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Date: 6/14/2023
LONGMEADOW — A controversial School Committee election ended with the re-election of incumbent Nicole Choiniere and the election of Michaela Fitzgerald and write-in candidate Adam Rosenblum.
“I’ve had a lot of support from people who came out today,” said Fitzgerald. “I think a lot of people care about the schools and came out to support them.”
The unofficial results show Choiniere won a second three-year term on the School Committee with 1,417 votes, while 1,490 people voted for Fitzgerald.
Kency Gilet was also listed on the ballot and 327 people cast their ballot for him. Rosenblum received 1,215 votes to best Gilet for the final seat on the committee.
“The community outpouring is beyond my wildest dreams,” said Rosenblum, who handed out 1,500 stickers with his name and address for people to adhere to their ballots. “Education is a very strong core value in our family,” he said.
Several residents, upset by comments Gilet has made regarding allowing school personnel to be armed, including in a May 24, 2018 letter to the editor in The Reminder, began a push in the final weeks before the election to promote Rosenblum as an alternative candidate. Rosenblum previously told Reminder Publishing that he ran because he wanted “to give Longmeadow a choice on June 13 so that three candidates don’t automatically win three seats.”
Gilet said he felt good about his campaign. “We ran a positive campaign,” he said. “We brought to light the issue of mental health in schools, and that was my main reason for running. Mental wellbeing has been decreasing.”
There was a total of 1,820 votes cast, about 14.6% of the eligible electorate. A steady stream of voters flowed in and out of the Community House doors throughout the day, with nearly 200 votes cast between 5 and 6 p.m. alone.
“I’m thrilled with the number of people who came out,” Choiniere said. “It’s always nice to have a really involved election.”
In other races, Vineeth Hemavathi won a full term on the Select Board with 1,384 people voting for him. He was challenged by Walter Gunn, who received 328 votes. The contest was a rematch between Hemavathi and Gunn, who had both run to fill a vacant seat on the Select Board in a March special election.
Sanjiv Reejhsinghani and Robert Bryant Miller both ran write-in campaigns for the Planning Board. Miller received 418 votes to Reejhsinghani's 31. Town Clerk Timothy Donnelly said voters wrote-in more than 50 individual names for this position.
One of the wardens told Reminder Publishing that some of the stickers used by write-in candidate supporters had become detached from ballots and there was no way to know to which ballot they had been affixed. However, she said there were not enough loose stickers to change the outcome of any race.