Bob Foley, an insurance professional and small business partner, community activist, and Wells resident, announced last week that he’s a candidate for the District 145 seat in the Maine House of Representatives in November.

Bob Foley Contributed

“I have decided to run, once again, for the Maine House, District 145, which serves most of Wells,” Foley said in an email, explaining his decision to seek the seat he once occupied for two terms from 2014 to 2018. “Recently I have found my interest and desire to return to Augusta to help bring back the Maine I love and grew up in, so that my grandchildren will have the same Maine that I cherish.”

Foley left that House seat to serve in the Maine Senate from 2018-2020, then retired. “Four years ago, I opted not to run for re-election to the Senate in order to take care of my elderly parents and to close out my retirement from my business career at the Cole Harrison Insurance Agency in Kennebunk,” he said.

Foley’s professional expertise, according to a press release, was built during his career in the insurance industry but extends as well to environmental and natural resource issues. While in the House, he served on the Insurance and Financial Affairs Committee; in the Senate, he was on the Health Coverage, Insurance, and Financial Affairs as well as the Environmental and Natural Resources committees.

Foley’s was founder of Save Our Shores Wells in the early-1990s, an organization that continues to provide education and advocacy on a range of coastal issues. His work with that group led to his appointment from 2011-2014 to the statewide Board of Environmental Protection where he was also appointed chair.

“Coastal sustainability will be a focus for me should I return to Augusta,” he wrote. “Recent coastal storms should be a lesson that making our coastline more resilient to these events needs to be a statewide priority.”

Locally, Foley has served on the Wells Board of Selectmen, both prior to his tenure in the House and Senate and currently, with a total of 18 years of service, with eight as chair. Having grown up in Kittery, Foley has lived in Wells since 1978, where he and his wife Maryanne, an employee at the school district, raised their family of two sons and more recently, three grandkids.

“Today, as I look at what is happening in Augusta, it looks more like California than Maine,” Foley wrote. “The attempts at decriminalization of fentanyl and heroin possession, eliminating the electoral college to select the president, creating housing for non-citizens while Maine seniors and homeless Mainers have no options, and the over collection of taxes with an ever-expanding state budget, are just some of the issues the next legislature needs to address.

“Let’s bring back the Maine we all love and want to live in. Let’s make sure that Maine remains the way life should be, a place to live, work and raise a family. That goal will be the primary focus of my campaign.”

For more information, email electbobfoley@gmail.com.