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Date: 5/24/2022
HADLEY – Hadley’s town election on May 16 replaced two sitting members of the Select Board, including former Chair David J. Fill and member John C. Waskiewicz, who will be replaced by former Moderator Randy Izer and former Select Board member Molly Keegan.
Izer received 814 votes and Keegan ended with 759. Fill and Waskiewicz received 586 and 409 votes respectively. A total of 1,376 residents voted out of 3,846 eligible voters, good for a 35 percent turnout, up from 13 percent last year. The board elected Jane Nevinsmith to become the chair after she lost her original bid for the position to Fill last year.
Keegan previously served on the Select Board for two terms before stepping down in 2020. She has lived in Hadley for 23 years with her husband and children, and has also spent time serving on the Finance and School Committee for 15 of those years.
“Hadley is a wonderful community with a long history of people working together and neighbors helping neighbors,” Keegan said. “We have an amazing agricultural community and some of the most fertile and beautiful land in the commonwealth. I stepped away from the board in 2020 to make room for others to step in, feeling I was leaving the board in good hands. Over a two-year period the tenor of the board shifted dramatically with a display of negativity towards volunteers and those in the community that perhaps didn’t agree with the personal opinions of some board members. I want to restore a sense of fairness and appreciation for our volunteers and employees and get to work on a long-range plan to address pressing issues and do so in a very inclusive and thoughtful way.”
Replacing Izer as moderator is Kirk Whatley, who was Hadley’s moderator from 2002 to 2011. Whatley said he didn’t originally plan on running but realized nobody had taken out papers for the moderator position by the last day which is when he decided to enter.
“I didn’t campaign and had no lawn signs as I was uncontested for the seat,” Whatley said. “I just found out that I received 1,024 out of 1,375 voters that voted, that’s 74.5 percent of the possible votes. I’m extremely honored and humbled to have so many people put their trust in me to run a fair and open New England-style town meeting. I will do my utmost to live up to those expectations.”
The only other contested race on the ballot was for the School Committee. Christine L. Pipczynski narrowly won the spot with 663 votes to Tony Lyn Morelli’s 635.