Randolph Votes To Move
Its Town Offices
By M. D. Drysdale

 

Patrick and Patsy French and Marcy Stephen chat during lunch at the Braintree Town Meeting.

By a mere 25-vote margin out of 1538 cast, Randolph citizens agreed Tuesday to authorize moving the municipal offices to the former Co-op building on Pleasant Street.

The vote on the controversial item was 719 to 694. Some 121 voters did not vote on the issue, leaving their ballots blank.

At the same time, they elected two new selectmen, both of whom tend not to be in favor of the change.

Together with Selectman Ken Goss, who was the only selectman to vote against the proposal two weeks ago, the new members might create a 3-2 majority in favor of expanding the municipal building where it is.

Joe Voci topped a three-person slate to win one vacant selectboard position, receiving 595 votes to 517 for Carol Flint of East Randolph and 216 for Paul Easton.

Stephen Webster topped Damon Lease by 923 to 381, drawing on recognition and respect for a long career in elective office, including town moderator for many years, state representative and Orange County senator. Lease had been appointed to the office when Dawn Butterfield stepped down but was still relatively unknown in town.

Webster acknowledged yesterday that he had twice voted against moving the municipal offices to the co-op building and indicated that as selectman he would want to study Tuesday’s vote in favor of the move.

In general, he said, he has no preconceptions about town issues. "I’ll learn more on the board than on the street," he commented.

Budgets Pass

The unusually large turnout of voters—1538 of 3024 on the checklist, or 51%—required Town Clerk Joyce Mazzucco to print up 100 extra ballots Tuesday afternoon. That led to a much longer vote counting job than usual, since the extra ballots did not go through the automatic counting machine.

The machine also kicked out numerous ballots on which voters did not follow instructions to completely black in the voting space, Mazzuco said. Those also had to be tallied by hand.

She and her crew didn’t finish work until 2 a.m. Wednesday morning.

None of the town or school budgets encountered any problems from the wave of voters. Even the police budget—which was rejected two years ago and was in trouble last year—passed by more than two to one, with a 449-201 tally.

Voters went along also with the requested transfers of this year’s nearly $250,000 surpluses into this year’s budget.

All the special appropriations also were passed, most by margins of two or three to one. The only close ones were $5000 to the White River Craft Center (up from $3500 last year) and $500 to the White River Partnership.

On the school ballot, Ann Black Cone and Andy Becker were uncontested in running for the elementary and high school board respectively.

With nobody running for the second open elementary school slot, a modest write-in campaign was organized for John Kidder of Mason Road, who was elected with 77 votes.