NAHANT — 314 residents voted to reelect seven incumbent city officials and elect two new candidates Saturday evening in this year’s entirely uncontested Town Election.
Board of Selectmen Chair Eugene Canty, who received 240 votes, Assessor Kathryn Sherber (283 votes), and School Committee members Liana Bryanos-Deloid (247 votes) and Patty Karras (231 votes) will remain in office for additional three-year terms.
Town Moderator David Conlin, who received 269 votes, Town Clerk Diane Dunfee (283 votes), and Contable Robert Scanlan Jr. (225 votes) will serve additional one-year terms.
Alongside the seven reelected candidates, voters elected two newcomers. United States Air Force veteran Dana Sheehan brought in 99 votes after he ran an unopposed write-in campaign for a five-year seat on the Housing Authority. Nahant resident Linda Jenkins received 272 votes in her uncontested run for an open seat on the Library Board of Trustees.
Sheehan said he decided to run because he wanted to work to expand affordable housing for veterans and seniors in Nahant.
“I’m a veteran and I want to support veterans’ issues and senior citizens’ issues and with the housing authority, I could do that,” Sheehan said. “I’ll have to look at the housing inventory, check the budget, see what the other authority members have in their plans, but I’m excited to see what we can achieve.”
Canty also listed housing expansion as one of his top priorities for his 2023-24 term on the Board of Selectmen. He said he looked forward to helping the town complete projects such as the Coast Guard housing project, expansions of short-term rental units and accessory dwelling units, and securing MBTA funding for affordable housing.
“We need to have 10 percent affordable housing. We’re at right now, probably four percent. With 1,500 residences in town, we’ve got about 40 that are affordable. We’ll be looking at increasing that with land opportunities,” Canty said.
Dunfee, who was first elected in 2020, said that she’d like to continue her work updating and improving the town’s voting system ahead of 2024’s local annual elections, state primary, presidential primary, and presidential election.
Although this year’s Town Election yielded a slightly greater voter turnout than last year, when residents only cast 292 ballots, Dunfee said that election night was, for the most part, “uneventful.” She added that she enjoyed serving Nahant residents as Town Clerk, and looked forward to the busy election cycle ahead.
“It’s going to be a very busy year with all the changes in elections, you know, mail-in ballots, early voting, and they just came out with a way for handicap voting,” Dunfee said. “ I really enjoy this position, I really like working with the people of Nahant — they’re great people.” Dunfee said.
Canty said the town’s work to educate the public on aggressive coyotes, plans for coastal hazard mitigation, open space planning, and ability to maintain strong financial discipline was emblematic of all departments’ strengths.
“We’ve got a great group, and it puts me in a position where I want to stay and finish up some of these projects with them,” Canty said. “For a small town, it’s been very active the last couple of years, and I think we’re going to see the same thing over the next year or two.”
