Last month, Chelsea’s town government was like a leaky lifeboat, as the entire road crew and four of the town’s five Selectboard members resigned.
But townspeople have moved quickly to fill the leaks. Seven people have signed up to run for the board’s four vacancies.
According to Town Clerk Karen Lathrop, the candidates running in the Jan. 3 special election are:
- Kelly Nolan Lyford, running to complete two months of a three-year term.
- Dylan Greer and William Lyon, running to complete two months of a one-year term.
- Ronald Johnson and Kevin S. Marshia, running to complete one year of a two-year term.
- Leyna Hoyt and Nick Zigelbaum, running to complete two years of a three-year term.
Lathrop confirmed that Rick Ackerman, the road foreman who handed in his resignation last month, has returned to the post and is plowing the roads this winter with one member of his road crew.
Most candidates gave different reasons for running, but seemed to share one theme: Chelsea needed people to take charge.
“Somebody has to step up,” Lyford said. “I would not have run if we had not found ourselves with a gap of members.”
Lyford said she has a “vested interest in our town and our community” and the town is in a position where “regrouping” is needed. She is the only candidate running unopposed.
Lyford said she would not have run if her town was not in need, while other candidates said they had considered getting involved in the past but hadn’t jumped in.
After the recent resignations, they did.
“Understanding the unfortunate situation that our town was in, I decided that it was time to step up and put my name in for consideration,” said Marshia, a transportation engineer for the state. He said he had considered running for Selectboard for the past few years.
Zigelbaum has served on Chelsea’s School Board for five years. He said he almost ran for a town office last year, but the school board kept him too busy. He had already planned to leave the school board this year, and the chaos of last month — in which Ackerman’s approval of Zigelbaum’s water line over a road contributed to tensions with the Selectboard — provided an opportunity for Zigelbaum to get involved in town government.
“With all those open seats, I realized that a lot of my skills lie in social and community organizing,” he said. “I’m pretty confident and comfortable in the idea of doing some of that work.”
Johnson, at 21, is the youngest candidate.
“I’ve lived in Chelsea my whole life,” he said. “If I’m elected, I could provide a lot of helpful insight and input into the decision-making process of the town of Chelsea.” While he was growing up, his grandfather, Jack Johnson, served on the Chelsea Selectboard.
Johnson owns a lawn and landscaping business and is taking classes at Southern New Hampshire University, aiming to earn a degree in history and eventually become a teacher.
Greer is five years older than Johnson, and that’s how many years he has lived in Chelsea. He said that the Selectboard resignations offered an opportunity to “dip my toes into getting more into politics and pretty much better the town.”
Greer works for a commercial heating and air conditioning company, which he said requires a lot of problem-solving and “staying ahead of things,” which he said goes hand-in-hand with politics.
Neither Lyon nor Hoyt responded to emails on Monday, or phone messages on Monday and Wednesday.
The candidates believe that their involvement can improve the town’s politics.
Zigelbaum said there was a “real lack of transparency” and accessibility with the old Selectboard, and his focus would be on promoting public involvement in town politics.
Greer said his first plan, if elected, is to deliver a public apology to the road crew and Ackerman because “they shouldn’t have been put in that situation” where they decided to resign.
Marshia said “there wasn’t a high degree of civility” from any side during last month’s special Selectboard meeting, when the resignations occurred. With the upcoming election, “there’s an opportunity for transparency and there’s various opportunities for progress in our community.”
To qualify as candidates, the seven residents had to complete candidacy forms and file candidacy petitions by Nov. 28. The petitions needed 1% of the voter rolls, which equates to 10 signatures from Chelsea’s 955 registered voters, Lathrop said.
However, these may not be the only candidates. Lathrop said anyone who missed the deadline can start a write-in campaign.
A meet-the-candidates night is scheduled Dec. 15 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the town hall, according to a post from Lathrop on Dec. 3.