CAMDEN — The Select Board in Camden Tuesday evening, June 6, unanimously voted to hire Audra Caler-Bell as the town’s new manager. Caler-Bell has been most recently the interim Rockland City Manager for the last year, following the resignation there of its former city manager James Chaousis.

Caler-Bell was hired by Rockland as the city’s economic development and planning director in 2015, and later that year, she was promoted to the position of assistant city manager.

She applied for the open Camden position and said June 6 that she was excited to begin her new job. She is to begin in Camden July 1. Caler-Bell was hired under a three-year contract, with an initial annual salary of $105,000.

“I’m honored to accept the town manager position of Camden,” she said, speaking to the Camden Select Board Tuesday evening, at a regularly scheduled meeting in the Washington Street Meeting Room.

Caler-Bell said she grew up in Belfast, and returned to the Midcoast after living abroad. 

“I am passionate about local government,” she said.

The board welcomed Caler-Bell to the town, and took equal time to thank interim Town Manager Roberta Smith for her hard work, and willingness to help Camden out as it struggled to upright itself following the sudden resignation in January by former town manager Patricia Finnegan.

Smith, who retired in 2011, returned to the town office as interim leader and immediately began to sort out the tangled fiscal issues surrounding the Camden Snow Bowl redevelopment project, and the town’s budget itself.

She told Caler-Bell at the June 6 meeting, ‘May I be the first to welcome you to your new job.”

“I want to thank Roberta for her excellent guidance,” said Select Board member Don White.

Board member Jim Heard asked Caler-Bell what the Rockland reaction was to her new positions.

“We’re yet to see,” she said. “I wanted you to be the first to break the news. They are very happy for me. It is a great opportunity. I look forward to becoming part of the team working for Camden.”

Caler-Bell said she chose not to apply for the Rockland City Manager position, adding, “given where I am in life, this would be a better fit.”

She qualified that by saying there would be fewer night meetings, and she is raising a young family.

She said she would work very hard to continue to see it is a special place and “make changes to make sure it thrives.”

Rockland currently is reviewing applications for the position of the city manager there.

Reach Editorial Director Lynda Clancy at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657