VERGENNES — Three Vergennes City Council incumbents and two former aldermen filed petitions by Monday’s deadline, setting up a five-way race for three seats on the council in March.
On the Town Meeting Day ballot, incumbents Ziggy Comeau, Renny Perry and Lynn Donnelly will face challengers Peter Garon and former mayor Michael Daniels.
Comeau, a real estate broker, was first appointed to the board in 2005 and has won re-election ever since.
Perry served a half-dozen years as the Vergennes city manager, has served as city manager in two other states, and was elected as an alderman and mayor of Dover, N.H. He was elected to the council in 2012.
Donnelly, a real estate broker and former Panton selectwoman, was appointed to the city council in April to fill a vacancy created when Bill Benton, then on the council, was elected mayor this past March.
Garon, a state employee and Vergennes Area Rescue Squad veteran, was elected to the council in 2011 on his third try, but failed to win re-election this past March.
Daniels, a longtime member of the Vergennes Fire Department and also a state employee, served several years on the city council early this past decade before stepping down, and then returned to politics to serve six years as mayor, from 2007 to 2013.
The three top vote-getters in the race will each earn three-year terms.
There are no contested races elsewhere, and two positions are going begging: No one filed petitions for three-year openings on the city’s board of auditors or on the board of the Vergennes-Panton Water District.
Incumbent Vergennes Union Elementary School director Tara Brooks filed for another three-year term and is running unopposed, as is incumbent Vergennes Union High School director Christopher Cousino for a two-year term.