City Council shakeup

South Portland government looks very different following last week's election

SOUTH PORTLAND — The South Portland City Council is about to get a significant makeover.

The Nov. 6 election brought two new faces to the governing body in the form of former City Clerk Linda Cohen, who ran unopposed in District Four, and real estate agent Melissa Linscott, who beat incumbent Councilor Rosemarie De Angelis in District Three with 56 percent of the vote.

However, the ascension of Tom Coward to a Cumberland County commissioner’s seat – he ran unopposed as a Democrat in District Four, representing South Portland, Cape Elizabeth, Westbrook and a small section of Portland – will soon provide an opening for a third new person on the council.

“I will serve through the rest of the year and resign in early January, to coincide with when the county commissioners hold their inauguration of new members,” Coward said on Friday. “I don’t think I have enough hours in the day to do both jobs, even if they weren’t considered conflicting offices by state law.”

The Cumberland County Commission will hold its inauguration of new members Jan. 14. Whenever Coward submits his letter of resignation, the council would vote to declare it “in the best interest of the city” to call a special election, given that there would be more than 60 days until the next regular election.

“Immediately, what we would do is release petition papers for anyone interested in running for that seat,” said City Clerk Susan Mooney.  That’s because the city charter says a special election must take place within 60 days of the council declaring a vacancy, and because candidate petitions must be returned 30 days before the election date to allow for absentee voting. In the case of a special election, state law does allow for an abbreviated petitioning period of as little as 10 days.

There would be just one polling location, at the Community Center on Nelson Road, and the entire event could be staged for as little as $800, Mooney said. Depending on when Coward submits his resignation, a special election could be staged anytime between late January and mid-March.

By that time, a new mayor will be in place as councilors begin to tackle a number of issues that have sat for some time as side dishes on the city’s plate. These include two issues on the agenda Wednesday – councilor compensation and the fate of the old Roosevelt School – as well as new fire codes, future farmers market plans and developing a code of ethics, as well as what Coward called the two “most important” items on the docket: implementation of a newly adopted comprehensive plan and development of an $18 million public works complex.

“I’m hoping we may be able to get an implementation committee off the ground before January, although a change of mayor sometimes jumbles the schedule,” said Coward. “The comprehensive plan was the one thing I wanted to see completed before I got off the council, although I had hoped to be around for the public works garage, too. That’s really the next big thing this city needs to see taken care of.”

“That’s huge,” agreed outgoing Councilor Maxine Beecher, who leaves office thanks to term limits following the mayoral inauguration Dec. 3. “But, if we are going to move this community forward in a healthy way, I think that implementation committee needs to be the first thing in place. It’s the key piece to everything else.

“The sooner that committee gets put together, while the comprehensive plan is still fresh in people’s minds, the better,” said Beecher.

De Angelis, who has been the most vocal critic of the price tag associated with putting public works, transportation and parks crews under one roof, won’t get chance to continue her critique in Coward’s place. Although Mooney has indicated ward boundaries could be redrawn by next November, it’s unlikely De Angelis’ home in District Three (from Knightville to Evans and Lincoln streets) would find itself in East End District One, which Coward represents.

The best she can hope for is to wait until next year and challenge for the at-large seats of Alan Livingston and Tom Blake, which will be up at that time, although a bond question for new complex planned for Highland Avenue is expected to be on the same ballot.

De Angelis could not be reached for comment.

For his part, Blake, a retired city firefighter who first won election to the council in 2007, appears fated for a return to the mayorship, a post he held in 2008. That’s when he defeated James Soule in a 6-1 vote. Soule, one of the few South Portland mayors in recent memory to stage a re-election bid, earned snickers at the start of his term for suggesting in his inaugural address that southern Maine secede from points north to form its own independent state.

Blake could not be reached for comment, but this past week a number of his peers confirmed he will be the favorite for the mayor’s gavel when the council conducts its annual leadership caucus on Nov. 19.

“From what I can see, not knowing how the new people will vote, Tom has at least four votes,” said Councilor Jerry Jalbert, on Monday, speaking of the internal politicking that goes on in advance of the caucus vote.

Although they will not be sworn in until Dec. 3, Cohen and Linscott will get to take part in the vote for mayor, while Beecher and De Angelis will not

Mayor Patti Smith has already indicated that she will follow tradition and step aside after one year.

“I’ll maybe want to do it again someday, but it’s been pretty much my experience that folks have kind of passed the baton after a year and given others an opportunity,” she said on Friday.

Smith said she may serve as chairwoman of the city’s Bicycle-Pedestrian Committee, if the next council chooses to keep it around. That committee and the farmer’s market advisory committee were both ad hoc groups that will need to be reauthorized, she said. If either continues, it won’t be with De Angelis in the chairwoman’s role, said Smith, noting that her leadership post on those two committees was tied to her role as a city councilor.

“That, at least, will change,” said Smith.

But what won’t change, Smith said, are “all the fantastic projects” completed during her term, including Phase 1 renovations to Mill Creek Park and project to filter stormwater out of the city’s sewer system that gave downtown Ocean Street a multi-millon-dollar facelift.

“I hope I will be known as a mayor who was not afraid to tackle the difficult issues and not just take easy softball throws,” said Smith. “I know it created some hard feelings for a while, but it was an interesting year, I think we accomplished a lot and in ways that was not just to get to a decision point.

“I’ve had good times and bad times during my nine years on the council,” said Beecher, also acknowledging some of the tough debates during Smith’s term, some of which brought her to odds with De Angelis, such as the year-long health care debate the latter kicked off during her final weeks as mayor in 2011. “But, I absolutely want to say I’ve grown a lot since I started, because as a city councilperson in this community, the people have been wonderful to me.”