PORTSMOUTH — The winners of next Tuesday’s Democratic primary for School Committee are guaranteed election, as Republicans have fielded no candidates for the three open seats on the seven-member board.

In the race for Town Council, meanwhile, one Democratic candidate will be eliminated from a field of eight, leaving the remaining nominees to vie for seven seats on the November ballot against five Republicans and four independents.

Incumbents on the Town Council and the School Committee are running on their respective records since the last election, in 2006.

In that year, voters returned Democratic majorities to both panels despite a divisive Financial Town Meeting in which taxpayers led by Portsmouth Concerned Citizens sought to cut spending dramatically.

Council member Leonard B. Katzman, also the chairman of the Democratic Town Committee, said the Democratic majority on the council has “made great strides in the past few years.”

“We’ve turned the town in a positive direction,” he said.

Sylvia Wedge, the chairwoman of the School Committee, said numerous outside reviews of the schools have validated the leadership of the Committee’s Democratic majority.

Most recently, Berkshire Advisors, Cleveland-based management consultants, concluded that the schools give the town an exceedingly good value for its tax dollars, stretching financial resources that buy less from one year to the next.

The council commissioned the report to put to rest a long-running debate over school spending, which reached a flashpoint when the schools sued the town to recoup losses imposed by the Financial Town Meeting in 2006.

For the most part, the school board prevailed in the Superior Court.

Katzman said, “The divisiveness is being healed. We’ve kept big box stores out, and we have open space and wind power,” he said, referring to the conservation of several scenic parcels and the contract for a wind turbine that is to be built on the grounds of the high school by year’s end.

The council also has “made the budget process more democratic by letting the people of Portsmouth vote to replace the tent meeting with a referendum,” he said.

One issue largely absent from political discourse this year is the question of installing sewers on the north and west sides of town. That topic, withdrawn from the ballot in 2007, is not expected to resurface until next year, after the completion of a wastewater facilities plan.

Katzman said it would be unfair to suggest that the town would appear more divisive if the issue of sewers were on the table this year.

The sewer question was postponed as a result of a complicated series of discussions involving the town, its consulting engineers and the state Department of Environmental Management, he said.

The council has not made up its mind about sewers one way or the other, Katzman said.

But he said the endorsed Democratic slate does agree that it wants voters to decide the issue once a wastewater facilities plan has been completed, providing accurate and detailed scientific information for a full debate.

In addition to Katzman, the endorsed candidates running for Town Council include council President Dennis M. Canario, the top vote-getter in the 2006 election; vice-president James A. Seveney, and council member William E. West.

Other endorsed Democratic candidates are former member Al Honnen, who did not seek reelection two years ago, David Croston, a former School Committee member who was defeated in his bid to return to that board in 2006, and Mark Katzman, Leonard’s brother.

Mark Katzman, a registered nurse who consults with lawyers concerning malpractice litigation, is making his second bid for the council.

The only unendorsed Democrat in the primary is Mary Correia, who retired as a Portsmouth public school teacher in June and says she wants to continue serving the town in the tradition of her family.

Correia’s sister, Karen Gleason, is running for reelection on the Town Council as an independent. And the women’s father, the late Everett Correia, and their brother, Everett Correia Jr., are former Town Council members.

Correia said it is “important to protect the rural character of town, to protect citizens’ interest and make sure that citizens are listened to and heard.”

Unlike Katzman, and contrary to statements made by the DEM director, Correia says, she believes there is enough information in the public domain for voters to make up their minds about sewers.

Although the matter is “strictly up to the voters,” Correia said, she opposes sewers. She said she believes the most economical and environmentally sound solution is a wastewater management district, which would require individual homeowners to maintain their septic systems or replace them at their own expense.

Correia points to a 2002 report by Berger & Associates, which recommended a wastewater management district in most sections of town. But that report is based on the premise that sewers were not a politically viable option.

The Berger report was superseded by another study a year later, by Pio Lombardo and Associates, which recommended sewers for Island Park and Portsmouth Park.

In regard to public education, the Democratic Town Committee has endorsed School Committee chairwoman Sylvia Wedge and two political newcomers for the three open seats on the seven-member board. The other two endorsed are Marilyn King, a special education teacher in Fall River, and Angela Volpicelli, a registered nurse.

One of the three seats up for grabs was held by Douglas Wilkey, a Republican, who died in office this year.

Another seat is held by Terri Cortvriend, who is in the unusual position of running for reelection as an unendorsed Democrat.

In a statement, Cortvriend said that she was unable to respond to the Democratic nominating committee when it approached her earlier this year.

Cortvriend has the backing of Wedge and another Democratic incumbent, Marjorie Levesque, who both urged her to run again.

Wedge said this week that Cortvriend hesitated because of concerns for her business, which has since rebounded.

She and Levesque said in a statement that Cortvriend has amassed invaluable experience on the committee.

“With her endless energy and dedication to the completion of the new Portsmouth High School gym, it was completed on time and within budget,” Wedge and Levesque said.

Cortvriend also headed fundraising for equipment and the new fitness center on the mezzanine level of the gym, they said.

In a statement, Cortvriend called Volpicelli and King to task for criticizing the committee’s decision to sue the town for more money in the aftermath of the 2006 Financial Town Meeting.

“These emotional and politically motivated statements reflect their lack of understanding of how education laws work,” she said.

Neither King nor Volpicelli have stated what they would have done differently, Cortvriend said.

King and Volpicelli, in turn, have criticized more recent financial decisions, including the raises given Schools Supt. Susan F. Lusi in her new three-year contract, the one-year teachers’ contract, and the hiring of consultants to do work the candidates said was within the expertise of the full-time staff.

King and Volpicelli have asserted that some teachers have received no salary increases in the recent agreement, but Wedge said that statement is inaccurate.

Teachers on their way up the first 10 years of the experience ladder are getting more money than they did last year, but they have given up an additional cost-of-living adjustment which they have been accustomed to in the past.

Wedge defended the $13,000 raise given to Lusi this year, the first year of a new three-year contract, saying the district had not paid the superintendent for her doctorate in the past.

Even with the raise, to about $130,000 a year, Lusi lands in the middle of the salary range for Rhode Island school superintendents.

King and Volpicelli criticized the hiring of outside consultants, including a retired school superintendent who served as a part-time finance director for several months, as well as a firm recently engaged to plan for capital improvements over the next five years.

King said the work that has been farmed out, including $600 a day to the retired superintendent and $1,200 a day for the “strategic plan,” could have been done by the superintendent or the building and grounds director.

But Wedge said the retired superintendent, who picked up the ball from a departing finance director in 2006, only worked two days a week, charging less than it would have cost if the district immediately found a full-time replacement.

And Wedge said that the School Committee hired an outside firm to assess its buildings, including structural problems at the Elmhurst Elementary School, because the job requires engineering expertise. The move, costing about $52,000, was recommended by Berkshire Advisors, the management consultants, she said.

Another unendorsed candidate for School Committee is Thomas Vadney, a former member of the executive committee of the PCC, the taxpayer group that orchestrated the spending cuts enacted by the Special Financial Town Meeting in 2006.

While Vadney said he thought the council-backed 9-percent increase in the tax rate that year was too high, he said he opposed the idea of the so-called “tent meeting” to override the budget.

He said there are three big issues facing the schools — academic performance, finances, and communication.

While the school district is meeting the goals set by the federal No Child Left Behind law, he said, students’ performance should be better to compete in a global economy.

Vadney said he believes that the school superintendent is worth the raise she received and that the finance director she hired, Chris Tague, is doing a good job.

But he said he believes the school district needs a new business model that would include a different retirement plan for teachers.

Vadney said he was unaware that changing the pension plan for local teachers would require a change in state law.

He also said he believed the School Committee could help bring people together to back the schools by issuing a “white paper” explaining its actions in detail from time to time.

Nevertheless, Vadney said, he said he knows that no matter how much information is available, some people will not listen to reason.

gmacris@projo.com