Tomorrow Rothesay residents who haven’t yet voted still have an opportunity to decide if they want a new direction for our town. There are a real choices this time around.

How you vote may be determined by your view of the record of the current council as represented by the four incumbent councillors who are asking for another four years to continue their record of the last four.

If you believe the near doubling (96% increase) of the Town’s long term debt in three years (250% since 2011) is wise you may vote for the incumbents.  – If you don’t, you can vote for change with the new candidates; Grant Brenan, Michael Butler, Nathan Davis, Julian Cseszko, Tiffany MacKay French, and a former councillor, Don Shea.

If you think that spending on frills like the Hampton Road flowerbed islands and flagpoles is ok when potholes and the absence of sidewalks in some areas mean unsafe streets – then you might vote the incumbent councillors back for another four years for more of the same.

If you think that taxpayers should be spending four times what the Rothesay Arena costs us to subsidize skating  for a much shorter season on the Rothesay Common, and if you are also willing to get out your checkbook to pay for another big boondoggle – the new Rothesay Arena, then you’ll be ok with voting back the Council four-pack.

If you are fine with secrecy and confrontation at the Town hall, then the status quo will be your choice with councillors Wells, Alexander, McGuire and Lewis. With them you might be voting for another four years of legal fights that have cost Rothesay hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyers’ bills.

If on the other hand you want Council to get its act together and spending under control, then you might give the six challengers a chance to clean things up.

What separates the Council incumbents from the challengers?

The incumbents are running on more spending on frills like a new Arena requiring higher debt that will make Rothsay increasingly unaffordable.

The challengers uniformly support more careful spending, typified by their non support of the $15 million Arena project. They all agree that fixing the current one is the better option.

Two Candidates, Pat Gallagher Jette for Mayor and Michael Butler for Council have clearly stated their objective is holding the line on taxes, with a goal of actually reducing the tax rate to give taxpayers much needed financial breathing room in these uncertain times.

As for open government, nothing typifies the position of the four incumbent councillors better than their change of heart on the financial audit. They poo hoo’d the independent audit in March and after a month of public backlash they scurried around to support it in April. Well, most people I’ve spoken with believe those efforts were a day late and a dollar short, a campaign of anonymous and likely illegal election signs notwithstanding.

Is there a choice in the Mayoral Race?

In a word, absolutely!

If you want change, then you will probably vote for Pat Gallagher Jette. Pat is not a recent convert to open government and more prudent spending. She has been advocating for it for as long as I have been following this council. Her persistence in demanding answers on town spending, while not always successful against a determined town bureaucracy,  has nonetheless forced a measure of discipline on some councillors and dampened their appetite for some ridiculously exuberant spending ideas.

If the new Arena project is an acid test that separates the out-of-control spenders from the responsible ones, then the choice is clear there too. Pat Gallagher Jette prefers to improve existing facilities at 1/5th the cost of new, while Nancy Grant joins the four pack of incumbent councillors in being completely tone deaf to the lack of public support for going further into debt by spending at least $15 million on a new arena.

What would an ideal Council look like? Certainly nothing like the last one.

On Monday I’m voting for change and the challengers!