{"id":12489,"date":"2026-09-25T19:07:50","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T19:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/candidates\/alex-clary\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T17:32:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T17:32:56","slug":"alex-clary","status":"publish","type":"candidate","link":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/candidates\/alex-clary\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Clary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Previous Offices Held<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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First time running for office<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Top Three Priorities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Housing: We need to treat our housing crisis as a crisis by increasing our local housing supply and renovating existing housing stock. Property taxes: In Sanford, our property taxes are significantly higher than neighboring communities. We need to work to balance it with further business growth in Sanford. Clean Sanford: Clean up our city trails and keep harmful industries like data centers or sludge plants out of Sanford forever. We can do better than this.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Why are you running?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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I\u2019m running because Sanford-Springvale is an already amazing community, but one that has so much potential. We need to best harness and direct that potential for the benefit of all the residents of our city. That\u2019s why, if I am elected to City Council, I will work towards policies that utilize that potential towards meeting the needs of our community. Making it more affordable, having a more vibrant downtown and getting data centers banned in Sanford-Springvale are what I hope to accomplish.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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What is the biggest challenge facing your town\/county? The biggest opportunity?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The largest challenge facing Sanford-Springvale currently is our property tax burden. It has become a large hardship for many homeowners in our community. We need to fuel our city\u2019s growth through business revenue by filling our many vacant storefronts downtown, better utilizing legacy properties like the mills, and finding industry for our industrial park that doesn\u2019t threaten the health of our community.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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If you could change one thing about how the town\/county functions, what would it be and why?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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I would work to adopt reforms in Sanford-Springvale that help restore residents' faith in their local city government and increase their engagement in it. Through adopting measures like a participatory budget, where a portion of the budget is decided through direct voting by residents, we could return some control to them. This would allow residents to increase their opportunity for involvement and understanding of the city budgetary process.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Do you support more development \u2013 i.e. more housing construction and business building in your town\/county? Why or why not?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Yes, I support more housing and commercial development in Sanford. We need to provide more affordable housing opportunities and increase the supply in the market to help make it possible for everyone to advance toward owning their own home \u2014 and keeping it. We need commercial development that can provide jobs with livable pay so you can afford your payments. These developments can be in the same building, too; we should be promoting mixed-use zoning projects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":10922,"template":"","meta":{"voter_guide_candidate_first_name":"Alexander \"Alex\"","voter_guide_candidate_middle_name":"","voter_guide_candidate_last_name":"Clary","voter_guide_candidate_suffix":"","voter_guide_candidate_race_id":12439,"voter_guide_candidate_age":30,"voter_guide_candidate_hometown":"","voter_guide_candidate_occupation":"Refugee resource coordination and housing officer","voter_guide_candidate_bio":"Lifelong Mainer and professional in the humanitarian sector. Engaged locally in Sanford as a member of the city\u2019s Industrial Standards Task Force and Sanford Clean Air and Water Coalition.","voter_guide_candidate_education":"B.A. in international studies, University of Denver; M.A. in international relations, University of Groningen; M.A. in international humanitarian action, University of Malta","voter_guide_candidate_years_in_municipality":"","voter_guide_candidate_headshot_url":"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/open?id=19zPjDhsZQOLKutAwUr5M4xcfNmV6WweS","voter_guide_candidate_date_filed":"","footnotes":""},"vg_party":[1186],"vg_residence_municipality":[],"class_list":["post-12489","candidate","type-candidate","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","vg_party-non-partisan"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidates\/12489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidates"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/candidate"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidates\/12489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13043,"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidates\/12489\/revisions\/13043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"vg_party","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vg_party?post=12489"},{"taxonomy":"vg_residence_municipality","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vg_residence_municipality?post=12489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}