Photo: Adam Dash at Town Hall on Tuesday
In the course of his campaign for Town Moderator, Adam Dash knocked nonstop on the doors of 3,000 homes in blizzards, rain, and cold resulting in frosebitten fingers. He also slipped on the ice slicing off the tip of a non-frostbitten finger, was bitten on the knee by a dog, and once a wild turkey attacked him.
And on Election Day, Tuesday, April 7, Dash was drenched in the early spring snow shower and resulting rain forcing him to twice change his outfits. That was likely the reason the normally dapper Dash showed up Tuesday night at Belmont Town Hall to hear the election results in rather casual attire – an oversized scarf with a bold graphic design, ‘dad’ slim jeans, and a black unstructured jacket – topped by a knit cap replacing his trademark fedora.
In the end, Dash’s Odysseus-like journey through Belmont’s eight precincts ultimately resulted in electoral success as the former two-term member of the Select Board won the only contested town-wide race on the ballot, defeating one-term incumbent Michael Crowley, 2,090 to 1,770, for the moderator’s post.
Official results are located here.
In a hard fought contest, Dash took home 53.9 percent of the 3,989 voters who cast a ballot while Crowley received 45.8 percent, a closer delta than many anticipated.
“Running against an incumbent is always a big deal. I didn’t take that lightly,” said Dash in a crowded second floor of Town Hall where Belmont Media Center set up a live broadcast location. Looking back at the campaign, Dash said his election advantage was “people understand who I am. I’m not somebody who’s unknown. People have been complimentary to me during my run” of his long previous service in town, specifically serving six successful years on the Select Board.
“Voters saw that I will bring a great deal of experience from the executive side to the administrative side of town government,” he said. “That meant a great deal for many residents.”
“It makes me happy to work with the people again. I really like going out and meeting people one-on-one and just talking to people day after day, hour after hour, up the stairs, down the stairs. But I do enjoy it. I like hearing from people. And sometimes people would say, ‘Oh, have you ever thought about this?’ And I pulled my phone and type it in? No, I hadn’t, but I will now, and so I got a whole long list of ideas from people that I’m gonna have to start sifting through tomorrow and deciding what to do with them.”
Also attending the results reading at Town Hall was Carol Berberian, who became a Belmont Select Board Member when the polls officially closed at 8 p.m. as she ran unopposed to replace Elizabeth Dionne on the board.
“I am very excited about tonight. It’s been an interesting journey being in an uncontested race. I was very fortunate to have a lot of support from many different people in the community early on and that has really inspired me to connect with other people.”
Berberian said her connections as a life-long resident and her experience with the town’s zoning bylaws – as a member of the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals – will be useful in crafting regulations that will “make it easier to open businesses in town and continue to have our existing businesses to thrive, while welcoming new development that preserved the character of the community and bring some much needed additional revenue.”
Both Amy Zuccarello and Jung Yueh were re-elected unopposed to the School Committee.
Town Meeting Election Results
Only three of Belmont’s eight precincts had contested races, with more than 12 candidates. The most interesting outcome came from Precinct 2 where five new members were elected on Tuesday. These include former Belmont Police Chief Richard McLaughlin, long-time Belmont High hockey coach Dante ‘Muzzy’ Muzzioli, Linda Nickens, Laurie Schenkel and Alice Kaanta. And only one vote prevented half the precinct being flipped as incumbent Peter Magni’s 254 votes just beat out Amy Trotsky’s 253 for the final seat. Incumbent David Zipkin finished 14th.
Running opposite to 2, Precinct 6 re-elected the 12 incumbents with a pair of non-incumbent candidates missing out, including the former Planning Board chair and ZBA member Jeffrey Birenbaum.
Precinct 8 candidate Meenal Bagla, known for her involvement in PTA leadership positions, impressed by placing second with 354 votes, only topped by Angus Abercrombie (409 votes) in Precinct 8.
Topping the vote tally throughout town was Dash (Precinct 1) with 419 votes followed by Precinct 6 Elizabeth Gibson (415 votes) and Abercrombie.
On the other end of the ballot counting spectrum, both Scott Brinker and Deepak Garg needed just 10 write-in votes to secure three-year terms on Town Meeting representing Precinct 7.