Angus Jennings was once Westford’s Director of Land Use Planning, but recently he moved back home to Maine after being named to run a small town just outside of Bangor.
Jennings was named as Town Manager for the town of Hampden, Maine over the summer, after applying for municipal manager jobs in Newport,NH; Williamstown,MA; and Ellsworth, ME.
In each of those positions he fell just short of grabbing the job, but his roots in Maine and work as a planner for Westford, Marshfield and other towns both as a consultant and a municipal employee helped seal the position.
“It’s very different working in consulting and working in town hall,” he said. “I like both, but at this point in my career, I’m very happy to be back in town hall.”
In 2014, Jennings also ran for lieutenant governor, which he says was primarily to advance the issues of affordable housing and unfunded mandates on municipalities, something that he saw as unsustainable.
Although Jennings currently has no future aspirations toward returning to politics, he might not have the time in any case; in addition to his new role as Town Manager, the Hampden Town Council also named Jennings as Town Treasurer.
“I’ve started to think that the Town Council hired me to be a visionary in some ways as the leader of the organization. ‘Visionary’ was in the job posting,” he said. “But as town treasurer, they also hired me to be a bean counter.”
While Jennings said that the town was very similar to Westford in terms of the expectations of its residents, the town has a much smaller commercial base and only about a third of the population.
Jennings replaced retiring Hampden Town Manager Susan Lessard, defeating Ryan Pelletier, director of economic and workforce development for the Northern Maine Development Commission.
