William “Bill” Maloney has announced he is a candidate for one of the two open selectman seats. Bill has been a resident of Wiscasset since 2013 when he retired as director of sales and marketing, U.S and Canada, from an international manufacturer of flexible packaging materials.

Bill and his wife, Lynn, are originally from central Massachusetts and moved here after a 36-year stint in the Chicago metropolitan area.  

Bill donated a substantial amount of his time on commissions for the Village of Wheeling, Illinois, serving on several commissions: Chair of the Human Rights Commission, President of the Police Pension Fund, and Chair of the Plan Commission. His most challenging experience was developing a plan for a town center for Wheeling. He chaired a panel of six members and in a few weeks short of six months, returned with a plan that was accepted and put to work immediately.  The town center became a $110,000,000 project that now contains several hundred high-end apartments, a theater that shows movies and live entertainment, and retail space. Not a plan for Wiscasset, but good for Wheeling.

In Wiscasset, Bill served as past chair and treasurer of the Senior Center, and was a member and chair of the Downtown PAC.  He currently serves as chair of the Budget Committee and is treasurer of the Wiscasset Rod & Gun Club. Bill is involved in committees at church as well as the Diocese of Portland.

Bill believes capital expenditures are the major problem for the town. We are living with past expenses when the Maine Yankee power plant paid a substantial portion of our taxes. With reduced income to work with, we struggle each year to make ends meet. A systematic annual review and updating of future capital expenditures should be in place. As buildings, vehicles and equipment age, they need updating, repair, or replacement. Most of these actions can be predicted and budgeted for. You cannot predict damage due to accidents or acts of God, but we should have some budgeting leeway should any of these things happen.

I do not think that we can expect taxes to be reduced due to outside pressures for anything other than a short period of time, but we can work to keep increases that we can control to a minimum. We need to look at how we are doing things. Do we need to do them? Can they be done more efficiently? We need to build a broader tax base, bringing more property owners and businesses into town, without changing the character of the town.

I ask for your vote.  If elected, I will work for you and the town to the best of my ability.