NINETEEN candidates will be on the ballot in the June 9 citywide election to the Charter Commission. The Press Herald will profile all candidates.
MONDAY: Districts 1 and 2
TODAY: Districts 3, 4 and 5
WEDNESDAY: At-large seats
To read these and other local election stories, click on the Elections 2009 logo on the Press Herald home page.
JOE MALONE
ADDRESS: 30 Highland St.
AGE: 51
PERSONAL: Married with three children
OCCUPATION: Commercial real estate broker
EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree from St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H.
POLITICAL EXPERIENCE: Two terms on the Portland Public Art Committee, and served on a city committee that rewrote the industrial zoning code
LAURIE DAVIS
ADDRESS: 134 Oakdale St.
AGE: 57
PERSONAL: Divorced with three children
OCCUPATION: Executive director of Upward Bound at the University of Southern Maine
EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Master's degree in education from the University of Southern Maine
POLITICAL EXPERIENCE: None.
PORTTLAND — Voters in District 3 have a choice between two candidates who seem quite different in their views and background.
Joe Malone, a commercial real estate broker, wants to bring a business community perspective to the commission. He also strongly supports allowing voters to elect the city's mayor.
Laurie Davis, who worked for 16 years as a federal grants administrator for the city of Portland and the School Department, said she can provide a "ground-level" perspective of what it's like to provide services to residents as a city worker.
She's "very open" on the issue of whether the city should elect its mayor. Until the commission has had a chance to study the issue, however, it's premature to take any position, she said.
Davis said the commission needs to take a methodical approach. It should first identify its goals, then study the most efficient way to achieve those goals, she said.
Her goal, she said, is to find a way to encourage effective leadership that can establish a vision for the city and a way to sustain progress in realizing that vision.
"An elected mayor is one answer. There are a lot of different flavors of an elected mayor you could have," she said. "What's the goal? What's the intent? What are our resources? How do we get there in a successful and efficient kind of way?"
Malone said it's important that at least one person on the commission represent the views of the business community. The other candidates are mainly lawyers, educators and city officials, he said.
"You see a lot of the same faces and the same professions. You need some different views on this thing," he said. "The charter commission is the foundation of how the government will run, and it's important to have some business voices."
As a commercial real estate broker, Malone said he has negotiation skills that would help bring factions on the committee together.
Besides supporting an elected mayor, he also supports presenting voters with a list of possible changes to the city charter and letting them vote on each item separately.
Staff Writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 791-6369 or at:
tbell@pressherald.com
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