ALFRED — Former Wells selectman and longtime county budget committee member Richard Clark, a Democrat, will square off against Kittery selectman and former state legislator Republican Ken Lemont on Nov. 8 to represent York County Commission District 5.

The district includes the towns of Wells, Ogunquit, Eliot, Kittery and York, and is currently represented by Gary Sinden of Eliot, whose four-year term expires Dec. 31.

Clark served 18 years as a Wells selectman, nine years on the county budget committee and 12 years on the Reserve Management Authority at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve at Laudholm Farm. A 1979 graduate of the University of Rhode Island, he is retired and married to Susan Cox.

Ken Lemont is a Kittery selectman who served two terms in the Maine House of Representatives, two terms in the Maine Senate, and four terms on the Kittery School Committee. He is married to Gail Fletcher; the couple has two sons and four grandchildren. He is a graduate of Bentley University, retired from Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and a commercial lobsterman.

Clark said the most pressing issue facing York County government is providing services without raising the tax burden on municipalities. The five towns in District 5 provide more than a third of the municipal tax contribution to the county budget, he said, and during his years on the budget committee, he worked to limit the tax increase.

He pledged to continue that work if elected to the County Commission.

“The jail accounts for about half of the total county budget,” said Clark. “We are currently unwinding the relationship with the state in which the state funded a significant portion of the jail budget. It is unclear what the state’s support for the county jails will be in the future. We need to be prepared for a decrease in state support.”

Clark said the opioid epidemic is a priority, it damages citizens and families and drives up crime in the county, adding to the demand for police and jail services.

“Government at every level has to combat this problem cooperatively,” said Clark. “I do not claim to have the answer to this complicated problem, but all of us have to seek some answer to this issue.”

Lemont said he advocates working with the state Legislature to strengthen state government operations and reduce state government costs by using county resources.

One example he said would be consolidation of municipal public health officers.

“All 29 towns in York County have a public health officer,” said Lemont. “It certainly would be possible for four or five towns to share one. This could be done with a county public health relationship better supporting towns and coordinating with the state agencies. This would reduce the cost of municipal government.”

The candidates disagree on the jail tax cap imposed by the state in 2008 that limits the amount of county funds used to operate York County Jail. York County’s cap has been about $8.2 million, with the state pledged to make up the difference between the capped amount and the annual jail budget.

Clark said he doesn’t favor abolishing the jail tax cap, which was imposed by the Baldacci administration as part of what is now the mostly defunct consolidated jail system.

Lemont said he would work with the state Legislature to balance the jail cap with a specific number of inmates “and the resulting financially-based overcrowding forced on York County.”

“The jail cap was perhaps the worst initiative in Gov. Baldacci’s administration, which says a lot,” said Lemont. “No spending cap has ever been successful anywhere in the United States and at any time in Maine. It never should have been instituted.”

Both candidates favor alternatives to jail for some inmates.

“Modernize state law to permit either judges or the jail classification committee to release a particular classification of un-trialed inmates using electronic monitoring,” suggested Lemont.

Said Clark, “I think we need to examine our policies and consider whether alternatives to jail, such as home confinement and electronic monitoring for nonviolent offenders, would be effective and possibly a more efficient use of limited funds.”

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.