OTIS — Therese Gould has retained her seat on the Board of Selectmen, beating challenger Susan Bauer-Brofman in the town election May 28. Gould received 207 votes, Brofman received 154, three ballots went to write-ins and three ballots were blank.
“It’s humbling to have people care enough to come out and vote that way,” said Gould. “We had a large block of voters out and it was wonderful. It’s nice to have the affirmation that they are happy with the job I’ve done.”
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She said she’d like to thank everyone who voted in support of her.
A total of 367 ballots were cast, 28% of the town’s 1,320 registered voters.
The Town Hall Annex debt exclusion question failed to pass, receiving 225 “no” votes, 97 “yes” votes and 45 blanks. The $4.5 million annex proposed to be built next door to Town Hall would have provided space for the Police Department and a multipurpose room for community groups. The measure had already failed to pass at Town Meeting. It would have required positive votes at the ballot and at Town Meeting to authorize raising taxes to pay off the bonds.
In the other races, Moderator David Sarnacki, Tree Warden John “Jack” Conboy, Finance Board member Jill Moretz, Library Trustee James Adams and School Committee member Philip Magovern all won reelection to their seats. Stacey Schultze was elected to Carol Lombardo’s School Committee seat.
Write-in candidates won two seats: Wendy Anthony won Kristen Brown’s cemetery commissioner seat with only six votes, while Ross Knowles won Rona Knight’s Planning Board seat with seven. Neither race received an official nominee at the town caucus, and most voters left those lines blank.
