The Hilltowner: 'Apathy Is Terrible Sometimes'
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PERU, Mass. – Seventy voters turned out for the town election last spring.
Town Clerk S. Christine Richards expects even fewer for the election coming up in June.
"Slim to none," Richards said, predicting attendance on June 6. "Apathy is terrible sometimes."
She was in the kitchen, in the midst of cooking sweet sausages when reached by telephone last weekend.
An iBerkshires reporter took up 16 minutes of Richards' time, keeping her and her husband from their sausages while she indulged his election-season queries, an annual rite of passage for town clerks and
other key officials in the Hilltowns.
When there were questions that she couldn't answer about Peru – and there weren't many – Richards called to her husband, Edward P. Richards, a selectman, who was in the next room.
There are 568 registered voters in Peru, a town of approximately 870 residents. Richards is confident that, of those registered, there won't be any more candidates for elected office; May 8 was the deadline for interested parties to turn in nomination papers.
"Nobody took any out except the incumbents, so they're all turned in already," said Richards.
Richards – an incumbent herself – is seeking re-election to a third three-year term as town clerk. So is her husband, unopposed for a three-year term on the Board of Selectmen.
"This will be his third consecutive term, but he was also two terms way back, and then he retired for sickness and got talked into coming back," said Richards.
Caryn E. Wendling is running for a five-year term of the Finance Committee. She's the incumbent who is wrapping up a one-year term. Douglas Haskins is running for tree warden, an annually elected position that he's held for some time.
"Nobody else runs for it. It's an old town thing,” said Richards. Haskins is also the chairman of the Board of Selectmen. "And don't ask how may years, because he's been doing it forever and ever," she said.
For constable, Peter Loboda is an incumbent seeking re-election to a one-year term. Incumbent Coralie Pelkey is seeking a two-year term as the other constable in town.
There are vacancies on the Planning Board for a five-year term and for one-year on the Finance Committee, said Richards. She did not want to disclose the name of the last person who held the now-vacant seat, for fear of getting an unpleasant earful from the former Planning Board member; she said the other seat had been vacant for some time.
If they aren't filled by write-ins, then the town will appoint new members, Richards said.
Town meeting will be held on June 6, and the election on June 13. When reached around 8 p.m. the same day for a follow-up question, Richards told the reporter that he was interrupting dinner. He apologized.
The Hilltowner is a news column written by Noah Hoffenberg that tells of life in the Berkshire hills. Contact Hoffenberg at hoff1013@gmail.com.
