Melrose 2021 Election Set, But Suspense Mostly Gone Already

MELROSE, MA — Two years after a seismic political shake-up and one year after record turnout at the polls, it appears there will be decidedly less drama this Election Day.

The deadline for returning signatures to run for office passed Sept. 14, all but guaranteeing 11 City Council candidates to coast in uncontested races; All seven ward seats and four at-large seats are spoken for before the first ballot has been printed.

The only outstanding matter was whether Ward 7 Councilor Cory Thomas — who earlier in the year declared he would not run again but pulled papers for both his ward at-large just days before the deadline to submit signatures — would submit. He did not.

Ryan Williams now has a clear path to the Ward 7 seat, which he lost to Thomas by four votes two years ago.

Ward 1 Councilor John Tramontozzi had previously announced this will be his last term. Ward 2 Councilor Jeff McNaught pulled papers but had since opted against running again.

Manjula Karamcheti would take over for outgoing Tramontozzi and School Committee member John Obremski would succeed McNaught.

Incumbent at-large Councilors Chris Cinella, Jack Eccles, Leila Migliorelli and Maya Jamaleddine and Ward 3's Robb Stewart, Ward 4's Mark Garipay, Ward 5's Shawn MacMaster and Ward 6's Jen Grigoraitis are slated to return.

Related: Melrose Middle School Emerges As Preferred Fall Voting Location

In the School Committee, Jen McAndrew and Jen Razi-Thomas are running for re-election, and someone will need to replace Obremski. John Connelly and Dorie Withey are also running. Michelle Thomas, Cory’s wife, pulled papers but also failed to return signatures.

Without any compelling races on the ballot — in fact, just one of the 15 candidates is expected to be denied a position — interest and turnout is likely to drop dramatically from the last two Novembers.

"Generally speaking, I’d prefer competitive races for all offices, it just raises the engagement between the residents and those seeking public office and that’s a good thing," Board of Registrars of Voters member Eric Wildman told Patch in an email. "That having been said, 9 out of the 11 councilors were new in this past term and most of them ran very active campaigns two years ago."

In 2019 nine candidates were elected for the first time (including MacMaster, who was appointed by the then-Board of Aldermen to finish the previous term.) Jamaleddine quickly replaced Kate Lipper-Garabedian after the latter was elected state representative.

"Given the challenges that this new council faced over the past two years, I feel both individually and as a group, under the leadership of Presidents Grigoaritis and Cinella, the Councilors did a great job navigating some difficult issues during some pretty challenging times," Wildman continued. "Those two factors taken together a probable reasons for the lack of competition on for the City Council races."

Wildman noted similarities to 2011, when all but one ward City Council race and the School Committee went uncontested. The turnout that year was about 9.5 percent — a number he expects will be exceeded this year due to a citywide School Committee race.

In 2020 more than 84 percent of the city's voters turned out for the presidential election, which typically draw the highest number of voters.

Wildman said the city's elections office is still ready for people to vote, and is urging voters to take advantage of either early, mail-in or Election Day voting.

"While we might have turnout closer to 18% than 80%, residents will still have three ways to vote this fall and I encourage them to do so," he said.

Mike Carraggi can be reached at mike.carraggi@patch.com. Follow him on Twitter @PatchCarraggi and Instagram at Melrose Happening. Subscribe to Melrose Patch for free local news and alerts and like us on Facebook.