The Sandwich Democratic Town Committee

Sandwich held its regular annual municipal elections yesterday, May 8th, and all of the candidates supported by the Sandwich Democratic Town Committee won their races. Although it is certainly too early to know for sure but the results and many comments heard at polling places suggest that voters may be thinking it’s time for a change. One particular political faction has dominated town elected and appointed positions for something on the order of the last 12 years.

Yesterday, Patrick Ellis garnered the most votes among three candidates for two Selectmen positions (1556) while Frank Pannorfi who has served on the Board for several years was re-elected with 1230 votes, a little less than 200 votes clear of third-place candidate Peter Beauchemin, a relative newcomer to standing for office. Mr. Pannorfi had mounted a strong campaign including a lot of money spent on signs, a mass postcard appeal for support, and a last minute robo-call operation on election day. Patrick is a long standing member of the SDTC.

Meanwhile, with less than two weeks to go before the municipal elections SDTC member and Café Chew co-owner Bob King decided to mount a write-in campaign to challenge Joe Vaudo in his re-election bid to the Planning committee. The SDTC and other Democrats rallied to support him and to mount the write-in campaign. A combination of those efforts, the incumbent’s recent troubles with the law, and unhappiness over his and other committee members’ attempts to make unpopular changes to zoning regulations in historic areas of the town led to Bob winning that election by a 2:1 margin. Bob is also a long-standing member of the SDTC.

Fellow SDTC members, Jim Dever and David Darling were also successful in their bids for a three-year term on the School Committee and a one-year unexpired term on the Planning board, respectfully.  All in all, it was a very good day for local Democrats. Next up — the race for State Representative which is beginning to get fired up and will involve the candidacy of Matt Terry to replace Republican Randy Hunt as the 5th Barnstable State Representative.