Contested races scarce as Election Day nears

Only Scarborough has any real matchups in an off-year vote.

REGION — With no federal or statewide race atop the ticket, the so-called “off-year” election can be a torpid time for local ballot clerks. That’s especially true this year in Cape Elizabeth and South Portland, where not one race for municipal office has been contested. Statewide referenda, it seems, are to be sole draw on the electorate there.

Scarborough, however, is a different matter. Marshland voters have a three-way race for county commissioner to consider, as well as a $39.1 million school construction bond. In addition, four Town Council seats are up for grabs, with six candidates vying for a nod from their neighbors.

SCARBOROUGH

Every three years, three of seven seats on the Town Council come due. Because Scarborough is not divided into precincts, all councilors are “at-large” representatives, making balloting there a “Best of” affair – that is to say, voters get to check any three names from among the slate of candidates.

The four candidates include current council members Richard Sullivan Jr. and Karen D’Andrea, as well as challengers James Benedict, who has ran before, and political newcomer Paul Andriulli.

D’Andrea, 52, is executive director for two area nonprofits – Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence and Physicians for Social Responsibility. A former radio show host on WMPG, she is finishing her first term on the Town Council, having moved to Scarborough 10 years ago.

Sullivan, 47, is a longtime Portland firefighter with his own landscaping business. He’s making his third run at the Town Council.

First elected in 2006, Sullivan lost his seat in 2009. After sitting out a session, Sullivan won his way back on the Council last year, prevailing in a three-way race to fill out the term of Shawn Babine, who had resigned.

Andriulli, 55, is a longtime firefighter, having served Scarborough as a volunteer for more than 20 years. He is a general contractor with his own company, P.A. Renovations Inc.

Finally, Benedict, 63, is an 11-year town resident, having retired from ownership of Wood Construction. He has mounted two previous unsuccessful runs at Town Council.

In addition to the four-way race for three full-term seats, this year’s ballot also features a competitive race to full out the last two years of a term vacated by Councilor Michael Wood, who announced his resignation in August, citing time conflicts caused by a job promotion.

That race pits incumbent Ron Ahlquist, 57, against Planning Board member Kerry Corthell, 59.

Ahlquist, a ranger at Crescent Beach State Park in Cape Elizabeth, has served eight years on the council over the past decade, including two full-terms and twice winning election to unexpired terms.

Corthell took out nomination papers for both full and short-terms, eventually turning in signatures to pursue Wood’s seat when Ahlquist emerged as the only other candidate. “People should always have a choice,” she explained.

Corthell currently works as development coordinator at Spurwink, a Portland provider of mental health services, but also has a long history holding down executive posts in the financial industry of Ohio, where she lived before relocating to Maine three years ago.

In addition to council races, the Scarborough ballot also features two seats on the school board and three for the sanitary district. In both cases, there are exactly as many candidates as positions available.

The three candidates for three seats on the Scarborough Sanitary District Board of Trustees – Charles Anderson, James Greenleaf and Robert McSorley – are all incumbents, while Christine Massengill and Kelly Noonan Murphy would be newcomers to the school board.

Massengill, originally from Chicago, has lived in town for 12 years. She handles the administrative work for the company she co-owns with her husband, representing the makers of building products. Murphy, a Scarborough native, is a stay-at-home mom with a law degree.

Board member Colleen Staszko chose not to run again, while board Chairman Christopher Brownsey ran up against a local term-limit rule, which boots elected officials after three consecutive terms in office.

Both school board candidates are members of the committee championing the bond to build a new Wentworth Intermediate School for students in grades 3-5.

At $39.1 million, that bond could cost more than $66 million before it’s paid off in 2042, according to Town Manager Tom Hall. The best current calculation, Hall said, is that approval of the bond will add 46 cents per $1,000 of property valuation to property tax bills.

In other words, Hall said, given that “the average home in Scarborough is valued at $300,000, the average tax bill will go up $138,” irrespective of any other hikes in local spending.

Built as a Junior High School in 1962, Wentworth was officially expanded in 1974, then unofficially expanded with the addition of 18 used portable buildings in the 1990s. A handful of portables added in the 1980s, now considered unsafe, sit abandoned on one end of the building.

Wentworth’s cinderblock construction makes expansion “impossible,” according to Director of Facilities Todd Jepson, who says the walls “won’t even support an adequate layer of insulation” in the roof, let alone the addition of a second story. The building is rife with problems, including poor air-circulation, outdated rest rooms and inadequate sprinklers, in addition to the presence of asbestos, mold and numerous leaks. The steel plates that support the school’s concrete floor are rusting apart in places.

Ongoing maintenance issues have cost taxpayers $1.6 million since 2006.

A new building, designed by Auburn-based Harriman Associates, dresses out at 163,000 square feet and 40 classrooms. It’s meant for 800 students but could house up to 960, given the maximum number of students recommended by the state for each 800-square-foot classroom. Current enrollment at Wentworth is 775.

Those who oppose the project, like council candidates Andriulli and Benedict, have done so on the grounds of cost, coupled with a belief that the Harriman design is more than Scarborough truly needs. However, school board candidates Massengill and Murphy cite the town’s recent experience with its new middle school, which was “too small from day one.”

CAPE ELIZABETH

Everyone should be a winner in Cape Elizabeth, where two candidates are vying for two open seats on the Town Council. Chairman David Sherman is unopposed, as is first-time candidate Kathy Ray, thanks to Councilor Anne Swift-Kayatta’s decision to sit this one out.

Ray serves on the School Board. Her decision to have a go at the Town Council, coupled with the option exercised by board Chairwoman Mary Townsend to run for a lesser term, leaves two seats waiting for the only two candidates. They are first-timers Elizabeth Scifres, 36, a stay-at-home mother of two who spends her spare time coaching tennis, and Joanna Morrisey, 46, project manager for 21 Reasons, a Portland-based substance abuse prevention program.

Townsend drew no opposition in her quest to finish out the remaining two years on the seat vacated by Kim Monaghan-Derrig, who was elected to the state House of Representatives this past August.

SOUTH PORTLAND

Three seats are open on the South Portland City Council, with incumbents Thomas Coward and Patricia Smith drawing no opposition in Districts 1 and 2, respectively. Meanwhile, in District 5, where Alan Livingston has termed out, the only person to file was Gerard Jalbert, a Planning Board member and Bank of America loan officer.

On the school board, incumbent Tappan C. Fitzgerald II will run alone for re-election to District 5, while two candidates are shoe-ins for two open at-large seats. Baring an unforeseen write-in challenge, one seat will go to incumbent Karen Callaghan, while the retirement of board Chairman Ralph Baxter Jr. clears the other for attorney Jeffrey Selser.