WESTBROOK - Don Harger, an unaffiliated candidate endorsed by the Democratic Town Committee, said that he's challenging Noel Bishop for the first selectman seat because he sees a lot of things in town that need to be addressed.

As vice chair of the Westbrook Senior Center Management Committee and a member of that committee for four years, he takes the needs of seniors very seriously-and feels that those needs have not been addressed adequately.

"The seniors are not getting informed about things in Town Hall," said Harger.

He noted that most of the town's meetings are held at night when many seniors cannot or will not go out. So as a result, he believes the seniors are just not as informed about town issues.

"They feel they've been left out of the loop," said Harger, who believes the town leaders and the first selectman should do more outreach to seniors.

Harger also said that he doesn't feel that the first selectman fosters an open and transparent environment to make sure seniors and other residents understand what's going on in town government.

"I want to see total transparency at Town Hall," a situation Harger said does not exist now.

Harger said that, if elected, he would hold a weekly open forum for residents to allow residents to speak freely to the first selectman about issues of concern to them.

"I also would have an open-door policy at the first selectman's office," said Harger.

In his experience, the current first selectman does not have that policy.

"A group of us from the Senior Center who were concerned about goings-on [there] tried a couple of times to meet with the current first selectman to discuss these issues, but were unsuccessful."

Harger said he would be more responsive. He said, though, that he had great praise for the new Senior Center director, who, he said, is doing a marvelous job.

He's also concerned about town businesses.

"I've been to several of the business owners to talk with them and they say that dealing with Town Hall is difficult," said Harger. "We need to find out how to work with town businesses to keep them here and make it easy for new business to open here."

In addition to his role on the Senior Center Committee, Harger serves on the town's Conservation Commission and

is a trained member of the town's Emergency Management Response Team.

In citing his other qualifications for the town leadership post, Harger noted that he is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and, for 37 years, had a career in the elevator industry. In his career role, he managed personnel as well as million-dollar construction projects and served as purchasing agent and vice president of Allied Elevator.

Harger, now retired, has been a resident of Westbrook for the past six years.