NORTHAMPTON — Democrats in Hampshire County wrapped up voting Tuesday in a three-way primary race that pitted Sheriff Patrick Cahillane against Yvonne Gittelson, the state’s corrections education specialist, and corrections nurse Caitlin Sepeda, both of whom once worked for his administration and criticized his priorities and leadership on the campaign trail.
Cahillane, a Leeds resident, watched the election returns trickle in alongside friends and supporters at the Union Station banquet hall on Pleasant Street. Unless a write-in candidate comes forward, the Democratic nominee will face no opposition in the Nov. 8 general election.
By the Gazette’s print deadline, the results of the race were not yet known. Further details will be available online at Gazettenet.com on Wednesday and in print on Thursday.
The sheriff’s department, with its seven divisions including civil process service, oversees the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction on Rocky Hill Road as well as its in-house regional police lockup. The sheriff represents constituents in all 20 Hampshire County communities.
Gittelson, a resident of Goshen, is the corrections program specialist for the state education department, responsible for educational programming in jails, prisons and some Department of Youth Services facilities. She was Cahillane’s top education official from 2017-21.
Sepeda, who lives in South Hadley, was a nurse at the Northampton jail for nine years before taking a job at the Pittsfield jail last October. Before Cahillane’s election in 2016, Sepeda worked for his predecessor, Sheriff Robert Garvey.
A third challenger to Cahillane, independent John Vanasse, dropped out of the race in June, telling the Gazette, “I’ll be back in six years.” He worked as a corrections officer under Cahillane from 2015-18.
According to state records from the Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF), Cahillane raised $20,254.17 for his campaign in 2022. Sepeda raised $11,655 including $2,400 in forgivable loans from the candidate, while Gittelson largely self-funded her campaign, contributing about 83% of the $15,211 fundraising haul in the form of loans.
After voting in the Smith Vocational & Agricultural High School gym, Maggie Leonard said the sheriff’s race drew her to the ballot box on primary day. She said she hopes that the winner will bring a “constructive plan” to improve conditions for incarcerated people, and keep more offenders out of jail with strict conditions and monitoring.
“It’s not so much that I think Patrick Cahillane is doing a bad job,” Leonard said. “It’s that I would really like to see an emphasis on substance abuse and mental health support. … At the end of the day, (incarcerated people) are members of our community. They have families. They come back.”
She said recidivism was the key issue of the race for her, and the sheriff’s department should “create opportunities” for people in their custody.
“Be wise about it. Not everyone is going to succeed,” Leonard said, summing up her position as “support with accountability.”
Mark Scheel said he hasn’t missed an election in 40 years and used to vote absentee while stationed in Germany in the U.S. Army. Casting his ballot in the sheriff’s race was “the No. 1 reason I came” to Smith Vocational on a bleak afternoon with steady rain.
“The incumbent sheriff’s doing a good job,” Scheel said, adding that he agrees with Sepeda’s assessment at an Aug. 25 public forum that the campaign had become “dirty.”
“I think our small town politics are getting bigger and bigger,” he said.
In terms of the statewide races — Democrats and Republicans chose candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, auditor and secretary of the commonwealth — Scheel said not enough of the candidates visited or showed concern for western Massachusetts.
“One of them advertised about the courthouse in Springfield, (saying) that if it was in Boston, it would have been fixed by now,” he said, referring to high-profile allegations that the Hampden County Hall of Justice has a history of mold infiltration and poses a threat to the health of its occupants. “That’s probably a pretty good point.”
Susan Rogers and other residents of Wards 3 and 4 voted at the Northampton Senior Center. Like others, she said the sheriff’s race was a top priority as she entered her Conz Street polling place.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever missed an election,” Rogers said, noting that she doesn’t have a particular motivating issue. There are “so many issues” affecting everyone, she said, that it’s critical for voters to weigh in whenever they can.
Marta Lev brought her 2-year-old granddaughter, Parker, with her to the polls. She said casting a ballot every cycle is both “a responsibility and a privilege,” and that voting is even more critically important now because of ongoing threats to the very concept of democracy.
Lev is a member of the political advocacy group Indivisible Northampton, which endorsed Tanisha Sullivan for secretary of state — the top elections role in Massachusetts — over the longtime incumbent William Galvin.
“It’s kind of trite, but it really is the bedrock of our democracy,” Lev said when asked why she made the time to vote in the primary.
City Clerk Pamela Powers said her office mailed out 5,000 ballots to voters, but only got 1,000 back before Tuesday. The final tally of mail-in votes was not immediately available.
The city’s public school district canceled school on Nov. 8 to accommodate voters in the general election. On primary day, only Smith Vocational had canceled school.
Brian Steele can be reached at bsteele@gazettenet.com.