DALTON, Mass. — Voters returned one of two incumbents to the Select Board and one newcomer on Tuesday. 

 

Antonio "Tony" Pagliarulo won one of the two seats in the four-way race with 577 votes for the board, outpolling the other three candidates by 107 votes. Coming up second was incumbent Marc Strout with 486. 

 

William Drosehn, chair of the Finance Committee, was 13 votes behind at 473. 

 

Robert Collins, who won a seat by 13 votes in February's special election found himself out of the running this time with 459 votes. 

 

Pagliarulo expressed his gratitude to the voters and hopes that he and the board can do a good job by them.

"Everybody's going to be in office, even though the other two candidates didn't make it. We have a Finance chair and we have a person on the Planning Board, so hopefully we'll work in harmony together," he said. 

Collins holds a seat on the Planning Board; Pagliarulo is a member of the Green Committee and the Public Safety Facility Advisory Committee.

The elections saw above-average voter turnout, with 1,001 individuals voting in person at the Senior Center, and 83 mail-in ballots were counted after the polls closed, for about 20 percent of registered voters. 

Residents lined Field Street with signs in support of their preferred candidates as some played lawn games to pass the time. 

When the unofficial results came in, several of Strout's supporters cheered as they left the Senior Center. 

Strout said he looks forward to serving on the board for another three years and will do so with honesty and integrity. 

This will be Strout's fourth term. When running for Select Board nine years ago, he didn't think he would ever get to this point. 

"But when you get in here and you're able to serve the people and look out for them and take care of the small things for them, whether it's a pothole on their street or the street light out, those are the things that are important to people," Strout said. 

"We got a lot of work ahead of us and bringing people together to get things done, and that's what's going to take for all of us to work together." 

Although losing this race, Collins intends to stay involved in the town, continuing his work on the Planning Board and Storm Water Commission. 

When asked whether he would request a recount given the close results, Collins said he does not intend to and emphasized his trust and faith in the town clerk’s office and the volunteers who handle the counting process. 

Drosehn said he does not believe the results reflected the true vision of the town’s people, feels there was an "anomaly" in the results, and plans to call for a recount.

He said town voters prefer to have someone on the board, "one in particular," that he thinks doesn’t approach the issues.  

Unofficial results for other contested races were: 

The Planning Board had three candidates for its two open seats. Voters elected Dennis Croughwell, who had 729 votes, and Donald Davis with 456. David Martindale had 434 votes. 

The Library Trustees had five candidates for its four available seats. Voters elected Anne Ronayne, who had 1,263 votes, Thomas Condron with 710 votes, Leonardo Quiles with 623 votes, and Sherri Belouin with 576 votes. Michael Jamrog had 356 votes.