Deb Frank, 54, is the Republican candidate for city clerk. She has 35 years of private sector administrative and managerial experience, four years experience on the School Committee (two years as the committee chairwoman) and two years on City Council. She also ran an unsuccessful bid for state representative against Tim Driscoll in 2004.

Frank is currently working as a supervisor at Florida Power and Light, which purchased Central Maine Power’s electricity generation plants in 1998.

“I really enjoy my job,” said Frank. “It’s a very lucrative job. But I’d like to serve the city.”

“I’d like to really get to know the people of Westbrook,” she added. “That’s one thing in my job that I don’t get to do. I get to know the people I work with, but I don’t get to know the people in my community.”

Frank wants to take her managerial experience to the city clerk’s office, and implement an operational model and formalize the office.

“Right now, I’m lucky Barbara (Hawkes) is still around. If she wasn’t around, I’d be stuck trying to figure it out myself,” Frank said. She wants to make sure that the daily duties of the city clerk are clearly defined to maintain continuity as the clerk changes with elections.

Frank said the election process is extremely detailed – “If you miss one thing, you could really be in trouble” – so she believes it’s necessary to have a formalized election management process.

“I’m always thinking best practices,” Frank said, and she plans to reach out to other communities to see how their offices run in order to make improvements in Westbrook. “I think there’s always room for improvement.”

Frank said she doesn’t want to completely shake-up the office, but she doesn’t want to stick to the status quo. She wants to keep the office familiar for long-time Westbrook citizens, but also bring in technology that might be favored by some younger generations.

Frank said she has the technical and people skills to get it all done.