Filling vacant positions and advocating for residents are among the top priorities for Bangor’s new city manager.
Carollynn Lear, who stepped into the role two weeks ago, arrives in Bangor at a time when housing, homelessness and infighting among city government officials have become pressing concerns in the Queen City.
Lear succeeds Debbie Laurie, Bangor’s city manager of more than 30 years who retired this spring. Born in Belfast, Lear comes to Bangor after working for the Internal Revenue Service for three years, including in the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate. She’s a lawyer with degrees from Roger Williams University School of Law and Boston University School of Law, including a specialized legal degree in tax law.
Prior to working for the IRS, she spent nearly 10 years working for the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration, representing the agency before the state legislature.
She says this experience will be useful as she navigates budgeting and advocating for Bangor at the state and local levels.
“I became very accustomed to having to show value and return on investment as it related to funding a government agency,” she said of her work in the New Hampshire state government, which is known for being fiscally conservative.
“I’ve sort of presumed that if I’m gonna ask for a new program or a new position, that I’m going to come to the table with justification,” Lear added. She said she hopes this strategy will be helpful in discussions with City Council as well as with state lawmakers and agencies that are deciding where to allocate resources.
Lear’s salary will be about $181,000, city spokesperson David Warren previously said. Laurie’s salary was about $166,000.
There are numerous vacant positions in Bangor’s city government right now, including public works director and finance director, and Lear said one of her biggest priorities will be to fill them.
“From my perspective, if I can dedicate as much time as possible to making sure that whoever takes those roles on is really qualified and a good fit for the city, that’s probably the most valuable thing that I could do, at least initially,” she said.
Lear said she was hesitant to claim she had all the solutions to Bangor’s most pressing issues as she’s easing into the role, wanting instead to spend her early weeks learning from experts working in different areas of city government.
Lear mentioned housing and homelessness in particular as key issues with many people invested.
Bangor, like many parts of Maine, is in the midst of a housing shortage. In February, a study revealed the city was short 700 housing units for low-income residents.
The city is also the site of a homelessness crisis and an HIV outbreak, both issues that are exacerbated by the opioid epidemic. A newly formed committee has tasked nine people, including Lear, with determining how to spend the $3.4 million the city has started receiving as part of nationwide opioid settlements.
Bangor started receiving payments in 2022, and recovery advocates have criticized the city for the delay in spending these funds.
Lear noted that, in general with city government issues, it can be difficult to strike the right balance of speed and pragmatism.
“There’s a real tension, and I think it’s a natural and appropriate tension, but I think it’s a tension nonetheless, between folks who want a quick solution to a problem … and making sure that you go about resolving that problem in a thoughtful and durable way,” Lear said. “I don’t know that there’s a right answer.”
In some areas, City Council has struggled to act decisively. In addition to spending funds from the opioid settlements, city officials have also faced challenges when navigating interpersonal tensions on the council.
In May, Councilor Joseph Leonard accused Finance Director David Little of lying and misallocating resources, which led Little to resign. Text messages and emails revealed that other members of the council spent weeks debating whether to punish Leonard for his comments but ultimately couldn’t agree on how to do so.
Beyond disagreements within the council, Bangor also faces a flurry of policy changes at the federal level that are shaping city government operations around the country.
“I cannot, off the top of my head, think of a single space where we have a department or an area where part of the conversation isn’t about planning or preparing for potential changes at the federal level,” Lear said, noting infrastructure, public health and public safety in particular.
The unpredictability of responding to federal policies requires careful planning, she said. She named potential Medicaid funding cuts under President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” as one example of a federal policy that could have enormous repercussions for Bangor residents.
Lear’s job as city manager, she said, will be to consider how to plan for those possible outcomes and to make sure she’s “voicing the city’s perspective and voicing the city’s needs in those state and federal conversations.”
