Bangor City Council will elect a new chair in a special meeting next week, City Manager Carollynn Lear confirmed.
The council will meet at 5:15 p.m. Monday to choose one of the eight remaining councilors as the group’s new leader.
The vote will be held six days after former City Council Chair Cara Pelletier resigned from the position, citing “personal attacks,” as first reported in The Bangor Daily News. She resigned about two months before her term was set to expire, so the new chair will only lead the council for a short time before three new councilors are elected in November.
Bangor’s council chair leads meetings and represents the council at public events. The chair serves a one-year term, according to the city’s charter, which also allows the council to fill any vacancy for the rest of a term.
The chair selection process has long been criticized, including by councilors, as it happens behind closed doors.
In Pelletier’s resignation letter, which was obtained by the BDN, she said that holding public office “invites scrutiny” but that she has “experienced personal attacks beyond what I consider to be the reasonable and expected demands of public office.”
Colleagues on the council have condemned this treatment and commended Pelletier’s two years of service as chair.
“[Pelletier was] one of the best chairs we’ve ever had,” Councilor Susan Deane said. “Her knowledge of procedure has been unbelievable. I think she had a great command of this position.”
Deane said she was “deeply troubled” by the events leading up to Pelletier’s resignation and pointed toward a broader trend of disrespectful behavior in political debates both locally and nationally.
“Civility has gone out the window, and it’s not just Bangor,” she said. “I would just like to see both councilors and the public attempting to be more civil in their deliberations.”
Pelletier was elected to the council in 2022. She served two consecutive terms as chair and was chosen last year to serve a second time at the unanimous approval of the council. She and Councilor Rick Fournier were the only councilors in 80 years to serve as chair two years in a row.
Of the eight sitting councilors, the longest-serving members are Susan Hawes, Dan Tremble and Fournier. All three have been chair previously, and Tremble and Fournier are set to leave the council when their terms end in November.
