By Wayne E. Rivet

Staff Writer

Bob Peabody had hoped to end his managerial career in Bridgton.

“I wanted it to be another year here. I wanted to wind down the projects I had been heavily involved in, including the wastewater treatment plant. I know it inside and out,” Peabody said. “I thought that if I did another year then I would really feel good about what I’ve accomplished here. I would have brought it all the way through in my mind.”

The Bridgton Select Board — Peabody’s bosses — had a different idea.

Peabody asked for a one-year extension to his contract in July 2024. The board declined the extension by a 3-2 vote.

“I was very clear with them, ‘Be aware, I’m going to be looking earnestly (for another job),’” Peabody told The News in an interview Monday.

Peabody never reached the contract’s end date of June 30. Instead, Peabody and town officials parted ways in November.

Last week, Peabody accepted a new job as City Manager for Gardiner. He starts Feb. 3.

“I’m familiar with Gardiner. My daughter and her family lived in Farmingdale for about nine years. It’s close to Bath, where I grew up, so I am very familiar with Gardiner,” Peabody said. “I’m not a way, inland person and I wasn’t looking to go to the County. Gardiner fits. They want to make things happen, and I’m kind of a guy who makes things happen. I was very clear with them if they wanted a caretaker, they needed to interview somebody else.”

Peabody likes tackling challenges, and Gardiner has a couple he will tackle once he takes office. One is constructing a new Public Safety building. The other, addressing issues with river flooding and ways to mitigate damage. Another project will be improving downtown infrastructure, including sidewalks. A goal-setting meeting is planned in February, “which will sort of give me my marching orders,” Peabody said.

Gardiner is bigger than Bridgton. It has a full-time fire department and an ambulance department that services surrounding towns. He will work with a City Council, as well with a mayor — a form of government Peabody knows quite well from his time in Rockland, where he served on the City Council for nine years, was mayor three times, and later became manager. The mayor runs the meetings and sets the agenda. “Basically, it’s like the chairman of the Select Board,” he noted. “Administratively, operationally, the manager runs everything.”

Peabody succeeds Andrew Carlton, who served as City Manager for 2 years and 2 months before moving on to become Special Education Director for Waterville Public Schools.

“It is going to have some interesting challenges for me, which is what I look for. I look for places where I can make a difference,” he said. “I hopefully will be able to make a difference in Gardiner like I did here (in Bridgton).”

Peabody has a house under contract in Gardiner, and will place his home on North High Street here on the market next week.

“I suppose I ought to be packing,” he chuckled.

Before Peabody departs, The News sat down with the former manager to talk about his 10 years guiding Bridgton and thoughts about where he sees the town heading.

Editor’s Note: As part of his agreement with the town, which terminated the contract early, some topics were off limits.

BN. What things were you most proud of during your tenure here?

Peabody: That’s pretty easy. We did over $35 million in projects. That’s pretty substantial. Upgrading the town’s sewer system was the big one, as well as improvements on Main Street and Lower Main Street. I was really proud of being able to navigate the politics and proud of the people of Bridgton for stepping up and saying we support that idea. Particularly proud of bringing those three projects to vote at the same time, and get them passed. I had one Select Board member say to me the day before the vote, ‘you’re going to wake up in the morning and you’ll be crying the blues.’ I said, ‘I don’t think so.’ It passed overwhelmingly.

BN. What did you feel were the keys that enabled those things to be approved?

Peabody: I think with the wastewater system, people recognized you can’t pollute our bodies of water. And, you can’t stop commercial development. Basically, it had stopped because we didn’t have sewer capacity. Certainly, without the new system and treatment plant, development we’ve seen couldn’t have happened.

When you look at our downtown, we had good bones, but it was tired. You have to make coming here special, making people want to have a shopping experience here because they can get anything they want online. That’s what streetscape does. It makes the area more attractive. The three projects made Bridgton more attractive on a lot of fronts.

I think what really sold it to the folks was the economies of scale. By doing the three projects together, we saved money because we only dug up the road once. We got the roads rebuilt. We took care of drainage. We took care of sidewalks (in my opinion, one more to build on Kennard Street). And, we were able to get $13 million in grants — an unheard of amount of money.

I’m also proud of upgrades we did to our recreational facilities — new bathrooms at all our beaches, and upgraded all of our playgrounds.

BN. Any disappointments or regrets?

Peabody: One of the things I wanted to do, if I had the extra year, was work on affordable housing. I started going down that road and I would’ve loved to have had an affordable housing project under my belt. Also, not taking ownership of the Bridgton Memorial School property. It’s been sitting there for a long time. We had all the ducks lined up. We had agreed on the property line. And, we’re still waiting. I wanted to put baby to bed.

BN. How can Bridgton develop affordable housing?

Peabody: You need a private-public partnership. When you look at development, one of the biggest costs is land. If you take land out of the equation, then the whole cost of everything comes down substantially. That’s why we were looking at town-owned property sites that could possibly be used for affordable housing.

We had an opportunity to acquire two dilapidated buildings in the downtown (Main Street). An individual was going to buy them and give them to the town to develop. I was not able to convince the Select Board to go along with that after working on it for about a year. That was disappointing because those two buildings are still there and they’re still in rough shape.

BN. What lessons did you learn during your tenure here?

Peabody: As a manager for 20-plus years, I hate to say it, I’ve seen it all. You can’t ever take your relationship with the board for granted. You’ve got to be actively reevaluating because Select Boards change. They can change every year. Even if four (members) are the same and only one new one comes in, the dynamics change. You know the old saying, ‘Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.’ Everyone who serves comes in wanting to do what’s best for the town, but they also have their own agendas too. That’s the political part of being a manager — you’ve got to be able to read the room. Sometimes, you read it wrong.

BN. Covid-19 certainly presented challenges that no manager ever had to think about or experience. What were you most proud of how as manager you dealt with it?

Peabody: I’m most proud of the fact that we didn’t lay anybody off. I was proud of the fact we got town business done, and I give a lot of credit to my staff. They were working from home, which was challenging, but still managed to get it done. They stepped up to the plate. What I’m most proud of is the team effort to keep Bridgton moving forward, and we did.

It was also very challenging financially. I give a lot of credit to my department heads because I didn’t do it alone. They all rolled up their sleeves and said ‘okay, we can’t have a tax increase, we just can’t do it, so where do we find savings?’ They found them. And I don’t think anybody’s services suffered. I think people were both understanding and appreciative at the same time. I give kudos to my staff. They made it happen.

I’m proud we’re very financially healthy. We have a very healthy unassigned fund balance. I pulled more from that than I normally would to keep taxes down. I did warn people that this is going to catch up to you. And, it has.

BN. With two Lake Region area town managers resigning due to “negativity” created within their communities, primarily through social media, how difficult is it in today’s world to be a manager?

Peabody: We’ve lost civility. We’ve lost our way. I put some of that to social media. It’s easy to be a keyboard warrior. They’re not interested in facts, it more about what they believe. Why don’t you call me and I will give you the real answer. But no, these people don’t let the facts get in the way of what they believe.

There was a time when you could agree to disagree. It wasn’t a blood sport. I worry about what it means when people elect people to positions of power who just don’t have civility.

BN. How can towns more efficiently handle social media and improve communication and transparency?

Peabody: You’re never going to be transparent enough. You just can’t be. That drum has been beating since I was a City Councilor in 1987. Transparency is not a new word. I’ve been a part of quite a few communities, and they are all transparent. I learned a long time ago, I don’t answer social media posts. Someone did a post about the kind of car I drive and said I work just three days. All it takes is a phone call to ask a question like ‘What are your hours?’ I’ll tell you. As for my car, it’s not a new car and it is no one’s business what I drive for a car. That’s my decision. I just see a lot of the social media posts as noise. I don’t pay attention to noise.

I tend to be very open, but there are times town officials must follow laws, which limit what can and what can’t be released to the public. My ethics are very important to me. When you’re a public figure, you don’t really get protection from slander. So, my way of dealing with it is not listening to the noise. If somebody has a question, call me. Stop me on the street. I’ll answer it, but I’m not going to play your game online.

BN. Where do you see Bridgton heading in the years to come?

Peabody: I think you only have to look back a couple of years to get a sense of that trajectory. Bridgton is going to continue to grow because of what it has to offer. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that growth is going to include a lot of families because it’s getting very expensive here. We need to attract families, because if you don’t, you atrophy.

We have to pay attention to Internet infrastructure.

I think we have a great plan for the Ham Complex. I don’t understand why some Select Board members, for whatever reason, are not being supportive. Gary (Colello, Rec Director) has done a wonderful job working with consultants. It’s all doable. I think at some point, you definitely need a recreation center.

Another parting comment, I can’t say enough about the importance of having local press because that is how you get information out there. It’s important to have a local press (The News) that is engaged and that has a good working relationship with the town.

BN. What did you enjoy most about Bridgton?

Peabody: I enjoyed the people. I found the people welcoming. It’s hard in my position because you have to be careful when it comes to making friends. We (managers) tend to be fairly autonomous, but I found people here very, very friendly. I like my neighbors very much. I liked what I’ve been able to do with my property. I like I was able to come here and help Bridgton get to another level. Like they say, ‘there’s one thing about Bridgton, they punch above their weight class.’ I like that.

I’ve enjoyed working with a great staff. There are some people, I think, Bridgton is very fortunate to have as its department heads and ought to do whatever they can to keep them. We’ve lost some which I think we could have avoided.

Most of the people I’ve dealt with have been extremely supportive. Oftentimes, I go into Hannaford and somebody stops me and says, ‘thank you for what you’ve done.’ That means a lot to me.

I’ll be honest. I didn’t go out the way I wanted to go out. It’s not the way I wanted it to end, especially with what I’ve done here. It was like one day I’m here, the next day I’m gone. I was really surprised after all that hard work on the new wastewater system that nobody asked me to be at the wastewater treatment plant dedication. I would’ve meant a lot. It took me my whole tenure to make that happen.