Milo elects 4 new members to select board in wake of resignations
Residents voted Monday to elect four new members to the Milo Select Board after a cluster of resignations last month left just one member overseeing the town.
Leland McMannus received 81 votes for a three-year seat on the board expiring in March 2027, according to results provided by Town Clerk Betty Gormley. Anthony Heal, with 94 votes, will serve a two-year term expiring in March 2026. Tammie Anders, with 121 votes, and Brian Surette, with 75 votes, will fill two seats with one-year terms that expire in March 2025.
Valerie Robertson, who ran against McMannus, received 70 votes. Shannon Lord, who ran against Heal, received 56 votes.
Milo held a special election Monday to fill seats left vacant after Stephanie Hurd, Susan Libby, Donald Banker and Eric Foss resigned over the course of a week in May, leaving chairperson Paula Copeland as the board’s only remaining member. She was elected and chosen as chair on March 11.
The resignations came about two months after a group of residents initiated a process to remove Banker, the former chairperson, from the board following a March 7 meeting involving him, Foss and Libby that appeared to violate Maine’s public access law.
Not all of the former members disclosed their reasons for resigning, but Hurd told the Bangor Daily News it was partly because of the fallout from the meeting that caused controversy in town.
McMannus, Heal, Anders and Surette will join Copeland, who in an April statement referred to the March 7 meeting, where Libby, Banker and Foss discussed “many inappropriate things,” as “illicit.”
The Bangor Daily News obtained a video of the meeting through a records request. In the video, which shows the three former members in the town office lobby, they discuss the town manager’s performance and when to vote against renewing his contract, the police chief’s “whining,” and the public works schedule.
June 3 Milo special election results
Select board
Top one for 3-year term through March 2027
Leland McManus 81
Valerie Robertson 70
Top one for 2-year term through March 2026
Anthony Heal 94
Shannon Lord 56
Top one for 1-year term through March 2025
Tammie Andrews 121
Top one for 1-year term through March 2025
Brian Surette 75