Waterbury gets a select board race, but crickets on school board election
January 31, 2024 | By Lisa Scagliotti March 4 UPDATE: Bob Butler is a write-in candidate for the Waterbury Board of Listers that he has been serving on. He said he missed the filing deadline but would love to continue on the board. He needs 30 votes to be elected.
Monday was the deadline across Vermont for candidates running for office on Town Meeting Day and while Waterbury has a race for Select Board, several spots on the ballot will be blank including two openings on the Harwood school board.
Local elections are right around the corner on March 5. After supporters got the word out in February 2022, Waterbury Select Board Chair Roger Clapp won election as a write-in candidate. Maroni Minter and Don Schneider campaign for Clapp in this file photo by Gordon Miller.
Duxbury’s ballot will be slightly better balanced with candidates for all but one office; its school board seats are not up for election this year.
Town Meeting Day is Tuesday March 5, also “Super Tuesday” in the U.S. presidential primary election with primaries in 16 states and one territory that day.
In Waterbury, three seats on the Waterbury Select Board will be on the ballot. Voters so far have just one contest to decide: a three-way race for the two single-year terms on the board. The candidates are incumbent Kane Sweeney, who is finishing his first one-year term, along with Ian Shea and Cheryl Schoolcraft Gloor.
Board Chair Roger Clapp, who has served two single-year terms, is on the ballot as the only candidate for the three-year seat. Incumbent Dani Kehlmann, who has served as vice chair, holds that seat and is not running for re-election.
Also on the Waterbury ballot, Town Clerk and Treasurer Karen Petrovic is unopposed for re-election to both offices which this year become three-year terms for the first time. Three openings on the Library Commission are on the ballot, all with single candidates. The ballot will have no names on it for a three-year seat on the Board of Listers and a five-year term on the town Cemetery Commission.
Voters may choose to write in candidates for any position on the ballot. A write-in needs at least 30 votes to win an office in Waterbury.
School board vacancies
Voters in Waterbury will gather at Brookside Primary School for both in-person Town Meeting on March 5 and voting 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
Two of Waterbury’s four seats on the Harwood Unified Union School District School Board are up for election this year, and the incumbents are not running for reelection. Marlena Tucker-Fishman is ending her first term and Kelley Hackett is ending a one-year stint after her first full term.
No candidates have stepped up to get on the ballot to seek either of the seats. The terms are for three years. Of the six communities in the Harwood district, Waterbury has the most members on the school board with four; each of the other towns have two, making it a 14-member board.
In recent weeks, Hackett posted on social media, talked with community members and posted a letter on Waterbury Roundabout to try to drum up interest from new candidates. Hackett has served as vice chair of the board for the past two of the four years she’s been on the board. She said Tuesday that she was disappointed to see no candidates file to get on the Town Meeting Day ballot.
She said she hopes community members would consider announcing to run as write-in candidates for both seats to represent Waterbury.
“We have a lot of big decisions to make,” she said of the school board. Said she knows that Waterbury residents are interested in and have opinions about school district issues. Electing new members to fill the open seats is an important way to ensure that “voices are being heard from in our town,” she said.
Duxbury: A candidate for (almost) every office
Duxbury does its Town Meeting Day business on paper ballots now using a drive up - and walk up - format outside its town offices. A voter casts a ballot here as election officials observe from inside the booth. Town Clerk Maureen Harvey (left) supervises. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
In Duxbury, all but one office up for election will have a single candidate on the ballot, according to Town Clerk Maureen Harvey.
Voters will fill three seats on the Selectboard where two incumbents, Jerry McMahan and Patrick Zachary, are running for re-election. Zachary is seeking a three-year seat and McMahan a one-year term. Newcomer Crystal Sherman is a candidate for a one-year seat as well.
Other offices that voters will fill include seats on the Board of Listers, Budget Committee and Cemetery Commission, none of which are contested. One spot will be wide open on the ballot: a five-year term on the town Budget Committee.
Harvey said a write-in candidate in Duxbury needs just 12 votes to win election.
Neither of Duxbury’s two positions on the Harwood Unified Union School District School Board are up for election this year.
Other local elections
Three other Harwood school board seats will be on ballots in Mad River Valley communities on March 5. All three have a single candidate filed as of the Monday deadline. incumbents Mike Bishop in Fayston and Jonathan Young in Warren are both running for reelection. Moretown newcomer Steven Rosenberg has filed to run for the three-year seat that board Chair Kristen Rodgers now holds; she is not seeking reelection.
Other filing highlights:
Moretown: Candidates for the Moretown Selectboard came up short by one. Incumbents Tom Martin and Don Wexler both filed for re-election, running for two one-year seats. A three-year term on the board attracted no candidates. None of the other offices on the ballot are contested.
Fayston: Town meeting in Fayston is still done in person with all elections for town offices nominated from the floor on Town Meeting Day.
Warren: The Warren ballot will have a single candidate running for each of the offices up for election. The Selectboard has one two-year term on the ballot with a single candidate Kalee Whitehouse. The seat currently is held by Bob Ackland who is not running for re-election after having served for 14 years. Incumbents have filed to run for re-election to all of the other positions on the Warren ballot, none of which are contested.
Waitsfield: Voters have no contests to decide on Town Meeting Day as a single candidate has filed for each of the offices up for election this year. Incumbents Fred Messer and Charles Curtis are both running for re-election to three- and two-year terms respectively. All of the other offices on the ballot are uncontested.