News

Candidate for Gray Town Council: Julie DeRoche
By Elizabeth Prata

Julie DeRoche anticipates that her 20 years of experience on the Yarmouth School Board will help her if she is elected to the Gray Town Council. There are two seats open with three candidates running, and DeRoche said that her experience there helped her learn how to balance the needs of small constituencies against the needs of the larger group, or "consensus without sacrifice."

DeRoche, 67, has lived in Gray since 1997. She is married, and has raised five children. A North Yarmouth Academy graduate, DeRoche was the office manager for Bickford transportation until she retired.

Her experience in age will also help her help the council, DeRoche said.
"At 67 you have a little different attitude than you did at 35 or 45," she said.
DeRoche said that every member of the council came in as a new member, "well, four of them in particular," and "I don't believe that they had the intent to mess up their job. They all had an honorable intent. But they got caught up trying to please everybody. At my age, it helps me see that you don't sweat the small stuff."

DeRoche hopes that her contribution to the council would be that "We all came together and we lightened up a little."

Asked about three top three concerns, DeRoche said that number one is that she wants to help people get along. "We're all here for the same reasons, for the betterment of Gray," she said. She would demonstrate how to get along by "being responsive to opinions, by not reacting angrily myself, showing them how it works," she added.

Her second concern is "help the tax base by encouraging more business and achieving a better balance between residential and business while maintaining the small town character."

Third, DeRoche would like to see the Gray Public Library space needs and location issue settled, and the library relocated to the village center, perhaps at Pennell Institute.

"The library is the educational core of the community, for the whole town, and it needs to be in the center of town." Though DeRoche said that, "If it's not practical in terms of dollars and renovations, I'd have to rethink that."

Asked about her motivations for running, DeRoche said, "I like this town, I chose it carefully. I want to be an active part of it." And secondarily, DeRoche said jokingly that her husband is threatening to retire any day, "so I want to be out of the house!"

DeRoche thinks that a person's values help them be successful in elected positions.

"I believe that the anger and angst we've been seeing is due to what's going on in the world," Deroche said. "I can bring a calm, a serenity. I have belief in people. People are good and I have a belief in that goodness."