Shutesbury election on Saturday features no contests; TM set for end of May

SHUTESBURY — In a change from customary practice, Shutesbury will hold its town election and annual Town Meeting on separate days, a little over a month apart.

The town election is set for Saturday, April 26, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Town Hall, 1 Cooleyville Road, while Town Meeting is scheduled for May 31, at the Shutesbury Elementary School, 23 West Pelham Road.

There are no contested elections on the ballot and no known write-in candidates. For those who vote in person that day, they will continue to get the experience of having their paper ballot go through the wooden crank turn ballot box that Town Clerk Grace Bannasch says has been in use for town elections since 1934.

One incumbent not seeking reelection is Paul Lyons, the town moderator since being elected in 2019. Nettie Anne Harrington Pangallo is the only one seeking the position, writing a statement for the town website that as a public school teacher, she understands the importance of equity and “voices and values of our friends and neighbors come together to shape a civil and just trajectory for our future.”

“I believe our Town Meeting is an excellent model for how to sustain respectful, equitable forms of democracy,” Pangallo wrote.

Following are the others seeking election and the positions on the ballot: Select Board, three years, incumbent Melissa I. Makepeace-O’Neil; School Committee, two seats for three years, incumbent Nathaniel Charles Longcope and newcomer Katrina Catalano; Board of Health, three years, incumbent Catherine Hilton; Library trustees, two seats for three years, incumbents Bradley R. Foster and Michele Regan-Ladd; Muncipal Light Plant Board for three years, incumbent James Cochran Hemingway; Planning Board, two seats for three years, incumbents Ashleigh Laura Pyecroft and Robert Keith Hastie II.