Maine
Dale Crafts is running for a local office he wants to get rid of
Five years after running for Congress, former state Rep. Dale Crafts was back in front of a crowd to propose a major change to his town’s form of government.
“Unfortunately … four people on a seven-person town council can decide a majority vote on our destiny,” he said. “Four people!”
Crafts was describing what he sees as the failures of the Lisbon Town Council that he’s now running to join. But he was also describing a strategy that he and three longtime friends are using to try to take over the town council before potentially dismantling it.
The former Republican lawmaker is the face of one of the hottest property tax revolts in Maine. His Androscoggin County town of nearly 10,000 residents weathered a 20% property tax bump that was crafted to fill a multi-million dollar budget hole caused by a clerical error, years of inflation and high spending.
Town councilors approved that $13.9 million budget in July. Since then, Crafts and other conservatives in the town have focused on opposing the school budget, the only one that residents control. Lisbon has voted the exact same school budget down twice. A slightly slimmed-down version will be on the ballot for a third time alongside the town council race.
This happened in large part due to Crafts. Using his pre-existing political action committee, he purchased mailers arguing for no votes on the school budget. The 66-year-old said he thought he had retired from politics after losing to U.S. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine’s 2nd District in 2020, but the tax revolt brought him back in.
“I’ve worked hard all my life and I wasn’t planning on being up here,” he said at a candidate forum at Lisbon Community School on Tuesday. “I’m here to try to make a difference. I feel compelled by God to do this.”
Crafts’ message that longtime Lisbon residents may be priced out of their homes by rising property taxes has resonated. While most of the nine candidates for council expressed an openness to making cuts and looking for ways to reduce property tax increases, Crafts is campaigning most stridently on austerity and riding a wave of anger at the town budget.
His political group has spent $16,000 this year, with much of that going toward the school and municipal elections. He is promoting a trio of longtime friends, Roger Bickford, Greg Garnett and Eric Metivier, with matching lawn signs. With four open council seats, that slate alone could elect the next council chair and control the flow of business.
Crafts is running against three political newcomers for a two-year term on the council. For the other three open seats, his allies are taking on incumbent Jo-Jean Keller and Charlie Turgeon, another candidate drawn in by the ongoing budget crisis.
Turgeon, a project manager on military projects, is running a more moderate campaign than Crafts, saying he rejected his opponents’ “cut, cut, cut regime.” But he has promised to examine the scope of government and find ways to reduce future budgets by outsourcing and privatizing some services.
Turgeon became involved earlier this year when he organized a petition to require the town to hold referendums on town budgets going forward. That eventually resulted in the town council asking voters whether they want to establish a charter commission, which would be tasked with revising Lisbon’s governing document. In addition to four council seats and the school budget, that question will also be on the November ballot.
If voters approve a charter commission in November, it would kick off a long process of review that could change how Lisbon functions, including possibly reverting to a town meeting form of government in which voters would decide the local budget.
The council would hold no direct power to disband itself, but its members could hold sway with a future commission.
If elected, it would not be Crafts’ first time on the council. He served on the town’s very first council after its creation by the town’s current charter, made in 2006. He says he’s longed to return to town meeting budgeting since then.
“After I served on the first town council form of government, I said to myself, ‘this isn’t good,’” he told residents last week. “And look where we’re at.”
LEWISTON (WGME) Nearly three years after the Lewiston mass shooting, the Maine Resiliency Center is asking the public to share how the tragedy has affected them and the community.
The nonprofit has launched a survey to better understand the impacts of the mass shooting in October 2023 and to help guide future support efforts.
The director of the Maine Resiliency Center said the ripple effects have spread widely and the organization wants to hear from anyone who has been affected.
“You could have been a service provider who is providing therapy or counseling for people; you could have been a funeral home director or city employee; you could be someone who lives in this community and knows somebody who is directly impacted or you could be directly impacted yourself. All of those opinions and information are really valuable to us as we look to support the broader community moving forward,” the director said.
To take part in the survey, go to maineresiliencycenter.org.
Politics
Our political journalists are based in the Maine State House and have deep source networks across the partisan spectrum in communities all over the state. Their coverage aims to cut through major debates and probe how officials make decisions. Read more Politics coverage here.
AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Friday upheld Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ decision to keep a referendum banning transgender girls from female school sports off the November ballot.
The high court ruled Bellows was “not only authorized but was constitutionally bound” when she moved in May to throw out more than 1,500 signatures gathered by out-of-state circulators who never agreed to submit to Maine’s jurisdiction.
The unanimous ruling from the six-justice panel closes out a monthslong legal fight that began when Bellows’ office invalidated more than 12,000 signatures submitted by Protect Girls’ Sports in Maine, leaving the petition 532 signatures short of the 67,682 needed to qualify.
The group, backed heavily by Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein, had argued Bellows overstepped her authority by enforcing a settlement that ended a 2023 First Amendment lawsuit over Maine’s ban on out-of-state circulators, rather than letting Maine voters decide whether to loosen the state’s residency rules for petition circulators.
The court rejected that argument, finding Bellows was bound by the Maine Constitution’s residency requirement for circulators except where a federal injunction narrowly excused her from enforcing it, and that four nonresident circulators who never checked a box consenting to Maine jurisdiction fell outside that carveout.
Justices also rejected the campaign’s fallback argument that one circulator’s belated affidavit, filed months after the Feb. 2 filing deadline, should have salvaged her roughly 61 signatures, citing a state law requiring circulator affidavits to be filed when the petition is.
The decision effectively ends the campaign’s bid for the 2026 ballot, though the court noted proponents could still gather the roughly 500 additional signatures needed to try again for the 2027 ballot.
A handful of mostly unknown Democrats, including a retired art teacher, a candidate’s husband and a finance executive, will soon have unprecedented influence over the U.S. Senate race.
Maine Democrats are slated to host a 600-member convention this month, with roughly 500 of those members selected by the party’s 16 county apparatuses. Being a county chair is usually a low-key position. After Graham Platner’s Wednesday announcement that he will leave the race following sexual assault allegations, they are suddenly in a position of power.
Here are the 16 people tasked with creating a delegation to pick who will face off against Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Joseph Zamboni: Cumberland County
As Maine’s most populous county, Cumberland will have the largest delegation at the coming convention. Its party chair is health policy and law professor and pro-vaccine advocate. He currently serves as the chair of Portland’s zoning board and previously worked for the state and the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
Kathie Purdy: York County
York, the southernmost county, is the state’s second most populous. Its delegation will be led by Kathie Purdy, a former candidate for the state Legislature. She is a business owner in Saco and a bar manager in Ogunquit, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Harry Sanborn: Penobscot County
Alton resident Harry Sanborn is involved in local government, serving as a member of both the planning board and budget panel. He also serves as the town’s sexton. His wife, Laura, a former lawmaker and county commissioner, is a school board member for Regional School Unit 34.
Joanne Mason: Kennebec County
Kennebec’s Democratic Party chair is Joanne Mason, a nonprofit leader and the wife of Sheriff Ken Mason. According to her LinkedIn, she is president of the Family Violence Project, an Augusta-based nonprofit.
Carl Wilcox: Androscoggin County
From his social media history, Wilcox appears to be on the left of the party. In response to a white nationalist rally in DC last week, he posted that “billionaires control the media and the government sets the rules to funnel ever greater sums to the billionaire class,” echoing Platner’s anti-billionaire language. He hiked the entire Appalachian Trail in 2016.
Alison Willette: Aroostook County
Willette has relatively little online presence, but the Aroostook County Democrats downplayed the chair’s role in a Thursday Facebook post, writing, “the process is still being hashed out, but I assure you all counties have representation involved and it is NOT a ‘cherry picked by the chair’ process!”
Aroostook’s delegation, likely to be the seventh-largest, could be a source of support for former Senate President Troy Jackson, an Allagash native who is running to replace Platner in his populist mold.
Bruce Bryant: Oxford County
Oxford is one of the only counties with a chair that served in the state Legislature. Bruce Bryant was a Senator between 2002 and 2010. In 2024 he ran for state senate again, but lost to Republican Joseph Martin. On social media he voiced support for Troy Jackson when he was running for Governor.
Marcia Myers: Hancock County
Myers is a former news editor who now lives in Deer Isle. Her social media history shows posts invoking independent socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and attending “No Kings” protests. She told MS NOW in June that Democrats in Hancock were “laser-focused on issues like healthcare and cost of living.”
Lise Ragan: Somerset County
Ragan is an Anson resident and former teacher who describes herself on Facebook as a “patriotic, very concerned American.” She told the Bangor Daily News she is “confident” the party can move forward with a new candidate for U.S. Senate.
Greg Marley: Knox County
Rockland resident Greg Marley is married to the city’s former mayor and current state Rep. Valli Geiger, a Platner ally running to replace him. In response to a post by The Midcoast Villager about Valli’s interest, Marley posted that he “stand[s] beside this extraordinary woman every step of the way.” Geiger had been a close ally of Platner, who she says encouraged her to run.
Marley is a clinical director of suicide prevention at Maine’s chapter of the nonprofit National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Stanley Paige Zeigler: Waldo County
Zeigler is a former merchant mariner and state representative. He represented part of Waldo County between 2016 and 2024. He has been involved with environmental organizations like the Sierra Club and the Maine Bike Coalition.
Keith Mestrich: Lincoln County
Lincoln County’s chair is set for one of the smallest delegations, but he may have something that other party leaders lack and that many party voters have shunned over the course of Platner’s campaign — money and connections.
Keith Mestrich got his start in labor organizing and eventually became CEO of Amalgamated Bank, a union-owned financial institution. He is now a founding partner of Percapita, a financial tech firm providing an employee benefit platform for low-income workers. He also serves as the chair of the National Trust for Local News, whose Maine arm owns The Portland Press Herald and sister papers.
Lisa Marin: Washington County
Washington County Democrats are led by a retired art teacher who worked at the Moosabec Community School District in Jonesport. The Downeast resident’s Facebook history shows that she has attended “No Kings” protests. She recently wrote a Press Herald op-ed condemning Republican gubernatorial nominee Bobby Charles.
Wayne Kinney: Franklin County
Kinney represents Farmington on the RSU 9 school board. His online presence is limited.
Deb Dagnan: Piscataquis County
Dagnan will lead the smallest county delegation. She had expressed skepticism about Platner after The New York Times published a story in June detailing claims of abuse by his ex-girlfriends. She told PBS ahead of the primary election that people were “waiting for the other shoe to drop after he gets the nomination.”
“Then what do we do?” she asked.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between The Maine Monitor and the Bangor Daily News, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
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