Concord Votes for the Status Quo

Despite the absolutely wonderful early November weather and numerous contested races, it was another sleepy election in Concord, with spurts of election activity by local firefighters, last minute campaigning, and get-out-the-vote effort by candidates and their supporters.

With slightly higher turnout than previous years, voters sent all incumbents who were running for re-election back to their positions, offering a solid rebuke to residents who have been frustrated by the state of the city, the lack of action addressing the opiate addiction crisis, and controversial developments like the Main Street construction project.

Concord Mayor Jim Bouley, who quietly campaigned - he spent $5 on his re-election effort - on a long laundry list of accomplishments during the last eight years, easily bested award-winning author Paul Brogan by a nearly six-to-one margin.

At-large City Councilor Steve Shurtleff topped the ticket in his race with more than 2,400 votes. Mark Coen, another incumbent, came in second with just shy of 2,000 votes. Shawn Riley, a former Concord firefighter, came in third and Jim Baer came in fourth. Dave Teune rounded out the pack with less than 300 votes.

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Six Ward incumbents – Brent Todd in Ward 1, Allan Herschlag in Ward 2, Byron Champlin in Ward 4, Rob Werner in Ward 5, Keith Nyhan in Ward 7, and Dan St. Hilaire in Ward 10 – all ran unopposed, and will return to the council.

Two Ward councilors – Gail Matson in Ward 8 and Candace Bouchard in Ward 9 – had challengers but held onto their seats. Matson – who barely won two years ago – easily beat Dennis Soucy by more than 60 votes; Bouchard, a former state Rep., fended off a challenge from corrections officer Lenny O’Keefe and won by more than 50 votes.

There were only two open Ward seats this year – Ward 3, after long-time Councilor Jan Ward decided to not to run for re-election, and Ward 6, held by long-time Councilor J. Allen Bennett, who moved to Vermont recently.

In Ward 3, Jennifer Kretovic, who lost two years ago and previously served in Ward 2, received more than 70 percent of the vote to win against Robert Harrison, a ZBA member, and Chris Pannapacker, a local attorney.

In Ward 6, state Rep. Linda Kenison, D-Concord, ran a write-in campaign to beat Chris Minery and Tim Willis, who unsuccessfully ran at-large two years ago.

In the school board race, incumbent and former school administrator Clint Cogswell won re-election, along with Nathan Fennessy, who had been serving out the term of a board member who resigned earlier this year. Long-time education activist and artist Maureen Redmond-Scura came in third, beating businessman Matthew Valle by more than 200 votes.

At the polls

Outside of Ward 4, the Concord Boys & Girls Club, late this morning, Bouley and his son, Jackson, was shaking hands with voters and chatting with Ward 4 City Councilor Byron Champlin, who ran unopposed, and Baer, who was standing at the polls for a short period of time. Turnout was a trickle but there were still voters participating.

About 30 minutes later, Fennessy, a school board candidate, was a lone person at the polls in Ward 5. Turnout at just before noon was 315 votes – about 10 percent of the ward’s registered 3,247 voters.

About an hour later, outside of Ward 7, Valle was standing outside the polls with his son along with Riley, who also brought her daughter. Turnout had reach about 300 votes – about 10 percent.

Things were a bit sleepier over in Ward 6 at St. John the Baptist Church, one of the more transient Wards in the city with the historically lowest voter turnout. Kenison, with a homemade sign, was standing outside of the polls. Shurtleff stood outside the polls holding a sign for her for a couple of hours earlier in the day. At-large City Councilor Amanda Grady Sexton and County Commissioner Tara Reardon, Bouley’s wife, also stopped by to campaign.

On the east side of the city, things were also pretty slow all day.

At Ward 8, about 273 people had voted at around 2:30 p.m., or a little more than 10 percent of the vote. In Ward 9, where a number of new voters were registering to vote, 259 voters – about 12 percent – had cast ballots before 3 p.m. About 15 percent of the vote had cast ballots in Ward 10 at around 3 p.m.

In the northern section of the city, turnout was slow all day. Less than 200 voters had cast ballots in Ward 1 at around 3:15 p.m.

In Ward 3, two of the three candidates – Harrison and Kretovic – were standing outside the polls during the afternoon. At about 3:30 p.m., 260 voters had cast ballots; in the end, 422 people voted, slightly lower than 2013, when Kretovic and another candidate – Rick Cibotti – challenged McClure.

Allan Herschlag and his wife, Kathy, were the lone poll standers at Ward 2 at around 4 p.m. Turnout was about 7.5 percent, 200 votes.