McComish says evening meetings should be a must

Jennie McCormish (Courtesy photo)

Editor's note: This is the first of three stories on the three candidates running for Lebanon selectman.

LEBANON - Jennie McComish of Lebanon says she's running for selectman to make government more accessible to residents and that one of the first things she'd work to do if elected is to try to move back to evening meetings instead of the current afternoon meetings now employed.

McComish, 27, in her first bid for political office, will vie for the lone selectmen's seat open against incumbent Ben Thompson and longtime town hall employee and former budget committee member Christine Torno.

McComish graduated from Noble High School and got her bachelor's degree and teaching certificate in early childhood education at the University of Maine in Farmington.

She said if elected, she would also like to increase communication in town between selectmen and the residents by beefing up the town website and the amount of information available in selectmen's meeting minutes.

McComish, who currently coaches a town T-ball team, said she talks to a lot of parents who would like to be able to attend meetings but can't because they work during the day.

She currently runs a daycare center out of her home on Merchants Row where she lives with her boyfriend Tony Clabet.

McComish said she started to get involved in town politics after attending a public hearing two years ago and decided to mount a run for the selectmen's seat last November.

"I got frustrated by some of the answers I got from selectmen," she said. "So I decided to run. I just felt that there's no one in that (selectmen's) seat that represents me, my generation, that wants communication and a concept of what's going on in that town office."