Easthampton, Massachusetts

How Easthampton’s Government Works

Easthampton elects its chief executive. The Mayor runs the city day to day, proposes the budget, and answers to voters directly at the next election rather than to any board. Alongside that office, voters elect a 9 member City Council as the legislative body, which passes ordinances, sets the tax rate and votes the budget the Mayor proposes. Voters also elect six of the seven seats on the School Committee, and the Mayor holds the seventh by charter. The split is the point: one office proposes and runs, another votes and can say no, and you elect both.

1. Residents elect the Mayor, the 9 members of the City Council, and six of the seven School Committee seats.
2. The Mayor proposes the budget and runs the departments that carry it out.
3. The City Council votes the budget and the ordinances, and it can vote them down.
4. You take part: speak at a City Council meeting, bring a problem to the councilor for your precinct, or run for a seat yourself.

Explore the Easthampton Edition

• Mayor’s OfficeThe chief executive and what the job actually controls
• City CouncilAll nine members, when they meet, how to reach them
• School CommitteeThe seven seats and the Superintendent
• City DepartmentsWho to call when something breaks
• Boards & CommissionsWhere volunteers decide real questions
• LegislatorsYour delegation on Beacon Hill and in Washington
• DemographicsWho lives in Easthampton, by the numbers
• Easthampton HistoryFrom a mill village to a city charter
• Non-ProfitsThe organizations holding the city together
• Student DataEnrollment, graduation, and spending

Your County Officials

Two of the people with the most direct power over your life are elected, and neither one sits on Beacon Hill. The district attorney decides who gets charged with a crime, and what they get charged with. The sheriff runs the county jail. The sheriff is elected by the voters of Hampshire County. The district attorney is elected by the voters of a prosecution district, and Massachusetts draws eleven of those across its fourteen counties, so a district attorney’s territory does not always follow a county line. Both appear on your ballot in Easthampton. Now you know what to look for.

Massachusetts elects fourteen sheriffs, one for each county, and eleven district attorneys, one for each prosecution district. The job is the same everywhere: the charging decisions, the jail. Look up any town in the state and see who holds these two offices there.

Your First Civic Action in Easthampton

You do not have to wait until you can vote to be heard. Here is a concrete path from a problem on your street to the people who can fix it.

1. Pick the right body. Anything about a school, a course, a bus, or a teacher goes to the School Committee. Everything else, from a broken sidewalk to the tax rate, goes to the City Council.
2. Find the meeting. The full City Council meets at 6:00 pm on the first and third Wednesday of every month, on the second floor of the Municipal Building at 50 Payson Avenue and on Google Meet. In July and August it meets on the first Wednesday only. The School Committee meets about every other Tuesday at 6 pm.
3. Know your councilors. Five represent a single precinct and four are elected at-large by every Easthampton voter. You get to contact all nine, not only your own.
4. Speak. Every agenda, notice and meeting link is posted in the city’s Agenda Center at least 48 hours ahead, and the connection details sit at the top of each agenda.
5. Bring a petition. The charter says that if the City Clerk certifies 100 or more voters on a petition asking for a measure, the City Council has to hold a public hearing on it and act within three months. That is a door written into the charter, and 100 signatures is a school hallway.

• Municipal Building: 50 Payson Avenue, Easthampton, MA 01027. Main line 413-529-1400.
• City Clerk and elections: City Clerk Mary Ann Giza, 413-529-1400 Ext. 460.
• Easthampton Public Schools: 413-529-1500, epsd.us.