NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Voters will decide Tuesday which of the four candidates for mayor will move on to the general election. 

 

Voting will take place for all five wards at St. Elizabeth's Parish Center from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. The mayoral preliminary is the only question on the ballot. 

 

This election is historic for North Adams in that all four candidates are women, the first time this has happened in the city's 126-year history. It assures that the first woman mayor of North Adams will be elected on Nov. 2.

 

The four candidates are Lynette Bond, a member of the Planning Board and director of development for grants and research at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts; Rachel Branch, a local activist and former member of the McCann School Committee; Aprilyn Carsno, who describes herself as an independent who has largely run on infrastructure; and Jennifer Macksey, assistant superintendent of operations and finance for the Northern Berkshire School Union and former finance director for the city.

 

Three of the candidates — Bond, Carsno and Macksey — are running for office for the first time while Branch is on her third try for the corner office. 

 

The preliminary election will narrow the field to the two highest vote-getters.

 

Mayor Thomas Bernard announced earlier this year that he would not run for a third term. This will only be the second time since 1983 that no incumbent is running for re-election. 

 

This is the first preliminary since 2017, when five candidates vied for the corner office being left vacant by incumbent Richard Alcombright. In 2015, there were three candidates but only incumbent Thomas Bernard and Branch vied in the 2019 election.