WESTERLO — Town officials in Westerlo hoped for a big turnout Tuesday that would ratify their plan to borrow $887,000 to renovate the former school building that now serves as the town hall.

They partly got their wish. The turnout was big. But the referendum to permit the borrowing was defeated. Unofficial returns Wednesday from the Albany County Board of Elections had the proposed borrowing getting the ok by 720 voters, but getting a thumbs-down from 792 residents.

It is the second time in two years that a capital projects referendum has been nixed by voters. In September 2015,  voters were asked  to permit the town to borrow $2.75 million to both redo the town hall and build a new highway garage. That proposal went down to defeat by a considerably wider margin — 341 to 162 — but with much many fewer voters.

Another earlier referendum had led to the purchase of the school building from the Berne-Knox-Westerlo School District.

Rachel Bledi, the Republican Commissioner at the Albany County Board of Elections, told The Enterprise that almost 100 absentee ballots have yet to be counted. But she pointed out that in order for the affirmative side to to overcome its 72-vote deficit.  all but a small number of almost 100 absentee ballots would have to be “yes” votes. “That looks unlikely,” she said.

The proposal won 47 percent of the 1,512 votes cast on the referendum question, but it wasn’t quite enough to let the town go ahead and do the top-to-bottom renovation that town officials said made the most sense. The town building committee — made up of the town board members and two residents and formed to shepherd the project through design and planning, and then to make the case to voters on its behalf —  has been working for  more than two years with Delaware Engineering to shape the project.

Prior to the referendum, the chairman of the building committee, Councilman Bill Bichteman had said some elements of the project — like replacing the building’s barely functioning heating system — would have to be completed even if the bond issue were not approved. Monies in the yet-to-be-approved 2017 budget are earmarked for such must-do’s.

In the weeks  before Tuesday’s vote, the committee campaigned for a “yes” vote by conducting tours of the town hall to help residents visualize what the renewed town hall would be like, but the tours were poorly attended. A flyer that made the case for “yes” was also distributed.

Entrenched and often angry opposition by residents, who accused town officials of not looking at enough options and of not getting enough public input, may have contributed to the proposal’s defeat.

Piecemeal renovation of the town hall is now their fallback position, town officials say.

Breakdown

Something else didn’t go according to plan on Election Day. The voting machine at town hall jammed and refused to accept any more paper ballots.

One voter concerned that paper ballots were no longer secured called The Enterprise.  Martin Duffy worried that unsecured ballots might be  altered, especially from a “no” vote on the referendum to a “yes” vote. “Old people tend to vote in the morning and they tend to be against the referendum,” he said.

Beldi   said problems with the 10-year-old machines — their life expectancy is only 7 years — are not uncommon. By midafternoon Election Day, the election board had delivered eight machines to polling places, including Westerlo, where machines had malfunctioned, she said.

She said further that, when a machine jams, the completed ballots are slid through a slot into the machine, which serves as a lock box until the ballots can be hand-counted later.

Appointed first, now elected

Also  on the ballot in Westerlo was an unopposed candidate for a town board seat, Joseph Boone. Unofficial results Wednesday showed he received  927 votes. Boone was appointed by the board in September to the seat left vacant by resigned member Theodore Lounsbury. Boone was then obliged to run for election to the seat to serve out the last year of Lounsbury’s unexpired term. He is enrolled in the Independence Party.

In neighboring Rensselaerville, another unopposed candidate, John Dolce, a Democrat, was elected to the town board with 522 votes. He had been appointed earlier this year to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of Robert Bolete, who was himself filling for councilman Kevin McGrath  who was elected in November of last year, but resigned just two months into his term.

Now that he has been elected to the seat, Dolce will serve out the three years left in McGrath’s term.