Town of Sangerville is ‘on the move’

SANGERVILLE —  “Sangerville is on the move.” The words of Town Manager Brian Mullis describe how town officials feel the community is moving in the right direction.

“Through a series of events we ended up with three new selectmen in one year,” Mullis said, sitting in the current home of the current town office at 93 Main St. while the nearby town hall is undergoing construction. 

Current Chair Jeff Peters was elected at the 2024 annual town meeting. Later in the year the other two board members each resigned for personal reasons, leaving just Peters and Town Clerk Michelle Nichols as the town government, Mullis said.

Working with the Maine Municipal Association a special election was held with Josh Tracy and Mike Gould winning seats on the select board. The interim town manager stayed on a bit longer but the position was open until Mullis began in September. Deputy Town Clerk Kelsey Shannon started in October.

“So we have a brand new town government here, but the bright side is we all work together really well,” Mullis said.

He mentioned Nichols has the most experience, having served as town clerk in Guilford for many years as well as in Kingsbury Plantation and Willimantic. “She is kind of the rock we rely upon here for experience and information,” Mullis said.

He said Shannon has revamped the town’s website and handled assembling the town report.

“One of the huge strengths of the town here is that Michelle and Kelsey just do so much work for us,” Mullis said.

He said the two moved and organized the town records when these needed to be removed from the town hall to be placed in totes stored in shipping containers that are now at the town garage. Municipal cemetery records are currently in the process of being organized.

Becoming Sangerville town manager marked a career change for Mullis, who has an extensive background in emergency medical services ,including EMS management, with 30 years as a paramedic and over four decades in public safety.  

“It’s just time to do something different and this is something that I really thought I would like to try and this job came open,” said the resident of neighboring Dover-Foxcroft, where he served on both the select board and budget advisory committee. “Sangerville looked like it was going to have some challenges, not to mention I have a connection with the town. My family has a camp on Center Pond since my grandparents bought it back in the 1950s so I have always had a strong connection to Sangerville. It is right nearby and this is a great opportunity and so far it has been. I am really enjoying the change, a lot to learn definitely but that is a positive.”

“There are great people in Sangerville, the people have responded very positively to me,” Mullis said. “I enjoy sitting and talking with people when they come into the office. It is nice to be able to help people out. It is certainly different than EMS but at the same time it does bring a lot of satisfaction.”

Mullis enjoys being in a small community where, as town manager, he can handle problems directly, such as going out and checking on a road issue himself.

“I think one of things I enjoy about the job is having that interaction,” he said, instead of there being a layer of people between him and the residents.

About 90 percent of people reaching out have valid complaints, Mullis said. 

“I know it’s a legitimate issue for them but it’s usually a legitimate issue for the town,” he said. “You try your best to fix it as soon as possible but sometimes you have to just accept it may take a while to tackle this problem and as long as you’re honest with people I have found people respond really well to that.”

This year the annual town meeting moved back to the last Saturday of March, in 2024 it was in May, with a potluck lunch following the meeting.

“There was debate, like you want, but it was polite, it was civil,” Mullis said. He said at times some citizens were getting passionate about issues they felt were important but they were still able to be polite and civil during discussions.

“At the end of the meeting people didn’t walk away (upset) even after arguments and debates had gone in a different direction in the way that they wanted, they still sat down with their neighbors and had a meal and conversation and that’s what you want,” the town manager said.

“Town meeting is the purest form of democracy in the world and we were fortunate to have it work the way it is supposed to this year,” Mullis said, saying he is proud of this.

The town hall, built in 1901, has been a source of contention 

“The townspeople really clearly said they wanted us to fix up that town hall,” Mullis said. “We’ve got roofers coming the end of this week or the beginning of next week to repair the roof on that. We’ve got an engineer working with us and hopefully we are going to start doing foundation work on that this summer.”

The hope is to get more grant funding for town hall work, with the municipal office moving back there within the next 18 months.

Needed road work that had been delayed is starting to get taken care of. Last fall the Burrough Road and West Road were rebuilt and this summer Maple Street is scheduled to be repaved along with gravel work, ditching and brush cutting on some dirt travelways. 

“We know we can’t do it all at once but we know we have to start making a concerted effort on getting our roads up to a better standard,” the town manager said.

Mulllis said the Sangerville Fire Department is very strong and is a huge asset for the town. He said communication with residents improved, including regular updates from him on the town Facebook page on various matters.

The second annual Two Knights Festival is planned for Saturday, July 19. The first event was hosted by the fire department and the Friends of Sangerville Fire in the fall of 2024 to bring the town together.

“We are going a little bit bigger this year,” Mullis said. The 2025 Two Knights Festival will include a parade from the village cemetery to the Sangerville Veterans Memorial Park for a day of activities including music in the gazebo, children’s games, car show, vendors and more.

Two Knights Brewery will begin its outdoor summer music series that evening with Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band The Breeze.

“I just kind of think we are heading in the right direction,” Mullis said. He said the town office and select board are in a position to help turn the community around so “Sangerville is on the move.”

“We want to make the town better any way we can, improve our business climate, improve our infrastructure,” Mullis said. “The work together between the town departments, we’re not sticking with the same plan. We are seeing what we can do to make this a better town for the future.”

He said he doesn’t want it to sound like previous boards and employees were not doing their jobs, saying good work was done and a lot of it was mostly not seen by the public.

“We have a group of people that work really well together and townspeople that support it,” the town manager said. “Again, we are just heading in a positive direction and Sangerville is on the move.”

The select board is open minded and really wants to make a positive change, Mullis said, and “truly execute the will of the people.”