Bar Harbor couple answer call to serve on council, tourism task force

'If we don't take care of this place, who's going to?"

BAR HARBOR, April 7, 2025 - Will David Kief and his wife Chris Kirk be the face of a new political force in town - an unassuming, working class couple seeking to represent the interest of year-round citizens, period.

Kief took out an application Friday to run for the one-year open term on the Town Council. His wife has applied to be on the council’s sustainable tourism task force.

The first sign that the town may be tiring of a decade-long hegemony of business influence came last November when a virtual no-name was elected Hancock County commissioner over former council chair Paul Paradis.

“He wasn’t very popular in his own hometown,” said Sam DiBella, who was a first-term select board member in the Town of Hancock.

Under Paradis, who was the architect of increased cruise ship visitation during the “shoulder season” of September and October, the tourism industry exploded. The strategy worked brilliantly as the shoulder season became the busiest time of the year. Passengers who numbered as many as 5,000 in one day clashed with locals and land-based tourists to create a miasma of what some year-round residents believed to be total chaos in their little village.

Paradis openly accepted junkets paid for by the cruise ship industry to Miami and elsewhere during that period.

He also was an active developer as a sitting member of the council.

Dibella, who wasn’t even a full-time Maine resident until 2016, lost in seven of the 12 districts in the county. But one town carried him to victory by the overwhelming rejection of Paradis. Bar Harbor voted 1,923-1,546 on Nov. 5, 2024 to give DiBella the job.

DiBella also won big in Mount Desert and Southwest Harbor.

UOCAVA is Uniform Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act

“Very few people in other towns knew who Paradis was,” DiBella said in a recent interview. So they voted predictably for the incumbent.

Like DiBella, a former construction worker, Kief made a living with his hands.

When asked to describe himself and say why he is running for council, a taciturn Kief said on a call, “Not to talk about myself, but I was born and raised here, and lived here pretty much all my life. I scrambled around when I was younger, hunting for employment and resettled here my early 20s. Late teens, I did various jobs, fishing, snow making, tending yachts, a myriad of stuff.

“When I moved back here, I pretty much got into construction … I helped people with projects, built a few houses … Now, my knees and back are no good. I'm semi-retired.” His wife worked in administration for MDI Hospital.

Why is he running for council?

“There's been no balance here between the residents and the business community.

“A lot of people talk about trying to get some more say as the concerns of the town, but nobody's stepping up.”

I asked him for his views on Chapter 50, the major initiative last year brought by the council and town manager to repeal the citizens’ cap of 1,000 daily cruise ship passengers and replace it with much more generous contracts for cruise lines.

“That was the second vote, correct?” Kief reminded me, showing that he had a good grasp of the issue, including its first approval in November 2022, and then again in 2024.

He said many of his friends told him they didn't understand the fine print.

“It was convoluted the way they had it written up. It was confusing as to how many days and what with the limits were going to be and all that. It wasn't straightforward.

“Another thing that stood out to me, that is, any of the cruise ship money has to be used for endeavors that benefit the cruise ship industry. And on top of that, they were going to control the say as to where that money went, so the town had no control, as the way I read it, and that's why I did not think that was meeting anybody in the middle.”

When I asked him how he voted on Chapter 50, Kief said he doesn’t share how he votes with anyone. “But you can probably surmise how I voted.”

He said his wife applied to be a member of the tourism task force to help ensure residents have a voice. (Kief and his wife have two children and live on Norway Drive.)

The task force has 23 applicants for a committee recommended by the council to be no more than 13 members, according to Town Clerk Liz Graves.

Some of the town’s most well-known business persons have applied:

• Hotelier and former Planning Board chair Tom St. Germain.

• David Woodside, operating partner of Acadia Shops.

• Bryan Zavestoski, whose social media pages say he works for Acadia Shops

• Restaurateur Michael Boland, who ran unsuccessfully for council last year.

• Bo Jennings, president of the Chamber of Commerce and manager of Side Street Cafe, whose owner is Geoffrey Young seeking for re-election to the Warrant Committee.

(Keep a close eye on the council’s naming of task force members. This is where ideas go to die - create a task force and process so overwrought so nothing gets done.)

Meanwhile, the Chamber bloc on the Warrant Committee has competition this year after getting a free ride in June 2022, when Eben Salvatore, local manager for cruise shop tender operator Ocean Properties, which is suing taxpayers, was elected even though he was the lowest vote getter.

That was because, there was no competition. There were five seats and only five candidates.

Technically, Cara Ryan received the fewest votes. But she was not on the ballot and was only a write-in.

Salvatore and Geoff Young, owner of Side Street Cafe, were the two low vote getters.

This year they have real competition for re-election:

• Committee secretary Louise Lopez

• Long-time incumbent Robert Chaplin

• Local artist Vicky Smith

• Resident Tammy Bloom

• John Kelly, deputy superintendent at Acadia National Park

• Town Hill resident Michael Good, who is seeking to replace Meagan Kelly for a one-year term. Kelly was named an interim council member after Kyle Shank resigned. She has decided not to run for public office in June, sources said.

The race for council this year has four seats: two three-year terms, one two-year term and one one-year term for which Kief is applying.

In a quiet, self-deprecating manner, Kief said that although he may not be the most educated person on the island, “I can generally figure out right from wrong or fair is fair, and what has happened over a long time here is not been right … to constantly tie up this town in lawsuits, to fill the coffers of people from away.

“Unconscionable is a strong word, but it's not looking out for the town and the residents, and we're stewards of the most beautiful place on the East Coast, and if we don't step up and take care of this gem, who's going to?”