DANVERS — Voters will decide contested races for selectmen, School Committee and library trustees in the May 1 Town Election.
Two seats are up for election on the Board of Selectmen, and incumbents Bill Clark and Gardner Trask are facing a challenge from Richard Bettencourt Jr.
Bettencourt has lived in town for more than six years and is a managing partner in a family-owned mortgage company, managing a branch on Maple Street.
Clark runs the family-owned Clark Farm on Hobart Street. He's a retired civics and television production teacher at Danvers High.
Trask works as a software project manager, serves on the board of Danvers Family Festival, is a member of the River Committee and is chairman of the Affordable Housing Committee.
Both Clark and Trask are seeking a third term on the board.
For School Committee, there's a four-way race for two seats. Incumbent Connie Pawlak, a retired principal of a Concord middle school and a former assistant principal at Hamilton-Wenham Regional High, is running for re-election. But incumbent Bill Bates has decided not to run again, so there will be at least one new face on the school board.
Vying for it are Manuel Lopes, David Thomson and Alan Vervaeke. Lopes, an assistant principal at Manchester High School West in New Hampshire, has also worked as a math teacher, a school technology director and an assistant principal at Chelsea High.
Thomson, a Danvers native, is the owner of Thomson Communications, a public relations firm in Middleton. He sits on the board of the Danvers YMCA and youth soccer, he said.
Alan Vervaeke, an applications database administrator, is co-chairman of the Special Education Parent Advisory Committee and a Town Meeting member. He previously served as a member of the Groton-Dunstable Regional School Committee.
Also on the ballot
Moderator. Patricia Fraizer is running for another term as town moderator, a post she has held since 2002.
Library trustee. Three seats on the Board of Library Trustees are up for election, and all three incumbents — Mary Beth Verry, Dana Michael Hagan and Frank Herschede — are running for re-election. Challengers are Glenn Dagley, a Town Meeting member, and Clarence Lyons III, a funeral director at C.R. Lyons and Sons and chairman of the Downtown Improvement Committee.
Housing Authority. Wayne Eisenhauer is running unopposed for a five-year term.
Town Meeting. Because of redistricting due to the 2010 U.S. Census, every Town Meeting member is up for re-election, as the number of members in each district expands from 15 to 18.
The last day to register to vote in the election is April 11.
Staff writer Ethan Forman can be reached at 978-338-2673, by email at eforman@salemnews.com or on Twitter @DanverSalemNews.
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