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Bristol County Commissioner John Mitchell of Fall River has won a fourth four-year term, and his fellow Democrat Julie Ruggiero of Somerset has won her first term in her first run for elective office.
In unofficial results for the three-way contest for two seats, Mitchell captured 43% of votes cast in the race, Ruggiero won 33%. Gregory DeMelo, an independent candidate who chairs the Taunton School Committee, won 23%. These figures reflect ballots marked for the candidates, not the total vote, which would include blank ballots.
The preliminary tally in four cities and 16 towns shows Mitchell with 122,815, Ruggiero with 92,694 and DeMelo with 64,201.
“I think for me it was a strong showing,” said Mitchell, a lawyer and former mayor of Fall River. “We were able to get a message out about county government doing something,” he said on Wednesday morning, referring chiefly to the $104 million expansion and renovation of the Bristol County Agricultural High School completed in 2021, and allocating some $100 million to communities under the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
“We’ve shown we can handle large budget items,” he said.
Mitchell said he’s looking forward to continuing work to upgrade buildings on the 220-acre campus on the Taunton River in Dighton.
Ruggiero, 30, who works as a real estate broker and home health nurse, will be only the second woman to serve as a commissioner in some three centuries of county government.
“I’m sure there’ll be a lot of eyes on me” as the second woman in the position, and being so young, Ruggiero said, but she said she’s eager for the challenge.
“I’m just excited to get going,” Ruggiero said Wednesday morning. “I’m really excited to dive into the culture of Bristol Aggie,” as the agricultural school is known.
The new Bristol County Commission — composed of Mitchell, Ruggiero and John T. Saunders of New Bedford — will govern one of the six county governments left in the state after changes in state law in 1997 allowed counties to reorganize as regional councils. All 14 counties remain as political jurisdictions, but eight county governments dissolved, mostly due to financial problems. Many of their functions were taken over by the state.
During the campaign, both DeMelo, an administrator at Bridgewater State University, and Ruggiero said one of the most common questions they heard from voters was some variation on: what exactly does a county commissioner do?
That question was on the minds of a number of voters at the polls on Tuesday in Seekonk, Taunton and Berkley. Several said they left their ballots blank because they did not know enough about the commission to make a choice. Some said they just followed a straight party-line vote.
“I have no idea what they do,” said Martha Torrance, casting her ballot at Seekonk High School. She said she’s been politically active for years and been closely following races for president, U.S. Congress and the state Legislature, but on the down ballot contests, she asked her husband to make recommendations.
Peter Mis, who had just cast his ballot at Berkley Community School, said he couldn’t remember if he filled in choices in the commission race.
“I don’t think I did,” he said, “because I don’t know what they do. I don’t know why they’re there.”
With their staff, commissioners manage a $34.4 million budget, and about 150 full-time employees, including teachers and staff at one of only two county-run agricultural high schools in Massachusetts.
Commissioners serve as school trustees, oversee the Registry of Deeds, the County Print Shop, maintain buildings on and off the school campus, run a retirement system, and — at least through the end of 2024 — act on community requests for allocations under ARPA.
The job is part-time, pays just over $39,000 a year and involves attending at least two monthly meetings.
The school is by far the county’s biggest single enterprise with 640 students, nearly 100 full-time employees and an annual budget of $19 million.
The enrollment represents a boost of about 200 from before the expansion was completed in 2021, adding four new buildings and updating two others.
The changes added the latest classroom and farm technology, and allowed enrollment to grow by nearly half.
During the campaign, Mitchell, a lawyer in a solo practice who served as Fall River mayor from 1991 to 1996, said the school is a big part of the reason he was seeking a fourth term.
Having worked on the expansion, Mitchell said wanted to be part of seeing to the school’s success, including work with a private foundation established to help graduates with grants to launch businesses.
In pursuing her first public office, Ruggiero offered her skills in business and in communicating. She said she has no political ambitions beyond the local scene, but she does come from a political family.
Her father, former Somerset Police Chief Joseph C. Ferreira, is on the eight-member Governor’s Council and was leading in his race as of Wednesday morning.
Ruggiero said during the campaign that she thinks the commission could do a better job communicating, particularly through the county website. It could be easier to navigate, she said, and give the public a better understanding of what county government does.
Ruggiero also called for a look at whether county buildings are producing as much revenue as they might. She thought leasing the old Fall River superior court house to the Children’s Museum of Greater Fall River, which opened in 2013, was a fine idea, and wondered about other possible lease arrangements. What other vacant spaces could be producing revenue? Are buildings being used most efficiently?
She called for promoting the agricultural school more vigorously, and possibly expanding after-school programs that could be available to people who are not enrolled as students.
Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.
