With Monday’s deadline for submitting nomination papers past, it’s a three-way race for selectman.

Joseph Denneen, John Spillane and James Paul Taylor are vying to fill the unexpired term of the late John Hill, in the Feb. 8 special election. The term runs to June 2004.

Denneen, a longtime Town Meeting member, is chairman of the capital budget committee, a member of the Walpole Housing Authority and the director of constituency services for Sen. Jo Ann Sprague (R-Walpole)

If elected, Denneen said, his top priority would be to make sure the town is kept moving forward.

"I don’t want to see a lot of turmoil on the board," he said. "I want things to settle down and get some business done."

Among his biggest issues are air quality in the schools and other town buildings, completing the capping of the Lincoln Road landfill, and the replacement of bleachers at Turco Field, he said.

"That’s a pressing issue because it’s a safety matter," Denneen said of the bleachers.

Making accessibility and safety improvements to the bleachers has been a growing priority of the board, especially after two young children were injured while playing underneath them earlier this fall.

Spillane is both the animal control officer and the veterans agent for Walpole. He’s also a Town Meeting member.

If elected, he said, he wants to ensure that the town is managed properly in light of all the cutbacks in state aid to Walpole.

Spillane also wants to eliminate any waste in town government as well as make sure the elderly in town are taken care of, he said.

He ran for selectman many years ago but said he didn’t push hard for a seat.

He said he’s been thinking about trying again since last spring.

"I think it’s time (to run)," Spillane said, noting that he plans to launch a much stronger campaign than his first time out.

Concerned about the financial well-being of the elderly population and "blue-collar" workers in town, Taylor said, he wants to make sure there are no more overrides in the foreseeable future.

That is one of the biggest reasons why he’s running for selectman, he said.

Taylor fears that if property taxes continue to increase, residents on fixed incomes and tight budgets will have to move out of town.

His grandmother, who died in 1993, would not have been able to keep her house in Walpole today, Taylor said.

His other priorities include scheduling open forum at the start of each selectmen’s meeting, getting trash pickup for residents of the Swan Pond condominium complex and nixing the proposed athletic fields project at the high school.