WINDHAM – In a departure from recent elections where some seats have gone uncontested, voters in November will have a choice in each of the three races for Windham Town Council and two seats for the Windham-Raymond School Board.

On the council, voters should recognize all those running since the six candidates have either served on the council or ran for it in previous years. While candidates must reside in the district they are competing in, all Windham voters are able to vote in all races.

In the North District, which covers primarily North Windham above Route 115 and Route 35, former councilors Peter Anania and Carol Waig will vie for the one-year seat. The seat has been open since the council couldn’t agree on a replacement after the death of former Councilor Peter Busque last September.

Anania served on the council for a year, having been appointed after former Councilor Bill Tracy resigned in November 2010. He owns several businesses in South Windham and while on the council advocated for the sewer project as well as streamlining council meetings.

“I enjoyed working with the staff on the issues facing Windham, including the budget and infrastructure (think roads, sewer, etc.) updates” Anania wrote in an email when asked what is motivating him to run. “I want to continue to work to empower individuals while fighting for private property rights and free market principles.”

Waig served for two terms on the council, and resigned in protest in summer 2010 after the town’s dismissal of Mike Denbow, a former police officer, and after the council instituted a communications policy that limited interaction between paid staff and councilors. Waig, whose lives with Councilor Dennis Welch, who is also running, is a frequent public speaker at council meetings. She was concerned no one had filed paperwork for the seat and wanted to make sure a seventh councilor was elected to prevent the board from becoming deadlocked at 3-3.

“I wasn’t going to run for town politics again, but there were a number of folks that called, some I didn’t even know, and asked if I would run because they didn’t have a candidate for the North district and so I threw my hat in the ring. After I did that I found out there was another candidate, but that didn’t change my mind,” Waig said.

Welch, who is limited with his comment during council debate since being elected last November, is seeking re-election to the Town Council At-Large seat, a three-year term. He faces John Carlberg Jr., who didn’t return calls seeking comment.

The race is a rematch of last November’s election, which saw Welch run against Carlberg who attempted a write-in campaign. Carlberg, who owns The Shelter Man on Route 302 and ran last year on a pro-business platform to continue the work his friend Busque had begun, is on the ballot this time.

Welch said he is motivated to run. “A one-year term is OK but you have a lot of learning to do in your first year and now I’ve got that under my belt,” he said. “I’m really up to speed on things, and now I’d like to have a three-year term.”

The other council race pits incumbent Matthew Noel against former two-term Councilor Robert Muir for the three-year West District seat. Noel, who said Tuesday night during a council meeting that Busque inspired him to seek election in 2009, has played a key role in drafting the town’s budget as the chairman of the finance committee. He has also advocated for the sewer project as well as the 2010 merging of Windham dispatch with Cumberland County.

“I am motivated to continue to serve the people of Windham. For the last three years I feel I have added value to our government and how it functions. I believe there is more work to do to ensure that the work that has been done over the last three years is sustainable,” Noel said. “We must manage and prepare for tomorrow and I believe we are better prepared today than we were three years ago. If elected, I believe I can and will contribute to making Windham better today and tomorrow.”

Muir, who served for two terms on the council and has been outspoken in his opposition to the sewer project and has attended many council meetings providing public comment on multiple issues, said he is running to provide a change in Windham leadership.

“Since 2009, I’ve been a little unhappy with what some of the councilors have been doing. I think the people need more of a voice, and I want to be that voice for them on the council,” he said. “It seems there are some other, at times, special interests, and it just seems the people really aren’t being listened to that much, and I want to try to change that.”

School board

Windham voters will also elect two representatives to the Regional School Unit 14 Windham-Raymond School Board on Nov. 6. Newcomer Eric Colby faces two incumbents, Marge Govoni and Stuart “Toby” Pennels, in the race. Each term is for three years.

?Colby said he wants to “give back to the community” and as a parent has been happy with the school system so far.

“We have an 8-year-old at Windham Primary and we’ve had a really great experience, and he’s had what is now four wonderful teachers. We’ve really been very pleased. So I just said, maybe I could just be part of that so everyone can have that type of experience at Windham schools,” Colby said.

Longtime board members Govoni and Pennels, who is also running for the House of Representatives District 111 seat as a Republican, said they are running to continue work already started.

“Paramount to me running is there are some projects that I’m doing,” Pennels said. “One of them is an alternative pay schedule that I’ve been involved with for probably more than 18 months and that work’s not done, and I feel it would be unfair to the community to not complete it. And I love the school board. I love my work. And I don’t think our work is done.”

Pennels added that he is recently retired from the military (he served two tours in Iraq as a member of the School Board in the early to mid-2000s) and would be able to balance the demands if elected to both the school board and the Legislature.

“I have the time to do it. I feel strongly if I can accomplish what I did in the military, I can accomplish what needs to be done in the Legislature in conjunction with the school board,” he said.

Govoni, whose husband David Nadeau serves on the Town Council, said she is running “to continue my initial reason for running, and that was I felt there should be more of a School Board presence in the schools so there would be some firsthand knowledge of what is exactly going on there, so you’d have that information to make really knowledgeable decisions. And the other reason I’m running is because I’m involved in a lot of subcommittees, and I would like to see those through.”