NORTH YARMOUTH — Next month’s special election to fill a Board of Selectmen vacancy has drawn two competitors: a former selectman, and a recent unsuccessful candidate for the board.

Keith Thompson of Bryn Lane, who was narrowly defeated by Jeanne Chadbourne in the June Board of Selectmen election, is running again for the board. Opponent Jim Moulton of Mill Road has served on both the Board of Selectmen and School Administrative District 51 Board of Directors.

The winner in the Sept. 21 special election will replace former Selectman Clark Whittier, who resigned from the board June 30.

The winner of the special election will complete the final year of Whittier’s unexpired term.

A candidates forum will be held at Town Hall at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 14.

Also up for grabs in next month’s election is a Budget Committee seat that expires in June 2018. No one submitted nomination papers for that seat, so the town will approach the person who receives the most write-in votes about serving.

Two seats on that board were available this June, but with only one filled in that election, the Board of Selectmen opted to place the vacancy on the special September ballot, Town Clerk Debbie Grover said Monday.

Moulton was most recently elected to the School Board in 2012 and served a term that expired in June. He previously served on that board from 2002 to 2005, and spent 12 years on the Board of Selectmen, most recently from 2005 to 2008.

Moulton has also served six years on the Cumberland County Budget Advisory Committee and several years on the town Zoning Board of Appeals.

He served on the Policy Committee during his time on the SAD 51 board, has lived in North Yarmouth for 63 years, and has run Jim’s Auto Repair, fixing and selling vehicles.

Moulton said Aug. 15 that the Board of Selectmen’s recommended Village Center development plan, which goes to referendum in November, moved him to run again. He said he opposes the proposal to redevelop North Yarmouth Memorial School as a municipal and community campus, with the existing Town Hall to be sold for development and construction of a municipal sewer system.

“I don’t like what they’ve put on the warrant, with no (cost) numbers,” he said.

Instead, Moulton said he supports the effort to place a competing referendum on the ballot, which opposes the selectmen’s proposal and in part calls for requests for proposals on redevelopment of the school property.

Thompson, a retired aviator who is chairman of the Spring Point Ledge Light Trust in South Portland, according to his website, nyaffairs.org, has lived in North Yarmouth for 17 years.

He said in an Aug. 14 email that two things have prompted his decision to run.

“First, I have a considerable amount of support in North Yarmouth, and these supporters urged me to run for the remainder of Clark Whittier’s term,” he said. “The other reason, frequently expressed by others, was they didn’t want to see an election with only a single candidate.”

Thompson added that he would like the Memorial School gym to be preserved.

“Every time I’ve been in there there seems to be a group of kids playing basketball,” he noted. “Beyond that, whether it’s as town offices or light manufacturing or senior housing, I’d like to see the remainder of the building, if the town decides to keep it or sell it, put to its best use for the town.”

Alex Lear can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 113 or alear@theforecaster.net. Follow him on Twitter: @learics.

Keith Thompson, left, and James Moulton are the candidates in next month’s special election for the North Yarmouth Board of Selectmen.

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