LOWE

NORTH SMITHFIELD — First-term Town Administrator Robert B. Lowe fended off challenger Ernest H. Alter and allegations of sloppy hiring practices by a vote of 2,543 to 2,032.

Five seats on the Town Council were also up for grabs, as three incumbents and five others were in that townwide race. A $22-million school bond was defeated, while a $3-million open-space bod passed.

Lowe, a Democrat, ex-School Committeeman and former nine-term state representative who won his first term as town administrator two years ago, ran on a platform of reducing taxes by expanding the town’s tax base. Alter countered that while the town needed economic diversity, Lowe was not up to the job of encouraging the right kinds of development for the town.

The race was complicated by reports last week that the town hired the son of a Lowe family friend for a job in the Public Works Department after Lowe participated in the interview process and did not tell the head of the department about the man’s criminal record.

But the issues that dominated the races for administrator and council this year were taxes and growth. With a tax increase expected next year when payments begin on the new middle school, candidates for all offices touted attracting more commercial development as a way to reduce the town’s dependency on residential property taxes.

The hitch there was the biggest new commercial development in town was also the most controversial. The 120-acre Dowling Village shopping center, planned for land off Route 146A behind the Rehabilitation Hospital, polarized the candidates for administrator and council. Lowe pointed to the development as a way to get nonresidential property on the tax rolls. Alter called it a mistake, a case of a mega-development that will cost more in services that it brings in taxes.

Elected to the five at-large seats on the council were: Linda B. Thibault, Paul J. Zwolenski, David A. Lovett, Patrick M. Keeley, Paul M. Leclerc.