By BILL CHAISSON
[email protected]
CLAREMONT — Since 1995, when “SB-2” was introduced, New Hampshire municipalities have been allowed to break up town meeting into a deliberative session, usually held in early February, to discuss warrant articles, and at a second session, on the second Tuesday of March, votes on all warrant articles are cast. On Feb. 6 about 40 people attended the deliberative session to ask questions about the Claremont school budget. That night a majority in the room approved the proposed budget of $35,293,063.
Attendance at polls in all three wards was light on March 12, even though there was a contested race for two seats on the school board with three-year terms. Brian Rapp, incumbent Carolyn Towle, incumbent Rob Lovett Jr., and incumbent Michele Pierce are on the ballot. Lovett replaced Steve Horsky in November after the latter resigned his seat. Heather Whitney is running uncontested for a two-year term seat. Similarly uncontested were the races for school district clerk, treasurer, and moderator. The candidates for those offices, respectively, were Mary Woodman, Jane Hunter, and Tracy Pope.
In addition to the main budget, other warrant articles requested permission to spend money on a new two-way radio system for the school, cameras on school buses, a new fire panel, roof repairs, and an ROTC class.
When the results came in Towle and Lovett were the top vote getters for the two open three-year seats. Pierce will leave the board, and former member and chair Rapp will not rejoin it. The unopposed Whitney will also join the board.
Articles 2, 3, 4, and 6 passed by wide margins, but Article 5, which requested permission to fund the purchase of a new two-way radio system for the district, failed 313-339.
The moderator at Ward 1, Elaine Osgood, was disappointed in the low turnout. Out of 1,772 registered voters in the ward, at 6 p.m., an hour before polls closed, only 157 people had voted. “It’s an important vote,” said Osgood. “It’s too bad people aren’t coming out.”
The polls for Wards 1 and 2 are both in the middle school gymnasium on South Street. Alison Raymond, the moderator for Ward 2, said called the turnout “Dismal, the worst I’ve ever seen it.” She justifiably assigned some of the blame to the Eagle Times, as we did not have a reminder to vote on the front page of the March 12 edition.
Raymond admitted that there was nothing really controversial on the ballot this year and that also could have contributed to the low turnout. Out of 2,500 registered voters in Ward 2, only 244 had made it to the polls.
Ward 3 residents make their way to the Disnard Elementary School to vote. The proceedings there are overseen by Mary Woodman, the head supervisor of Ward 3. At 6:30 p.m. Woodman said there were only 197 votes cast and she hoped to break 200 before the polls closed at 7 p.m.
All three wards send their tallied results to City Clerk Gwen Melcher, who compiles them and distributes them to the media. While the voting machines automatically count most ballots, any “undervotes” (not all the possible votes on the ballot are cast) and write-in candidates are sent to a separate stack. The moderators noted that the machines make a “funny noise” when this occurs and Raymond said it hadn’t made the noise very often on this particular election day. Melcher said she usually receives the results by 7:30 p.m. and releases results at 8:40 p.m.
In all only 674 votes were cast out of 6,390 potential voters, a turnout of 11 percent.
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