The following Boards and Commissions have elections this Tuesday, Nov 3rd. 
Board of Finance: Full Members,
Board of Finance: Alternates,
Board of Education, Local,
Board of Education, RHAM,
Zoning Commission,
Planning Commission,
Zoning Board of Appeals,
Zoning Board of Appeals, Alternates and
Board of Assessment Appeals.
The Democrat website contains little candidate information but here is the link.
The Republican website is a bit more up to date with candidate profiles.
The Board of Education candidates both Democrat and Republican are guaranteed election, there are four seats available and four people are running, so no excitement with that race.
The excitement is likely in the Board of Finance races. The seats up for election are all Republican seats. Democrat Cragg is running to upgrade from Alternate to Full member. If Cragg loses, she will remain on the Board of Finance as an alternate member, only voting when a Full member is absent.
Running for Board of Finance on the Republican ticket are: Cliff Denniss who is currently a Board of Finance Alternate member and Richard Shea.
One seat is guaranteed to the Republicans under minority rules. So the excitement is for the second Full member Board of Finance seat. So the question is will Lauren Cragg get elected to a Full member seat or will one of the Republicans, Cliff Denniss or Richard Shea fill the spot. Which Republican runs off against Cragg is determined by the amount of votes received.
Running for Board of Finance Alternates are current Full members Republican Pasquale Amodeo, Republican Susan Leser and Democrat Alternate Russ West who is currently not a Board of Finance member.
If Cragg is elected to Full member status the balance of power will shift from 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans to 4 Democrats and 2 Republicans. Currently with the 3/3 split, some level of compromise and bi-partisanship is required to pass any measure. With a 4/2 split Democrats voting along party lines will prevail and Democrats will control all budget making boards, The Board of Selectmen, The Board of Finance and The Board of Education.
This is why you see all the sign activity in town, if Cragg wins, the balance of power tilts. The next election after this Nov 3rd will be in 2011, there are no 2010 elections.
I’ll will try to post all the results before the end of the night on Nov 3rd.
Comments (1)
Ken Hjulstrom
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:34 am
Just me chiming in one last time before Election Day. I know I may be considered biased, but the facts are that last spring the DTC said that cutting the budget would result in the elimination of teachers and grow class sizes. Guess what? The Republican BOF members worked to trim $587,000 from the Town and Education budgets while not eliminating a single class.
Now the DTC is once again claiming that the Republicans voted to increase class sizes (which did not happen) and will decrease police protection, let kids drown at the beach and leave our seniors out in the cold. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But what happens if we do not have the checks and balances in place to make sure that the budgets are scrutinized? I know what will happen. We will return to the good old days when the BOF would rubber stamp the budgets! We simply can not afford that. Our home owners can not afford it, least of all our seniors.
And Lauren Cragg along with Beth Petroni have proven over and over again that they will vote against any effort to trim costs. Or did they simply vote NO so that later on they could point fingers at the Republicans for being the ones who cut the budget? Whatever the case, their voting record stands clear.
The taxpayers have a very clear choice today and that is to support candidates who have pledged to watch out for you. Or you can vote for a candidate who says she will do so, but whose record paints an entirely different picture. Who you gonna trust?
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