WATERFORD — Former Selectman John Bell has taken out nomination papers for a seat on the Board of Selectmen.
The annual election is set for Friday, March 6, followed by the annual town meeting March 7.
The selectman’s seat — one of three — was left open after the death of longtime Selectman Richard Hunt on Dec. 19.
Bell is the only one who has taken out papers as of Tuesday afternoon.
Board of Selectmen Chairman Randy Lessard recently said the board decided to wait until the annual election in March to fill the vacancy.
Bell, a land surveyor who has lived in Waterford for almost 25 years, has family roots in town that go back six generations.
He served on the Board of Selectmen from 2007-10. He decided not to seek re-election in order to devote more time to his Computer Aided Design teaching position at Oxford Hills Technical School in Paris.
“I enjoyed serving the residents of Waterford as a selectman and planned to run again when I had more time,” Bell said in an email Tuesday night. “I resigned my teaching position in June 2013 to resume my land surveying business and pursue agricultural interests. This has afforded me the flexibility in my schedule to run for a seat on the board again.”
Bell, who became a Certified Maine Assessor in August 2013, said he is hopeful that this skill, combined with his previous experience on the board will make him an “immediate asset.”
“Under the guidance of the late Selectman Richard Hunt, great progress was made in the implementation of the accounting portion of the TRIO software package in the Town Office,” he said. “However, there is still a lot of work left to implement the assessing portion of the software, and I hope to work on completing that as soon as possible.”
Bell is a sixth-generation Waterford resident living in the original Bell homestead in the Blackguard area of town. He is self-employed as a land surveyor, assessor, logger and farmer.
In November 2014, Bell was named to the Oxford Hills Technical School Board of Directors. His wife, Donna, teaches English at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School and their four daughters attended Oxford Hills schools.
“I look forward to the opportunity to serve the residents of the town of Waterford again,” he said.
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