By BOB MARTIN
Eagle Times Staff
SUNAPEE, N.H. — Voters hit the polls for the town and school district election on Tuesday, voting in favor of the school budget but denying the town budget, and also voting in a pair of school board members.
The school district had only one contested race, with Linda Tanner and Tiago Pereira beating Peter Hoekstra for two open school board seats.
Tanner had been outside lobbying for her candidacy for school board all day. The former long-time state representative and former teacher said there had been a “constant dribble” of voters entering the polls from start to finish.
As she lost in the November election by only 17 votes in a race for state representative, she knows how important each ballot is in a small-town election.
“I decided to step up and use my experience that I had with 10 years in the State House Education Committee, and help this district,” Tanner said. “Sunapee is a great school system, and one of the top in the state.”
Tanner went on to win this race with 703 votes, and Pereira followed with 686 votes to defeat Hoekstra’s 360 votes.
Tanner said that an article of note that she was in particular support of was Article 35 on the Town Warrant, which she helped bring to fruition during her time as a state representative, says that voters of Sunapee call on state elected officials to “uphold their duty to fiscal responsibility by rejecting any expansion of taxpayer funding for private education until we have full accountability, transparency, and a sustainable funding plan that ensures no further strain on public schools or local property taxpayers.”
“Simply put, we need accountability,” Tanner said.
In uncontested races, Judy Thackaberry won the one-year moderator seat with 144 votes; Joshua Boon received 852 votes for a one-year district clerk seat; and Brian Garland received 815 votes for the one-year treasurer seat.
In the annual town election, there were three contested races. Christopher Murphy and John Quackenbos won the two zoning board seats with 604 and 452 seats, respectively. Jamie Silverstein was close behind with 440 votes, losing by only a dozen votes.
Richard Osborne had 717 votes and Greg Swick had 407 votes to win three-year planning board seats, defeating Brett Laslie’s 352 votes.
John Barnett won the race for a one-year treasurer seat, beating Vincent Michael Borelli 442-307.
Frederick Gallup and Aaron Whipple received 814 and 802 votes for selectmen; Beverly Bjorklund and Tim Eliassen had 730 and 726 votes respectively for library trustee; Stephen McGrath had 785 votes for cemetery commissioner; Lynn Arnold had 755 votes for trustee of the trust fund; and Theodore Gallup (784), Charles Hirshberg (704) and Dana Whipple (743) were voted onto the water and sewer commission.
Warrant articles
The school district passed all 10 articles, which included the operating budget or $14,961,331 in Article 3 by a vote of 562-436.
Also approved 616-398 was Article 4, which approved cost items included in the collective bargaining agreement between the Sunapee School Board and Sunapee Teacher’s Association that called for raises the next three years starting with $213,492 in 2025-2026. The raise would be $231,467 and $252,897 the next two years.
Article 5 authorized a special meeting to be held to discuss cost items and was voted in favor 698-306.
Article 6 passed 690-328 and is to raise and appropriate $20,000 for the Sunapee Special Education Capital Reserve Fund. Article 7 passed 678-337 and involved raising and appropriating $45,000 for the Sunapee Middle High School Heating Ventilation, Circulation Capital Reserve Fund.
Article 8 passed 667-351 and was to see if the district would raise and appropriate $15,000 for the Technology Capital Reserve Fund.
Article 9, which passed 664-350, was to put $25,000 into the Sunapee Central Elementary School Educational Space Renovation Capital Reserve Fund. Article 10 was for $20,000 to be placed in the Sunapee Grounds Capital Reserve Fund.
There were 36 warrant articles in the Town Meeting section with 27 passing. One glaring “no” vote was the operating budget of $11,028,959 failing 516-494 in Article 14. The town now adopts the default budget of $10,107,755, which is the same as last year with some adjustments.
The town did pass Article 15 by a vote of 543-478, which was to raise $280,000 to be added to the Fire Apparatus and Equipment Capital Reserve Fund. Article 16 was for the town to raise and appropriate $260,000 to be added to the Highway and Transfer Station Equipment Capital Reserve Fund. Another big-ticket item was Article 18, which passed 652-368 and allowed for the sum of $120,750 to be added to the Used Highway Equipment Capital Reserve Fund.
Article 27 approved $250,000 to be used to repair Georges Mills Bridge on Main Street. Article 28 passed 693-323 and approved using $250,000 to reconstruct and pave town roads.
Article 29 passed 712-306 and allowed the town to raise and appropriate $67,000 for the procurement of ambulance services for the town. This money combined with $69,000 in the operating fund allows the town to pay $136,000 per year for ambulance services.
Article 30 was approved 712-299 and allowed for $272,611 to be added to the General Operating Fund from the Hydroelectric Revenue Fund.
Officials pleased with turnout
While turnout numbers were sparse throughout much of the coverage area of the Eagle Times, this was not the case in Sunapee, as officials were pleased to report that about 34% of the town’s registered voters cast ballots.
“It was pretty slow for the first couple hours, but it picked right up,” said Town Moderator Aaron Simpson.
At about 4:15 p.m. Simpson checked the ballot box to see that there were 716 ballots cast out of the 3,088 registered voters. He said there is the usual 5 p.m. push coming up, and then in the final hour there would be last minute stragglers coming back to the area from work.
“The nice weather helps,” Simpson said. “I expect about 1,000 voters at the end of the day.”
Simpson’s prediction wasn’t far off, as there were officially 1,043 ballots cast, out of 3,095 registered voters on the checklist.
Town Clerk Joshua Boone was pleased with the turnout, saying it had been “pretty good” throughout the election.
“We have a tight knit community, and people are really engaged in Sunapee,” Boone said. “A lot of people here value participating in the process.”
