Framingham Town Elections Tuesday

There's a three-way race for two Planning Board seats, as well as contests for Board of Selectmen, School Committee and several other town-wide offices. Pitifully, only four of 18 precincts have contested races for Town Meeting, while more than half have more openings than candidates.

For Planning Board, incumbents Carol Spack and Tom Mahoney face a challenge by Stephen Meltzer. In addition to their Web sites, you can see the responses that Mahoney (see his site) and Meltzer (see his site) gave to questions I posed. Carol Spack said she tried to weave in answers to the issues I raised at a candidates' night event we both attended.
Polls are open today, Tuesday April 4, from 7 am to 8 pm.

For Town Meeting, last year's vote on the library project is a defining issue for me. I simply can't support a candidate who was too short-sighted to invest in the town's future this way, and actually turned down state funding to help build a new branch library to replace the clearly inadequate existing building in Saxonville. Last January's vote on whether to pay for a new building is still available on the town Web site here.
Among the precincts with Town Meeting races:

Precinct 1
Margaret E. Groppo - yes
Andrew Limeri - yes
Christopher S. Lorant - not in office during vote
Steven W. Orr - no
Janet L. Gill - not in office during vote

Precinct 3
C. William Cook - yes
Mark E. Dempsey - no
Harold J. Moran - yes
Patricia E. Woodward - yes
Mary McCarty - not in office during vote
Paul A. Costa - no

Precinct 6
Mary C. Healy - yes
Nicholas Paganella - yes
Kathleen M. Stefanini - yes
John D. Styles - yes
Ariel H. Sarousi - not in office during vote

Precinct 7
Lawrence J. Griffin - yes
Henry W. Ohrenberger - no
Peter A. Poulos - yes
Francis X. Reilly - no
Morton J. Shuman - not in office during vote

In the selectmen's race, incumbent Katie Murphy was an enthusiastic supporter of the library project, voting for it and speaking for it on behalf of the Board of Selectmen. Challenger Jason Smith did not hold any office last year, and I don't recall hearing anything from him as a concerned citizen one way or the other.