By Dakota Antelman — [email protected]
In voting that returned a Select Board member to office and left a School Committee incumbent on the outs, Mary Hartman, Paul Boehm, Michael Williams, and Sandeep Pisharody emerged victorious in Tuesday’s unofficial municipal election results.
Williams, a retired pediatric surgeon, led the School Committee race with 2,769 votes and Pisharody, an MIT technology officer, secured the other open seat with 2,708 votes. Incumbent Alexa Anderson fell short with 2,456.
Hartman, the current Select Board chair and a retired finance manager, was the top finisher in the four-way, two-seat contest with 2,587 votes in uncertified results. Boehm, a retired environmental scientist, followed with 2,368, securing the seat now held by Terri Ackerman, who’s not seeking re-election.
Town moderator Carmin Reiss earned 3,814 votes in her uncontested race. She has said another one-year term — her tenth — would be her last.
A total of 4,805 ballots were cast in the unofficial count, representing 34% of eligible voters. That turnout bested last year’s 31% and is the highest for a Concord town election since 2016, when 52% of voters showed up for a local election that ran concurrently with the presidential primary.
Candidate reactions
At an election night event at the former National Guard Armory on Everett Street, Boehm said Concordians “voted for continuity, for stability, for incremental change, for creative thinking, and for experience.”
“Experience matters,” he said.
Hartman thanked supporters and acknowledged Select Board competitors Elizabeth Akehurst-Moore and Joe Laurin, who finished third and fourth. She said the two brought new voices into discussions of town issues.
“I heard those voices,” she said.
Hartman said Concord’s leaders need to sharpen their message and “broaden our communication strategy.” She said leaders also need to “correct some misinformation.”
“Let’s take this opportunity to recommit to this town that we are so fortunate to live in,” she said.
Williams charted a personal political journey that began with the effort to name Concord’s new middle school for Ellen Garrison, a Black Civil War-era educator and abolitionist who grew up in town.
“Each of the voters that made that little black oval for me [is] a gift to me; is a gift to our community from Ellen Garrison,” he told supporters. “Two hundred years on, she’s still giving.”
Pisharody arrived at the Armory after the uncertified results were in. In a later written statement, he congratulated the other winners and thanked Anderson for her “insight” and “dedication to our community.”
Addressing Williams individually, Pisharody said, “I hope we can work together — alongside our fellow committee members and the school administration — to keep our focus squarely on what matters: supporting our students, empowering our educators, and building on the strength of our schools to meet the future with confidence.”
In a Wednesday morning email, Akehurst-Moore told The Bridge she was “happy to have participated” in the election. “I learned a lot and, most importantly, met some great people,” she said.
Laurin congratulated the winners and said he’d continue to do what he could to help make Concord a “sustainably great town.”
Anderson did not respond to a Bridge inquiry.
‘You just made history’
The buzz at the Armory intensified in the moments before the candidates declared victory.
Williams addressed the crowd after campaign manager Joe Palumbo introduced him by saying, “You just made history.”
Town DEI Commission co-chair Rose Cratsley said her understanding is that Pisharody and Williams are the first people of color elected to the School Committee. “This is such a historic moment to celebrate and honor a pivotal moment in Concord’s history,” she said.
Williams, who dramatically outraised and outspent the rest of the field in his first bid for town office, grew tearful while speaking with a Bridge reporter about his win later in the evening.
“It is something special,” he said.
Alliances and acrimony
As the final voters cast their ballots after weeks of mail and absentee voting, candidates made the rounds of Concord’s three poll sites, braving rain, snow, wind, and unseasonably bitter cold.
The generally cordial eleventh hour of campaigning capped a pair of often fraught Select Board and School Committee races.
Akehurst-Moore, Laurin, Anderson, and Pisharody were one familiar bloc during the campaign. Hartman, Boehm, and Williams were another.
The apparent alliances were one of many points of contention throughout the season. Debate also swirled over the propriety of sitting board and committee members endorsing in races for seats on their own panels.
While Select Board member Cameron McKennitt threw his support behind Akehurst-Moore and Laurin, other incumbents didn’t publicly endorse for board seats.
In contrast, most of the sitting School Committee formally backed Anderson and Pisharody. Committee member Andrew Herchek went further and denounced Williams in the campaign’s final days, drawing criticism and accusations of mischaracterizations of an earlier incident.
As the campaign heated up, several candidates said they faced hurtful attacks or felt targeted by others’ tactics.
Anderson said passersby cursed at her as she and her family campaigned in Concord Center. Pisharody said things got “a little personal.” And Williams expressed concern about photos that showed his campaign signs had apparently been run over with a car.
‘Ready to get to work’
Pending certification of the results, incoming board and committee members will be seated after Town Meeting in June.
But first, candidates savored their apparent victories with supporters at Tuesday’s Armory event.
Pisharody, who had criticized the practice of so-called bullet voting and accused Williams supporters of promoting the strategy, shared a hearty hug with his presumptive future committee colleague.
“This election is just the beginning,” Pisharody told The Bridge. “I’m ready to get to work.”
View your uncertified election results here:
20250408_Unofficial_Election-Results
