BREWER, Maine — Approximately 70 percent of Brewer’s registered voters elected one new city councilor, re-elected another, elected two new school committee members, and limited fireworks usage within city limits.
Brewer Mayor and former Brewer High School Principal Jerry Goss won re-election to a second term with 2,684 votes. Challenger and local postal carrier Matthew Vachon succeeded in his second run at a council seat in two years with 2,383 votes. Longtime City Councilor Larry Doughty, who tallied 2,134 votes, lost his bid for re-election.
In a much more crowded school committee contest, in which six candidates were vying for two seats, two first-time candidates won their first seats. Real estate agent Dani O’Halloran garnered the most votes with 1,825 and Brewer High alumnus Kevin Forrest (Class of 1982) was next with 1,198. Both Forrest, 49, and O’Halloran have children in the Brewer school system.
The rest of the field finished as follows: Tyler Smith totaled 1,092 votes; Brewer High School district trustee and former 12-year school board member Mark Chambers was next with 1,080; foprmer nine-year school board member Mark Farley had 1,079; and real estate business owner Mark Beal followed with 794.
The municipal referendum question asked Brewer residents if they wanted to amend the land use code by adding the following language: “Notwithstanding the foregoing, the use of consumer fireworks shall be restricted to those area(s) of the City of Brewer that permit the discharge of shotguns, muzzle-loaders, black powder guns, revolvers and pistols pursuant to Chaper 35 of the Codes and Ordinances of the city of Brewer.”
Voters approved the change, 3,013 votes to 1,797.
That means residents will be allowed to use fireworks only in outlying areas of the city in which the discharge of firearms is allowed.
The restricted zone includes areas between Day Road in north Brewer to the junction of Elm and Mill streets in south Brewer, and all areas east of Green Point Road, Interstate 395, and Pierce, Lambert and Day roads.
Howard Kroll, Brewer’s City Clerk and registrar of voters, said the unofficial voter turnout for the city was 5,171 out of a possible 7,100 total registered voters.
He said turnout was also strong for voter registration.
“I believe we added almost 500 new voters, which means about 70 percent voter turnout,” he said. “That’s about standard for a presidential election.”
Kroll, who credited a lot of preparation by election officials and workers, said the entire process was almost glitch-free.
“From start to finish, we really had no malfunctions with the machines and very little wait time for people,” said Kroll, who has been city clerk for five years. “I would have to say this was by far the smoothest [ballot] machine election I’ve ever had.”
Kroll said more than 1,300 absentee ballots were submitted, and all were counted Monday. While the total was impressive, it was well short of the record total four years ago.
“We were around 1,900 in 2008,” he said.
Nice to see Brewer making some changes in it’s town council.
Congratulations Dani, Brewer was smart to pick such a wonderful and caring person to represent them:)
I just want to thank the residents of Brewer for voting to eliminate the use of fireworks in the most populated neighborhoods. They have been nothing but a problem since they were legalized. They were being shot off at all hours of the night and right over my house. On Halloween some of the kids in my neighborhood were actually throwing fire crackers at small children. One of these kids shooting off the fire crackers almost got socked in the mouth by an angry parent. One time when I complained, I was asked to determine if they were the legal ones or the illegal ones. How the hell am I supposed to do that??? I’ve never worked in a fireworks factory. Now I won’t have to decide. All fireworks are illegal in my neighborhood. May the peace return!
Don’t thank me, I’m gonna keep shooting them off near your house so the Brewer PD can continue to ignore your calls. You think this vote is going to make the BPD stop chasing drug dealers and pharmacy robbers and zip over to your place for a few errant fireworks? That’s funny.
Your an uneducated person without any reasoning… Fireworks are stupid
Even if the Brewer PD did come for ya, I’m sure you could make a clean get-a-way on your rockin- horse with your cap gun cowboy.
Go ahead shoot them off. Be warned though that if I catch you, you will be paying small fines, perhaps over and over again, until you learn your lesson. Have a good day!
Dani, when are you going to move to Bangor? Way to go kid.
Can’t believe Larry hasn’t commented yet.
His bedtime is 7pm………..
Dinner at the home is 4PM, and it’s lights out at 6.
Happy to see old Larry gone! This was just his hobby…………
I don’t live in Brewer, but I am so glad Mark Beal was not elected.
Congratulations to Brewer voters for unseating Mr. Doughty. It is about time the citizens realized what an embarressment he is to their fine city.
Unbelievable…Brewer voters finally got rid of Larry Doughty…after only 283 years of trying. I guess this year he finally couldn’t hid in a 6 candidate race like he always has…everyone ran for school board and avoided a watering down of councilor votes.
Congratulations to Mr Goss on winning re-election as the Mayor of Brewer. If I was still a Brewer resident, I would have voted for him. He’s got fine leadership skills and I knew him well as my former high school principal.