Beck Wins Seat on Williamstown Planning Board
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — By a margin of 100 votes, Peter Beck on Tuesday earned a five-year seat on the Planning Board.
Beck, a newcomer to town politics, took the seat from incumbent Alex Carlisle by a vote of 407-307 399-299, unofficially, in the only contested race on the town election ballot.
"I got a sense that there were people who were really supportive of what I was talking about," Beck said Tuesday evening. "I definitely heard from them, especially online.
"You don't know what proportion of the town that represents, but I do know I was hearing positive feedback from people who care about these issues in town."
Beck was at Williamstown Elementary School for a while on Tuesday with Carlisle to wave to voters and thank them for their participation in the process, though, given the uniqueness of this election season, there was no pressing the flesh.
"Mostly it was communicating gratitude with the eyes," Beck said. "Just waving hello."
The majority of votes in the election were cast by mail.
Out of 720 total ballots cast (including blanks and write-ins), 476 were mail-in ballots, according to Town Clerk Nicole Pedercini, who ran her first election on Tuesday after the retirement of longtime clerk Mary Kennedy.
Pedercini said she sent out 523 mail-in ballots to voters who applied for them, giving the mail-in vote a return rate of 91 percent.
Last year, 953 votes were cast in the town election.
Each of the unopposed candidates on the ballot won his or her contest with ease, including the two incumbent Select Board members up for re-election, Andrew Hogeland and Hugh Daley.
Beck said Tuesday he did not know when the Planning Board will next meet, but he wants to get going soon. The panel has not met since March; its last three meetings were canceled. It does have a meeting on the town calendar for July 2, but as of Tuesday evening, there was no agenda posted.
Beck, who talked at length during the campaign about the need to engage with voters and build broad consensus for Planning Board initiatives, said he believes those conversations can begin in a virtual environment.
"I sure hope so," he said. "I say that also from my perspective as an educator and a school administrator. Who knows how long we'll have to work like this or whether we'll be able to go in person and then go back online again and then in person again.
"I hope we can develop really positive ways to engage this way because we have to. I don't think it's an option. I'm someone who vastly prefers being face to face, and I know a lot of people feel that way. ... But I think it's urgent and necessary that we figure out the best ways to have a community conversation."
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