Susan Murray wins Board of Health seat

In an election that saw a low turn-out, Dartmouth voters favored Susan Murray for the Board of Health, who beat opponent Chester Tam by a wide margin.

While the results haven’t been certified, Murray unofficially won 79% of the vote, with Tam receiving 21%. Two voters submitted write-ins and 81 people left the question blank.

“I’m excited to learn from the other board members and from the staff in the Board of Health to see what issues they’re currently dealing with, and seeing how I can help,” Murray said.

She added that she didn’t have many expectations going into election day, explaining that this is the first time she’s been elected to any position and was hoping her community connections would help get her elected.

“I really want to say, ‘Thank you,’ to everyone who came out and voted, and I’m just really excited to serve on the Board,” Murray said.

She added that she also wanted to thank the Dartmouth Democratic Committee, which were “wonderful people to work with and were really helpful.”

Tam said he was “a little shocked by the results,” noting he thought he did a good job knocking on people’s doors, had a lot of social media engagement and went to businesses to ask their opinions about how things were going in the town.

“For the most part, it seemed very enthusiastic with the people that I was speaking to,” he said.

Despite his loss, Tam said he will still look for ways to help the community, adding that he wrote his name in for Town Meeting and had other people write him in as well.

“I’m still going to be involved in any way that I can — just looking to do what I can to kind of just contribute to our town,” he said.

Tam said he also wishes everyone who won luck, adding that he finds running for a position “honorable” because he thinks “a lot of people don’t step up.”

According to Town Clerk Sarah Haskell Arruda, just 9% of those registered in town voted this year.

“We didn’t even hit double digits, which is a little bit disappointing because these local offices, they’re making decisions that impact us very directly in town. They’re setting policy,” Haskell Arruda said.

She said that when she saw there weren’t a lot of contested races on the ballot this year she and the election division started to have some concerns that there wouldn’t be a very high turnout.

During her time as the town clerk the lowest turnout she’s seen was 7% five years ago and the highest was 25% when a question regarding the removal of the Indian mascot from Dartmouth High School was on the ballot, Haskell Arruda said.

“It seems as though if the Select Board races are not contested or we don’t have a big question on the ballot, we tend to have a lower turnout,” she said.

Despite the low turnout, Haskell Arruda said she thought the election “went outstanding.”

“It was very, very smooth, but the turnout was lower than we had hoped,” she said.

Select Board incumbents Shawn McDonald and Heidi Silva Brooks were reelected, as were School Committee incumbents Chris Oliver and John Nunes.

Lynne Cotter and Joan Menard were reelected to the Trustee of Free Public Libraries, Melissa Erin Haskell was reelected as Moderator, James Vieira and Joseph Vieria were reelected to the Parks and Recreation Board, and Kevin Santos was reelected as Assessor.

There were also four questions on the ballot this year, which all passed.