N.S. has new town councilor
Bartimioli is sworn in as replacement council member
NORTH SMITHFIELD – With former Town Councilman Daniel C. Halloran in their thoughts, his four council peers on Monday unanimously named Terri Bartomioli, a local businesswoman and past member of the Budget Committee, to fill out his unexpired term.
Bartomioli, of 1 Taylor Drive, was sworn in by Town Administrator Gary Ezovski to the panel immediately following the council action and sat down to begin her role as a member of the panel as the council turned to the next item of business.
Watching from the sidelines, her husband said he was very proud of Bartomioli.
“I think it is great. She has been a volunteer for the town for years, and I think it is good for her,” he said.
Bartomioli and her husband own North Smithfield Fence on Great Road and she serves as the company’s president. They had previously owned Sutherland Sheet Metal & Welding Co. in Woonsocket, and the Endicott College graduate has also worked as a teacher assistant substitute for both the Woonsocket and North Smithfield school departments.
She most recently has served the town on its Charter Review Commission and has also been a team member of the North Smithfield School Department’s Strategic Plan Committee from 2011 to 2016 and served on the town’s juvenile hearing board from 1997 to 2002, two years as chair.
Bartomioli served on the Budget Committee from 2010 to 2012. She and her husband have two grown children, Michael and Danielle, and she also participated in parent organizations school activities while they were in school.
Before the council took up nominations to fill Halloran’s unexpired term, running to Dec. 1, 2018, the panel had voted to accept his resignation due to illness and then offered him their well wishes as he and his family work to overcome his health setback.
Halloran, 76, a past member and president of the council, was elected to a new term with the current council in November of 2016.
Beauregard, the council president, said he did not know Halloran before the two were elected but quickly found him to be a great help to a new member of the panel.
“Dan has been someone that I looked up to and he would give me advice,” Beauregard said. Halloran would even pipe up with some important observation while Beauregard was running a meet- ing, letting him know what he might have missed in a half whisper.
Councilwoman Claire O’Hara noted that she and Halloran “go a way back” and told how she had not only had his daughters as a local teacher before she retired but also his grandson.
“He was there for his family and he was there for his town,” O’Hara said. “And if there was anyone in town that needed someone, he was there for them, too,” she said.
Councilman Paul Zwolenski also recalled working with Halloran on various town issues over the years and took a moment to note the role his wife Muriel had also played in his long service to the town. “Behind every good man,” he while referring to the well known adage, “is a good woman,” he said. “The Hallorans are great family that have contributed to the town for decades,” he said.
And the fourth member of the panel, Thomas McGee, who has also know Halloran for years, took a lighter tone while offering that Halloran was fighting a bout with a challenging foe but also that he expected him to come through it.
Halloran, as McGee pointed, was never afraid to note his views, and of course he would “always agree with him.” He loved to tell his fellow council members and anyone else listening his well-tailored jokes and certainly didn’t sell himself short, according to McGee. “He’d be the first to tell you he’s a hand- some guy,” McGee said.
It will take a lot to fill Halloran’s place on the council, McGee said, and noted the panel members already miss him. “But I know you are going to get better and I will see you soon,” McGee concluded.
As the panel moved into considering a replacement for Halloran’s seat, McGee nominated Bartomioli for the post with O’Hara granting the second.
Zwolenski next offered that while he was well-aware of Bartomioli’ s many contributions to the town, he also held a different view of the replacement process and suggested it should be the next top vote getter in the past election picked and then the next after that if the first chose not to accept.
“The first would be Mr. Lucien Benoit and if he refused the next would be Michael Clifford,” Zwolenski said while noting the next two candidates who did not win a seat on the five-member panel.
Beauregard noted that Zwolenski could only nominate one person for consideration and Zwolenski in turn named Benoit as his nomination choice.
The motion failed for a lack of a second and the panel then voted unanimously to appoint Bartomioli to Halloran’s seat.
McGee said that while the council had to pick someone to fill Halloran’s seat, “I hope Dan is happy with our pick. I hope he likes Terri.”