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Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect updated vote totals for each candidate the city released Thursday.
Kelly McKenney and John Linnehan have been elected to the Ellsworth School Board, according to the city’s official results.
The pair beat Karen Shea Arkin, Brittany Rumery and Christopher Walters in Tuesday’s election for school board.
The five-way race was Ellsworth’s first contested school board election in five years. The winners will join the school board at a time when Maine’s elected supervisory school bodies have become unusually politicized.
Incumbent McKenney got 1,879 votes and Linnehan brought in 1,561 votes. Arkin received 1,537 votes, Rumery got 1,514 votes and Walters secured 701 votes.
Each of the candidates focused much of their campaigning around how to balance student needs and fiscal responsibility.
The Hancock County Democratic Party endorsed McKenney, a real estate broker, and Rumery, a finance director at a Maine nonprofit.
McKenney has served on the board for three terms, and Walters, a firefighter, was appointed to the school system’s governing body in June after a former member resigned from her post. Both have stressed the importance of addressing long deferred building maintenance issues.
Linnehan, a longtime area businessman who has run several times for City Council and the state Legislature but has never held prior public office, and Arkin, who described herself as a conservative social worker, shared campaign signs. They each previously said they wanted to cut the school system’s $34.6 million budget, which accounts for more than 40% of city spending.