Ben Rines Jr. has served on the Wiscasset select board off and on for 20 years. He was first elected in 1976, when he was 23. He also served two years in the Maine Legislature and is a past president of the Wiscasset Alumni Association. “I haven’t missed an alumni dinner since I graduated,” he said.

Rines said the town definitely needs better control of its finances. “It is inexcusable that the audit is a year late,” he said. “Too many issues are not getting the care and attention that they deserve.” Rines said he believes the town’s new treasurer, Vernice Boyce, is going to do an excellent job.

This year, Rines said, he voted to support every budget article. He still believes talks with CLC should continue, even if they don’t come to fruition. “It’s worth looking into. I don’t know how they deal with some issues, and they’re not really giving us too many details. Before we go further with the question, we should look more deeply into those issues.”

Rines said he hopes the factions on either side of the Maine Department of Transportation construction issue will come together. “I think we will,” he said. “Most people, on either side of the issue, have been decent to me, although I do know that there have been unpleasant issues that came up. I hope the board will be able to talk to the governor now that the lawsuit has been put to rest.”

Rines is concerned about the schools, both the education component and the cost. “It might be a good idea to hold a public hearing about the potential for changing the school to a K-8 program and tuitioning out the high school students,” he said. “We should get a sense of what the town is thinking and feeling.” He said as a past alumni president, it’s not an easy thing to contemplate, but the number of students keeps dwindling, and there doesn’t seem to be a reversal to that trend in sight.

He also believes that is the biggest issue with the community center and the recreation department. “We need to look at what other communities are doing,” he said. “Nothing should be off the table. We already know that the YMCA is not interested in our small community center, and it is a public resource that we need to support. If you raise membership too much, people who could barely afford it drop out, and they might be the ones who really need after school care or summer camp.” But at the same time, he said, it’s a high cost center for the town.

“The demographics are just changing,” he said. “We are the oldest county in the oldest state in the country, and Wiscasset is probably among the oldest towns in the county. There are certain tides we just can’t fight,” he said. “This might be one of them. I’d like to be proved wrong.”

Rines believes economic development is necessary to build a stronger tax base. He doesn’t see the need for a paid planner or economic development specialist to do it, however. “As I see it, that’s the job of the town manager,” he said. Rines said he would be willing to work on getting tax increment financing for development at Mason Station, but overall, he is concerned that some people in town will be unable to afford the taxes they are facing now. “Sure, I’d like to see more businesses in town,” he said. “I think we should be encouraging them in every way we can.”