Greenfield select board incumbent Stephen Atherton Jr. was bucked from his seat during local elections on Tuesday.
Karen Day, who has lived in Greenfield for 46 years, snatched the seat from Atherton by a 23 vote margin. Day was able to pick up 117 votes to Atherton’s 94. A third candidate, Patricia LaPree, took home 42 votes.
Day has previously served on the town’s select board for nine years, according to a candidates profile she sent to the Ledger-Transcript last week.
A call and an email to Day wasn’t returned by deadline on Wednesday.
Greenfield residents were a little hesitant to talk about who they voted for in the selectmen’s race at the polls on Tuesday.
“We have to live with everybody,” Ron Lucas said as a reason to not share who he was voting for.
Lucas did say it was a tough decision. Lucas called Atherton “young and energetic.” But said he and Day are “allied in a lot of ways.”
His wife, Maggie Sauvain, was less reserved about who she had voted for in the contested race.
Sauvain said she taught Atherton when he was in high school.
“I like to see young blood coming in and taking an interest in the place where they grew up,” Sauvain said after she had cast her ballot.
Christine Souza, who was sitting on a bench in the Greenfield Meeting House waiting for her husband to vote, was also hesitant to share who she had voted for in the contested race.
She said the road leading up to her home was lined with signs leading up to the election.
“You go down my street and you see three for this one, and one for this one, and three for this one and one for that one,” she said of the signage.
Souza said she is all for the people who have invested their time into the town, but said she also wants to give newcomers a chance.
“I feel there needs to be a little more competition because you know when you have the same person all the time, sometimes things don’t change,” she said. “Not that I want to see a ton of change. I love that Greenfield is small, that there’s no huge businesses in it. Like I absolutely love that aspect of it. But I would like to see some new blood actually get a fighting chance.”
She said, “we’ll see what happens.”