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Date: 5/17/2023
SOUTHWICK — When Diane Gale ran for the open seat on the Select Board, culminating in her win last week over incumbent Russell Fox, on many pieces of her campaign’s mailings was the image of a feather.
The feather, she said after edging out Fox by 35 votes, was a symbol of how she intends to serve the town — with the highest honor.
“I am going to serve them with the highest honor. They will never have to doubt that, and that I hold the people of Southwick with the highest honor,” Gale said, who has spent most of her life in Southwick, is a graduate of its high school, earned a degree from Holyoke Community College, and was just a few credits shy of earning a degree from Westfield State University.
A relative newcomer to town politics, outside of her active opposition to the proposal by Carvana in 2021 to build a used-car processing facility at the intersection of College Highway and Tannery Road, she had never served on a town board or committee. On the campaign trail, she embraced that status — saying repeatedly she was “not a politician” — while highlighting her many years crunching numbers in the private sector, retiring after serving 17 years as the chief financial officer for a Connecticut-based art supplies retailer and manufacturer.
Fox’s campaign made his experience in town government, and her lack of it, as the primary message during his reelection campaign. Fox, who has spent over two-thirds of his life serving in various positions in town, including 28 years as a Select Board member, touted his extensive network of personal contacts he had made during those years and a deep knowledge of the inner workings of the town.
However, when the polls closed on May 9, Gale had gotten 850 votes to Fox’s 815.
“It was a pretty tight race, and it showed the people who wanted change came out and voted. They wanted their voices heard, and they did it. They put their vote to their voice … I’m grateful to them,” Gale said the next day.
Slated to be sworn in during Town Meeting on May 16, after Reminder Publishing’s deadline, Gale said her first order of business will be understanding the town’s budget. She said before being elected, she wanted to learn about the budget from the inside.
“I need to understand all the components of the budget,” she said before the election, adding that she is planning on going back two to three years. She will also be tackling the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District budget
Of the 7,304 registered voters in town, 22.9% turned out to cast ballots for a full slate of open board and commission seats, although the Gale-Fox contest was the only contested race. Also elected or re-elected, with no opponents, were:
In the Select Board race, neither candidate won a majority of the town’s three precincts. Fox won Precinct 1, the western third of town, by 18 votes, taking 324 votes to Gale’s 306. In Precinct 2, the Congamond Lake area and adjoining roads, the two tied, with each getting 239 votes. Precinct 3 was the decider, with Gale picking up 305 votes to Fox’s 252, a margin of 53 in that precinct covering the northeastern third of town.