Youngest Member and First Woman Elected to Braintree Council

Nearly 4,700 Braintree residents voted Tuesday, electing a number of fresh faces to the Town Council and School Committee.

Among those were Michael Owens, who at 24 years old will be the youngest ever town councilor, and Shannon Hume, currently the chair of the School Committee and the first woman elected to Braintree's legislative body since the change in government six years ago.

Hume received the third most votes for Councilor-at-Large, behind Charles Ryan and Sean Powers. She beat runner-up John Carvello by just more than 1,000 votes.

Owens took the District 5 seat, currently held by Ronald DeNapoli, by nearly 200 votes over Nick DiMartino and more than 300 over William Sweeney. He is a senior at UMass Boston and also works at Rockland Trust.

See this article for precinct-by-precinct results, and check back with Braintree Patch for more coverage of the election and the winning candidates.

Braintree's 19 percent turnout Tuesday was bolstered by heavy activity in District 5, one of only two competitive district races. In District 4, Stephen O'Brien defeated Frank Boncaldo handily, despite the latter's support from Henry Joyce, who declined to run again for the seat this year.

District councilors Charles Kokoros, John Mullaney, Thomas Bowes and Paul "Dan" Clifford all retained their seats and did not face competition. 

Kate Naughton also ran a one-candidate race, for a two-year School Committee seat. She was sworn-in immediately Tuesday night because she is taking over from appointed member Sarah Nichols, who declined to run. 

Along with Naughton, new faces on the School Committee come January will include Cyril Chafe and George Kokoros, whose write-in campaign trounced runner-up Andrew McInnis by nearly 200 votes. Steven Quigley took in 172 write-in votes, Diana Cutaia earned 18 and Meghan Michalak received one.

Current vice chair of the School Committee David Ringius, Jr. took the most votes in the four-year contest with 3,014.