PEABODY ― After a mild turnout at the city’s preliminary City Council election, Ward 4’s Julie Daigle and Ed Charest and Ward 5’s Joel Saslaw and Dave Gamache received the most votes during Tuesday’s preliminary election and will be on the ballot in November.
Matt Molk of Ward 5 and John Salisbury-Rowswell of Ward 4 have been eliminated.
Daigle won the Ward 4 primary with 349 votes, while incumbent Charest came second with 298.
“I’m excited about the results but have a lot of work left to reach out to other precincts for the general election,” Daigle said after the results came in at her watch party at Spare Time Tavern. “Today I felt a lot of positive vibes from the people I talked to.”
The race in Ward 5 was a much closer call, with Gamache winning with 331 votes, Saslaw coming in second with 262, and Molk finishing third with 240.
Gamache gathered his supporters for a watch party at Santarpio’s Pizza, where he thanked them for their hard work campaigning.
“For the amount of work we put in, this was justice,” Gamache said. “I look forward to continuing the campaigning process over the next six weeks.”
Gamache served for 24 years as councilor for Ward 5 before he took a break. Now that he is retiring from his full-time job, he hopes to devote his free time to the city.
“I’m feeling overly optimistic,” Gamache said.
Daigle worked for Peabody City Hall as its first business liaison before moving to the Chamber of Commerce, where she served as director. She said that she always felt she would come back to City Hall and hopes that this will be that time.
She added that she felt strange going into the polls and seeing her own name on the ballot.
“It’s my first time doing this so it was a little weird voting for myself,” Daigle said.
Saslaw, an eight-year veteran of City Council, told supporters on Facebook that he commended his Ward 5 opponents “for conducting issues-oriented campaigns grounded in civility.”
Charest, Ward 4’s incumbent councilor, is pursuing his third term.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” Charest said.
Thomas Paras and Raymond Melvin have won the primaries for Municipal Light Commissioner with 1384 and 933 votes respectively, knocking out Tracy Valletti, Robert Wheatley, Joel Brenner and Marybeth Mallia.
Polling stations saw little activity for Wards 4 and 5, only seeing a little over 800 and 700 voters respectively. Despite the small numbers, candidates felt excited to be in the community and see their supporters rallying them on.
They’ll reconvene, as will the city’s voters, on Nov. 2 for the general election.
Katelyn Sahagian can be reached at [email protected].
