Orono’s election will take place from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. March 5 at the municipal office’s council chambers at 59 Main St.
Two candidates are also running to fill two open seats on Regional School Unit 26’s school board. Mark Brewer and Brian McGill currently serve on the board.
Residents can visit the town office from 7:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday to request an absentee ballot or request one online. In-person absentee voting will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Feb. 27 and 28, at the council chambers.
Candidates are listed in alphabetical order below.
Jacob Baker
Baker, a commercial lender at Bangor Savings Bank, grew up in upstate New York and moved to Boston after college, where he worked as a constituent services aid for the Boston City Council and a committee staffer for the Massachusetts legislature.
He moved to Orono more than a decade ago for graduate school at the University of Maine. The 40-year-old is involved with groups in the Bangor area, including Habitat for Humanity, the Penobscot Theatre Company and the Katahdin Area Council Boy Scouts of America, whose board he joined this past fall.
Baker, who ran during a special election last August and lost, is trying again because he wants to give back to the community that he has grown to love. He has never served as an elected official.
If elected, Baker said he would work to make residents, from longtime families in Orono to new faculty at the University of Maine, feel heard and respected.
Baker considers finding a new town manager, stabilizing the municipal staff after recent departures and building a strong budget to be priorities for the council. He thinks Orono needs a balance of providing essential services to the public and allowing residents to live affordably. After several years of revenue increases, the council needs to “maintain this new normal” knowing it will not continue to get substantial increases from the state, he said.
“People should vote for me because I’ll be a moderate voice on the council that will listen respectfully to all sides and make decisions that are best for the town as a whole, not any single group or person,” he said.
Rob Laraway
Laraway, a musician and private music educator, has spent most of his life in Maine, living in Orono since 2011. He used to work as a community organizer for the Maine People’s Alliance, which led him to his involvement with the Wabanaki Alliance. He is a consultant to the group and helps with social media and other outreach efforts.
The 31-year-old was elected to the Orono Town Councilin 2022 and filled a seat left vacant after Laura Mitchell resigned.
Between the search for Orono’s next manager and designing a comprehensive plan, there are important decisions to be made in town, and Laraway sees consistency in leadership as a good thing. He is especially fond of chances for residents to share their perspectives, which is coming up as part of the comprehensive planning process, he said.
“So much of municipal government can feel murky to people who aren’t in the process and feel like we’re stuck on a lot of minutia,” he said. “A process like this that happens every 10 years gives us a chance to think about the big picture. This is a place where people should feel like their ideas can influence the process.”
Inflation is not a problem unique to Orono, but it continues to be a challenge, and it’s the council’s job to wrap its head around that and make careful decisions, he said. Laraway noted that as the town grows financially, it’s important to look at where trends are coming from and what that means for services moving forward.
Laraway hopes people vote for him because he has the ability and conscience to do right by the community as best as he can, he said. He promises to listen and make sure people feel heard.
Matthew Powers
Powers, an editor for a science and nature imprint at Catalyst Press, moved from Minnesota to Orono with his family in 2014. He grew up in El Paso, Texas, where he studied microbiology, then received his doctorate in molecular cell biology at the University of Utah.
The 47-year-old and his wife, Annie Powers, are involved with a new gear library at the Old Town-Orono YMCA that offers equipment rentals to area children.
Powers was elected during a special election in August, beating Baker and Catherine Thibedeau. He filled a seat left vacant after Cheryl Robertson resigned from her unexpired term.
He hopes to continue serving on the council so he can see major projects, including the selection of a new town manager and transportation improvements along U.S. Route 2, come to fruition. The latter will affect the look of Orono’s Main Street, walkability and how the town deals with its traffic issues, he said.
Among Orono’s challenges are the continued inflation of the town’s budget and lack of housing, including for an incoming town manager. Powers wants to help address those, particularly finding a smart way to fund critical infrastructure in town, like the public safety building, which is not meeting the needs of law enforcement officers and firefighters, he said.
If voters elect him, Powers will work to ensure their taxes are going to places that are most needed in the community and leverages for opportunities where state and federal support is available, he said. The council’s transparency is also a top priority for him.
“I am interested in continuing to listen to what people in the town want,” he said. “I am excited to come through with opportunities to make Orono a more walkable, safe and affordable place to live.”
Scott Thomas
Thomas, a fifth-generation Orono resident, is a real estate broker with Maine Discount Realty. He owns properties in Orono and Old Town. His grandfather opened an insurance agency in 1940, which stayed in his family until Thomas sold it about a decade ago.
The 71-year-old is vice president of the Greater Bangor Apartment Owners and Managers Association. He recently left his position as treasurer of the Greater Bangor Board of Realtors after serving on it for 10 years.
Thomas was a member of the local school board in the late 1980s and the town council in the 1990s. During his term, he was an organizer for a project where volunteers spent a week building a new playground, which he remembers as the most unifying in Orono’s history. He also was involved with the hiring of the school district’s superintendent and town manager at the time.
Thomas feels that his historical knowledge of the town and background, particularly in finances, could help guide the town forward. Current councilors are smart but they have little experience, and as a semi-retired person, he has the time to dedicate, he said.
Choosing a capable town manager, balancing the budget and addressing ongoing complaints from residents are top priorities for Thomas. As a landlord, he is hyper-aware of noise complaints, loud parties and vehicles parked where they shouldn’t be, but the town hasn’t found a way to fix these problems, he said.
Micro-managing a town manager makes for employee unrest, and Orono has had enough of that, he said. Thomas foresees difficult times ahead when revenue sharing from the state begins to dry up. Orono does not have a strong tax base and isn’t a town that encourages a lot of commercial development, he said. He thinks the council has to make every dollar work hard and spend it responsibly, meaning it accomplishes something.
“I’ve lived here all my life, and I care about the community,” he said. “I want to see it continue to succeed. I have no hidden agenda, and I’m not running for a specific purpose other than to help the town.”
