First Selectman Takes Practical Approach
(from Maine
Townsman,
November 2011)
by Eric Conrad, Director of Communication & Educational Services, MMA
The saying goes like this: If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. Steve Brown, First Selectman in the Town of Carthage since 1980, fits the bill.
It all started back in 1978, when Brown made a fateful decision to move to Carthage, where he and his sisters had owned land since 1971. Brown had met many Carthage residents over the seven years he vacationed there. When he moved to town, a farmer named Leo Carrier asked Brown what he wanted to do next.
“I told him I want to work in the woods. I want to run a chain saw,” Brown said. Carrier took him up on that, taught Brown how to use a chain saw and a skidder, and Brown started hauling wood from Carrier’s property. In doing that, he met a small businessman from town who also harvested trees but on a larger scale. The next year, Brown was hired to manage that business owner’s lumber yard, which he did for eight years.
“I’m 35, 36 years old and suddenly I had a real job,” Brown said.
Actually, that’s a little misleading. Brown, raised in a family of physicians, was educated at the University of Massachusetts, his hometown of Amherst, Mass. He attended graduate school and worked toward his doctoral degree at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he worked for years on experiments assessing brain function. His father was a prominent pediatrician in Massachusetts but the family always respected its ties to Maine. Brown’s grandfather was born in Hallowell.
A few years after moving full-time to Carthage, two selectmen in town approached Brown and asked if he’d consider running for First Selectman. They were good with their hands and were thrifty and practical. But they knew of Brown’s educational background. Carthage needed a first selectman who could run the town office administratively and be effective in doing so, they explained.
FROM AWAY
Brown declined initially, saying he was from away and hadn’t lived in town long enough. But the selectmen persisted and nominated Brown for the post at the next town meeting. Sure enough, not everyone at the meeting was keen on the newcomer getting elected so fast.
“All kinds of nominations started coming up off the floor to keep the bearded guy out,” Brown recalled. “Everyone who was nominated kept declining though, so I got in.”
That started a 31-year career that is still going strong. At this point, Brown ranks as one of the best-known – and most active – local officials in his part of Maine (Carthage, pop. 552, is in Franklin County at the border with Oxford County).
Brown also serves as president of the Northern Oxford Regional Ambulance Service, a collaborative effort in which 11 municipalities participate. He serves on the board at the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments and is active with the local historical society.
Over the years, Brown developed a humble approach to managing Carthage. First and foremost, he said, the town’s limited financial resources mean practicality rules.
“What I realized was these poor, little towns, all you can do is what you have to do,” Brown said. “Those aren’t controversial things – dealing with solid waste, roads, that kind of thing.”
‘INNATE INTELLIGENCE’
Brown also has come to respect his fellow Carthage residents and natives of the town. Many of them lack a college education but they have “innate intelligence and lots of practical skills.” There are many examples where those skills have come in handy for the town, getting projects done while keeping spending down.
A prominent example came in 1980, Brown’s first year as first selectman, when a bridge built in 1905 needed to be replaced. The bridge was designed for horses and buggies. A dairy operation needed to use the bridge, but oil and milk deliveries grew difficult because the structure was obsolete.
The first projection to rebuild the bridge came in at about $180,000. The state would provide matching funds but Carthage would have had to come up with $80,000 or $90,000.
“That was completely out of the question for a town like Carthage,” Brown said.
A new design was brought forward, estimated at $70,000 for the entire project. But even $35,000 for the town’s share seemed too high.
Then, a few men from town approached Brown and said they could design and build it for less money than any of the estimates. Brown took their idea to the state Department of Transportation “and much to our surprise, the state agreed to it. They’d never done that with a town before.”
The end result was a thrifty win-win-win: The bridge was built, the town saved money and Carthage residents were paid for the work that was done.
Another example involves the local Fire Department’s relatively new tanker truck. Two men from town were at a state property auction where they saw a truck chassis that they believed could work. In fact it did, and Brown estimates Carthage paid less than $10,000 for a tanker truck that could have cost $200,000 or more if purchased new.
“The only dispute we’ve had is whether the front bumper should be chrome or painted black,” he said. “I finally settled it by saying if they could get us a fire truck for under $10,000, they can have a chrome bumper on it.”
A LITTLE FUN
Carthage folks also have a sense of humor. This is the tale of the town’s compactor truck and it goes back only a few years.
“Like many small towns, we were finally told we had to close the only dump we ever had,” Brown explained.
The town’s solution was to buy a compactor truck. Residents would throw their trash into the truck at the town office, it was compacted and taken to the nearby town of Jay. The compactor worked remarkably well for years but eventually had to be replaced.
Several town residents went to a state property surplus sale a few years ago and saw a compactor there. It was a state-owned vehicle that previously was used at a prison, which had closed.
The men called Brown and said they thought Carthage could buy it for $5,800. Brown told them no, the town didn’t have $5,800. But it did have $3,600 available, and Brown projected Carthage might get the machine for that amount because the economy was down.
“By God, we went through the public-bid thing and bought it for $3,600,” he said.
The compactor truck now is used at the town transfer station and carries the slogan, “Satisfaction guaranteed or double your garbage back.”
“I’ve been wanting to put that on the compactor for years,” Brown said with a grin.
What are the keys to holding office in a town like Carthage for so long? Brown lists a few: Be non-judgmental. Have patience when issues arise. And, whenever possible, use the skills possessed by residents in town to get projects done.
Like many municipal officials, Brown cites the variety of issues as the reason why he gets satisfaction from his years of municipal service.
“It’s very satisfying,” he said. “You need some challenges in life. Every day, there’s a variety.”
The biggest challenge Brown faces now is deciding how and when to step down as first selectman. In some ways, he thinks towns benefit when long-time municipal officers step down because new thinking and approaches might be better.
“People have the skills to do it but not the willingness to spend the time for not much money,” he said.
So in Carthage, people keep electing Brown, citing his practical and even frugal approach to managing the town, which had a property tax mil rate of 14.7 in 2010.
“I’ve found that it’s not much of a problem getting a job like this,” Carthage’s first selectman said. “It’s getting out of it.”
