MIDDLEBURY — Middlebury residents on Tuesday voted to return incumbent selectboard members Victor Nuovo and Susan Shashok to office, and also added Gary Baker to the fold.
Nuovo (613 tallies) and Shashok (520) were the top vote getters in a five-way race for two three-year seats. Finishing out of the running were former Selectman Don Keeler (461 votes), Eric Murray (272) and Brian Bauer (239).
Baker was unopposed in his run for a one-year term, the balance of a term vacated by former Selectwoman Janelle Ashley.
“I am gratified and pleased,” Nuovo said of his re-election. “I am looking forward to working on some interesting things coming up.”
Those things, Nuovo said, include the impending construction on the Middlebury firehouses, creation of the Business Development Fund (se related story), and determination of what to do with the deteriorating municipal office building at the intersection of College and South Main streets.
“I am pleased with the makeup of the board and I think we are going to have a good working group,” he said.
Shashok was appointed to the selectboard last fall after Ashley’s departure. She was pleased to have been elected to a three-year term by the public on Tuesday.
“I am very excited,” she said. “I look forward to continuing the work we have already started.”
That work, she said, will include monitoring flood mitigation efforts for the Middlebury River as it flows through her community of East Middlebury and “keeping an eye” on the Business Development Fund.
She wants to continue serving as the board’s liaison to the town’s Recreation Advisory and Memorial Sports Center boards.
John Flowers is at [email protected].