BREWER, Maine — The Brewer City Council unanimously elected Matt Vachon to serve as the city’s mayor for 2015 during an organizational meeting Tuesday night at Jeff’s Catering.
Vachon, a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, has been serving as deputy mayor under Mayor Jerry Goss for the past year. The lifelong Brewer resident and 1999 graduate of Brewer High School was elected to the council in 2012.
After thanking Goss for his leadership during the past year, Vachon said he has been left with “big shoes to fill.”
The biggest challenge to the city will continue to be securing adequate funding. He said the city already is operating under a bare-bones budget. Vachon said it would be important to work closely with Bangor and other cities in the region to defend municipal revenue sharing, which is administered by the state and is vital to maintaining adequate city services. Past mayors, especially Kevin O’Connell and Goss, stressed the importance of working closely with Bangor’s council chairmen, and Vachon said he will continue that, working with Bangor council Chairman Nelson Durgin.
Several city councilors from Bangor attended the Brewer ceremony.
“If you cut revenue sharing again, it’s either going to result in a tax hike, cuts in services or both,” Vachon said.
Councilor Bev Uhlenhake will serve as deputy mayor and vice council chairwoman for the coming year after her unanimous election during Tuesday’s meeting.
Brewer City Clerk Pamela Ryan swore in Councilor Joe Ferris for another three-year term. Ferris won his bid for re-election in an uncontested race on Nov. 4.
Also sworn in were Brewer School Committee members Holly Lundquist and Mark Farley, who each won seats in a three-way race during the Nov. 4 election. Committee members Janet McIntosh and Mike Hutchins, the former chairman, did not seek re-election as their terms expired.
Farley owns local company Farley and Associates, which represents manufacturers throughout the Northeast. His mother, six siblings and two children all graduated from Brewer schools. He served on the Brewer School Committee from 2002 to 2011, and he was chairman for six of those years.
Lundquist has lived in Brewer for 35 years and was educated in its schools. She works in billing and customer service for an area heating company. She and her husband have no children but have a niece who lives with them and two nephews, all of whom attend Brewer Community School, she said.
The Brewer School Committee typically elects its chairperson and vice-chairperson on the same night as the city council, but one of its five members, Kevin Forrest, was traveling Tuesday night and couldn’t attend the meeting.
Because it’s only a five-member board, the group decided to postpone its organizational meeting until Friday. Superintendent Jay McIntire said the election of committee leadership will happen during a special meeting at 4:45 p.m. Friday in the Brewer High School lecture hall.
One of the school committee’s biggest early tasks will be launching a search for the next superintendent. The committee voted 3-2 to commence the search during a meeting last week — the last meeting of the previous council. Departing committee members Hutchins and McIntosh were the dissenting votes.
McIntire’s contract expires in June and he says he has begun to search for other job opportunities. The board has declined to say why it hasn’t offered McIntire an extension, calling it a “personnel matter.” McIntire has said he would entertain an offer if he received one.
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