CHICOPEE — Chicopee saw a 14% voter turnout on Election Day, which featured multiple contested races including city collector, City Council and School Committee. The ballot also featured a non-binding question for the residents.
In the highly contested and tight city collector race, Sandra Peret gathered 52.17%, or 3,243 votes, to secure the four-year term. Rajesh Sanghvi accrued 2,965 votes.
The contest commenced after current City Collector Stanley Iwanicki announced in October that he would be retiring and not running for reelection after serving in the position for 12 years.
City Council, mayor and assessor
This year’s at large City Council race featured seven candidates vying for four spots. Incumbents Frank Laflamme and Jerry Roy were the top two vote getters receiving 18.58% and 17.25% of the votes respectively.
Newcomers Jessica Avery and Joel McAullife won the final two at large seats, receiving 13.39% and 13.35% of the votes, respectively.
Avery and McAuliffe will be replacing former City Councilor Bob Zygarowski, who passed away earlier this year, and former City Councilor Tim Wagner, who moved to another city to pursue another opportunity.
Incumbent Shane Brooks will once again be serving as city councilor for Ward 2 after defeating challenger Joesph Breton, capturing 68% of the vote. Meanwhile, incumbent Susan Goff captured the Ward 3 City Council seat by beating challenger Darrin Breault with 197 more votes.
Two newcomers faced off for the vacant Ward 5 seat with Joseph Pasternak lll receiving 379 votes, compared to challenger Jule Ann L’Heureux’s 328 votes. Former Ward 5 City Councilor Fred Krampits vacated his seat to run for city collector, but did not make it past the preliminaries.
Ward 8 will also see a new face on the City Council with former School Committee member Douglas Girouard capturing the seat in an uncontested race. Incumbent Gary LaBrie did not run for reelection.
Incumbents Abigal Arriaga, George Balakier, Samuel Shumsky, William Courchesne and Mary-Beth Pniak Costello were once again voted in to serve their respective wards after running uncontested races.
Mayor John Vieau also ran uncontested, receiving 4,820 votes, or 95.39%. There were 233 write-in votes, according to results.
Longtime city assessors Laura McCarthy and Brian Suchy will also stay in their positions.
School Committee
The School Committee received multiple new faces, including newcomer Robert Cantin, who bested Mark McCarthy by 38 votes to secure the at-large position.
Diane Trela will take over Ward 4 for Peret, who was elected to serve as the city collector.
Rafael Nazario Jr., meanwhile, will represent Ward 7 on the School Committee. He will be replacing Donald Lamothe after he announced earlier this year that he would not be running for reelection.
With Girouard running and eventually being elected to the City Council, Susan Constance Lemieux was chosen by the voters to serve Ward 8.
Incumbents Deanna Rousseau, David Barsalou, Jason Dout, Grace Schofield, Carlton Rene Brooks Jr and Ronald Bernard were all once again picked to serve their respective wards.
Ballot question
Chicopee residents also voted in favor of adopting a quarterly tax system, instead of the biannual system that is currently used in the city. Instead of getting billed twice a year, residents can budget more and control when the bigger bills are coming. According to results, 2,599 voters were in favor of the ballot measure, while 2,038 residents voted no.
The question was to gather feedback from the residents to see if the City Council should move forward with changing their tax system. No change on this front has been made yet.
