Bik, Rivet win seats in Blackstone

BLACKSTONE – Annual town election voters Monday re-elected Margaret Bik and elected Gerald P. Rivet to the two three-year seats on the Board of Selectmen, according to unofficial election results released by the town clerk’s office.

Approximately 16 percent of the town’s 5,938 registered voters turned out at the polls, which Town Clerk Claudette Dolinski says was a higher turnout than last year because of Monday’s seasonable weather and the fact there were three races on the ballot – including the six-candidate contest for selectmen.

In last year’s election, just 6 percent of registered voters turned out at the polls.

Rivet, a member of the Planning Board and the town’s former building inspector, was the high vote getter with 462 votes, followed by Bik who was reelected to her second threeyear term with 438 votes.

Coming in third with 341 votes was Stephen P. Goudreau, a member of the Finance Committee, followed by John Matthew Wozniak, a former selectmen and member of the Finance Committee, who garnered 256 votes. The two other candidates for selectmen, Catherine M. Norcross-Melson and John J. Parmentier collected 144 and 190 votes, respectively.

The contest for the three-year seat on the Board of Health was won by incumbent William Walsh, the town’s code enforcement officer, who handily defeated challenger Carol J. Perrault, a retired postal worker, by a vote of 584 to 371.

The third and final race on the ballot was a close contest for town moderator between Daniel T. Doyle and Mark N. Poirier. Poirier, a former Blackstone firefighter who now serves as deputy fire chief in Bellingham, narrlowly defeated Doyle, a local attorney and Blackstone’s town administrator from 1983 to 1990, by a vote of 476 to 452.

Rounding out the ballot was a four-year Blackstone seat on the Blackstone-Millville Regional School Committee; a four-year Millville seat on the Blackstone-Millville Regional School Committee; and a five-year seat on the Planning Board.

Unopposed incumbent Joseph Belrose, Jr. was running for the five-year seat on the Planning Board and unopposed candidate Caryn Downey Vernon was running for the four-year Millville seat on the Blackstone-Millville Regional School Committee.

Lastly, Jack R. Keefe was the unopposed candidate elected to the four-year Blackstone seat on the Blackstone-Millville Regional School Committee.

The results for those unopposed candidates were not available at press time because write-in ballots were still being counted.