MANCHESTER — Two men with experience on the fire department are running in a special election Nov. 5 to fill a vacant seat on the Select Board.

Donald McLeod, 64, and Larry Beane, 55, are running to fill the seat vacated by former longtime Select Board member and firefighter Robert Gasper, who resigned in August because of “changing attitudes” in Manchester about the fire department and volunteerism.

Gasper’s term on the five-person board runs until June 30, 2026. The winner of this special election will complete his term.

The fire department’s former chief, Frank Wozniak, also resigned in August because he “didn’t like the direction the town was heading.” Wozniak had been on paid administrative leave for nearly two months after he was issued a summons by Hallowell police on charges of impersonating a public official with the intent to deceive.

Beane said several dozen residents reached out to him to run for the Select Board following the “uproar” of the two resignations. Though he was initially hesitant, he said, he attended a Select Board meeting and decided running was the right choice.

Beane, who spent several years with the Manchester Fire Department before becoming an inactive member about eight years ago, said he is concerned about the lack of staffing and training in the department and hopes to prioritize building the department back up as a Select Board member.

McLeod has been an active member of the fire department since 2002. He also said the state of the department should be a top priority for the Select Board.

“I want to see the fire department built back better,” McLeod said. “I want to be a part of that. And having been in it, and still in it, I think I have a good feel as to what should be done.”

McLeod, who retired in 2021 as part owner of McLeod Optical, has been involved in town affairs since he joined the town’s recreation committee in 1999. He previously served on the Select Board from 2004–2013, during the last property tax revaluation the town conducted. Now, with another revaluation approaching, he said he wants to be on the board to help keep the process under control.

“If a (revaluation) is done properly and things are spread out the way they should be, the average homeowner in the town should see a minimal increase in their taxes,” McLeod said. “So I want to be a part of stewarding that process.”

Beane, who works as a relocation technician for the Maine Department of Transportation, said he hopes to increase transparency from the Select Board to Manchester residents in addition to his fire department priorities.

“There’s just a lot of people in town that are not real happy with things that have gone on — things that they don’t know about, that they feel as though should have been brought up at meetings and never was,” he said. “So I’m gonna be looking to to be that voice of the people, and if I win, I will do my very best at it.”