Bangor voters elected Susan Faloon, Daniel Carson and Angela Walker in Tuesday’s election out of a crowded field of nine City Council candidates — Bangor’s largest pool in the last six years.
Faloon was the most popular candidate, with 3,951 votes, and Carson and Walker earned 2,512 and 2,231 votes, respectively.
All three winning candidates were endorsed by the progressive Brewer-based nonprofit Food and Medicine.
The three newcomers will serve three-year terms on a council that has become increasingly chaotic in recent months amid infighting between elected officials and the resignation of the former chair.
The six unsuccessful candidates, in order of most to least votes received, were James Gallagher, 1,900; Colleen O’Neal, 1,832; Reese Perkins, 1,827; Steven Farren, 1,488; Justin Cartier, 1,308; and Richard Ward, 555.
The new councilors will be sworn in Monday, Nov. 10, at 10 a.m. They will replace outgoing councilors Rick Fournier, Dan Tremble and Cara Pelletier, whose seat has been empty since she abruptly resigned in September.
Faloon works as a media liaison for the Maine Public Utilities Commission. She named addressing homelessness as her top priority if elected and said she wants to increase housing through a combination of city-run projects and encouraging private development. She’s also said she believes her communications background will help her improve the relationships Bangor’s councilors have with the public and with each other during a tumultuous time. Faloon is a registered Democrat.
“It’s been very contentious on the City Council,” Faloon said Tuesday night, noting numerous instances of hate speech that disrupted council meetings in recent weeks. “I’m hoping that we can get things calmed down a bit. … Hate didn’t win tonight, and that makes me very happy.”
Carson, a labor organizer and former banker, said he’s running to make Bangor more affordable for the working class. He wants the city to invest in public services by building more affordable housing and increasing shelter space for homeless residents. A registered Democrat, Carson has also served in leadership roles for the Communist Party of Maine and Food AND Medicine, a Brewer-based nonprofit focused on addressing the root causes of poverty.
“I’m super excited to get to work,” Carson said Tuesday night. “Obviously there’s a lot of work to do.”
Walker is the peer services coordinator for the Bangor Area Recovery Network. She’s in recovery herself from addiction and was incarcerated after being convicted of manslaughter in 2003 — experiences she’s said would help her be a voice on the council for the city’s most vulnerable residents amid intersecting homelessness and addiction crises. Walker is unenrolled in a political party and also named cleaning up public spaces and improving public transit as priorities.
Walker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Multiple voters told the BDN outside the Cross Insurance Center Tuesday that the Food and Medicine endorsement was a deciding factor in how they cast their votes.
“I really like Food and Medicine — I took their advice,” said Lilyann Geiser, a 20-year-old student who supported all three winning City Council candidates. “That was my frame of voting, because I really like their values.”
The nonprofit is a politically progressive organization focused on advocacy around the root causes of poverty. It also backed the two winning School Committee candidates in Bangor.