By Dakota Antelman — [email protected]
Election day is almost here.
Office-seekers are making their final stops of a hard-fought campaign season, and voters are getting ready to make their choices.
This year’s Select Board race pits board chair Mary Hartman against Elizabeth Akehurst-Moore, Paul Boehm, and Joe Laurin for two seats. Current board member Terri Ackerman is not seeking re-election.
Akehurst-Moore owns several local businesses and has served on a variety of town committees. Boehm, a retired environmental scientist, has also served on multiple panels. Laurin, a consultant, is making his second bid for a Select Board seat after placing fourth in last year’s race.
For School Committee, Alexa Anderson, Sandeep Pisharody, and Michael Williams are vying for two seats. Anderson, an incumbent seeking re-election, has served on the panel since 2020, while member Cynthia Rainey is not running again.
Pisharody works at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and holds several local volunteer positions. Williams, a retired pediatric surgeon, was a prominent voice in the push to name Concord’s new middle school for Ellen Garrison.
Carmin Reiss is seeking a 10th term as Town Moderator. She is running unopposed and has said this will be her last term.
2025-Sample-BallotApparent alliances
Candidates launched their campaigns beginning late last year.
As lawn signs have proliferated, some residents have noted apparent alignments or affinities. Akehurst-Moore, Laurin, Anderson, and Pisharody’s signs often appear together. The same goes for Boehm, Hartman, and Williams.
The former group has held joint events; the latter has not. Candidates all denied running coordinated campaigns in interviews with The Concord Bridge.
Office-seekers ran a gantlet of forums, including one last month that broke League of Women Voters attendance records at the Town House.
Over the course of the campaign, redevelopment of the MCI-Concord prison property was a regular topic of discussion, as were spending, residential taxes, and calls for more commercial development.
Stakeholders also decried hurtful attacks, with some saying campaign trail criticism had turned bitterly personal and that they hoped for a more collegial post-election tone.
Tabs on turnout
Observers have their eye on voter turnout. Thirty-one percent of registered voters cast a ballot last spring, more than doubling the average turnout from recent years with contested elections.
Photo: Celeste Katz Marston/The Concord Bridge
As of March 27, five days before the vote-by-mail application deadline on April 1, Town Clerk Kaari Mai Tari said her office had mailed 1,568 ballots. Officials had processed 177 in-person absentee voters. Last year, the clerk’s office distributed 3,573 ballots and recorded 271 in-person absentee ballots.
As she shared the data, Tari said, “It’s hard to compare this year’s vote-by-mail activity with 2024,” a presidential election year. Uncertainties abound, including questions about how many ballots will be returned. (Fewer than half of voters who requested ballots in 2024 ultimately sent them back.)
‘The greatest gift’
Akehurst-Moore, Boehm, Laurin, and Williams shook hands with voters at a March 27 Concord Housing Authority meet-and-greet.
As the candidates mingled, Michelle Caulfield said she had not been paying close attention to the campaign — but was excited to learn more and called voting “the greatest gift that we’ve been given in this country.”
Other tenants echoed Caulfield’s civic spirit. “If you want to have some sort of say in your community, you have to [vote],” KK Nielsen told The Bridge.
In a tumultuous national climate, Nielsen said, local elections matter even more than usual.
“That’s basically all you have,” resident Bea Fousek said. “You don’t control the government or the town or anything. But you do control your personal vote.”
