MONTAGUE — Voters will head to the polls on Tuesday, May 19, for the town election, with a contested race for Selectboard and library trustees.
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with voting locations at the Montague Center Fire Station at 28 Old Sunderland Road for residents of Precinct 1, Franklin County Technical School at 82 Industrial Blvd. for Precincts 2, 3, 4 and 6, and the Gill-Montague Senior Center at 62 Fifth St. for Precinct 5.
The Selectboard race features Nathanael Card Schiffbauer and John Miles Snyder, who are looking to fill the spot vacated by Selectboard Chair Matthew Lord.
Card, 41, has been in the Pioneer Valley since 2023 after relocating from Michigan, and has lived in Montague for just over a year. He’s a senior resilience planner at Regenerative Design Group, based in Greenfield. Though he had wanted to run for elected office for some time, he said he decided it was time to run for Selectboard after learning that no one had pulled nomination papers for the open seat.
Snyder, 39, who is originally from Buffalo, New York, first came to Montague in 2019. He is the chief operating officer of 253 Farmacy on Millers Falls Road in Turners Falls. He said he decided to run for Selectboard after speaking to fellow residents and, seeing that there was an open spot, he felt compelled to serve.
The two Selectboard hopefuls discussed their experience and goals, should they be elected, during a candidates forum earlier this month.
As for the library trustees, there is a four-way race for three seats, each with three-year terms. These include incumbents James G. Martineau, Lydia Ievins and Miryam Vesset, and newcomer Cara Hins.
Hins said on Friday that she is open to being a write-in candidate for the two-year library trustees seat instead. That seat has no ballot candidates. Jake Goldman is an additional write-in candidate for the two-year term as well.
Other candidates include:
- Assessor, three-year term — Rebecca Jane Sabelawski, incumbent.
- Board of Health, three-year term — Michael Mark Nelson, incumbent.
- Moderator, one-year term — Elizabeth Margaret Irving.
- Parks & Recreation Commission, three-year term — Jeffrey C. Singleton.
- Soldiers memorial trustee, non-veteran, three-year term — Jeffrey C. Singleton.
- Gill-Montague Regional School District School Committee, Gill representative, three-year term — William C. Tomb, incumbent.
- Gill-Montague School Committee, Montague representatives, two seats for three-year terms — Clifford Charles Spatcher, incumbent, and Sue Ann Richardson.
Some seats have no ballot candidates and can be won by write-ins. These include a five-year term on the Montague Housing Authority and a veteran to serve as a soldiers memorial trustee for a three-year term.
Voters in each precinct will also be asked to elect Town Meeting members. A sample ballot for all six precincts can be found at montague-ma.gov/p/240/Montague-Town-Elections.
