From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today, town residents will head to the ballots to vote on local offices and zoning amendments, prior to the 7 p.m. Town Meeting in the Hanover High School gym.
Seven candidates are running for town positions at the Town Meeting. The Selectboard race is the only contested race, in which Evan Gerson ’27 is running against incumbent Athos Rassias for a three-year term.
A self-described “housing and transportation nerd,” Gerson’s policy goals for the Selectboard include encouraging high-density housing and making Hanover “bikeable and walkable,” he said during a May 7 candidate forum and information session hosted by Dartmouth Civics and the Rockefeller Center.
Rassias was unable to attend the forum. However, he wrote in a statement that was read during the forum he believes the Selectboard should represent as many of the Town’s citizens as possible.
“I do not have a platform of agenda items,” his statement read. “Indeed, the Selectboard should not be politicized for that is counterproductive and is an impediment to progress. In my mind, the role of the Selectboard is to listen to the town’s citizens’ concerns, understand our newly revised master plan and work within our constraints to move our collective goals forward.”
In remarks during the forum, Gerson pushed back on Rassias’s characterization of the town’s decision-making as apolitical.
“I believe that especially in the current times we’re in and when we have a housing crisis across the state of New Hampshire … we need to take action, and that action needs to be decisive,” Gerson said.
Etna Town Library trustee candidate Sharry Baker, supervisor of the checklist candidate Marcia Kelly, trustee of the trust funds candidate Betsy McClain, cemetery trustee candidate Jennifer Ross Taxman and town clerk candidate Tracy Walsh ’91 are all running unopposed. Baker, Kelly, McClain and Walsh participated in the May 7 forum.
Most of the positions on the ballot are apolitical — the town clerk writes the minutes for meetings and preserves town records, and the supervisor of the checklist maintains voter rolls, for example — and several candidates emphasized that their role at the forum was not to take positions on issues but to serve the town government.
Co-moderator Jackson Weinstein ’27 asked the candidates which ballot questions — which include several zoning-related questions — they were most interested in and how they planned to vote. Walsh answered that it was “not appropriate” for her to answer, while Kelly said she wouldn’t “make any comments tonight on particulars.”
When the candidates were asked why they were running, Kelly said she wants to make sure that Dartmouth students understand the voter registration process, as they make up a large part of the town’s population.
Baker, who is a long-time volunteer at the Etna Library, said she is running for a position on the library’s Board of Trustees to expand the library’s programs, especially for older adults who may have hearing or vision problems.
Several audience members asked candidates how new town infrastructure might support people with disabilities.
Gerson, a member of the Access Dartmouth student organization, said he has reached out to Town Manager Robert Houseman about accessibility issues several times and would make accessibility a key priority.
Walsh added that despite the town’s slow progress toward accessibility, there are “many conversations going on throughout the organization of the town of Hanover and at the College to try to make good change for both the students and the residents.
Audience member and Dartmouth Civics member Reece Sharp ’28 said she thought the event was a great opportunity to hear from the candidates and “get to know them.”
“We’re partnering with the student government, and there will be shuttles tomorrow for the election to get people to the polls,” Sharp said.
