Hollis Withdraws From School Committee Race

Editor's note: This article was updated at 1:53 p.m. with comments from Maryan Hollis.

An already scarce Melrose election field narrowed down even further on Wednesday, when Maryan Hollis submitted a formal letter of withdrawal as a candidate for School Committee, Melrose Election Administrator Linda-Lee Angiolillo said in an email this morning.

Hollis' withdrawal means that the three School Committee incumbents up for re-election on Nov. 8 will run unopposed. Those incumbents are current committee Chairwoman Margaret Driscoll, Kristin Thorp and Don Constantine.

It also means that out of 14 elected positions on the ballot in the upcoming biennial city election, —for the Ward 7 alderman's seat, with challenger Francis Murphy taking on incumbent William Forbes.

A former School Committee member herself from 1998-2004, over the past year Hollis has frequently attended the committee's meetings and regularly chastised the committee on procedural matters. In an email to Melrose Patch after she first took our nomination papers, Hollis .

In her letter, which Hollis provided to Melrose Patch, she explained that she has been offered an unexpected promotion in her professional career as a registered nurse, which will require additional time and travel.

"My ability to appropriately serve the educational needs of the kids of this district as well as support the parents and all taxpayers of the City of Melrose would be hindered by the demands of this position," she wrote. "A Committee member is sworn to perform his/her duties 'to the best of their ability' and the ‘best of my abilities’ are compromised by new obligations. It has been an honor to have served two terms on the Melrose School Committee and a privilege to be accepted as a candidate for the Committee for the upcoming term.

"I thank all of my supporters and promise to continue my advocacy for improving our schools," she concluded. "I encourage all voters to participate in the democratic process and vote on Nov. 8."

With a dearth of candidates, Melrose Patch asked in a poll last week . The top answer in the poll, accounting for 40 percent of the votes cast, was that .