Jason Putnam didn’t plan to run for Wiscasset School Committee. So he didn’t take out nomination papers to get on the June 14 ballot for one of the two seats up for election.

But a couple of things have happened since that led the 45-year-old, self-employed carpenter, and father of three Wiscasset students, to announce June 5 that he is running as a write-in. For one, only one person is on the ballot, incumbent Michael Dunn. Steve Smith did not seek re-election.

The committee needed someone and no one was stepping up, so he did, Putnam said June 6.

Another factor was the small attendance he observed at the recent special town meeting on the proposed school budget, before the proposal goes on to a final ballot vote June 14.

Putnam, a Wiscasset resident of about two years, said he would have thought more people would have come to the meeting. That made him want to get more involved, and serving on the committee is a way to do that, he said.

“I don’t have a political agenda or any agenda. I just want to help ... I think the committee was doing a fine job, all the members.”

Putnam has one son each in the third, eighth and tenth grades. The committee and the town made the right decision to close a school, given the student population, he said. “They don’t have a lot of kids.”

Putnam serves on Wiscasset’s Ordinance Review Committee and coaches farm league baseball for Wiscasset Parks and Recreation. That’s the league between t-ball and Little League, he explained.

Putnam also noted he served on the committee that helped in the search for the new school department’s first long-term superintendent of schools.

The Michigan native is married to Wiscasset High School graduate Rachel (Schmal) Putnam.

No one else has contacted the Wiscasset Newspaper about being a write-in for the school panel.