WINTHROP — All three Winthrop Town Council incumbents whose terms expire this year are competing against two challengers to keep their seats this November.

Newcomers Zach Steele and Chris Lavigne are on the ballot with current council members Bruce Burns, Linda Caprara and Andy Wess, who are each running for another three-year term on the seven-person council. Council members earn no more than $750 per year for their service.

Steele, 28, said he is running to give back to the community, which helped him through a traumatic brain injury he suffered while he was in college in Boston.

He said he has always seen himself getting into local politics, and that he thought now was a good opportunity to bring a more youthful voice to the council. Steele’s father, James, sits on the council, but he said their views and issues are very different, and that his father has been minimally involved in his campaign.

“There’s a lot of older people on the council; there’s a lot of older people in politics,” Steele, a substation engineer with RLC Engineering, said. “They don’t have to live here — I’d like to live in Winthrop for the next 30 years. I’d like to stay here. Any decision that gets made in the town has a direct impact on me for a long time, right?”

Lavigne, 38, is the other political newcomer in the race. He said he started getting involved in local politics when the town was considering a mooring ordinance, beginning a couple of years ago. Since then, Lavigne said, the council has been “headed in the right direction” — a trend he said he wants to be a part of.

Lavigne works as an engineer for a telecommunications company and is a lifelong Winthrop resident. He said, if elected, he wants to focus on attracting more economic development, especially downtown.

“We have the commerce center downtown that sits mostly unused,” he said. “That’s a lot of space that we can hopefully attract some businesses to and get them to stay there for a while.”

Burns, 73, works full-time as vice president of supplies for NRF Distributors Inc. in Augusta. He said he is running for a second term to provide what he sees as much-needed continuity on the council.

When he joined in 2021, he said, the council was in “disarray.” He said the council chair and town manager would often withhold information from the rest of the council and the public, harming trust in the body. During his tenure, he said, the town has hired a new town manager, changed council chairs and improved transparency efforts.

“The taxpayers deserve to see transparency in government today,” Burns said. “You’re responsible for a budget that is taxpayer-funded, and it’s important that we live within the budget that we’ve set forward.”

Caprara, 58, has served on the council since she was first elected in 1997. If re-elected, she would serve a 10th consecutive three-year term.

“I really enjoy representing the people of the town, I really do,” Caprara, the vice president of advocacy for the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, said. “I think it’s a privilege to represent them in different matters the town is facing. I’ve enjoyed it thoroughly.”

Caprara said the most important issue to tackle during another term would be the town’s revaluation, which is currently scheduled for 2026 and 2027. The revaluation may substantially impact the tax bills of many property owners across town, which she said could be a “huge problem” for residents.

Wess, the third incumbent in the race, said he was also concerned about keeping the budget under control in the face of the upcoming revaluation. Wess, 72, ran Lakeside Motel & Cabins in East Winthrop for 30 years with his wife before selling the business and retiring in 2017. He first won his seat on the council in a special election that same year.

“We all know that when you serve on a government body, you can’t just go strolling in there and change everything — I mean, it takes a team effort,” he said. “My hope is to be one of the people who influences the council to keep the budget under control.”

The candidates will gather for a candidate forum at 6 p.m. Oct. 24 at the Bailey Public Library, 39 Bowdoin St., where each candidate will have the opportunity to answer resident-submitted questions and make opening and closing statements. Residents who want to submit questions for the candidates may do so in writing at the event.