Uncontested Races Draw 259 Total Voters

Voter turnout was predictably low Monday night in a municipal election that had seven unopposed candidates on the ballot.

Soon after the polls closed at 8 p.m. at Lynnfield High School, Town Clerk Amy Summers reported at the selectmen's meeting that 259 voters had turned out across the town's four precincts.

Selectman Al Merritt won re-election with 219 votes, while Bonnie Celi was elected to the board of assessors with 211 votes. Robert Calamari was re-elected as library trustee with 217 votes, while Town Moderator David Miller had 222 votes in his bid for re-election. School committee member James Fagan got 214 votes in his re-election bid, while Charles Wills was re-elected with 226 votes to finish the unexpired three-year term of Donald Harriss, who died last fall.

Meanwhile, planning board member Alan K. Dresios found himself re-elected with 37 write-in votes because of a ballot error that listed Richard Dalton as the candidate up for re-election. Dalton actually comes up for re-election in 2013.

After the results were read, the selectmen continued a longstanding tradition of rotating their positions on the board. The new chair of the board of selectmen is Arthur Bourque, who announced that he would not stand for re-election in 2012. Instead, Bourque suggested that it's time for some "good young people to seek office in this town."

Merritt, the former selectmen's chair, will be the board's clerk in the next term, while Bob MacKendrick becomes the vice chair.

"It's been a good three years and I look forward to doing it for another three years," said Merritt.