Note: For the record, Boothbay Harbor residents will elect local officials on May 5. Boothbay town residents will vote on May 1.

No, it is not time to elect a president. We will leave that topic for another day. It is not time to elect anyone to the Congress/Senate and or the Maine Statehouse/Blaine House. We did that a few months ago.

Now is the time to elect folks who matter to us – a lot.

We call them selectmen. The title of the office has nothing to do with gender. For years, our local communities have benefited from highly qualified women serving on our local community legislative body known as the Board of Selectmen.

In most years, we hear little from the folks we send to Congress until the next election season rolls around unless we have a problem. They are pretty good at things like finding your lost Social Security check.

That is just the way it works. There are 435 members of Congress and 100 senators. Except for hot issues, the national press usually talks to the leadership. Most members toil in obscurity. If you watch C-Span, you can see some making speeches, but the camera focuses on the speaker and doesn’t show the empty House or Senate chamber.

Back home, it is another story. Our local public TV channel (Channel 7) covers our selectmen. We can and do talk to them around town, in the store, church, and the library.

For the most part, unless there is a hot local topic, the only folks who show up at their meetings are for or against a neighborhood project. The exception is Bill Pearson, my favorite intrepid reporter for my favorite newspaper, the Boothbay Register.

Few topics generate as much community noise as the 2016 project to rebuild the confusing road intersections at the Boothbay Common/Post Office/Town Hall.

Then, if you mentioned the word “roundabout” in the local coffee shop, you could get a raise out of the guy sitting at the next table. Today, the roundabout seems to work pretty well, or at least better than the confusing intersection that preceded it.

In Boothbay, we have four candidates running for two open seats.

Chuck Cunningham, the smiling evening operations manager of the Hannaford market, is seeking re-election. Erik Bertelsen, an educational consultant and stalwart of St. Columba’s Church, is making his first try at elective office. Karen Kusnierz, an artist who works at Grover’s Hardware, is another political rookie seeking office. Julie Roberts, a co-owner of Coastal Maine Popcorn and president of the local chamber of commerce, is seeking your vote, too.

In Boothbay Harbor, we have three candidates running for two seats. They are Denise Griffin, a retired First National Bank HR professional and a current member of the Board of Selectmen. Mark Gimbel, an erratic putter, owns several local businesses and is a strong supporter of town business and civic interests. And Mark Osborn owns the highly honored tourist attraction The Topside Inn and recently purchased Mid-Town Motel.

Candidates for both towns agree that the biggest threat facing both towns is the need for affordable housing.

Osborn put it this way. “Without adequate housing, we will not have enough local labor to work in our businesses, children to go to our schools, families to support local restaurants and shops.”

We need affordable housing if we want to exist as a vibrant year-round community.

A key reason we are having trouble finding new workers, including police officers, is that there are few affordable housing units.

Today, we are mostly a tourist destination. Once upon a time, we had a slew of year around business interests, many involved with fishing and boat building.

In East Boothbay, for example, shipyard craftsmen lived in the nearby homes and walked to work. Their kids attended a local school and shopped in local stores. Today, the school has merged with the harbor school system, and the stores are gone, except for Liz Evans’ delightful and quirky East Boothbay General Store, the home of specialty foods, yummy lunches, and to-die-for summertime donuts.

East Boothbay”s Washburn & Doughty Shipyard is humming along turning out world-class tug boats. But much of their workforce lives in other towns.

This year I planned to endorse local candidates, but I changed my mind. After careful consideration, I believe they are all qualified and would do a bang-up job.

So it is up to you, Dear Reader, to choose.

In Boothbay, on May 1, you can vote between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. at the town office.

In Boothbay Harbor, on May 5, polls will be open at the town office between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Will I see you there?