Incumbents prevail in low-turnout annual town election

Residents cast their ballots in last year’s annual town election. (Michelle Stark photo)

The incumbents carried the day in Tuesday’s annual town election with the two sitting selectmen on the ballot, Kevin Feeney and Mark Porter, both returning to their posts after successfully fending off a challenge from newcomer Kathy McCormack in this year’s lone contested race.

Despite coming up short in her first ever bid for elected office, McCormack said she enjoyed the experience and wasted little time in announcing her intentions to run again in 2019. “I’ll be back next year,” she told Canton Community TV on election night.

In one of the more subdued contested elections in recent memory, only 970 residents made their way to the polls to cast a ballot while the rest of the town’s nearly 16,000 registered voters — 94 percent of them — opted to sit this one out.

Despite the lackluster turnout, Feeney, who was the overall winner in a crowded, five-person field in 2015, once again secured the most votes — this time appearing on nearly 75 percent (724) of all ballots cast. Porter finished second in the race with 575 votes (59 percent), while McCormack garnered 407 votes (42 percent) to finish third.

“I’m surprised that I did as well as I did,” said Feeney, a veteran of Canton town government but still a relative newcomer to elected office. “I thought it could have gone either way and I always believe you hope for the best but you prepare for the worst and I’m deeply gratified with the results.”

Feeney, speaking to CCTV on election night, said he had to navigate a “learning curve” in his first three years on the board but made it clear that he enjoys the work and also takes his responsibility as a selectman very seriously.

“There are worries and there are responsibilities, and I take seriously the fact that we are stewards of the welfare of the town,” he said. “We can’t act cavalierly. We have to weigh things very carefully and it’s [a heavy burden] sometimes.”

Porter, a former Finance Committee chairman who is also returning for his second term on the BOS, noted that he too learned a lot during his first turn as a selectman, most notably that “things move slowly” in town government. “Regardless of the intentions that you or any of the other board members have, things always move more slowly than you’d like,” he said.

At the same time, Porter said the fact that the two incumbents were reelected — and even the fact that the turnout was so low — was partly a reflection of the overall satisfaction level that residents have with Canton government.

Porter did acknowledge running a “scaled down” campaign this year, which he said was intentional as all three BOS candidates pledged to limit spending and not accept financial contributions. But overall, he said he was pleased with the general positivity of this year’s race. “There was a lot of focusing on the benefits that each of the three candidates could bring to the community rather than the alternative, and I think we’re all kind of sick of that after what we dealt with in [the 2016 presidential election], so it was great to see that general positivity.”

McCormack acknowledged to CCTV that she did not expect to win in her first ever contested race but felt that it was a “good learning experience.”

“It’s a lot more complicated than I thought,” she said, “and I think you do need to have a campaign committee and you do need to raise campaign funds.”

She noted that she ran primarily out of concern for the pace of development in town and will continue to press the issue and attend local meetings as she prepares for her next election bid in 2019, when veteran Selectman John Connolly will be up for reelection.

“I just wanted to get my feet wet this year, which I think I did,” McCormack said.

The eight other candidates on this year’s ballot all ran unopposed, including incumbents Tracy Kenney for town clerk, Kristin Mirliani for School Committee, Rocco Digirolamo for Board of Assessors, Joan Schottenfeld and Bernard Mendillo for Library Board of Trustees, and Planning Board member Patricia McDermott, who was elected to her first five-year term after winning a one-year seat in 2017.

In addition to the incumbents, two newcomers were elected on Tuesday: Nichola Gallagher, who will fill a two-year vacancy created by the departure of John Bonnanzio, and Dr. Alan Rapoport, who was elected for his first three-year term on the Board of Health after serving in an appointed capacity following the passing of Dr. Richard Levrault.

A third library trustee position also appeared on the ballot without a candidate after it failed to attract any interest prior to the February nomination deadline. Town Clerk Tracy Kenney said she would review the ballots for write-in selections to determine if there are any viable candidates to fill that post. Kenney said the candidate with the most legitimate write-in votes would be offered the chance to serve in that role.

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