Meuse Sweeps To 7th Term on Shawsheen Tech School Board

What was predicted to be a close race for a seat on the Shawsheen Tech School Committee turned into a rout.

Incumbent Patricia Meuse swept all eight precincts, en route to a 1,605-982 win over challenger Rick O'Neill.

Meuse admitted afterward that she had not been expecting a landslide win and was nervouse about the outcome, even as the first results were announced.

"It was kind of nerve-racking," she said. "Even after we knew we had won the first six precincts, I kept saying, 'ok, but we need to win the other two.'"

The victory gives Meuse a seventh term on the Shawsheen Tech School Committee. But since first being elected in 1995, this was just the second time she had faced a challenger for re-election.

"To be honest, I kind of prefer the times when there isn't a challenger," she said with a laugh."I'm not a great campaigner. I had a lot of great people helping me out -- family and friends. This was really nerve-racking on all of us."

This race offered voters a clear choice. Meuse was running on her record and the accomplishments of Shawsheen Tech and its students. O'Neill ran on a theme that Shawsheen's admissions policy needed to be changed, as lower achieving students who needed to learn a trade, were being left behind.

With an extremely low voter turnout (just 13.1 percent), it's hard to determine if the result was an endorsement of Shawsheen's policies of Meuse personally.

Only 2,744 registered voters cast ballots. O'Neill feels that played a role in his loss.

"I think that this race, more than any of the others, was impacted by the low turnout," he said. O'Neill said with strong candidates such as Todd Johnson and Krissy Polimeno in the top-of-the-ballot races, many voters may have felt their votes wouldn't make a difference and stayed home.

In other contested races:

Incumbents Phil French and Christine Kinnon were re-elected to three-year terms on the Tewksbury Board of Health. Kinnon earned 1,678 votes, to 1,638 for French. Challenger James Killion fell short with 930 votes.

Raymond Barry was elected to a two-year term on the Board oh Health. He will be completing the term of Edward Sheehan, who resigned from the board earlier this year. Barry defeated Joseph Knight, 1,154-1,000 for the open seat.