Is new 24-year-old chair of Southwest Harbor select board up for the task?

SOUTHWEST HARBOR, - What were you doing at Age 24?

I was a copy editor at the Hartford Courant, earning $175 a week. My biggest expense was a $245 monthly car payment. There was enough left over for beer and rent.

Noah Burby is 24.

He is a surgical technologist at Jackson Lab.

“I perform high quality surgical procedures on mice to provide researchers with the best models of human disease. I have been able to expand my skills and learn through the numerous education opportunities offered by JAX,” according to his profile on Linkedin.

“I also serve the audience of Maine Public as a member of the Community Advisory Board, where we provide feedback on programming and business operations. Additionally, I serve my Community of Southwest Harbor, Maine, on the Select Board. I believe it is my civic duty to engage with my local municipal government. Through community engagement, I hope we can govern justly and promote prosperity.”

He hadn’t updated his profile to mention he is the new chair of the Southwest Harbor select board, the primary governance body of the town.

I didn’t bother to research to see if he is the youngest in its history. Why bother? Like horse shoes, it’s close enough.

Burby, a self-described “nerd,” was in high school in Winterport when he joined the Junior Classical League, which I confess having to search it online to learn more.

“The Junior Classical League (JCL) is a student-led organization dedicated to promoting the study and appreciation of classical languages, literature, and cultures—particularly those of ancient Greece and Rome. It operates under the sponsorship of the American Classical League (ACL), which supports the teaching of Latin, Greek, and classical studies across North America,” according to ChatGPT.

Before that he was on the student council in middle school.

MIDDLE SCHOOL!

In high school at the JCL, “I had a bid to be the parliamentarian at the state level,” he said.

“My first bid failed, and then for my senior year, I was the state parliamentarian. And in that role, I was very proactive on amending and updating our Constitution, sort of governing documents.

“I kind of got my first foray into that. When I was at the University of Maine, I was involved in a few different clubs, briefly biology club.”

“My education and experience are in Microbiology, Epidemiology, and Rodent Surgery. In my undergraduate studies, I received specialized training in bioinformatics, molecular genetics, and environmental DNA. My work with eDNA culminated in my research thesis for my Microbiology capstone and Honors College requirement. This project was made possible with the Dr. Carolyn E. Reed ‘72 M.D. Pre-Medical Honors Fellowship. Continuing my education at JAX, I have taken advantage of courses offered internally, both digital and in-person.”

I asked him, “Even at a young age, you were very interested in how organizations worked and in the governance around organizations. Would that be accurate?”

He said, “I was just kind of interested in seeing how it ran and, like, as a collective, trying to improve these organizations like I wasn't just trying to be the president. Doing my own thing is more of continual improvement. I guess maybe so.”

One year ago, he was urged by then select board member Jim Vallette to run for the lone vacant seat, he said.

So he did.

He ran unopposed.

“I didn't even have Select Board in my mind. When I first came to town, I saw on the website the volunteer Guide.

“It said you have to attend three meetings before you can apply for the Select Board to appoint you. So I went to the Warren committee meetings. I went to the harbor committee meetings in order to meet that quota, in order to be on those boards, because I wanted to contribute to my town and be civically engaged … I was on the budget committee in Winterport briefly.”

In February 2024, he also broke another ceiling, a financial one not so availing to people his age on MDI..He bought a house, albeit with his partner who is a wine sommelier for the Michael Boland restaurant chain on the island and elsewhere in Maine.

“He’s very stressed,” Burby said of his partner.

Last year was an important transition. The town had just hired a new town manager and harbormaster.

There was consensus that chair Carolyn Ball and vice chair Natasha Johnson should stay through to this year’s election to facilitate a smooth transition.

“After the election, Natasha called me, which I had been meaning to call her, and she offered me the position (chair).

“And I said, That's very funny, because I wanted to offer her the position as chair. And of course, we did that because you have to be nominated by someone that's not yourself. And through those discussions, we discussed our schedules and how it would work for one another if either of us were to have the position. And after a lot of stressful thinking, I accepted. She has a family. She has a lot more responsibilities than I do.”

My next question?

“Are you familiar with Southwest Harbor? It can be a fairly fractious place and and the Select Board has had a fairly fractious history the last 10 years:

He said,

“I am familiar with it, from what I've been told and from what I have read from a few BDN articles. Of course, I only started reading those articles when I was in the process of running for the board, but I feel like we've done a really good job of righting the ship and making sure that the administration of the town is stable.”

(BDN is the Bangor Daily News. How many 24-year-olds read newspapers?)

I asked him to encapsulate the town’s biggest challenges.

“I don't quite know how to put this, but to to better our relationship with the DOT and to come to a resolution on Seawall so that they will complete the work that they've already committed to.”

“Trying to not burden our taxpayers.

“I mean, we just had that reassessment, and then we had to raise more funds. Feels like overcoming historic underfunding of certain areas in town, like the Main Street project, that some of that work probably should have done when they were originally doing the Water and Sewer District. I feel like we have some of those projects that they've just been kicked down the road so long that now it's all coming to a head, and we have to fix it.

“Like our water (harbor) infrastructure in particular, trying to fix what we have so that we don't have to overburden the taxpayers with building new, because building new is just so unfeasibly expensive.

“Protect the working waterfront, making sure that residents that make their income from our harbor are able to do so, which hopefully I've advocated for while I was the liaison to the harbor committee, but sometimes it didn't feel that way.

“I think the town garage is coming along nicely. I think we have a good deal with our Congressionally Designated Funding for that because the original project that had all the bells and whistles way back when, before prices went crazy, cost about $800,000.

“Now our stripped down project is $3 million.”

Burby seemed to have more than a rudimentary grasp of all the issues I raised, from the demolition of the MDI Lobster property on Clark Point Road to the proposed consolidation of the schools on the island which calls for all the elementary school kids at Pemetic School to be bused to Northeast Harbor.

Burby chose his words carefully.

“It (consolidation) seems like a good idea.

“In my opinion, I feel like we're we have two issues at once that we're facing, and I feel like giving them at the same time might pit one against the other.

“What are the two?” I asked.

“The consolidation, and forming the RSU,” he said.

“I feel like we need to take care of our our staff first, and also, hopefully, with an RSU, we can consolidate some of those resources and hopefully reduce some of our exorbitant costs that we have for the school district,” Burby said.

“And I don't know if we have enough, like buses, because from what Natasha has told me, that some after-school programs don't even have enough buses to support all of the town's children. So I would hope that they're thinking of how kids are going to be transported with these plans.”

That would require a massive shift in behavior as school budgets have been approved almost without question in small Maine towns.

Very few residents were curious how the town continues to have double digit increases in cost for K-8 and the high school despite plummeting enrollment.

To educate 127 kids, which ties Tremont as the lowest on MDI, the town approved a 10.5 percent increase for next year or $4,261,660. For the high school it was $1,695,279, a 16 percent increase.

The school budget $5,956,939 exceeds that of the municipal budget of $5,510,332.

Tonight, Burby will chair his first select board meeting.

Some will be watching his leadership on how to manage the wildly disrespectful harbor committee which has chased out five harbor masters the last four years as reported by the QSJ.

“I feel like I've doubled the amount of trust that I hold for the people of Southwest harbor. So I do want to do a really good job for the people,” he said.