Voters’ Guide to the 2024 Town Election

The town election will be held Tuesday, March 12, from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm at the Nottingham School. The lines at the polls are usually the shortest in mid-morning and mid-afternoon.

Town Ballot

School Ballot

The Board of Selectmen has published a voters’ guide to the town warrant articles. This guide gives the text of the warrant articles, whether they are recommended by the Budget Committee and Board of Selectmen, and the board’s commentary on the warrant articles. 

The Nottingham Community Newsletter has published candidate statements.

This year neither of the town’s political parties have endorsed any candidates or taken a position on any warrant articles. 

While most of the candidates on the ballot are running unopposed, and most of the warrant articles are uncontroversial and widely supported, there are a few races and warrant articles that are being contested, a few hotly so. 

Board of Selectmen

By far the most attention is going to the race for Selectman. Two positions are open. Three candidates are on the ballot and a fourth is running a write-in campaign. All of the candidates appear to have good chances of winning. Two of the candidates are notably controversial. 

Jaye Vilchock is running a write-in campaign in specific opposition to incumbents Ben Bartlett and Matt Shirland, who voted last year to fire him from his role as Fire Chief. Vilchock has filed a lawsuit against the Board of Selectmen to have his dismissal overturned. His case will be heard in Rockingham Superior Court in June. 

The decision to fire Vilchock and the handling of the process leading up to that decision are controversial. Also controversial has been Vilchock’s behavior since he was first put on paid administrative leave. Those who approve of Vilchock’s firing conclude that Vilchock should not be in any position of authority in town government. Those who disapprove see gross mishandling of the process and abuse of the Selectmen’s authority. Vilchock’s supporters want to see him elected to reform the board. However, even those sympathetic to the idea that reform is needed have concerns about whether Vilchock is the right candidate to achieve such reforms or whether this is the right time for Vilchock to do so, as electing him would put him on the board with people who voted to fire him, and to do so during a time in which he is directly involved in litigation against the town. Just last year the voters elected to office a candidate who had sued the town, but this came well after the conclusion of the candidate’s successful suit. 

Ben Bartlett is running for a third three-year term as Selectman. In 2015 he ran uncontested. In 2021 he was the top vote-getter in a three-way race for two positions. This time, clouds hang over his campaign.

Bartlett’s problems began when he took his seat in the state legislature, which he won in 2022. He chronically failed to show up in the legislature. In 139 votes he was there only once. He eventually resigned, citing poor health, but it turned out that the US Office of Special Counsel made him resign as part of their enforcement efforts of the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from running for partisan office. Prior to the election, Bartlett had not only not disclosed to the public that he was an employee of the Veterans Administration, he swore on his notarized affidavit of candidacy that he was not an employee of the federal government. This made regional and national news via MSN, Boston Globe, and NHPR, and included accusations by Rep. Matt Wilhelm in the Union Leader that the Speaker of the House was involved in a cover-up for Bartlett. 

Bartlett’s resignation caused the Town to hold two special elections to fill the position, the result of which caused the Republicans to lose the seat, with Democrat Hal Rafter winning in a landslide.

With regard to Bartlett’s performance as a Selectman, he has been criticized for his handling of the process leading up to the termination of the Fire Chief and Lieutenant, and for violating the board’s code of conduct for actions associated with his resignation from the legislature. He also had a large number of absences from board meetings in 2023.

Matt Shirland, who was appointed to the board to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of Tiler Eaton, is running for Selectman for a second time. Last year he lost by a margin of about 15%. Since taking his seat on the board, Shirland has been serving in the particularly difficult position of being the board’s liaison to the Fire Department. 

John Decker is running for his first time for Selectman. He has previously been elected several times to the Budget Committee, on which he has served for 15 years. 

Read the candidate interviews.

Budget Committee

Five candidates are vying for three three-year positions. Their candidate interviews for the Nottingham Blog are particularly worth reading, not only for how they differentiate the candidates, but also for the useful background information they contain about the town’s budgeting process and fiscal issues. 

Warrant Articles

You’ve likely seen signs around town saying to vote no on Warrant Article #2 and signs saying to vote yes to support the school. The vote-no signs are a bit ambiguous because both the town and school ballots have a Warrant Article #2, and in both cases the warrant articles are about the operating budget. The Budget Committee recommends the town operating budget to the voters by a narrow margin, but by a narrow margin recommends that the voters turn down the school operating budget, due to changes in that budget during the deliberative session. If the proposed operating budget is voted down this will trigger enactment of the default budget, which for both the town and the school would require less spending.

Town Warrant Article #6, proposing a large increase to the stipend for the Fire Chief is controversial, with the Budget Committee recommending against it. See the candidate interviews for Selectman for the candidates’ thoughts on this warrant article and the voters’ guide produced by the board explaining why the board put this warrant article on the ballot.

Warrant Article #12 for $600k of road improvements was narrowly recommended by the Budget Committee. See this article for more details about the proposal.