When Lincoln County Commissioner William Blodgett, 89, retires at the end of the year, he is all but guaranteed to be replaced in the role by a younger man.

Walter Voskian, the only major party candidate running for Blodgett’s midcoast seat, is 87. 

Voskian said he’s in excellent health, that his age is unimportant and his experience will benefit the county. The Democrat has served on Bremen’s planning board and was involved in local government in Virginia. He said he spent decades working for the CIA where he helped prepare security briefings for multiple presidents.

He said it’s helpful “to be able to draw on those experiences when you have to make a decision,” adding, “I don’t think it’s a matter of age, it’s more a matter of experience.”

If he takes over Blodgett’s seat, Voskian will not become the state’s oldest county commissioner. That title will move to Oxford County’s H. Sawin Millett, an 88-year-old veteran politician slated to serve until just after his 90th birthday. 

Maine has the oldest population of any state in the country: The median age of its residents is roughly 45. As the state goes gray, its population of local public servants is aging as well. Across Maine’s counties, the average age of a commissioner is 68. Some are serving well into their 80s, with relatively few younger adults seeking the jobs.

The still-fresh memory of former President Joe Biden’s stumbling 2024 debate performance has helped crystallize public support for age limits in Congress. Closer to home, the Senate race between presumptive Democratic nominee Graham Platner, 41, former primary rival Gov. Janet Mills, 78, and the incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins, 73, has thrown an uncomfortable question — whether age is a limiting factor for a public servant — into stark relief. 

Across Maine, local and county positions are often filled by older adults, leading some to call for more representation of young voters. This year, a handful of younger candidates for commissioner are on the ballot — some with ambitious ideas for what Maine’s counties can be.

A forgotten layer of government

County government has long been ignored by residents in Maine, which has a robust tradition of local control that delegates significant authority to towns and cities. But in the past year, county offices have drawn more attention following a series of budget crises caused by high jail costs and, in at least one case, mismanagement and poor record-keeping. 

Commissioners are typically tasked with approving county budgets, which are mostly used to fund public safety measures and often maintain programs obligated by state law. A large portion typically goes to jails, the sheriff’s office and the district attorney, all of which counties must fund. Maine’s county governments have less sweeping missions than those in other states, especially outside New England.

There is little interest in running for county commissioner. With no term limits — except in Cumberland County — and few competitive races, it’s easy for a commissioner to remain in office for decades. 

Blodgett, for example, has been in county office since 1995, though he recently faced challenges for the job in 2018 and 2022. He served in the state Legislature in the 1970s and is one of many former legislators to land in the more lowkey and little-understood role of commissioner.

Using publicly available information and background checking software TLOxp, The Maine Monitor was able to gather data on the ages of current county commissioners. The median age for the group is 68.

Of Maine’s 58 county commissioners, the largest cohort — 23 officials — consists of individuals in their 70s. Relatively few, 16 in total, are younger than 60. Only four counties have a commissioner under the age of 40. 

Waldo County has the youngest commission. There, Breanna Pinkham Bebb, 39, was recently appointed to replace longtime commissioner Betty Johnson, who died in office at age 86.

Former Androscoggin County Commissioner Noel Madore, 35, is now running for a seat in Kennebec County, which has some of the oldest commissioners. He’s challenging an incumbent who’s more than twice his age. He said the structure of the county job, which is part time and requires daytime meetings for little pay (often only a few thousand annually), makes it difficult for people with day jobs to run for office.

“They don’t operate in such a way where it is the easiest entry for folks,” he said, adding that limited representation of younger adults keeps interest low. “When seat holders are predominantly retired … [young people] don’t see their peers there, and it doesn’t seem relevant to them.”

New voices

York County’s Justin Chenette is one of the youngest county commissioners; he’s 35. Speaking before dozens of sixth graders at a civics presentation on May 13, he urged the pre-teens to get involved with an impassioned voice.

Chenette, a Democrat who served in the state Senate from 2016 to 2020, emphasized his points using an Obama-esque closed fist with a pointed thumb. He’s part of a new generation of county commissioners, some of whom have ambitious ideas about what the unsung layer of government can accomplish.

He touted an example for the students: When an Alfred food pantry was on the verge of closure last year, the commission stepped in and voted unanimously to support it, partly via a nonprofit foundation the county formed in 2024.

“It was about to close, so people weren’t going to have a place to go to, basically, feed their families,” he said. “We felt a moral obligation to step up and feed our fellow neighbors in need.”

Chenette took his seat in 2023 as the commission saw a massive, atypical influx of money, including federal pandemic relief funds and money from national opioid settlements, so his early years as a commissioner exposed him to a broad vision of what counties can do. York, through its nonprofit arm, put money toward an emergency response training center, an addiction recovery center and a dredge to fight coastal erosion. 

While the commissioners all worked together on these initiatives, Chenette has differentiated himself stylistically; he has his own website and uses social media to communicate with constituents, a move relatively uncommon for the office.

“There’s no textbook or blueprint for how to be a county commissioner, and I think we’re pretty much at baseline, in terms of what the duties and responsibilities are,” he said. “I’ve been able to make this my own.”

Now, with federal funds drying up and the jail requiring heavy spending, the county’s ambitions have cooled somewhat. Last month the county commission decided by a 3-2 vote to allocate $20,000 for a community transportation project after debate about the fiscal wisdom of spending the money given an underwhelming boost in jail funding from the state.

“It’s growing pains,” Chenette said. “Are we open to going down a path of trying to be a little bit more than we have in the past?”

Marpheen Chann, 34, calls counties the “ugly stepchild” of Maine government because of their limited power and low public recognition. But he has an expansive view of what county government could be. Chann, a Democrat, is the only major party candidate running for a Cumberland County commission seat representing much of Portland. 

On housing, homelessness, immigration and transportation, Chann has an activist’s view of what counties should be willing to do. He has floated the idea of creating a Cumberland County housing authority and even a regional rail system based in Portland. In a pair of January social media posts, he shared mock maps of such a system, suggesting that the county and state “dream big.” 

He acknowledged that the rail idea would be a big project to take on. He said he suspects it could take 30 to 50 years, but he’s “planting that flag far in the future.”

“It’s currently not possible, but, if we work at it, if we bring the vision, if we bring the ideas and values … the passion for improving lives, then light rail doesn’t seem that impossible,” he said. “I’m still relatively young, still relatively hopeful, and can still think several decades ahead.”

While counties typically stick largely to what they’re required to fund, Chann noted that state law grants them broad power over economic and community development projects. That could empower more robust regional action on housing and transit, enabling projects he said could make life better for younger generations.

“Young people have to step up and show that they’re interested in things beyond … things that are Instagrammable, and for me that means county government,” he said. “For us, for young people, we have to be able to tether ourselves to something beyond the current crises in order to actually envision a world that we actually want to live in.”

‘Every bit of experience’

In 2024, former legislator H. Sawin Millett saw an opportunity to return to the Legislature. Seeing partisanship increase, the Republican decided against it. His age was also on his mind.

“I wanted something to keep me mentally active,” he said. So he turned to county office. “I made the decision that I could do a better job staying local, working locally, and using my mental and physical capacity, as well as my experience, to help out people closer to home.”

Now 88, he’s in office until 2028, when he will turn 90. He said he’s unlikely to run again.

“Given my advanced age and so on, I think if I can give four years of service to Oxford County and do a decent job, then I’ll be satisfied with that stint,” he said. 

Millett said he takes pride in overseeing county programs to ensure efficiency and effectiveness, with the help of his experience. But he acknowledged that new arrivals may be good for county government.

“I think turnover is healthy, and it’s not just driven by age, but time in office is sometimes healthy and sometimes not so healthy,” he said.

Patsy Crockett, 85, is the oldest commissioner in Kennebec County. She has served on boards of numerous community organizations and was in the state Legislature in the 2000s, but was appointed to the county commission in 2016. She said “every bit of experience” helps people serve as commissioners. 

“If the person is healthy and able to do the job, I don’t think age should make a difference,” she said.

Crockett said that even in her mid-80s, she enjoys the work. “I try to get a kick out of meeting people that I don’t know and meeting people that really aren’t in favor of me and talking with them,” she said. “I do love it. Most all the time it is very rewarding, it really is.”

She said she has no plans to retire. She will be up for election again in 2028.

Voskian, the 87-year-old candidate in Lincoln County, maintained that age doesn’t matter.

“Some people prefer, when they retire, to just recede,” he said. “I chose not to do that, and I encourage people, regardless of their age, to get involved in local activities, local government.”

This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit civic news organization. To get regular coverage from The Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here.