WINTER HARBOR, Maine — After 10 years of working as the town’s top administrator, Roger Barto has decided to retire and to hand over the reins of running the town to his deputy.
Barto, 61, began working for the town in 1999, when he was working for Downeast Graphics in Ellsworth, he said Tuesday while sitting in his office. A local resident, Barto owned and operated several businesses before he took over the town manager position from Allan Smallidge a decade ago. Among the businesses he owned were Winter Harbor Garage and Chase’s Restaurant.
Barto said he told selectmen in March 2008 that he planned to retire this September.
He said his 10-year tenure in the position has been a “pedal to the metal” whirlwind and that he simply wants take a break and then do something else. What, exactly, he does not yet know, other than tending to the seasonal rental properties he and his wife, Pearl Barto, have owned for years. He said he has no plans to get back into the car repair or restaurant businesses.
“I’m retiring from this position, let’s put it that way,” he said. “I don’t know if anyone can retire these days.”
Barto’s last official day as town manager will be June 30, but he plans to continue working at the town office through mid-September to help with the transition and with sending out tax bills. After Cathy Carruthers, whose current job he described as “deputy everything,” will take over the town manager position on July 1.
A native of Windham, Barto said he enjoys working with people but, as a former small-business owner, he never got used to the drawn-out process of coordinating town projects with federal and state agencies.
“That’s something I really struggled with, after being in business for myself [and] making decisions and moving forward,” he said.
The closure of the local Navy base in 2002 was the biggest issue he had to deal with as town manager, he said. It severely reduced the number of students in the local grammar school, cut the town’s population roughly in half to about 500 people, and left behind a lot of former Navy housing that the town had to convert into civilian use.
“That triggered a lot of things for us,” Barto said.
With the help of wealthy former resident Eugene Fitz Dixon, the town successfully converted all of the Navy housing and has resold most of it, he said. The town also refurbished streets and public utilities in the central village during his tenure, he said.
Working with the Maine Department of Transportation on that project, Barto said, was the second most challenging issue he had to deal with as town manager. He said delayed state funding made the project more complicated than he thought it would be, as did mistakes he made in estimating how much the project would cost the town.
“When you have to go back to town meeting [to raise an additional $400,000], that crow doesn’t taste very good,” Barto said. “It was a mess for a while but it worked out in the end. [DOT] never quit working with us.”
Barto said he was “hooked” on Winter Harbor the first time he visited. He said he and his wife have no plans to leave Winter Harbor, where they have lived together since the early 1970s. Pearl Barto is a Winter Harbor native who plans to keep working at Ella Lewis School in Steuben for a couple more years, he said.
“With the restaurant business, I didn’t miss a minute of it,” Barto said. “I don’t know about this [job]. I’m sure I’ll miss some of it.”
