By Tammy Daniels On: 10:20PM / Tuesday May 15, 2012
Toting up the votes at Clarksburg Senior Center on Tuesday.
CLARKSBURG, Mass. — Voters ousted the chairman of the School Committee in favor of a former school principal but returned a longtime selectman back to that board.
Some 285 voters turned out to for the polls in Tuesday's annual town election. The only races were a two-way for a three-year seat on the School Committee and a three-way battle to complete the final year of a three-year term on the Selectmen.
The biggest shakeup was on the School Committee. John Solari, a retired Drury High School principal polled 150 votes to David Berger's 120. Berger, who works at Williams College, has served on the board for 18 years. Solari, who has spent some 35 years in education, retired in 2006 but still works part-time in tutoring.
Debra LeFave's comeback attempt to finish out her term on the Board of Selectmen came to naught as longtime colleague Carl McKinney won the one-year term with 127 votes. Lefave, who served with McKinney for more than a decade on the board, quit to pursue the town administrator's post, later withdrawing her name from consideration.
McKinney won with 126 votes; Gary Bellows, an engineering technician, polled 85 votes and Lefave, 65.
Jeffrey Levanos, owner of Jack's Hot Dog Stand in North Adams, easily earned 256 votes running unopposed. Levanos will also continue on the School Committee to finish out his second two-year term on that board.
All other posts on the ballot were unopposed and no seat was left vacant, said Town Clerk Carol Jammalo. However, there were a lot blanks and more single write-ins than usual. In some cases, voters checked two candidates for the one-year term on the selectmen, canceling out both their votes.
Jammalo described the turnout, at about 28 percent, as good. "It's one of the biggest ones we've had," she said.
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The cities of Pittsfield and North Adams will hold municipal elections for mayor, city council and school committee in 2015
You may vote absentee: if you will be absent from your town or city on election day, have a physical disability that prevents you from voting at the polls or cannot vote at the polls because to religious beliefs.
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