LEWISTON — Ward 4 City Councilor Doreen Christ said she plans to give up her seat and move to Freeport.
Christ said she plans to remain on the council at least through September, while she waits for renovations on her Freeport house.
“If for some reason they don’t have the renovations done and I can’t move in, I’ll stay on the council until I can move,” she said.
Christ said she took a job in the City of Portland’s Office of Inspections as an assistant in April but said the commute between Lewiston and Portland was too much.
She notified city staff in a letter Tuesday morning.
“This really does signify my goodbye to Lewiston,” she said. “I was kind of bummed out when I gave them my letter.”
Christ was originally elected to the council in Nov. 2011, however a residency error kept her out of the seat. Staff learned that she had moved within the city from College Street in Ward 3 to Buckley Street in Ward 4 almost a month after the deadline to qualify for the election. That seat went up for election again in February 2012 and she won that special ballot. She was reelected last November.
Lewiston’s City Charter requires that Council vacancies that occur with more than one year remaining in the term before the next regular election must be filled by a special election. Councilors are scheduled to discuss what they’ll do at their next meeting, on Sept. 9.
In a written statement, Mayor Robert Macdonald offered Christ good luck.
“Councilor Christ has been a long-time resident of Lewiston and has served her community well,” Macdonald said in the statement. “We are sorry to see her leave; however, we wish her well as she pursues her career aspirations.”
Christ said her job in Portland is similar to the one she had in Lewiston’s planning office between 1998 and 2008. She said she’s not done with politics, either.
“In about five more years, you’ll see my name again,” she said. “I’ll be out there. I’ll run for board of selectmen.”
-
- Doreen Christ
Send questions/comments to the editors.
