The Block Island Utility District (doing business as the Block Island Power Company) will have a couple of new faces on its Board of Commissioners. There are five seats on the board, with staggered terms, and three of them came up for election thisyear: Chair Barbara MacMullan, Treasurer Bill Penn, and Secretary Everett Shorey. Mary Jane Balser and Elliot Taubman arealso on the board, but not up for re-election.New candidates were Tom Risom, John Warfel, and Tim Dowling.The votes, cast by ratepayers, were due back by Sept. 30 at 4 p.m. and a count of the ballots took place on Friday, Oct. 1 at theoffice. No one running for office took part in the count, which was performed by three volunteers – Hilary Transue, Keith Stover,and Erin Petersen – and was overseen by Office Manager Tracy Fredericks and “observed” by The Block Island Times.
The counting was complicated a bit by the initial mailing of a ballot with a typo, necessitating the mailing of a second ballot. The second ballot asked people to throw out the first one, but by then, several ratepayers had already mailed them back in. Fredericks said she got many calls and assured people
