Packing Harvard’s Town Hall meeting room last weekend, more than 60 residents gathered to nominate candidates to fill the 20 seats on town boards, commissions, and committees that will open this spring when the terms of current occupants expire.

Two candidates were nominated for the positions currently held by selectmen Tim Clark and Lucy Wallace, whose three-year terms expire this year. Wallace is not running for reelection after 12 years as a selectwoman, but Clark will run for a second term. The other candidate for the Board of Selectmen is Bill Johnson, who narrowly lost to selectwoman Marie Sobalvarro in the special town election last December. Steve Finnegan was nominated, but later decided not to run. In a statement issued to the Press on Wednesday, Finnegan said, “The timing is not right for me to run for [a seat on] the Harvard Board of Selectmen.”

Elections for expiring three-year terms on the Board of Health and School Committee will be contested. Longtime member Lorin Johnson and physician Patricia Ruze will compete for Johnson’s seat on the Board of Health, while Stu Sklar and Kirsten Wright will campaign for the School Committee seat currently held by Sklar. The 14 remaining open positions, including town moderator, are uncontested. A one-year seat on the Community Preservation Committee lacked any candidate at all at the end of the caucus, but on Tuesday Debbie Ricci filed nomination papers at Town Hall for the position.

From left: Kirsten Wright signs her nomination papers for a seat on the School Committee as Marty Green and Rhonda Sprague look on at the Town Caucus on March 6. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

Eric O’Brien was nominated for Water Commissioner, but will not run. William F. Barton of Prospect Hill Road filed nominating papers and will run for the open seat.

Town caucus is an annual tradition which dates back to Colonial times in Massachusetts. Registered voters gather in a meeting called by the selectmen to nominate townspeople to fill positions on the elected Harvard boards and committees that open every spring as the terms of current members end. The first order of business is always to elect a presiding officer and secretary, positions that Betty Stone and Rhonda Sprague, by tradition, have been elected to for years. Town elections are held the first Tuesday following Annual Town Meeting, the open assembly of registered voters that is the ultimate source of the authority given to town boards and committees. This year the election is scheduled for May 4. Voter registration closes April 9.