ROCKLAND, Maine — Voting to fill a rare vacant seat on the Rockland City Council will begin Monday when absentee ballots become available.
Adam Ackor of Old County Road and Michael Herbert of Mechanic Street are on the ballot for the seat vacated in early March by William Jillson, who resigned, citing the inability to work with other councilors or the city manager.
Ackor said he feels he can contribute to the community by serving on the council. He founded, owns and operates Shore Village Builders. He is a Cushing native who graduated in 1987 from Georges Valley High School in Thomaston and graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1993. He is married and he and his wife have two children.
He has served on the comprehensive planning commission for the past year and a half.
The candidate said that dealing with the city’s crumbling infrastructure will be one of his top priorities. He said the city also must work with the school district.
“We need to attract people to the city who will move into our neighborhoods, buy houses, fix them up and put kids in our schools. That goes a long way to broadening our tax base,” Ackor said.
The council also needs to be more transparent, he said. He criticized Mayor Louise MacLellan-Ruf for her calling up a resident and persuading him to come to a meeting to criticize Councilor Larry Pritchett.
“It was very underhanded. This fuels the rumors that she had a hit list, getting rid of Ed Glaser and wanting Larry gone and Kevin Beal gone,” Ackor said.
MacLellan-Ruf seems to be very adamant about putting people in their place, whatever she perceives that place to be, he said.
He said the way the city introduced the proposed natural gas plant was another mistake by officials that blindsided residents and did not give them more of an opportunity to assess the proposal. He said he supports the proposed ordinances before the council to regulate grid-scale energy facilities.
Ackor said he opposes the creation of a volunteer coordinator position for the city and is against the elimination of the city attorney position. He said Beal puts in a ton of work and has been of great assistance to the operation of city committees.
Herbert is a Rockland native, graduating from Rockland District High School in 1976.
He is married with two adult children. He drives a van for Regional School Unit 13. He previously worked 13 years on the Working Waterfront magazine for the Island Institute.
Herbert said he wants to be a servant of the people and feels the Lord wanted him to try.
He stressed throughout the interview that he wants to listen to all citizens and work on solutions rather than putting forth an agenda on city issues. The most common concern he has heard from residents is that property taxes are too high.
Herbert said people also are angry and distrustful of the council and the recent issue involving the mayor does not help the group work together. He said he wants to be open and have the community regain trust in its city council.
While a volunteer coordinator would serve the community, he said he could not support its creation because of costs. He said instead he would like to brainstorm on how to attract and train more volunteers with existing staff.
The candidate said he does not know enough about the city attorney position to state a position on whether it should be eliminated but said he would be willing to look at alternatives to a staff lawyer.
“We need to get away from coming up with ordinances for ordinances’ sake,” Herbert said, saying it was too often busy work.
He said the council is likely to vote on regulations of energy plants before the new councilor starts, so he has no position on those proposed ordinances. He also said the issue of a natural gas-fired energy plant was a moot point, saying the company would not return to the city. Herbert said he was concerned that adopting ordinances can sometimes make other businesses uncertain of whether they should come to Rockland.