Somers Board of Selectmen Remains Intact

Incumbent First Selectman Lisa Pellegrini held off challengers Bob Pettee and Patrice Carson in the Tuesday election.

Pellegrini received 1,317 votes while Pettee received 598 and Carson 197.

“I’m honored,” Pellegrini said. “I’m honored and thrilled and can’t wait to get back to work tomorrow.”

It was a pretty good showing for unaffiliated candidate Bob Pettee, who has a positive attitude.

“We still won, I feel,” he said. “Even though we didn’t win the election, we’re still going to be here.”

In the three-way race for the Board of Selectman, Democrat Kathy Devlin and Republican Bud Knorr were also re-elected. Devlin received 1,271 votes and Knorr 1,075. Unaffiliated candidate Doug Stebbins was the odd man out with 1,043 votes.

“Very close, only 32 votes,” Stebbins said.

Somers saw 2,091 - or 34.2 percent - of the 6,102 registered voters come through the polls. This is much lower than 2009's total of approximately 55 percent.

Resident Ann St. Jarre said that she always feels it’s important to vote.

“I have a daughter who is 16 and I just want to teach her to be a good citizen,” she said. “So many people complain about how things and don’t want to do anything to change it.”

The recent storm and power outages may have kept voters from the polls, and may have also influenced how people voted. St. Jarre said that isn’t the case for her.

“We just got our power back today,” she said. “I’m not blaming anybody. I think it’s a miracle that we flip that switch every day and get power. Why blame anybody? They’re doing their best.”