Andrea Hardison, Colleen Marzilli and John Quinn are running for two three-year seats on the Orono Town Council.
Hardison is seeking reelection while Marzilli and Quinn are running for their first seat on council. Leo Kenney, who holds one of the seats to be vacated, is not seeking reelection.
The three candidates share similar views of the current Orono Town Council, saying it is successful in community building and budget review, but have differing ideas of what the council should be striving for in the next three years.
Orono residents can vote from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 4 at the Collins Center for the Arts on the University of Maine campus. Residents will also vote for one Regional School Unit 26 school board seat in an uncontested election.
There will be a candidates’ night forum on Oct. 9 at 6 p.m. in the Orono Council Chambers with all three candidates being available for questions.
Candidates are listed below in the order they will appear on the ballot.
Andrea Hardison
Hardison, 54, has been on the council since November 2024 when she was elected to a one-year term.
Hardison said she’s running for reelection because she wants to continue to be involved in the Orono community and be more involved in the council process after learning how to navigate it in the last year.
One place where Hardison said she wants to be more engaged is the budget. She said it’s important that the council knows what it’s approving and how it affects the town.
Part of how Hardison said she’ll ensure her position on council improves Orono is by listening to the community as a whole and not just the people bringing their own issues to councilors. Initiatives like the Good Neighbor Committee will continue to be important to her if reelected because of how they can bring different perspectives to council decisions.
“Community relations can’t be a student or transient resident versus people who live here all the time. Fostering that sense of community within the neighborhood is important to me,” she said.
Hardison said she is looking into new initiatives including more community events for small businesses and how Orono can offer more obtainable housing.
Small businesses in Orono need more support with regular community events and programs that don’t need staff to be run but are still supported by the town, she said.
Colleen Marzilli
Marzilli, 42, is a professor of nursing at the University of Maine and a nurse practitioner.
Marzilli moved to Orono in 2023 and said she wants to give back to the town and have a meaningful influence on the lives of town residents, pushing her to run for council.
Bringing businesses and keeping the town budget affordable for residents while still offering services, she said, is how she sees herself contributing to the town council.
Orono’s budget is in a “relatively good position” compared with neighboring communities but needs to stay focused on maintaining services for residents and being responsible to taxpayers, Marzilli said. One way Orono could improve its services is by incentivizing and rewarding health care professionals coming to the area, she said.
“It’s worth having that conversation about health care and health care access as well as making sure the town’s residents receive what they feel they need to receive,” she said.
Ways to bring health care professionals to the area through incentives and rewards should be looked into by the council as a way to offer more and better services to residents. As a nurse practitioner and professor, Marzilli said she would be able to add to the “wealth of knowledge” on the current council by bringing a new perspective of what the council could do.
Marzilli, who is currently on Orono’s diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging committee, said she wants to support diversity efforts and ensure the town continues to be welcoming to all residents and somewhere people want to visit and live.
“Orono is just an amazing town and through work of the committee and through the renewed interest in having the arts festival, the town is doing an amazing job of building that community for its residents and I would just like to continue support those efforts as the town continues to move forward,” Marzilli said.
John Quinn
Quinn, 38, is a therapist at his business, Stillwater Therapy, in Orono.
He wants to “keep things going” if elected to council by ensuring services and recreational activities continue to be funded without burdening taxpayers.
“You can make sensible adjustments to services that reflect the changing needs of the community, but also where we really want to hold that line where this is an expense, but this is an expense that makes Orono Orono,” he said.
Quinn’s background in social work will help him listen to the community and find what the community wants and needs from the council, he said.
While listening to the community before running for council, Quinn said he heard about housing needs in the community and a desire to keep Orono bikeable and walkable, both of which the council could work toward. Quinn wants to increase housing in town and protect walking and biking paths that are important recreational opportunities to residents.
Despite having initiatives he wants to see the council strive toward, Quinn said he doesn’t have an agenda and just wants to help the council by bringing a different outlook, he said.
Quinn would bring the perspective of someone who has listened to the community but also been on the Orono Planning Board in the past, he said, making him able to straddle how council works over years with the more immediate needs of residents.
“I think finding the balance between the long-term thinking that goes into town governance balanced against the in-the-moment needs of the community, that’s what I think I’ll be able to bring to the council,” he said.
