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Endorses Lyall

The race

The Chariho Regional School District — Charlestown, Richmond and Hopkinton, Rhode Island — is governed by a twelve-member school committee, four elected from each town. On November 3, 2026, voters in each town elect their own members: Charlestown votes for up to three, Richmond for up to two, and Hopkinton for up to three — eight seats in all, per the League of Women Voters of South County / Westerly Sun voter guide's ballot tables (the Charlestown count of three is independently confirmed by the Charlestown Citizens Alliance). Fourteen candidates are on the ballot, all verified against the Rhode Island Secretary of State's official candidate search (only candidates marked "On Election Ballot" are listed here; Charlestown's James Graves McCabe declared but is not on the election ballot and is excluded).

This committee has been one of the most contested school boards in Rhode Island. The November 2024 elections produced a 7–5 conservative majority; its chair since December 2024, Louise Dinsmore of Richmond — seated as the next-highest vote-getter after a resignation, having lost her own 2024 race — resigned in 2026 after voters approved the FY27 budget she had campaigned against, per Chariho United's newsletter account. Meeting coverage through 2025–26 (Progressive Charlestown / Steve Ahlquist's reporting, a partisan source, attributed as such) documents the majority voting not to extend Superintendent Gina Picard's contract, refusing public comment at a packed April meeting, and proposing large budget cuts its own members did not specify. District voters also decide a $116 million elementary-school construction bond (Question 6) this November, covered in our measure coverage.

The candidates

### Charlestown — vote for up to three of five

Craig Francis Louzon (D) — incumbent. Fifteen years on this committee, per his Charlestown Citizens Alliance profile: a U.S. Army and Rhode Island National Guard veteran who worked for the University of Rhode Island for over 40 years (including as a building and grounds superintendent — an expertise earlier local commentary called "a critical area" for a district with aging infrastructure), studied history and plant sciences at URI, and is credited by CCA with helping steer Chariho High School into the state's top 10. His stated aim: keep "striving for excellence, while balancing the costs and needs of students." Credit: the deepest institutional record on this ballot, with a facilities professional's background. Dirt: none found; longevity is the fact, and voters can weigh it — his party registration on the SOS summary is Democratic this cycle (he appeared as an Independent in earlier cycles' results).

Linda Delfino Lyall (D) — incumbent. Eight years on the committee and a 34-year career as an educator and instructional leader with a BS and MS in special education, per her CCA profile. Her stated standard: every student acquiring "the 21st century skills needed to be an accomplished individual," delivered "while operating in a fiscally responsible manner." Credit: a special-education specialist's expertise on a committee whose largest cost drivers include special education. Dirt: none found.

Holly M. Eaves (D) — incumbent (appointed April 2026). Eaves was appointed by the Charlestown Town Council in the spring of 2026 to the seat left vacant by the death of Donna Chambers — one of Charlestown's four representatives — and now stands for election in her own right; the LWV guide marks her an incumbent. She is one of the three Charlestown candidates supported by both the Charlestown Citizens Alliance and Chariho United, and she is profiled in the League of Women Voters election guide (she answered it; see below). Credit: she took the seat when it fell vacant, submitted herself to the voters at the first election, and carries the organized community backing of the two groups that recruit for these seats. Dirt: none found; her appointed — not elected — route to the ballot is a fact voters may weigh.

Kim M. Coulter (R). Coulter qualified for the ballot with 89 certified signatures on the SOS summary. Beyond the filing, this pass found no campaign site, no questionnaire response — the Westerly Sun/LWV guide marks her "No Response" — and no news record. Credit: she filed and qualified; in a three-seat race against three organized incumbents, that is the whole documented case. Dirt: none found; the file is a filing, and her non-participation in the voter guide is documented on the guide's face.

Nicholas Joseph Testa (I). Testa qualified with 68 certified signatures. Like Coulter, he is marked "No Response" in the LWV/Westerly Sun guide, and no campaign materials or news record were found in this pass. Credit: an independent candidacy, duly qualified. Dirt: none found; the file is a filing.

### Richmond — vote for up to two of three

Patrick J. Farrell (D). On the official ballot per the SOS summary. No campaign site, questionnaire text, endorsement, or news mention was found for Farrell in this pass.

Andrew Alden McCoy (D). On the official ballot per the SOS summary. No campaign site, questionnaire text, endorsement, or news mention was found for McCoy in this pass. (A Hopkinton budget-workshop transcript names an "Andrew" speaking on town tax shares; the speaker's identity as this candidate could not be verified and it is not relied on.)

David Anthony Lelli (R). On the official ballot per the SOS summary. No campaign site, questionnaire text, endorsement, or news mention was found for Lelli in this pass.

The Richmond search, documented: the Secretary of State's official candidate summaries for all three towns (rosters and signature counts); the LWV South County / Westerly Sun 2026 voter guide (which lists all three Richmond names without "No Response" flags against the school-committee rows, but whose answer text for them was not retrievable in this pass); Charlestown Citizens Alliance and Chariho United coverage (Charlestown-focused; neither profiles a Richmond candidate); Progressive Charlestown's committee coverage (names Richmond's sitting members and the Dinsmore succession, not these candidates); and name-by-name web searches for each of the three. The trail is genuinely dry — see Our Call.

### Hopkinton — vote for up to three of six

Gregory J. Avedisian (D). Avedisian ran for this committee in 2024 and his questionnaire answers from that cycle survive in the RICentral/Westerly Sun guide: a 25-plus-year Chariho resident and volunteer soccer coach arguing for a long-term capital improvement plan for all district facilities — he held that the prior building plan (three new elementary schools, which the district had qualified for an 81% state reimbursement) failed because "the voters did not have all the information needed to make an informed decision," and that teacher-salary competitiveness ("salary parity") is central to keeping the district's quality, since salaries are the budget's largest share. Credit: the most substantive published program in the Hopkinton field — facilities planning and staff retention, stated in his own answers. Dirt: he ran in 2024 and did not win a seat; no controversy found.

Catherine M. Giusti (I). Giusti is a former chair of this school committee: 2024 local reporting (the "Save Hope Valley School" fight, covered by the Block Island App / brvca.org) quotes her, as committee chair, defending the district against an effort that had obtained Hope Valley Elementary students' names and addresses for a closure lawsuit — she called it "an invasion of privacy" of the children. Credit: she has chaired this body and, in its most heated recent fight, her documented stand was protecting students' information against an outside campaign. Dirt: none found in this pass; she runs as an independent, outside both party slates.

Justin Paul Bentley (D). On the official ballot per the SOS summary and listed without a "No Response" flag in the LWV guide. No further record — no campaign site, news mention, or retrievable questionnaire text — was found in this pass. Credit: a duly filed candidacy. Dirt: none found; the file is thin, and that is stated as a search result, not a judgment.

Robert Thomas Greene (R). On the official ballot per the SOS summary; marked "No Response" in the LWV/Westerly Sun guide. Greene appeared as a Hopkinton Chariho candidate in an earlier cycle's listings (GoodParty.org), but no platform, questionnaire, or news record was found in this pass. Credit: ballot-qualified. Dirt: none found; documented non-participation in the voter guide is the file.

Edward A. Lowe (R) — incumbent (appointed March 2026). Lowe was appointed by the Hopkinton Town Council to a committee vacancy and sworn in on March 10, 2026 — and, per Chariho United's meeting report (a partisan-aligned newsletter, attributed), used his first meeting to criticize standardized test scores and then vote against adopting the FY27 budget, alongside the chair. He is marked "No Response" in the LWV guide. Credit: he holds the seat and has a vote record to judge — rare for an appointee. Dirt, at the proven standard: the documented first-meeting budget vote against adoption, in a cycle when the district's voters then approved that budget at referendum; and documented non-response to the voter guide. (A Rhode Island Ethics Commission advisory opinion, 2026-4, addresses an unnamed Hopkinton building-committee member and district landscaping contractor who sought this same vacancy; the opinion does not name its petitioner, no source worked names Lowe as that petitioner, and we do not attribute it to him.)

Larry Clark Phelps (R) — incumbent. Phelps is a sitting member of the committee's conservative bloc: he appears in the December 2024 meeting transcript moving to schedule the chair election the bloc ultimately won for Dinsmore; Progressive Charlestown's April 2025 report names him among the members (Dinsmore, Chapman, Phelps, Hopkins, Tefft, Champlin) who voted not to extend Superintendent Picard's contract; and Chariho United's March 2026 report records him proposing a $750,000 budget reduction "with no explanation of where it would come from." He opted out of the LWV voter guide entirely — the only candidate in these three towns who did. Credit: a multi-year incumbent record exists and is checkable; fiscal restraint is his bloc's stated cause, and skepticism of district spending growth is a legitimate taxpayer position. Dirt, at the proven standard and attributed: the documented pattern is procedural — unexplained cut proposals, participation in the majority's comment-restricting meetings, and refusal to answer the voter guide his constituents read.

Pros and cons

Record gaps

Searches run: the Rhode Island Secretary of State's Voter Information Center candidate summaries for Charlestown, Richmond and Hopkinton, 2026 (official rosters, parties, signature counts, ballot status — SOS grade); the League of Women Voters of South County / Westerly Sun 2026 voter guide as published (vote-for counts per town, incumbency marks, response/opt-out flags; full answer text retrievable only in part — Avedisian's answers survive via the 2024 RICentral guide); Charlestown Citizens Alliance candidate profiles and vacancy postings (Louzon, Lyall, seats, the Chambers vacancy and April appointment); Chariho United newsletters (committee conduct, Dinsmore's resignation, Lowe's first meeting, Phelps's cut proposal — partisan-aligned, attributed in text); Progressive Charlestown / Steve Ahlquist meeting coverage (the Picard extension vote, public-comment refusal, the 2024 chair fight — partisan, attributed); RI.gov official results archives for earlier cycles (Charlestown's and Richmond's historical seat counts); the Town of Richmond's official Question 6 bond notice; and name-by-name searches for every candidate. No record was found for Richmond's Farrell, McCoy or Lelli beyond the ballot itself, and none for Bentley or Greene beyond listings; those findings are printed above rather than filled in.

OUR CALL

Charlestown (vote for up to three) — endorse Craig Francis Louzon, Linda Delfino Lyall and Holly M. Eaves. Two long records — fifteen years of committee service and a facilities career; thirty-four years in special education and eight on the committee — and an appointed incumbent who answered the guide and carries the community organizations' backing, against two challengers who between them produced no platform, no questionnaire response, and no public record. Unproven is not a demerit; invisible is not a candidacy we can endorse over documented service. Richmond (vote for up to two) — no endorsement; insufficient record. Three names are on the official ballot and none of the three left a retrievable public record in the searches documented on this page — no platform, no questionnaire text, no news coverage, no endorsements. We do not guess among strangers: Richmond voters with local knowledge should use it; this page will not manufacture a file that does not exist. Hopkinton (vote for up to three) — endorse Gregory J. Avedisian and Catherine M. Giusti; on the third seat, no endorsement. Avedisian published the field's only substantive program (long-term capital planning; teacher-pay competitiveness) and Giusti has chaired this committee and defended its students on the record. The remaining candidates split between two incumbents whose documented record — bloc votes against the superintendent's extension and the voter-approved budget framework, an unexplained $750,000 cut proposal, an opt-out and a no-response to the voter guide — we cannot endorse, and two challengers (Bentley, Greene) whose files are too thin to price.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same. ---

Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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