EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third in a series of profiles of the candidates for Senate District 19. The Democratic caucus will take place tonight in Topsham; the special election will take place on Aug. 27.

BATH

Will Neilson, co-owner of Solo Bistro, remembers when he first joined the Main Street Bath economic restructuring committee.

“I came in, ready to change the world,” he laughed. “I told them about all my good ideas, and it was initially disconcerting to find out that they’d heard it all before and they weren’t going to jump and put those ideas into immediate practice.”

However, he said, 10 years later, he could see major change in downtown Bath, and a lot of the change encompassed some of those very ideas he had at the beginning.

“I think governing is like that. I don’t imagine that I’d come into the Legislature and change everything overnight. I might not even see change in my tenure. But if you keep presenting reasonable ideas, and bring people in, change does eventually come,” he said.

Neilson is celebrating his 30th wedding anniversary with his wife and Solo coowner, Pia, this year. The couple has three children.

Neilson says his role at the restaurant is a backstage role: He works upstairs in the office, while Pia is working on the floor.

Even when he’s not at the restaurant, Neilson is working.

He has multiple volunteer roles in the community: president of Bath’s noontime Rotary, chairman of the Arrowsic Planning Board and a member of the economic restructuring committee for Main Street Bath. He is also on the board of the Rail Shed Alliance, which has just completed a prosperous year of a winter farmers market in the refurbished historic building on Commercial Street.

Neilson has served as a volunteer firefighter in Arrowsic, and is the chairman of SearchGB, an organization that matches volunteers to work with seniors. It is currently contracted to Catholic Charities, but supported by the United Way as well.

Neilson was founding vice president of a group that took control of Squirrel Point Lighthouse on the Kennebec River. He also spent three years as a guardian ad litem for children in the foster care system.

“I learned that it is very difficult to effect real change in the system we have now,” he said. “Law is an adversarial system, but when we are talking about families and children’s lives, it’s a very blunt tool to use.”

Neilson also served on the vestry of Grace Episcopal Church, and was senior warden there for a time.

Although he is no longer in the vestry, he still serves as lay priest. “That part of my life is quite important,” he said. “My father was an Episcopal priest, and my parents were both quite liberal and active in their community.”

A Democratic convert, Neilson says his “Republican period” began likely as a reaction to his parents’ liberalism.

“It took me 30 years to get over it,” he joked. “But I learned a lot about the importance of the common good from my parents, and it’s something I hope to put into practice in the Legislature.”

Neilson says education would be a key issue for him, especially early childhood education, as well as supporting Maine’s downtown centers.

He says the two things are linked.

“Economic development is all about education,” he said. “Quality preschools create richer, happier, more prosperous communities. If you’re concerned about your business making money, you should be making sure that children are well cared for, and saved from situations that twist them into antisocial behavior.”

He said he believes that most Republicans think they are living in a world of scarcity, while Democrats typically are prone to thinking about the desired ends without considering the costs. Neilson says that with his background, his can be the middle way.

“I believe in the quality of reasonableness in government,” he said. “We can look for solutions that people can line up behind.”