The Village of Windham now has a new mayor in place, as longtime council member Terrie Altiere was officially sworn in as Windham’s Mayor by Village Solicitor Charles Gacior at the last council meeting on Dec. 16.
“I am going to try,” Mayor Altiere told The Weekly Villager on Jan 2. “I have been on the council for seven years and the school board for 20 years. I have always worked in Windham and have been here for 60-some years. I love our town, and everybody knows how much everybody that is on council appreciates the town of Windham and we are going to do our best to try and improve the things that are going on in town.”
Altiere takes over for Lawrence “Mac” Cunningham, who abruptly announced his resignation as mayor to the council on Dec. 2, and will fill out the remaining years on Cunningham’s term until Dec. 31, 2027. At that point, the Village will be expected to have voted in a new mayor.
The Villager had previously reported that the Village Council had initially agreed that Council President Sherri Pennington would take over as interim mayor in the wake of Cunningham’s resignation and would serve in that role for 30 days. Following that 30-day period, a new mayor would be installed and serve on a temporary basis until the Village held a special election in May to appoint a new mayor.
However, at the Dec. 16 meeting, the Council’s plans changed and agreed to appoint Altierie as the new mayor to complete Cunningham’s term.
According to the 1971 Windham graduate, the council had conferred with the Board of Public Elections and decided that the cost of holding a special election was too steep, so they decided on an alternate plan.
Altiere’s appointment as mayor does represent significant change on council, but she acknowledged that she had initially planned to step down from council at the end of 2025. The council will consist of returnees Sherri Pennington, David Belknap, Angela DiSalvo with the additions of newcomers Dan Miller and Sam DiSalvo. The council recently selected David Belknap as the new council president on Friday’s meeting, as Pennington relinquished her role as Council President once Altierie was appointed as the new mayor.
Although her appointment to the position has come suddenly, Altierie said that she is prepared to act quickly and decisively, as she has already prioritized some of Windham’s biggest needs as she begins her term.
“We are a very small town, and we want to enlarge the enrollment of our schools. Our schools are excellent, but our enrollment is down, and the population is down,” she noted. “We need to bring in more businesses. We just need more businesses to see if we can get more income coming into town.”
Altiere said that some ideas for bringing in more business to Windham include opening a new grocery store and finding a new local doctor and dentist as the only revenue that the Village receives comes in the form of state, federal, county and property taxes.
Altiere said that she has been accustomed to the small-town lifestyle of Windham even before her family moved to the Village in 1959 from Soddy-Daisy, a small town just outside of Chattanooga, TN. Since becoming a full-fledged member of the community, Altierie said that she has appreciated the supportive nature of the community.
“Everybody that needs help, we are always there and at the time when we first moved here, it was not much of a change except for going from the south to the north,” she said. “The schools were just a little bit different for us. I graduated from Windham; all of my brothers graduated from Windham. I have been a Windhamite all of my life except for the first six years.”
She quickly became connected to the inner workings of Windham following her graduation, initially working as an attendance secretary at Windham High School and then then earning a seat on the school board.
She said that her motivation for wanting to become involved in school politics was because her daughter attended the Windham School District.
“I wanted to help make a difference in the education of the children so that is exactly why I ran for school board to help accelerate our educational system,” she said. “Since I worked here, I know a lot of people and you get involved with the school, you get to know the teachers.”
After serving on the school board for 20 years, Altiere became a council member and has served in that role for the last seven years but now holds her most important role as Mayor.
