AUBURN – City critic Gregory E. Desgrosseilliers – who promised to ask hard questions if elected – beat out an incumbent and a school principal to win an at-large seat on the Auburn School Committee.

Desgrosseilliers, 49, of 149 Hatch Road, received 5,569 votes Tuesday. Committee veteran Ross Leavitt received 3,716 votes, and Thomas Martellone, an elementary school principal in Greene, received 2,970 votes.

In the Ward 2 race, former Auburn School Committee member and Chairwoman Bonnie Hayes won. Hayes received 1,432 votes over Francois Bussiere’s 419 votes.

Ward 2 and the at-large seats were the only two contested races for the Auburn School Committee.

As a member of the United Citizens of Auburn, a citizens group formed last year in response to growing property taxes, Desgrosseilliers was among those who questioned Auburn School Committee’s spending.

Desgrosseilliers said the school department budget needs to be made easier to digest. He also has questioned School Superintendent Barbara Eretzian’s mileage pay, saying her monthly $600 mileage pay has nothing to do with education. Desgrosseilliers complained that school committee members didn’t ask tough questions and weren’t in touch with the community, things he said he’d work to improve.

Desgrosseilliers works as an engineer for the Department of Defense, watching over ship building for the Navy in Bath.

Another new face on the school committee is Susan Gaylord, 54, of Auburn, who ran for the Ward 5 seat unopposed.

Gaylord, a doctor at Central Maine Medical Center, said she’s committed to help “Auburn strengthen its public schools. Our students need to be able to compete academically with the best schools in Maine and across the nation.”

Gaylord has two daughters in Auburn schools, and said she supports public education. “Our schools need to be a safe and in positive environment that meets the needs of all of Auburn’s children.”

Another new member, Lane Feldman of 100 Chickadee Drive, was elected to represent Ward 1. Feldman was unopposed.

Two others elected who ran unopposed were David Das and Tara Paradie, both incumbents.

Das, 50, works advising Bates College students who study abroad. He said the city’s new charter means all will serve only one-year terms. Next year all seats will return to two-year terms.

It is unusual, Das said, that two school committee races were contested.

“In the past two election cycles there weren’t any,” Das said. Last year more attention was paid to city government due to rising property taxes, upset homeowners, and a watchdog citizens group.

While two races contested is unusual for Auburn, “I expected all seats to be contested,” Das said.