There are nine members of the Methuen City Council being sworn into office in January.
Three serve city wide (at-large) and six councilors represent the three districts within the city: two councilors from the East, Central, and West Districts each.
In the at-large city council race last month, two brothers swapped places on the school committee and city council as Councilor Nick DiZoglio was term limited off the council and topped the ticket in the school committee race while his brother, School Committeeman Ryan DiZoglio was termed out of his school committee seat and topped the ticket in the at-large council race.
Placing second At-Large was newcomer John Drew who is a plumber and tradesman, with the only At-Large incumbent returning being Jana Zanni Pesce coming in a very close third place.
Being edged out in this race was Wanda Santos and James Sarcione who lost by about 700 votes each, and incumbent Frank Surillo who placed last. Surillo was appointed by the council to fill the vacant seat left by D.J. Beauregard when he ascended to the mayor’s office a year ago after Mayor Neil Perry passed away.
DISTRICT CITY COUNCIL RACES
In the District Races, East End District Councilors Ron Marsan and Neily Soto both won decisive victories over challenger Ian Buckley while two newcomers were elected in the Central District.
Central voters chose Ela Maclaren as the first-place winner and Yanilda Santos as the second-place winner leaving losers Sharon Birchall and Louanne Santos in third and fourth place respectively.
As a side note Yanilda Santos is the third Dominican woman to be elected to the council with Neily Soto and Patricia Valley currently serving.
Methuen’s population is more than 54% Dominican.
VALLEY BEATS THE GOOD OLD BOYS
The West End City Council race was the only controversial race of the election season with incumbent Patricia Valley coming under heavy fire daily by political insiders, and her opponent Dan Shibilia who mocked her Spanish accent, told voters she was trying to “brown up Methuen” and “turn Methuen into Lawrence”, which is 70% Latino.
While dealing with constant attacks on her ethnicity, fired Methuen City Councilor Joel Faretra made outrageous accusations just a day before the election claiming she had been involved in voter fraud when in reality a campaign volunteer had helped a handful of voters fill out vote-by-mail applications and didn’t fill out a required disclosure form.
Disgraced Former Councilor Faretra
Faretra was the first ever Methuen City Councilor to be voted off the council by his colleagues a few months ago when an investigation by The Valley Patriot revealed that he had moved to Manchester N.H. and was still pretending to live at his old address in Methuen so he didn’t have to resign.
When all was said and done, voters elected former West End Councilor and Lawrence Police Officer Mike Simard in first place in the West End with 1,417 votes with Patricia Valley being reelected in second place with 1,107 votes, beating out loser, embattled School Committeeman Dan Shibilia who only had 796 votes.
At her victory party Patricia Valley told the Valley Patriot that she was really “sad” by how she was treated by the insiders saying, “the voters of Methuen were so nice to me and so accepting. I didn’t have any negative response or feedback on the campaign trail at all.”
“Methuen voters are really smart, and very engaged. It was only the insiders, the good-old-boys causing the problems and as sad as that made me feel, I am really grateful to the voters of the West End of Methuen for seeing through all the smoke and mirrors in the final days of the campaign. I’m looking forward to getting back to work for the taxpayers on Thursday after taking a day off to recover.” ◊