Bangor city councilors elected Councilor Rick Fournier to serve as chair in a special meeting Monday.
City councilors voted 5-2 to confirm Fournier. He replaces former Council Chair Cara Pelletier, who resigned unexpectedly last week.
Fournier’s seat is open this fall, and he is not seeking re-election. He will serve for the remainder of what would have been Pelletier’s term, and the council will vote again on a new chair after three more councilors are elected Nov. 4. The City Council is scheduled to meet three times between Sept. 15 and Election Day.
Bangor’s council chair leads meetings and represents the council at public events, typically serving a one-year term.
Fournier, a veteran member of the council who was elected in 2019, has served as chair twice before. He and Pelletier are the only councilors in the last 80 years who have served as chair two years in a row.
“We only have three more meetings here,” Fournier said, adding that he planned to focus on wrapping up the agenda Pelletier had set for the year, which he said primarily revolved around housing.
Councilor Dan Tremble, another longtime councilor, nominated Fournier for the role.
Councilor Michael Beck, who joined the council last year, nominated himself, saying he wanted the opportunity to serve as chair in the time of “unprecedented transition.” He noted his experience speaking at various public-facing events and his work with community members dealing with substance use disorder and homelessness as qualifications.
Beck and Councilor Wayne Mallar were the sole dissenting votes. The two councilors, along with Councilor Joe Leonard who was absent from Monday’s meeting, have often voted similarly and disagreed with the majority of the council on a variety of issues in the last year.
Fournier enters the leadership role in an environment that some councilors have described as increasingly toxic.
Pelletier cited “personal attacks” from members of the public in her resignation letter, writing that although holding public office “invites scrutiny,” she has “experienced personal attacks beyond what I consider to be the reasonable and expected demands of public office.”
Many of Pelletier’s colleagues on the council have expressed support for her work as chair and her decision to step down.
