Storey

Westbrook’s outspoken Ward 5 City Councilor Elliot Storey resigned Monday, a year before the end of his term, and the council will use a new policy to fill a city vacancy for the first time.

Storey was elected in 2019, beating out incumbent Larry McWilliams. During his tenure, he was a critic of the city and state’s COVID-19 response, citing mask mandates and other mitigation efforts as Marxist and outside the purview of government.

Storey notified the council of his resignation in an email without offering a reason why he was doing so.

“I don’t feel the need to belabor any points about reasoning. I wanted to serve my community, and I feel good about my time served. Westbrook will always be my home and I want to wish my eventual replacement and the rest of the council and city staff the best of luck,” Storey said in the email.

Storey did not return a request for comment by the American Journal.

Former Westbrook City Councilor Elliot Storey, shown here wearing a Guy Fawkes mask in protest of the city’s mask mandate, was a vocal critic of the city’s pandemic response and made an unsuccessful attempt to lift all COVID restrictions in the city last March. File photo

“He found that this is the best thing to do. He doesn’t need to give us a reason. I wish him well,” City Council President Gary Rairdon said.

Nomination papers for the Ward 5 seat will be available Dec. 7, City Clerk Angela Holmes said.

Under the recently adopted policy for filling a council vacancy, candidates have 15 days following the announcement of the vacancy, which will be official Dec. 6, to collect at least 25 signatures to be eligible for consideration. The council will then vote on the replacement from among those candidates.

Before the new policy was approved in October, no petition signatures were required of candidates. Typically, political parties would nominate candidates and the candidate would choose the candidate from the party of the councilor who vacated the seat.

The change came when caucuses and other political party functions were removed from City Council elections, along with other elected positions in the city.