The Colby Echo

Issue date: 3/12/08 Section: Local News

Media Credit: Courtesy of Paul R. LePage has been Waterville's mayor since being elected in 2005.

While many students may have only come in contact with Waterville's municipal government during the abrupt termination of an off-campus party, the City's government is currently working hard to revitalize the Waterville area. Mayor Paul R. LePage is at the forefront of that effort. A Maine native, LePage took an unusual path to the Mayor's office. Born into a family of fourteen brothers and four sisters in the depressed town of Lewiston, LePage ran away from home at age eleven and never returned. Fending for himself throughout his youth, LePage graduated from high school and then attended Husson College in Bangor. The mayor went on to receive an MBA in finance and economics from the University of Maine.

After his education, LePage went into the paper industry. A job at the Scott Paper Company brought him to Waterville in 1979. Since then he and his wife Ann have raised a family of three children, all current college students, here. Although he had been active in student government in college, LePage had no political aspirations. It was not until 1996 when LePage observed the Mayor's office being disgraced and taxes ballooning out of control that he decided to take matters into his own hands and get into politics.

Since being elected as Waterville's first Republican Mayor in thirty years in 2005, LePage has worked to lower taxes and help bring life downtown - two things he believes go hand in hind. In his current term, which ends in January 2010, the Mayor's main focus is the effort to revitalize the downtown area through the Hathaway Creative Center and proposed Head of Falls development projects. These projects are attempts to address what LePage considers the biggest challenge facing Waterville, which he describes as "the effort to get more affluent people, who used to live and work here, to return to the city." LePage believes that fixing the town's infrastructure and fostering new development will bring talented people into the city and thus create the economic growth necessary to increase the tax base.

LePage believes Colby is one of Waterville's greatest assets. While noting that there has been recent tension between students and the Waterville Police Department, LePage believes that relations between Colby and the town have vastly improved during his time as mayor. He credits the efforts of the school's administration and students to get involved in the community for creating connections between Colby and town locals. While the administration, led by the efforts of President William Adams, has been instrumental in furthering the North and South End Neighborhood Associations, the mayor has been most impressed by the action of student groups such as Colby Cares About Kids and both the Colby Democrats and Colby Republicans. LePage described CCAK as a wonderful program that not only mentors youth, but "helps them get aspirations" through their contact with successful Colby students. The mayor also recognizes the power of the student political groups to influence local politics. Not only does LePage consider these two groups instrumental in increasing participation in local politics, he went went so far as to say that "if it wasn't for the young Republicans at Colby, I would not have been elected mayor."

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