Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Then There Were 24

Town Clerk Sandra Burgess (standing) distributes ballots with 2 names on them

Town Clerk Sandra Burgess held a special election in Town Hall this evening whereby a 4-4 tie vote from the March 31st election was broken by a vote of current Town Meeting members to elect the 24th member to represent Precinct 5.

Amherst has 10 precincts with 24 members per precinct.

Current Precinct 5 Town Meeting members

Interestingly 13 of the 23 members (54%) showed up for the 5 minute election.  Nina Wishengrad won a narrow decision 7-6 over Mark Kelly.  In the March 31st election a whopping (sarcasm) 7.5% of Amherst voters bothered to turn out. 

Town Meeting starts April 27 and drones on until all 30 articles are acted upon.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do all the precincts now have 24 Town Meeting members? In the election, there were some precincts with fewer candidates than open seats.

Anonymous said...

Please note how often, town-wide, incumbent candidates (or those with past experience in TM) win over newcomers.