Acton’s New Selectmen – David Clough & John Sonner

On Election Day, Tuesday, March 29, 2,550 Acton residents voted out of the 13,776 registered voters. A total of 2,551 residents voted for the Selectmen race, bringing newcomers and to serve on the Acton Board of Selectmen and sending Terra Friedrichs off the Board for her bid to serve for a second term.

It was a quiet campaign with no serious controversy.

“The voter turnout was lower than I hoped,” said Sonner. “I think part of it was that neither of the two campaigns (Selectmen and School Committee) was very controversial. With some of the other campaigns in the past, it has gotten a little rougher and this was a clean campaign as far as I am concerned."

Out of the 5,102 residents who voted for Selectmen, Sonner received 1,737 votes – 78 votes shy of the number of votes Clough received.

“For me, one of the things that I think helped was that I got my signs out early before the streets got cluttered,” said Clough. “We did a lot of sign holding right outside the transfer station, which is probably 80 percent registered voters.”

Both Clough and Sonner are middle class family-men who have never experienced a campaign prior to their bid for Selectmen. Clough has a son who is a sophomore at Penn Sate University and a daughter who will be graduating this May. Sonner has a son who is a senior at the University of Montana and a daughter who is a senior at Guilford College in North Carolina.

“There is no way I could do this if my kids were still at home,” said Sonner.

Sonner is an IT Project Manager at a Vertex Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge and Clough is a business consultant and president of Business Network international.

“One of the reasons that I did this was because of where my kids are at,” said Clough. “I thought, before I settle into my comfortable chair, if I was every going to do this that now is the time. Three years from now, I may be too comfortable to have done this,” said Clough.

, who received 1,013 votes for the 2011 Selectmen race, is grateful for her time served on the Acton Board of Selectmen.

“While I am naturally disappointed in the election outcome, I am inspired by the generous citizen support I received during the campaign and I am honored to have served the Town of Acton and her many citizens through the last three years as Selectman,” said Friedrichs. “The coming years will be no different in that respect.  There is much to do for anybody who wants to be involved and I see and welcome many doors that are opening.”

On the night that the results came in, each candidate and their family and friends gathered at to hear the announcement of who the two elected Selectmen would be.

“Whether you lose or you win, it seemed kind of awkward to be in that environment at first (Savoury Lane),” said Sonner. “But at the same time, I think there is an element of ‘hey we can all be friends’ and at the end of it, it is not personal. We all have a different philosophy but we can all still get along. It’s just like my family - I don’t agree on national politics with a lot of my family but I still love them a lot.”