The Bangor City Council elected longtime councilor Susan Haws as its chair after three newcomers who won last week’s election were sworn in Monday morning.
The Bangor School Committee chose Timothy Surette as its chair and welcomed two new members.
The three new councilors — Susan Faloon, Daniel Carson and Angela Walker — are joining at the start of a new era for the council, which has had a chaotic past few months with a former chair resigning in September and numerous meetings derailed by speakers calling in to espouse hate speech.
Hawes, who begins her 15th year on council and has served as chair previously, was elected council chair in a 6-3 vote.
“I feel like I have the institutional knowledge for the job,” she said in the council’s organizational meeting Monday morning, emphasizing that transparency and professionalism will be essential for the council in the coming year.
Hawes told the Bangor Daily News she hoped to “dial us back to a time that we were more civil and respectful of each other, and that means on both sides of the dais,” referring to both councilors and members of the public.
Councilor Carolyn Fish nominated Hawes, noting her colleague is the longest-serving member of the council. Councilors Carson, Faloon, Hawes, Fish, Wayne Mallar and Susan Deane voted for Hawes.
“As we move forward with a young and energetic board, there will be many opportunities for growth and leadership in the years ahead. More important than ever though, today, we need a steady, experienced, calm and balanced leadership,” Fish said.
Councilor Joe Leonard also nominated Councilor Michael Beck for the role, presenting him as a “new blood” alternative who would bring fresh ideas to the role of chair. Leonard said Beck, who was elected to the council last year, would help get things done on a council that often involves “a lot of waiting to do something and then nothing gets accomplished.”
Leonard, Beck and Walker voted for Beck.
The new councilors will hit the ground running with their first regular meeting Monday night. The group is set to vote on changes to public comment policy that would remove the option of Zoom participation in meetings, according to an agenda.
Numerous councilors have expressed a desire to adjust meeting rules in response to repeated disruptions in the last month. Monday night’s workshop and council meeting will include the first formal discussion about what those changes may entail.
Hawes said that as chair, she wouldn’t be afraid to remove people from meetings who are breaking the rules or being overly disruptive. She also noted that the council could choose to bring back Zoom participation, with more regulation, at some point in the future even if councilors vote to remove it for the time being.
“I really hope meetings go back to their normal, boring selves,” Leonard told the BDN, noting that the less flashy parts of government are often the most important.
Leonard has been formally reprimanded three times by his colleagues, including most recently when he raised his middle finger and threw a pen in response to white supremacist rhetoric being spread during public comment at a meeting.
For his part, Leonard said he’d made a “new year’s resolution not to get censured again.”
The School Committee unanimously chose Timothy Surrette as chair and Katie Brydon as vice chair.
