Mayoral races, state ballot issues resolved
Voters braved the elements yesterday in 49 communities statewide, deciding more than two dozen contests for mayor and addressing ballot questions on a range of issues, including slashing taxes, election officials said.
In Springfield, it looked as if Charles V. Ryan, the city's mayor more than three decades ago, was returning to the top job.
The 75-year-old lawyer narrowly defeated state Senator Linda J. Melconian in a race left wide open when incumbent Michael Albano announced earlier this year he would not seek a fifth term.
With all precincts reporting, Ryan had 14,979 votes to 13,258 for Melconian, in unofficial results reported by city officials, as about a third of the city's registered voters cast ballots.
Ryan, who served as mayor from 1962 to 1968, lost to Albano in 1995. During this year's campaign, he said he would use his position as mayor to find the money needed to turn back state budget cuts to city aid.
He also had criticized Melconian's management skills after she paid $11,000 in overdue property taxes just before launching her mayoral campaign. Melconian apologized for not paying her taxes and promised never to let it happen again.
Ryan has said he will continue Albano's plan to buy prescription drugs for city employees from Canada. Albano recently brought the city international attention when he made Springfield the nation's first city to offer the lower-priced medication to employees and retirees.
Incumbent mayors in Attleboro and Newburyport were ousted. In Attleboro, with all precincts reporting, challenger Kevin J. Dumas had 3,444 votes to 2,561 for Judith H. Robbins. In Newburyport, unofficial results showed challenger Mary Anne Clancy got 3,313 votes to defeat Alan P. Lavender with 2,721.
In other unofficial results, Mayor John T. Yunits of Brockton easily won a fifth consecutive term with 8,373 votes to 2,541 for Arnold Greenblatt; Gloucester incumbent John Bell won a second term with 5,192 votes to 988 for perennial candidate Daniel Ruberti. And in Chicopee, Alderman Richard Goyette had 6,737 votes to narrowly defeat former mayor Joseph Chessey with 6,423. Incumbent Richard J. Kos did not seek reelection.
Contested mayoral elections also included the race between incumbent Thomas M. Crean and former mayor William F. Scanlon Jr. in Beverly.
Salem voters were asked in a nonbinding question whether a ticket tax should be charged to tourists. The votes were 3,598 in support of the measure and 2,888 opposed, according to unofficial final results. In Pittsfield, all three candidates supported by a grass-roots women's political movement won election to the City Council. Tricia Farley-Bouvier and Patricia Malumphy finished first and second, overall, in the race for city councilor at-large. And Linda Tyer was elected in Ward Three. All three were endorsed by Women Helping Empower Neighborhoods, or WHEN, a group founded during the summer. Pittsfield had an all-male council. But its incumbent woman mayor, Sara Hathaway, was defeated by retired plastics executive James Ruberto.
On Cape Cod, Barnstable voters soundly defeated a $7.2 million Proposition 2.5 property tax override. The town voted 9,461 against to 5,903 in favor of the override in unofficial final results.
In Northhampton, voters approved the expansion of a plan to turn an abandoned mental hospital complex into a residential and business village. In a nonbinding referendum, 3,717 voters said they support building 158 residential units and 324,000 square feet of industrial space on the site of the Northampton State Hospital, while 2,486 voted against the referendum, in unofficial results. The first phase of redeveloping the abandoned site, which calls for the construction of 109 residential units and 152,000 square feet of commercial space, had already been approved. Residents rejected a nonbinding question yesterday asking if they would support repairing the roof of Old Main -- the 19th-century building that was the hospital's administrative center -- so it could one day be renovated and developed.
