PHILLIPS — Despite relentless snow, sleet and rain, dozens of voters attended a special town meeting Wednesday night to elect a selectman.

Raymond Gaudette got 44 votes, defeating challenger Dan Boivin, who received 24. Gaudette will serve the remainder of Lynn White’s term, until June 2014. White resigned two months ago, citing personal commitments.

Gaudette was nominated for a selectman’s seat at the June town meeting, but Lincoln Haines defeated him, garnering 47 votes to Gaudette’s 32.

Gaudette will join Selectmen Haines and Andy Phillips. He said he doesn’t have illusions about the amount of work ahead of him. Public service has been part of his life.

“I feel I have something to offer, and I have some common sense I’ve developed over the years,” he said.

He served on the Planning Board and Budget Committee, and that background, he said, will provide a solid basis for tackling tough issues. One of the more serious problems facing taxpayers, he said, is the continued deterioration of roads.

“We have people who might want to relocate to Phillips, and when they come here, they see a nice downtown,” he said. “If they want to move farther out of town and have to commute to work, they are concerned about those roads.”

He hopes his administrative, practical and business experiences can help with some of the other financial challenges. One of his concerns is the property tax rate, which for the past several years, has hovered between $16 and $18 per $1,000 of valuation. With a disastrous decline in the town’s manufacturing and commercial base, the burden now falls primarily on homeowners, many of whom have very limited incomes, he said.

Gaudette, formerly from the town of York, is a retired Coast Guard lieutenant commander and also served as a chief engineer in the U.S. Merchant Marines, the fleet of civilian-owned merchant vessels. He’s also operated his own small business.

“I also ran a portable sawmill for a while,” he said. “I traveled around the state to saw wood for people building houses with their own lumber.”

He and his wife, Elaine, have owned a home in Phillips for 34 years.