Addison Moore

With less than two weeks until Election Day, five candidates are competing for two at-large seats on the Brunswick Town Council, the body that sets the town’s budget, zoning and housing policy, from Maine Street sidewalks to Bowdoin’s own building plans. Because at-large seats represent the whole town, any Bowdoin student registered to vote in Brunswick can weigh in on both.

In the race for a full three-year term, former council chair Sarah Brayman faces Robert Moulton, a local contractor. Three candidates are running in a special election for the remainder of the term of a vacated at-large seat: former councilor Nathaniel Shed and first-time candidates Jennifer Navarro and Paul Whitcomb, a resident who has frequently spoken out on environmental issues. The races are nonpartisan, though Brayman and Shed identified as Democrats in the Portland Press Herald’s voter guide.

The nine-member council sets town policy, from the annual budget to zoning, and its decisions can reach campus directly. When the town weighed what to do with the former Hawthorne School on Federal Street, Bowdoin was one of two bidders. The College proposed housing for faculty and staff, while a developer proposed a mix of market-rate and low-income units. According to Shed, who sat on the redevelopment committee, the proposals received similar scores, but the committee did not back the College, mainly because its proposal offered workforce housing rather than low-income housing.

Bowdoin Votes Program Coordinator Amelia Kane ’27 said decisions like that one are why students should pay attention, even if they only live in Brunswick for four years.

“Though we may only live here for a short time, the decisions town councilors make do affect us,” Kane wrote in an email to the Orient.

She pointed to new developments and construction projects, the Brunswick Link bus, sidewalks and bike lanes, environmental policy and public safety budgets.

Brayman, 67, represented District 7—which includes part of campus—from 2012 to 2017 and chaired the council from 2015 to 2016. An artist and election clerk, she lives a block from the College. She said she has been surprised by how rarely Bowdoin comes up in forums and conversations with voters this cycle.

“That makes me wonder, ‘what’s going on on campus? What are the students thinking about?’” Brayman said.

If elected, Brayman would aim to hold an on-campus meeting once a semester to ask students whether they spend time downtown and, if not, why. She described the town and the College as dependent on each other: A livable town helps Bowdoin recruit faculty and staff, she said, while student internships in town government keep up “a porosity between the town and Bowdoin.”

“We are in this together to a great degree,” Brayman said.

Shed, 75, a retired camp director, served on the council from 2023 to 2025 and lost his reelection bid last year. He said the College has generally been a responsive neighbor and noted that Bowdoin pays the town just under $500,000 a year in lieu of taxes.

“I think it’s important to have good communication, and cooperate with the College, and for the College to cooperate with the town,” Shed said.

He still supports the College building housing for younger faculty and staff. He also noted nearly every town committee reserves a seat for a high school or Bowdoin student interested in engaging in local politics, with a one-year term instead of the usual three.

“Students  should have the same power as anybody else to show up at town council meetings and speak, and to join committees,” Shed said.

Affordable and workforce housing is Shed’s top priority. He set one to two percent annual development growth as a target and described himself as “a liberal Democrat.”

Navarro, 42, a homemaker and first-time candidate, describes herself as a 10th-generation Brunswick descendant. She said her first job, at age 14, was at Bowdoin. She began attending council meetings more than four years ago because changes were happening faster than she could follow.

Navarro said that while the seat is nonpartisan, she holds conservative positions.

“I would like to see more restraint or deliberations, at least, to explain what approvals are going through,” Navarro said.

She wants to decrease town spending and “see measurable benefits” from it, so that longtime residents are not forced out. If elected, she plans to arrive 30 to 45 minutes before every council meeting to answer residents’ questions, and she already posts a weekly summary of town business on her campaign Facebook page.

However, Navarro acknowledges that she has taken positions at odds with much of the campus and Brunswick’s left-leaning community. At the council’s February 2 meeting, she “expressed support for ICE,” according to the minutes, during a public comment period in which other residents described fears of immigration enforcement. In April, she testified before the Maine Legislature in support of LD 2239, a bill that would require public schools to designate sports teams, bathrooms and locker rooms by the sex on a student’s original birth certificate.

Asked what she would say to students wary of her views, Navarro said disagreement “doesn’t make us enemies.” She noted that her husband is a first-generation immigrant from Peru and said she appreciates “the diversity that America is and has to offer.”

“I don’t presume to have all the answers, and I’m humbled enough to say when I don’t,” Navarro said.

She suggested informal events, such as line dancing on the Quad or holiday events, to bring students and Brunswick residents together.

Brayman, meanwhile, called development pressure the town’s biggest issue and said Brunswick has been “reactive rather than proactive,” granting waivers for construction in rural zones of the town instead of those that are considered designated growth zones closer to downtown and Cook’s Corner. She supports raising the impact fees developers pay.

Moulton, 67, owns Robert’s Renovations, a contracting business focused on historic restoration, and lost a council bid in 2022. In the Press Herald’s survey, he prioritized more efficient government, including ending “wasteful and unsound environmental related spending,” fair property tax assessments and managed growth. Navarro has endorsed him on Facebook.

Whitcomb did not respond to the Press Herald’s survey. He has  opposed the town’s planned Public Works fuel station on Industry Road, arguing that new fossil fuel infrastructure contradicts the town’s climate action plan.

To help students follow the races, Bowdoin Votes worked with the Curtis Memorial Library to plan a Local Candidates Night on October 16 and brought students to meet the candidates. For those who missed it, volunteer Natalia Lopez wrote a ballot guide summarizing the candidates’ key points. The group will hand out copies on its early voting walk to the Brunswick Town Hall on October 29 and on Election Day.

“Many students will cast their first vote as Bowdoin students, and Bowdoin Votes is here to help students build habits of educated and informed voting,” Kane said.

Election Day voting takes place at the Brunswick Recreation Center at 220 Neptune Drive. Maine allows same-day registration, and a Bowdoin ID counts as proof of identity.