MELROSE — There will be four new City Council members and two new members of the School Committee come January after voters chose Jason Chen and Elizabeth Kowal to represent them citywide as councilors at-large, Christopher Park to represent Ward 3, Brad Freeman to represent Ward 4, and Sheryl Leigh Frost Leo and Melissa Holleran to serve on the school board in Tuesday’s election.
While Tuesday’s main attraction was a request to raise taxes to better run the city and its schools, the races for City Council and School Committee were still competitive in a few of areas.
In the race for four Councilor at-Large seats Chen was the top vote-getter with 6,828, followed by incumbent Maya Jamaleddine’s 5,455, incumbent Ryan Williams’ 5,170 and Kowal’s 4,324.
Dionysios Kaskarelis finished fifth with 4,083 votes.
Nearly 52 percent of the 21,471 voters registered for Tuesday’s city election participated in it.
In the race for Ward 3 Councilor, incumbent Robb Stewart was bested by challenger Christopher Park, 836 to 548.
In Ward 4, current Councilor at-Large Ward Hamilton and Philip Gindi were handily defeated by Brad Freeman, who received 1,047 votes to Hamilton’s 477 and Gindi’s 163.
In Ward 7, incumbent Devin Romanul hung on in the closest race, besting Alex Rodriguez 881 to 808.
In the citywide race for three seats on the School Committee, incumbent Jennifer Razi-Thomas was reelected with 5,108 votes. Melissa Holleran received the most votes in the race (5,650), while Sheryl Leigh Frost Leo received 5,061 votes.
Camarie E. Clark finished fourth with 3,556 votes.
Those elected to office this week will have a lot of responsibility as they oversee and monitor the spending of an additional $13.5 million a year in property tax money coming with the passage of a Proposition 2 1/2 override.
Opponents of the override felt, in part, that too much money was being asked for; that the public schools are performing just fine without extra funds; that municipal managers have been lax in their oversight, and that residents who can’t afford it are being taxed and fee’d out of the city.