The Candidates’ Forums for the March 31 Annual Town Election are now available. There are separate programs for the three contested races: Select Board, the two-year seat on the Sudbury School Committee, and the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional District School Committee. A separate program featuring candidates in uncontested races is also available.
Voters can find on-demand links to each program in the LWV Voters’ Guide or at sudburytv.org. A cable subscription is not needed to view the programs on-demand on a computer or smartphone. The forum will run on SudburyTV’s cable channels, Comcast 22 and 1074 and Verizon 30 and 2130, during March. Viewers can find the SudburyTV cable broadcast schedule here.
All candidates in contested races participated in the Forum. The League received over 250 suggested forum questions from the community via email and U.S. mail.
The Select Board program features Radha Gargeya, Lisa Kouchakdjian, and Kevin Matthews, who are running for two available seats. Among the topics they covered were affordable housing, projected town budget deficits, vocational education, a warrant article to cut the Community Preservation Act surcharge, and their preferred liaison assignments.
Elizabeth Sues and Allison Vanderels are running for the two-year seat to fill a vacancy on the Sudbury School Committee, which covers grades PreK through 8. In their program, the topics covered included access to YouTube on school-issued devices, development of a gender identity policy, afterschool care, remote access to committee meetings, and the projected town budget deficit.
The three candidates running for the two seats on the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional District School Committee are Charles Morton, Eric Poch, and John Ryan. In their program, the topics covered included a bell-to-bell cellphone policy, the privacy of students’ preferred names and pronouns, a student question on the school’s core values, the regional agreement between the towns of Sudbury and Lincoln, and AP classes.
The candidates in uncontested races recorded brief statements describing the work of the board or committee and their interest in the office. Participating in this forum are Katina Fontes for Goodnow Library Trustee, Carol Bradford for Board of Health, Mara Huston for Park and Recreation Commission, Kirsten Roopenian for Planning Board, and Jessica McCready for the three-year seat on the Sudbury School Committee. Voters can view these statements by clicking on the candidate’s image in the Voters’ Guide or by viewing the program in its entirety via the Voters’ Guide, SudburyTV.org, or on cable.
“We hope voters will find our Voters’ Guide and Candidates’ Forum useful as they consider how to cast their vote,” said Nell Forgacs, LWV voter service chair. “We are grateful to the community for sending so many thoughtful questions for the candidates, and we encourage voters who still have questions to attend the League’s Meet the Candidates event Sunday, March 16, to ask the candidates directly.” The drop-in Meet the Candidates event will be in the Goodnow Library from 2 to 4 p.m.
The Annual Town Election is Monday, March 31. All precincts vote at the Fairbank Community Center, and polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. There is no in-person early voting for this election.
Mail ballots for the town election will be sent from the Town Clerk’s office starting the week of March 10. If you want to vote by mail, you need to apply for a mail ballot. Applications from 2024 have expired. You can find the application form here. Applications must be received in the clerk’s office by Monday, March 24, but it is advisable to apply as soon as possible to allow time for the ballot to be mailed to you and to return it. Details on voting by mail can be found here and on the Town Clerk’s website here.
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