The Town of Hamilton held its Annual Town Election (ATE) on Thursday, April 10, 2025. A total of 2,058 ballots were cast by residents, representing a 35.64% voter turnout from the Town’s 5,775 registered voters. These results remain unofficial until they are certified by the Town Clerk, which includes the counting of all write-in votes.
Voters were asked to weigh in on a debt exclusion question related to school infrastructure funding. It was the only question on the ballot and a major driver to the record high turnout in recent years:
“Shall the Town of Hamilton be allowed to exempt from the provisions of proposition two and one-half, so-called, the amounts required to pay the Town’s allocable share of the bond issued by the Hamilton-Wenham Regional School District for the purpose of paying costs of a new Cutler Elementary School at 237 Asbury St. Hamilton, MA, including the payment of all costs incidental or related thereto?”
The unofficial election results were as follows:
YES – 1,013 votes
NO – 1,000 votes
Blanks – 44
The measure appears to have passed in Hamilton by a margin of 13 votes.
In the Select Board race, voters were asked to choose two candidates for a three-year term. Thomas Brian Myers Jr., an incumbent, received the highest number of votes with 1,062, followed by Benjamin Galuza with 849 votes. This will be Galuza’s first term on the board.
For the position of Moderator, William Francis Bowler received 1,385 votes, while Christopher S. Campbell retained his seat on the Board of Assessors with 1,459 votes. Write-ins for these positions are pending. Any write-in with more than 5 votes received will be identified when the official results are published.
In the race for Hamilton-Wenham Library Trustee, Jane S. Kusel secured 1,476 votes for the one-year term.
In the Planning Board election, all three incumbents were re-elected and ran unopposed. The vote totals for each candidate were as follows:
• Emil Tuff Dahlquist (1,218 votes)
• Elizabeth L. Herr (1,264 votes)
• William Cody Wheaton (1,250 votes)
In the Hamilton-Wenham Regional School Committee race, voters selected up to three candidates. The three highest vote-getters were:
• David I. Frenkel (1,738)
• David Joseph Polito (1,721)
• Amy Leone Kunberger (1,683)
All three candidates were incumbents.
Yesterday’s ballot question followed the Annual Town Meeting (ATM) on Saturday, April 5, 2025, which drew over 950 residents. A central article at ATM proposed support of funding the proposed elementary school consolidation project. Under the Hamilton-Wenham Regional School District Agreement, the project required a two-part approval:
1. A two-thirds majority vote at Annual Town Meeting
2. A simple majority at the Annual Town Election
While the article received a plurality of support at ATM with 515 in favor and 377 opposed, it did not meet the two-thirds threshold and thus failed to pass at that venue.
Despite the loss at the Annual Town Meeting, the election ballot question, which requires a simple majority, appears to have passed pending final certification. The differing results between the two votes at the ATM and the ATE underscore the complexity surrounding the project. The results of the ATE mean the question could return to a special town meeting where it would once again need to pass a two-thirds majority.
The Town Clerk will finalize and certify all results in the coming days. Until that process is complete, the figures reported should be considered unofficial.
