ADAMS, Mass. — Voters picked newcomers over veteran members in select board races in both Adams and Cheshire on Monday.

 

Kelly Rice decisively beat three-term incumbent Christine Hoyt in Adams and Scott McWhirt led a successful write-in vote against formr Cheshire board member Mark Biagini, winning 190-162.

 

Rice is a newcomer to the Board of Selectmen but not to Town Hall. She was treasurer for 12 years before retiring as of Monday, and as an administrative assistant in town departments for 14 years previously.  

 

'I'm excited. Can't wait. My first meeting will be Wednesday," she said after results were read at the Memorial Building.

 

When asked what she would like to see the board do, Rice said she wanted to get in first and see what happens. However, one thing she'd like to see is "reorganizing the board of how they pick chairman and vice chairman."

 

Hoyt was disappointed but sanguine about the results. 

 

"It's the will of the voters, so I do respect that, and I wish Kelly well," she said. "I still love this town, Pete and I have lived here for 20 years. It is the place we chose to call home, and I'm always going to be rooting for it, so hoping that it's in good hands with the Board of Selectmen."

 

What the town will lose is Hoyt's voice in Boston — she serves as District 1 representative on the Massachusetts Association of Select Boards and on the boards of the Massachusetts Municipal Association and the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association, as well as the state's Local Government Advisory Commission.

 

"Well, less trips to Boston," she said. "Those are some of the things that I'll need to resign from as of tomorrow, which does mean Berkshire County loses that representation on some of those boards." 

 

In the only other contested Adams election, William Schrade won an open seat on the Board of Assessors over Peter Wagner, 476-185.

 

McWhirt depended on write-in votes to carry the day in Cheshire; Biagini was elected in 2019 but lost re-election three years later. 

 

Current Select Board member Jason Levesque, also first elected in 2019, declined to run again.  

 

Michael Biagini Jr. also appears to have lost a bid for Board of Health to another write-in candidate, Kathryn LeBlanc. The vote was as close as possible: 173 to 172.

 

The winner will replace outgoing member Michael Kruszyna. 

 

However, Town Clerk Whitney Flynn said she had two provisional ballots that could possibly change things. 

 

"We have them in an envelope, and I have to speak with the secretary of the commonwealth, because of some communication from the state level, to see if those ballots would then need to be opened by the registrars and officially counted in these totals," she said. 

 

Daniel Barnes appears to have won as Cheshire representative on the Hoosac Valley School Committee with 37 write-in votes; there were other write-ins but all in the single digits. Kyle Malloy was the only name on the ballot to represent Adams. 

 

Flynn expected Barnes to accept the seat as he had been campaigning that day outside the polling station in the Community House. 

 

Flynn was pleased with the turn out in Cheshire of 375, about 15 percent of the town's 2,587 registered voters. 

 

"It's a higher turnout than has been the case for many, many years," she said.