WELLFLEET — Voters at the June 21 special town election passed all five ballot questions and elected write-in candidate Kathleen Bacon to the select board.
Bacon, a house painter and town resident for 30 years, will serve out the remaining two years of Helen Miranda Wilson’s term on the board. Wilson retired one year into her fourth term.
Bacon received 418 votes, besting Timothy Sayre, who got 225 votes, and Jude Ahern, who received 111 votes.
“I look forward to what I hope will be a very positive turnaround for the town,” Bacon said on Tuesday evening.
She has served one term before, from 2017 to 2020, during which, she said, she “felt completely unsupported by the former town administrator, Dan Hoort.”
Bacon recalled that Hoort wanted to use town land near the elementary school for a town hall annex. Bacon, a renter who described her housing situation as “unstable,” said she wanted that land to be used for affordable housing. Plans to construct 46 units of affordable housing at 95 Lawrence Road are now underway.
So are efforts to correct years of accounting errors. Town officials have said the books will soon be ready for review by the state Dept. of Revenue. In other words, Wellfleet appears headed into a positive chapter with a new town administrator, Rich Waldo, Bacon said.
Bacon said she is pleased to be “back at it again.”
The 784 voters — 25 percent of those registered — who turned out on June 21 also passed four overrides and a debt exclusion, which will raise town spending by $1.59 million. The overrides will permanently add $546 to the tax bill of a median-valued home.
The debt exclusion authorizes the town to borrow $2.2 million to install a long-overdue fire suppression system at the Wellfleet Elementary School. The vote was 642 to 135.
The four overrides will permanently raise the tax levy, while the debt exclusion raises town spending only for the life of the loan.
Question one, to appropriate $518,820 to fund school and town operating budgets, passed 574 to 209.
Question two, to increase the budget by $672,700 to replace and repair town equipment and buildings, fund special projects, and pay post-employment benefits for retired employees, passed 502 to 276.
Question three, to assess $186,759 more in property taxes to increase the police force by hiring two new officers, passed 486 to 291.
Question four, to bring in an additional $206,964 in taxes to expand the fire department by hiring two more firefighter/EMT/paramedics, passed 541 to 238.
