Geraghty calls it quits
Campaigns for city office take shape
By Chris Busby
Karen Geraghty is not seeking a fourth term on the Portland City Council. Geraghty took out nomination papers for another run, but did not turn them in by the Sept. 5 deadline. Geraghty has represented the West End and Parkside neighborhoods for nine years, including one year as mayor.
Portland Planning Board member Michael Patterson entered the race days before the deadline, as did former planning board member Cyrus Hagge. Both Paterson and Hagge returned nomination signatures to the City Clerk’s Office, but those signatures have not yet been verified. If they are verified in the coming days, the race for the District 2 council seat will be a three-way contest between Hagge, Patterson and David Marshall, an artist active with the city’s Green Independent Party.
Geraghty has not returned calls seeking comment on her political future. As The Bollard reported last week, Geraghty recently took a job heading administration of the Maine Public Utilities Commission, in Augusta. Patterson has also failed to return phone messages seeking comment.
The race for the council seat representing District 1 (the East End, downtown, Bayside and islands) has taken official shape. Incumbent Will Gorham and challengers Kevin Donoghue and Kirk Goodhue have all had their nomination signatures verified. Gorham is a real estate broker seeking his second term. Goodhue also works in real estate, and has business and personal ties to Peaks Island. Donoghue is a top official of the city’s Green Independent Party – though city council and school board races are officially nonpartisan, so candidates’ political party affiliations will not appear on the November ballot.
In the race for one of the five at-large seats on the council, representing the entire city, incumbent Nick Mavodones and challenger Andy Verzosa have returned nomination papers, but their signatures have not yet been verified. If they are, the two will vie with neighborhood activist Christina Feller for this seat. Verzosa is an artist and gallery owner; Mavodones is the operations manager of the Casco Bay Island Transit District (and this reporter’s wife’s boss).
An at-large seat on the Portland School Committee and the seats representing Districts 1 and 2 are also being contested this fall. In District 1, Peaks Islander Mavourneen Thompson, wife of current District 1 school board member Otis Thompson, will be the ballot. Her challenger is environmental educator and local Green Independent Party official Rebecca Minnick, who lives on Munjoy Hill.
In District 2, incumbent Stephen Spring is being challenged by Robert O’Brien, president of the West End Neighborhood Association. In the at-large race, former school board member Teri McRae will be on the ballot, as will parent-activist Sarah Thompson. Artist Kevin Gardella returned nomination signatures to run this fall, but those signatures have not yet been verified.
The at-large school board seat is being vacated by Jonathan Radtke. Jaimey Caron, a former planning board chairman who narrowly lost a race for an at-large school board seat last year, took out papers to run for this seat, but subsequently dropped out. So did Peter Eglinton, who said in an e-mail that he plans to seek a district seat on the board next year.
City voters will also cast ballots for the seat on the Portland Water District’s Board of Trustees being vacated by James Willey. It won’t be a tough choice this year: David Margolis-Pineo is the sole candidate on the ballot for that post.
