This coming spring voters will be asked to choose 20 of their fellow citizens to fill seats that are due to become vacant on elected town boards. But if recent trends continue, there will be little choice.
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The competitiveness of this year’s elections will become clear when annual Town Caucus convenes next month. Setting a date was among the items of business postponed by cancellation of this week’s meeting of the selectmen, but that’s a formality they will perform at their Friday, Jan. 20, meeting. The warrant will call for Town Caucus to convene at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 11, in the upper Town Hall meeting room, where attendees will nominate candidates to appear on this year’s ballot. Harvard’s Town Election will be held April 4.
Town Caucus is a tradition that dates from colonial times, a public forum for selecting candidates to run for public office. Candidates need not be present to be nominated, but they do have to sign their nomination papers and hand them to the town clerk by Tuesday, Feb. 14, at 5 p.m., says Amy McDougall, Harvard’s clerk. Candidates who choose to gather signatures in support of their nomination rather than seeking nomination at the caucus must also hand in their papers by the same deadline.
The caucus is open to all registered voters. Attendees can nominate a maximum of two candidates for any open position. In recent years, however, most openings have been uncontested, with a single candidate or no candidates appearing on the ballot. That trend has fueled talk among Charter Commission members of making all town boards appointed boards except for the Board of Selectmen and the School Committee, who would remain elected.
The chart below shows the number of vacancies for elected town offices in each of the past nine years, along with the number of races for those offices that were competitive. In 2015, not one race was contested. As a result, the League of Women Voters of Harvard called off its traditional candidates night. In 2016, the only contested race was for an open seat on the Board of Health.
This year, one formerly elected position, that of town clerk, will not be on the ballot. Last year Annual Town Meeting voted to make that position an appointed one for the first time in Harvard’s history. When former town clerk Janet Vellante retired in December after serving as an elected official for 22 years, McDougall was hired to replace her.
