The three candidates vying for the mayor's office in Easthampton are already quite close to it: Salem Derby was city council president, and is the current interim mayor after the departure of former mayor Nicole LaChapelle over the summer. Lindsi Sekula was LaChapelle's executive assistant, and now works with Derby. And Jason 'JT' Tirrell has been on the City Council for the last 2 years. All three spoke with NEPM's the Fabulous 413 last week.
Derby initially said he wasn't interested in being Mayor full time after starting on an interim basis — that changed just a few weeks later. He says the position offers more potential to make change than the City Council and School Committee, which he also serves on.
"I didn't really expect to love it as much as I did," Derby explained. "I loved the dynamic nature of it, the challenges, the kind of wide open path in front of me as mayor which was never there as a city councilor. If I had an idea I could act on an idea."
Sekula is leveraging her experience working in the Mayor's office directly for the last 7 years -- as well as her experience in both education and healthcare. She says that if another candidate wins, they would need to turn to her for institutional knowledge, like the city's budget process.
"Whoever comes into office, if it's not me, they're going to need me," Sekula says. "They're going to need me to say 'this is the day we write the budget letter. This is the day we do this. This is when we do staff meetings. This is when we meet here. This is who we contact for that.' So to say you're more qualified than me, then I assume you will no longer need an assistant?"
Tirrell has run on a platform of 'no labels, just leadership', and argues his strength is his people skills and ability to connect with others, even when they disagree. He says he's focused on common sense policy without partisanship, and mending divisions in the community exacerbated by federal politics in recent years.
"Whether you have a D, and R, or an I next to your name, shouldn't make a difference," Tirrell stressed. "You should still be able to sit down and have a conversation. And I think that's been lost in recent past."
All three are running as Democrats -- and say that key issues like affordability and a strong local economy are among their top priorities.
Something that makes Easthampton unique in Western Massachusetts is that it uses ranked choice voting for its municipal elections. Instead of voting for a single candidate, residents have the option of ranking each candidate from most preferred to least preferred.
According to city documents, this means that instead of typical vote counting — where a candidate who receives the most votes wins — the city instead looks for a candidate who gets a majority of votes, more than 50%
It works like this: on their ballot, a voter will list their first, second, and third choice for mayor. When results are counted, if someone gets more than 50% of the votes immediately, they win. But if no one does, the candidate with the least votes is knocked out of the running. Any voters who had that candidate as their first choice will now have their second choice counted. This process continues until a winner is determined.
But ranking candidates is optional — you can just vote for one and leave it at that. But if that candidate is knocked out, you won't have any other votes to be counted moving forward.
In a bit of reversal, the Fabulous 413 asked each candidate to list their rankings.
From Derby: "I would rank myself first, and I would put JT third, and put Lindsi second."
From Sekula: "I hope to earn the most first votes. And I guess I honestly would rank interim Mayor Derby second, and our opponent JT Tirrell third."
From Tirrell: "I would vote for me as one... I would just vote for me."
Tirrell has been the biggest spender this race — the most recent filings from the Massachusetts Office of Campaign finance show his campaign has spent around $18,000, compared to just under $5,000 by Sekula and a little over $3,000 from Derby.
