Nearly 3,000 Rutland City residents showed up at the polls Tuesday, a higher-than-average turnout that some officials attributed to the local school board race.
Ten candidates vied for four seats on the Rutland City Board of School Commissioners amid the back-and-forth over changing the high school mascot name and logo.
Marybeth Lennox-Levins, a Castleton University professor, finished first in the school board race with 1,456 votes. She was elected alongside Courtney Collins and Sarah Atkins Doenges, all of whom were endorsed by the political group “Rutland Forward,” whose motto is “Making a Rutland for Everyone.”
A fourth school board seat went to Karen Bossi, from the group “Rutland Parents 4 All Students.” It advocates keeping the “Raiders” mascot and arrowhead logo — which was temporarily replaced with “Ravens” last year after a group of students, staff and alumni expressed concerns about racism in the Raiders moniker’s origins.
Lennox-Levins said she is pleased that Rutland City voters responded to her group’s platform of compassion and working hard for the students and teachers.
“I think that our role on the board is really to ensure that every student can walk into the building every day and just learn and not think about any other distraction,” she said. “They shouldn’t have to worry about their race. They shouldn’t have to worry about their ethnicity, their sexual orientation, their gender overall or their gender identity.”
Rutland City Clerk Henry Heck believes the school board race caused the higher-than-usual turnout at Town Meeting Day on Tuesday. A total of 2,933 residents voted, he said, which is about 20% more than the 2,500 who typically turn out in local elections when there’s no mayor, treasurer or assessor on the ballot.
“This one did draw more interest, and it was probably the school commissioners,” Heck said.
Because more voters showed up than expected, the city clerk said his office had to photocopy 213 additional ballots on Election Day. These had to be counted by hand, which stretched the vote count into Wednesday.
Despite these circumstances, Heck said voters were understanding.
“I have not heard of one complaint of one person that was just thinking something was up,” he said while the vote count was ongoing Wednesday morning. “As a matter of fact, most people commented (that) it’s a good thing to run out of ballots because people are coming out to vote.”
In the city’s Board of Aldermen contest, board President Matt Whitcomb was elected to his third term. He garnered 1,846 votes, the most among seven candidates battling for five seats.
Whitcomb also attributed the large voter presence to the school board race as well as candidates encouraging people to go to the polls.
“I was really happy to see them turn out to vote and to be so active and engaged,” he said.
Also reelected to the Board of Aldermen were incumbent members Michael Talbott and Sharon Davis. Chris Ettori, a former alderman, is back on the board, joined by newcomer Anna Tadio.
Whitcomb, Talbott and Tadio were also endorsed by Rutland Forward.
