WAKEFIELD – Former Selectman/Town Councilor Paul DiNocco pulled papers this morning to run in the Feb. 22 Special Town Council Election.
The Town Council set the date at a special meeting via Zoom yesterday afternoon. DiNocco wasted no time and was at the Town Clerk’s Office at 8 a.m. this morning to pick up nomination papers to run for the seat.
By the time the Special Election takes place, the winner will serve just nine weeks before the April 26 Annual Town Election. The winner of the Special Election could then enter the Annual Town Election as an incumbent.
The Town Council voted 6-0 yesterday to call the Special Election.
Not that they had a choice.
Under Massachusetts General Laws, when a vacancy occurs on a Board of Selectmen (or Town Council) the remaining members must call a Special Election if petitioned to do so by 200 registered voters. That happened last week when a petition was turned in and certified by the Town Clerk’s Office.
At their Nov. 8 meeting, the remaining six members of the Town Council had listened to the advice of Town Clerk Betsy Sheeran and voted 5-1 against calling a special election, with the next regular Town Election just months away. Only Councilor Edward Dombroski favored calling a Special Election to fill the seat.
But the following week, Pierce Avenue resident Kristen Henshaw pulled petition paperwork to force a special election.
At yesterday’s special Town Council meeting, Dombroski asked about the timeline, wondering if the election could be held earlier to maximize length of time that the winning candidate would serve.
Town Counsel Thomas Mullen said that the law allows the town require candidates to return their signed nomination papers just two days after picking up the blank forms at Town Hall. But even with nomination papers available today, doing that would only move the Special Election up by a couple of weeks, Mullen said, given the timetable for other legal requirements.
As it is, Mullen said, it was asking a lot of candidates to pick up nomination papers, collect signatures and return them by Jan. 4, which will be the due date for completed nomination papers for the Feb. 22 Special Election.
Mullen said that the town could move the election up a little, but only by making it tremendously difficult for candidates to get their nomination papers signed and turned in during a very short window of time.
Town Administrator Stephen P. Maio pointed out that the Feb. 22 date would also fall during school vacation, minimizing disruption at the Galvin Middle School, which is the town’s centralized polling place for the entire town.
But Dombroski recalled that when centralized voting was being proposed, one of the arguments put forth was that it would never cause a disruption for the schools. If indeed elections are disruptive, Dombroski asserted, it might be necessary to reconsider centralized voting.
Town Councilor Mehreen Butt said that elections could be held on Saturdays to get around that problem.
The Feb. 22 Special Election means that Wakefield will see three elections in the first four months of 2022. On Jan. 25, voters will go to the polls to vote on a new Northeast Metro Tech vocational school, followed by the Special Town Council Election a month later. Then there’s the Annual Town Election on April 26.
Maio said that the town did look at the possibility of combining the two special elections. But the Northeast Metro Tech School Committee set the date for the district-wide Special Election on the school. In addition, the hours of that election are limited, and the potential for confusion on the part of voters was something the town wanted to avoid, Maio said.
Nomination papers for the Special Town Council Election are available at the Town Clerk’s office. Anyone with questions may call the office at 781-246-6383.