HILLSBOROUGH– It was a packed house party at Mayor Tom Stevens’ house in Hillsborough Tuesday night. And all the candidates for Board of Commissioners were invited.

But alas, two winners were named with Jenn Weaver claiming 42.6 percent of the vote and Kathleen Ferguson receiving 36.6 percent. Meighan Carmichael just missed out on this night, getting 20.1 percent of the vote total.

But champagne glasses were full for a shared toast between all three candidates and Mayor Stevens says the night characterized the friendliness of the campaign.

“Hosting is perhaps a little unusual. Hosting all the candidates here you know it has been a very friendly and civil campaign. I think there has been a lot of mutual respect. Everyone said ‘yeah’, they thought it was a good idea,” Mayor Stevens says.

Mayor Stevens says he thinks Hillsborough will be in good hands as all three candidates brought something special to the table.

“I think Hillsborough is going to be well served no matter who is elected. They all are very well qualified. They all bring very individual strengths. I was encouraging people to really get to know the candidates and to make their choices,” Mayor Stevens says.

Jenn Weaver says she is very excited to feel that all her hard work campaigning paid off in the end. But she understands there is a lot to tackle on the job.

“It’s very exciting and certainly gratifying to feel like I put in all that hard work. To come out ahead is certainly exciting. Now I feel like I have a lot work to do,” Weaver says.

Weaver says now that she’s elected, she wants to enact more environmental friendly policies to benefit the Town of Hillsborough

“Personally, one of the things that I’ve been talking about is trying to think more and put into action more how we can create more environmental sustainability in our community and town operations,” Weaver says.

Kathleen Ferguson says she thinks the camaraderie experienced by all of the candidates in the campaign speaks to the sense of tight community present in Hillsborough.

“I think it speaks to how Hillsborough is. I think it speaks to the candidates. You know speaking for myself, and I think I speak for the others, we all do believe in community. Anything other than camaraderie would be antithetical,” Ferguson says.