Tisbury voters elected a new selectman and gave a final, resounding stamp of approval to the bill to create a Martha’s Vineyard Housing Bank in a quiet town election Tuesday that saw low turnout.
Just 552 of the town’s 3,710 voters cast ballots.
“I’m calling this a steady-slow,” town clerk Hillary Conklin said, noting that the ballot held no contested races.
John Cahill, a newcomer to the select board, was elected without contest to a three-year term to fill the seat of Jeff Kristal, who did not run for re-election.
Voters approved the Islanide housing bank 373-158.
The election’s one colorful moment came late in the day, when voter Jamie Douglas arrived to cast his ballot in full Scottish bagpiping attire with kilt and sporran.
A $750,000 Proposition 2 1/2 override question passed 432-113, and a nonbinding ballot question opposing the discharge of radioactive wastewater from the closed Pilgrim nuclear plant in Plymouth was overwhelmingly approved, 492-27.
The election came more than a month after the April 12 annual town meeting due to a series of complications arising from the Tisbury School reconstruction project, Ms. Conklin said.
Uncertainty over whether the school gymnasium would be available for the town meeting led the town to initially book the Performing Arts Center at the high school in Oak Bluffs for a late April meeting. But as legislative approval for the change of venue languished on Beacon Hill — where it remains unaddressed, Ms. Conklin said — the school reconstruction schedule changed and the gym became available for a mid-April meeting.
Only once that meeting was set and published could the nomination process for town offices legally begin, Ms. Conklin said, leading to the extended delay between town meeting and town election.
