BCAT News

If you are interested in getting involved in local government to make a difference in Burlington now is the time to throw your hat in the ring.

Nomination papers for the 2022 Annual Town Election are now available in the Town Clerk’s Office at Town Hall. Nomination papers must be taken out by February 16 at 5 p.m. There are a number of open seats for either Town Wide or Representative Town Meeting Seats.

Town Wide seats include Town Moderator, Select Board (2), School Committee (2), Assessors (1), Library Trustees (2), Planning Board (2), Board of Health (2), Constable (2), Housing Authority (1) and Recreation Commission (2).

The incumbents whose seats are up this year are Moderator Bill Beyer, Select Board Members Bob Hogan and Nick Priest, School Committee Members Christine Monaco and Thomas Murphy, Assessor Catherine O’Neil, Planning Board Members Barbara L’Heureux and Brenda Rappaport, Library Trustees Phil Gallagher and Robert Neufeld, Board of Health Members Dr. Wayne Saltsman and Dr. Ed Weiner, Constables William Pepicelli and Anthony Saia, Housing Authority Member Christopher Hartline and Recreation Commission Member Stephen Nelson.

Though papers just became available this week there are already a handful of candidates who have pulled them and started collecting signatures. These include incumbent Town Moderator Bill Beyer, incumbent Nick Priest and challenger and current Planning Board Member Mike Espejo for Select Board, incumbents Christine Monaco and Thomas Murphy for School Committee, incumbent Barbara L’Heureux for Planning Board, incumbent Dr. Ed Weiner for Board of Health, incumbent Stephen Nelson for Recreation Commission and challenger Dennis Otis for Constable.

There are also a number of Town Meeting seats that are open. This year things are a little different because reprecincting after the 2020 U.S. Census caused a number of incumbents to suddenly be placed in different precincts. We’ll have a further look at this in a later article but for now you can watch an explainer we did with Town Clerk Amy Warfield on the situation by clicking here (second video down)

All candidates for town-wide seats must collect 50 signatures from Burlington voters to be placed on the ballot. Anyone looking to run for Town Meeting must collect 10 signatures from voters in their precinct.

The 2022 Burlington Town Election will be held on Saturday, April 9 and the polls will be located at Burlington High School. As with all town elections the polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.