[R]UTLAND — All three incumbents who ran for Rutland City Board of Aldermen are heading back to their seats with two newcomers set to join them on the panel.
Town Meeting Day voters also approved all money matters on the city ballot, including the school spending plan that’s up about 2 percent and the municipal budget that increased more than 5 percent.
The race for the Board of Aldermen featured 10 candidates vying for five seats on the 11-member panel.
Paul Clifford, a former alderman making a bid to regain a seat on the board, was the top vote-getter in the race with 1,438 votes.
Clifford was followed by incumbents William Notte with 1,431 votes and Sharon Davis with 1,400 votes. Challenger Matthew Whitcomb finished fourth with 1,041 and incumbent Scott Tommola got the fifth and final seat with 985 votes.
Finishing out of the running for seats on the board were Jack Crowther, 736; John Atwood, 708; Kam Johnston, 376; Dan White, 331; and Francis Haas, 303.
Two incumbents, Ed Larson and Gary Donahue, did not run for re-election to the Board of Aldermen.
Voter turnout was about 24 percent, with 2,424 of the 10,000 registered voters casting ballots.
A mayoral race last year coupled with 17 candidates vying for six seats on the city’s Board of Alderman drove a much stronger turnout, roughly 40 percent.
“There were a lot of issues they were discussing last time. I don’t think the issues were as great this year,” Hurley Cavacas, election clerk overseeing Ward 1 voting at the Godnick Adult Center, said Tuesday afternoon. “It’s mostly people coming out to vote on the budgets.”
City residents on Tuesday approved the municipal plan by a vote of 1,426 to 959.
The $21,393,763 budget, up about $1 million from the current fiscal year, is the first budget drafted by Rutland City Mayor David Allaire, elected to his first two-year term last March by ousting former Mayor Christopher Louras from the post.
In Rutland, according to the city charter, the aldermen review the mayor’s proposed budget before it’s placed on the ballot. However, the board can only cut from the spending plan, and cannot add to it.
The board did take votes, but ultimately agreed to keep in the budget a more than $140,000 expense for a new 5-ton dump truck with plow for the city’s Public Works Department, which replaces one that came into service in 2000.
The board also shot down a proposal during its budget review to remove $325,000 from the $692,000 line item to fund the city’s pension liabilities.
Allaire said Tuesday after the balloting that he spent a great deal of time out at the polls throughout the day.
“People have been talking to me a lot about the roads, the potholes,” he said. “It’s been a tough winter.”
Allaire, asked about the light turnout, said, “There’s no real controversial issues in front of the voters.”
City residents also approved, 1,530-894, the $52,635,059 school budget for next fiscal year, up 1.9 percent from the current year’s spending plan.
In addition, city residents approved all the ballot items for funding of social service agencies as well as a petitioned article to provide $12,000 to the Wonderfeet Kids’ Museum in downtown Rutland.
In the only other contested race on the ballot, Acting Treasurer Mary Markowski, appointed to the post last year, won election to fill the remaining one year of a two-year term with 1,962 votes. Former Treasurer Wendy Wilton stepped down last year after receiving an appointment to a federal post.
Johnston, who also ran for alderman, campaigned for the treasurer post as well. He garnered 260 votes for that position.
