RICHMOND — Residents elected five candidates to the inaugural Richmond school committee Tuesday after agreeing to withdraw from Regional School Unit 2 in November.
Voters also overwhelmingly approved $40,000 for the start-up costs for the district, with 221 in favor and 37 opposed, according to preliminary results.
The $40,000 will cover the cost of the school district’s consultant, Jack Turcott, and the creation of a website for the district. Turcott is to be paid $90 per hour and the website’s estimated cost is around $13,000.
As for the school committee, Amanda McDaniel and Nicole Tuttle won the two available three-year seats, with 202 and 150 votes, respectively. Robert Allen did not gain a spot on the board, but was close behind Tuttle with 142 votes.
Liana Knight and write-in candidate John Pratt were both elected to two-year terms. Knight ran unopposed and received 242 votes and Pratt had the majority of write-in votes, with a total of 45.
Russ Hughes won the only one-year term spot with 143 votes. He ran against Mary Webster, who received 117 votes.
McDaniel, Tuttle, Knight, Pratt and Hughes will attend the first school committee meeting Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the town hall, which also will be streamed on the town website. During the meeting, officials plan to go over the basics of running a school board — such as how the meetings are structured and the duties of the school committee members — and begin the budget discussion.
McDaniel, Knight and Hughes also serve on the RSU 2 board and will continue those roles until June 30. McDaniel and Knight were on the town’s transition committee that helped handle some of the logistics until the full school committee could be elected.
A total of 272 voters turned out for Tuesday’s special election.
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