A current Bangor city councilor is running in a special election for an open seat in the Legislature, which Rep. Joe Perry left to become Maine’s treasurer.
Carolyn Fish, who’s serving her first term on the Bangor City Council, announced in a Jan. 4 Facebook post that she’s running as a Republican to represent House District 24, which covers parts of Bangor, Brewer, Orono and Veazie.
“I am not a politician, but what goes on in Augusta affects us here and it’s time to get involved,” Fish wrote in the post. “I am just a regular citizen of this community with a lineage of hard work, passion and appreciation for the freedom and liberties we have in this community and state.”
Fish’s announcement comes roughly two weeks after Sean Faircloth, a former Democratic state lawmaker and Bangor city councilor, announced he’s running as a Democrat to represent House District 24.
The special election to fill Perry’s seat will take place on Feb. 25.
Fish, a local real estate agent, was elected to the Bangor city council in November 2023 and is currently serving a three-year term.
Fish previously told the Bangor Daily News that her family moved to the city when she was 13 and has worked in the local real estate industry since earning her real estate license when she was 28.
When she ran for the Bangor City Council in 2023, Fish expressed a particular interest in tackling homelessness and substance use in the community while bolstering economic development. To do this, she suggested reviving the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) Program in schools and creating a task force to identify where people who are homeless in Bangor came from.
Now, Fish said she sees small businesses and families of all ages struggling to make ends meet due to the rising cost of housing, groceries, child care, health care and other expenses. Meanwhile, the funding and services the government should direct to help is being “focused elsewhere,” she said.
“I feel too many of us are left behind and ignored,” Fish wrote in her Facebook post. “The complexities that got us here are multifaceted and the solutions aren’t always simple. But, I can tell you it’s time to try and I will do all I can to help improve things for a better future for all of us.”
Faircloth served five terms in the Maine House and Senate between 1992 and 2008, then held a seat on the Bangor City Council from 2014 to 2017, including one year as mayor. He also briefly ran for Maine governor in 2018 and for the U.S. House in 2002.
A mental health and child advocate, Faircloth founded the Maine Discovery Museum in Bangor and was the executive director of the city’s Together Place Peer Run Recovery Center until last year.
Fish did not return requests for comment Tuesday.
