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BUCKFIELD Voters selected four new members Tuesday to the Select Board in a total overhaul of the town’s elected officials.
At last year’s Town Meeting, residents voted to expand the Select Board from three to five members.
The four candidates were all unopposed on the ballot, but Matthew Whitney launched a write-in campaign against Janet Iverson, who was running to complete the term of Chairwoman Tina Brooks, who was resigning for family reasons. Whitney received 32 write-in votes against Iverson’s 82 votes.
Also elected to the Select Board were Michael Iverson, Janet’s husband, who will serve a three-year term in replacing Martha Catevenis. For the two newly created seats, Cameron Hinkley will serve a two-year term and Robert Hand’s term is for one year. Hinkley received 96 votes, while Michael Iverson and Hand each received 94 votes.
John Coltrane is to the saxophone what Jimi Hendrix is to the guitar.
In other words, they could play their respective instruments in a way that no one else could. They also were groundbreaking visionaries in their respective genres.
I was working for a painter during the summer after I graduated high school. He listened to a lot of jazz. Most of it was jazz fusion from the likes of David Sanborn, Earl Klugh, Grover Washington Jr., The Crusaders and Weather Report.
All of it was really good jazz, and I liked it. My two favorite cassette tapes that he would play were Miles Davisâ âKind Of Blueâ and âBlue Trainâ by Coltrane. Ironically, both of them had blue in the title.
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BUCKFIELD The Select Board met with its department heads Wednesday in kind of a meet-and-greet with new interim Town Manager Bradley Plante.
Plante, the former town manager at Poland and Harrison, presented an overview on where things stand at the Town Office and shared his philosophy on town government.
“Keep the best interest of the town in mind,” he told department heads. “This is not about you.”
The teamwork theme was consistent during the meeting.
This is Plante’s second stint as interim town manager of Buckfield. He previously served in the role for five months from August 2017 to January 2018.
The board reconvened the emergency meeting Monday that was now in its third day, and immediately moved into executive session to interview Plante. Fifty-four minutes later they came out without Plante and passed motions to hire him as interim town manager and the two deputy roles.
This is Plante’s second stint as interim town manager of Buckfield. He previously served in the role for five months from August 2017 to January 2018.
Since March 2019, he has worked as a behavior health professional for the Auburn School Department.
Plante was hired as Poland Town Manager in 2014 following four years as town manager in Hampstead, Maryland. He served out his three-year term in Poland and chose to let his contract expire and not seek a new contract. He said at the time that it was not a resignation.
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BUCKFIELD The Select Board made two brief motions following a 67-minute executive session Thursday night, then hastily recessed the meeting in front of nearly 20 Zoom viewers hoping to hear news on the status of the Buckfield Town Office following the resignation of the town manager.
Board members Tina Brooks, Martha Catevenis and Cheryl Coffman unanimously passed a motion to hire a certified public accountant and an accountant for temporary work, and then voted to schedule an interview with a candidate who had applied for the interim town manager position.
Immediately after that one minute after coming out of executive session the board recessed to an indefinite date. Nothing else was said and the Zoom meeting was immediately terminated.