Voters shoot down both ballot questions
Published on April 5th, 2006
STONEHAM, MA - Stoneham voters trounced two ballot questions at Tuesday’s town elections, overwhelmingly rejecting a $1.2 million debt exclusion and a proposal to continue the $150 per household rubbish fee.
According to unofficial election results released by the Town Clerk’s office after the polls had closed on Tuesday night, the debt exclusion override, which would have increased the average resident’s tax bill by $140, was defeated by a 612 vote margin.
With 3150 votes cast either for or against the binding question — 200 residents left their ballots blank — nearly 60 percent of participating Stonehamites rejected the proposal, which was defeated 1881 to 1269.
For the second question on the trash fee, a non-binding referendum, 58 percent of participating voters opted against reinstituting the $150 per household garbage cost, which would generate approximately $950,000 in revenues.
A total of 3159 ballots were cast either for or against that proposal — 191 blanks were recorded — with unofficial tallies indicating that the measure lost by a 487 vote margin, 1823 to 1336.
Election counts unofficially show that both the debt exclusion and trash fee referendums failed to win enough “yes” votes to carry a victory in any of Stoneham’s seven voting precincts.
Dismayed by the low turnout at Tuesday’s election, in which less than a quarter of Stoneham’s voting population turned out, Town Clerk John Hanright had guessed that the two ballot questions would have drawn out a crowd at least similar in size to the one that defeated the override question two years ago.
With only 1400 ballots cast in the election as of 2 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon, the Town Clerk had surmised at the time that the low turnout — perhaps partly attributable to the frigid and at-times rainy weather — might bode well for the two revenue-raising questions.
And while Hanright admitted after releasing unofficial election tallies that he wasn’t exactly shocked by the end result, he was surprised that the small showing had rejected the two measures by such a significant margin.
“I’m very, very, very disappointed. And I don’t know what to say. We had 3300 voters. With so many candidates and the two questions, I thought that would pull people out,” Hanright commented in the Town Hall hearing room, prior to reading off the election counts.
“I’m not surprised that they lost, but I am surprised that they lost by that much with the low turnout,” the Town Clerk would later admit, after being asked for a reaction to the results.
Despite the low participation rate, Selectman-elect R. Paul Rotondi, who topped the ticket in the six-challenger election race, believed that the defeat of the two ballot questions clearly sent a mandate to town officials.
According to Rotondi, who lobbied against both the trash fee and the approximate 20-year tax increase, he was prepared to dive into the town’s budget to identify ways to solve Stoneham’s reoccurring budget woes without passing on costs to residents.
“Quite frankly, I’m surprised that they lost like they did,” Rotondi commented, shortly after learning of his victory in the Selectmen’s race. “But democracy happened, and clearly, the people spoke. I think we now have a lot of work to do. And I said I was willing to do that.”
While the newest Selectman-elect believed it was time to abandon fee or tax increases as municipal budget solutions, veteran Selectman Tony Kennedy felt that town officials have a difficult decision to make in regards to the trash fee — which can be levied by the Selectmen, despite the election results.
According to Kennedy, who supported the debt exclusion question, instituting the trash fee remains the only solution to a difficult budget climate, especially since so many public safety and educational positions and programs are slated for the chopping block.
“I was disappointed, but I can’t say I was surprised. I thought people would recognize the benefits of putting that extra revenue in the budget,” Kennedy remarked. “The board is going to have to assess what we’re going to do.”
“It doesn’t seem to be a resounding defeat [for the trash fee question], so the board will have to take that into account. It appears that the burden will be on the Board of Selectmen to see if they want to continue the trash fee anyway, even though it was
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