Orono voters chose two incumbents and a newcomer in Tuesday’s Town Council election, with Jacob Baker gathering the largest number of votes.
Baker, who has never served as an elected official, received 816 votes, according to results provided by Town Clerk Shelly Crosby. Matthew Powers, with 706 votes, and Robert Laraway, with 598 votes, were reelected to the council.
They defeated Scott Thomas, a 71-year-old real estate broker who served on the Town Council in the 1990s and received 410 votes. Voters cast 3,267 ballots at the municipal office for the council race, including 30 ballots for write-in candidates, according to information provided by Crosby.
All four candidates running for council seats identified the search for a town manager and maintaining a balanced budget as top priorities. Stabilizing municipal staff after recent departures, designing a comprehensive plan and addressing the town’s lack of housing were among the other concerns.
Baker, a commercial lender at Bangor Savings Bank, grew up in upstate New York and moved to Orono more than a decade ago for graduate school at the University of Maine. The 40-year-old ran during a special election last August and lost.
Powers was elected during a special election in August 2023. He is an editor for a science and nature imprint at Catalyst Press. The 47-year-old grew up in El Paso, Texas, but he moved from Minnesota to Orono with his family in 2014.
Laraway was elected to the Orono Town Council in 2022. The 31-year-old musician and private music educator has spent most of his life in Maine, living in Orono since 2011.
Voters also chose Mark Brewer, with 795 votes, and Brian McGill, with 785 votes, as school board members. Both currently serve on Regional School Unit 26’s board.