One-third of the board goes to women for third time

When the new Board of Aldermen is seated in January, five of the 15 members will be women, a stark contrast from two years ago, when Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire was elected to a then all-male board.

However, this isn’t the first time five women have served on the city’s chief governing board, as was incorrectly reported Thursday in The Telegraph.

In 1994-95, Alderman-at-Large Joyce L. Arel was board president and Alderman-at-Large Claire M. McGrath was vice president. Also serving were Alderman-at-Large Katherine E. Hersh, Ward 2 Alderman Tracy S. Hatch and Ward 8 Alderman Maureen Lane Lemieux.

In 1992-93, there were also five women on the board: Arel, who served as vice president; Hersh; Hatch; McGrath, then representing Ward 5; and Ward 1 Alderman Ann T. Ackerman.

The Board of Aldermen that will take office in 2010 will include Wilshire, Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly, Ward 1 Alderman Kathy Vitale, Ward 3 Alderman Diane Sheehan and Ward 8 Alderman Mary Ann Melizza-Golja. They will join a city government headed by Donnalee Lozeau, who was elected in 2007 as the city’s first woman mayor.

Weird math

When the results were announced Tuesday night for the Nashua city election, we here at The Telegraph did what we always do: printed the percentage of votes won by each candidate. That’s easy to do, right? Yes, except that some races had more than one winner, which makes it more complicated and resulted in percentages that were mathematically accurate, but meaningless.

Consider the race for alderman-at-large. Four people ran for three seats, meaning that every voter was supposed to put a check next to three names.

A total of 15,950 “checks” were placed for the four hopefuls combined.

If each voter in the ballot box checked three names, that means 5,316 2⁄3 people voted for alderman-at-large. (We at The Telegraph really want to interview the two-thirds-of-a-voter!)

This weird result, as you probably realize, means some people voted for only one or two candidates, leaving the other choices blank. In other words, more than 5,316 people voted in the race.

But how many more? A total of 6,961 ballots were cast in the city Tuesday, but there’s no easy way to tell how many cast a vote in the alderman-at-large race short of sitting down and going through all ballots and counting.

As a result, there’s no way to give percentages for the candidates. David Deane, for example, led the race with 4,726 votes. If 5,316 2⁄3 people really did vote in the race – which seems, shall we say, unlikely – then 89 percent of voters supported him.

On the other hand, a total of 6,961 people cast a ballot in Nashua on Tuesday. If all of them voted for at least one alderman-at-large candidate, then Deane got the backing of just 68 percent.

The chances are that some people didn’t cast any vote at all in the race because they had no opinion, but we don’t know for sure – which means Deane’s percentage of support was somewhere between 68 percent and 89 percent, but we don’t know where it is exactly.

We do know that it isn’t the percentage printed in Wednesday’s Telegraph.

Those printed figures gave the percentage of the 15,950 overall “checks” received to each candidate – 30 percent of them were Deane’s. This was numerically accurate but doesn’t translate into anything about voters’ preference.

Who says math is dull?

A winning guess in defeat

Alderman David MacLaughlin knew he would lose re-election because he didn’t have his name placed on the ballot.

He was serving a prison sentence in Massachusetts for a third drunken-driving offense and believed he couldn’t have campaigned effectively while incarcerated.

The Ward 8 alderman was released from prison Oct. 31, but with three days remaining before Tuesday’s election, he didn’t have enough time to do anything. MacLaughlin said he didn’t urge voters to make him a write-in candidate, but had heard some residents would scribble his name on the ballot.

He guessed 40 people would do so. After the ballots were counted, 42 people made MacLaughlin their write-in candidate.

Few answers

There are few answers about why a junior varsity coach was removed from his position.

At a Board of Education meeting two weeks ago, members approved the discharge of Marc Loiselle, the boys JV soccer coach at Nashua High School South.

The personnel recommendation was included among a list of several actions taken that evening.

Superintendent Mark Conrad later confirmed that Loiselle was involuntarily removed from the position, but said he couldn’t comment further because it was a personnel matter.

South Principal Jennifer Seusing also declined to comment.

Board member Sandra Ziehm said the board hadn’t discussed any issues regarding Loiselle.

She said she hadn’t even noticed that he was being discharged, as opposed to simply resigning.

Nashua . . . From the Inside was compiled by staff writers David Brooks, Albert McKeon and Michael Brindley.