Edgartown is a place where special town meetings often fail to attract a quorum and selectmen’s meetings seldom push the half-hour mark. In recent years the town has not been known for its red-hot electoral battles.

Though most departments will do little to threaten this image in the April annual town election — 11 positions are uncontested, with no nomination papers returned for the board of health — 2008 will see a contested race for the top job, the seat of an incumbent selectman, for the first time in a decade, since Fred B. Morgan Jr. knocked back a challenger nearly half his age with almost double the votes, in 1998.

Robert Fynbo, a software developer and carpenter, will run against incumbent selectman Margaret Serpa.

On his Web site, Mr. Fynbo, a Chappaquiddick resident of more than 30 years, says it’s time for a change at the selectmen’s office, arguing that town tax money should be spent more efficiently in a period of tight budgets.

Mrs. Serpa responded to Mr. Fynbo’s change message this week: “I don’t quite agree with that,” she said when contacted by telephone Wednesday. “The budget is tight and I have experience dealing with that.” Mrs. Serpa has served on the town zoning board of appeals and has worked in administration at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School for 34 years. She was elected selectman in April of 1999. “My experience will be helpful going forward. The budget issues will be ongoing so we have arranged that the financial advisory committee and selectmen sit down once a month. We need to keep the budget lean and yet keep all services provided to the town,” she said.

Ms. Serpa, who was home with a cold, is not yet in full campaign mode, but is confident nonetheless. “A lot of people have asked me to run again,” she said. “I don’t know how much I’ll do, I’ll probably put some signs out.”

Mr. Fynbo pledged to run an active campaign. “We use the term ‘thinking out the box’, because that’s what I do,” he said by telephone yesterday. “A lot of [the problems] are echoed in the national campaign right now, except that [the Bush administration] is headed in the wrong direction and here they are not headed in any direction. Things are changing rapidly, with rising insurance and Island energy costs, but it’s status quo with the selectmen.”

In the only other contest on the ballot, Robert M. Cavallo will challenge incumbent Roger Becker for his seat on the planning board.

On the remaining election slate, the following candidates are currently running for reelection unopposed: Susan Mercier, school committee; James K. Carter, wastewater treatment commission; Robert L. Burnham, water commissioner; Laurence A. Mercier and Donna M. Lowell Bettencourt, financial advisory committee; Jane M. Varkonda, park commissioner; Jonathan M. Searle, constable, Patricia Haynes Rose and Ann M. Tyra, library trustees; Philip J. Norton Jr., moderator for town meetings.

The town election is April 10.