YOU’RE INVITED

Westbrook Mayor Bruce Chuluda is hosting a forum on what it means to run for local elective office. It will be held at his home, 618 Spring St., Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m.

Westbrook Mayor Bruce Chuluda will be opening his home to Westbrook citizens on Wednesday for an informal forum on what it means to run for office, and how it can be done.

“I’m not cooking a thing,” Chuluda said, though there will be light refreshments.

The forum is being organized by the Westbrook Republican Committee, but Chuluda said it’s a completely non-partisan open house.

He is hoping that by answering common questions about working in elected, local-government positions – what is the time commitment, what are the costs to run, what, exactly, is one getting into – more people will be stimulated into getting involved.

Citizens are invited to stop by and ask any questions they have regarding any of the city’s elected positions. In addition to Chuluda, councilors Ed Symbol and John O’Hara are expected to attend, as well as Lyle Cramer, former councilor, school committee member and county commissioner, and Martha Day, the Westbrook Republican Committee’s chairwoman. Day, who is organizing the event, has also been a city councilor and school committee member.

Day said the evening will follow whatever direction the conversation takes.

“I would hope to maybe identify some people interested in becoming active,” Day said.

Cramer said citizens can “start from scratch” and jump right into the job of an elected official, though having worked on committees beforehand does help the learning curve.

“There’s a lot of work,” said Cramer, “but there are also a lot of rewards in terms of positive improvements and community development.”

“It’s a big responsibility, but the more responsibility you take on the more rewards you get in the end,” he said.

Cramer said as a city councilor he “probably put in one to two days, maybe more” every week.

“The good thing is you almost always have your weekends free,” he said, “unless you’re on the school committee.”

Day said she put in twice as many hours as a school committee member than she did as a councilor, but “it takes as much time as you can give it.”

Day said after having worked 11 years in elected positions while juggling a full-time job, she was ready to take a seat, but the idea of running again for one position or another has often popped in her head, though she has no plans to do so.

“It sounds so trite to say, ‘give back to your community,'” Day said, but that’s essentially what it is. In the end you just step back, hope you made the right decision and live with the long- term effect, she said.

“Sometimes it’s frustrating that it seems no one cares what you are doing,” but local government is “the place you can have the most voice,” she said.

Chuluda said himself that he was “quite frankly shocked at our budget meetings that more people weren’t there. I’m not sure what that means.”

Jerre Bryant, the city administrator, said, “One of the nice things about local government is we try to do it through citizen participation.” But Cramer said it is not unusual that the contest for a seat is more about finding someone to run, as opposed to a contest between multiple people vying for the same seat.

Bryant also said that there are ways for people to get onto the ballot this fall without going through the partisan caucus system.