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| Paula Andersen bumps Dan Slattery out of the Council Vice-Presidency |
In new vote tallies posted by the Secretary of State's office on Thursday, the order of finish in the Charlestown Town Council race changed, with Democrat Paula Andersen catching and passing CCA's Dan Slattery to become the second-highest vote-getter.
Here the irony: one of the four poorly conceived Charter Revisions approved by the voters makes it mandatory that the second-highest vote-getter be given the Council Vice-President position, even if he, or in this case, she is in the minority on the Council.
So even though the Council is comprised of three CCA-endorsed Councilors plus Lisa DiBello who generally voted with the CCA in 2010-12, they are now compelled by the Charter to accept Paula as Vice-President.
In my critique of the proposed Charter changes, I had predicted this as one possible unintended consequence of the change - that the Council would be compelled to accept an officer who was not supported by the majority.
Well, CCA, it was your great idea - not mine - and you get to deal with the consequences immediately.
None of the outcomes of the races other than the Council were impacted by the addition of the absentee ballots. Here is the final tally for Town Council:
TOWN COUNCIL TOWN OF CHARLESTOWN
5 to elect
Candidate
|
Total votes
|
Pct
|
Thomas B. GENTZ (IND)
|
1955
|
12.1%
|
Paula Ann ANDERSEN (DEM)
|
1820
|
11.3%
|
Daniel J. SLATTERY (IND)
|
1813
|
11.2%
|
George C. TREMBLAY (IND)
|
1682
|
10.4%
|
Lisa A. DiBELLO (IND)
|
1664
|
10.3%
|
Ronald J. AREGLADO (IND)
|
1597
|
9.9%
|
Timothy E. QUILLEN (DEM)
|
1470
|
9.1%
|
Thomas M. FERRIO (DEM)
|
1350
|
8.4%
|
Gregory J. AVEDISIAN (IND)
|
1243
|
7.7%
|
John C. DONOGHUE (IND)
|
851
|
5.3%
|
James M. MAGEAU (IND)
|
655
|
4.1%
|
WRITE-IN
|
19
|
0.1%
|