The Franklin County sheriff says he no longer plans to run for the open seat on the New Sharon select board now that someone else has stepped forward.
Milton Sinclair of New Sharon said he plans to run for the spot, which will be voted on at a special town meeting 9 a.m. Saturday at the Cape Cod Hill School.
The three-person select board needs another member to replace Forrest Bonney, who announced in March he will resign. Bonney is still on the board pending Saturday’s vote.
The town of 1,300 has an open special town meeting style in which nominations for the board are taken from the floor, so residents won’t know who all the candidates are until the meeting Saturday.
Sheriff Scott Nichols said that he intended to run for the seat because he didn’t know of anyone else running and he has local government experience. Nichols’ wife, Lorna Nichols, was elected to a full three-year term on the board at the 2014 Town Meeting.
At the annual Town Meeting in March, government newcomer Travis Pond won the seat held by Maynard Webster, who had been on the board for 38 years. Following Webster’s defeat, Bonney, who had been on the board for three years, resigned and said it was because it would be “difficult for anyone to pick up the pieces” after losing Webster’s experience. Bonney said he feared that he and the inexperienced board members would have a hard time handling Webster’s workload.
With Sinclair running, Nichols said he didn’t feel the need to and that his job as county sheriff “keeps me busy enough.”
Sinclair said Wednesday that he has been a resident of New Sharon since 1972 and has been active in keeping up with local issues and local government and regularly attends town meetings. He described himself as conservative.
“Over the years I’ve had many people ask me to run, and I thought that this would probably be a good time,” he said.
The former dairy farmer and salesman for the Paris Farmers Union said he felt it’s important to be involved in the community.
“I think that people in town need to do things for the town,” he said.
Kaitlin Schroeder — 861-9252
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