City Leadership
The Easthampton Mayor’s Office
The Office
Easthampton’s charter opens by drawing a line and then refusing to let anyone cross it. Section 1-3 splits the city into an executive branch headed by a mayor and a legislative branch made of a city council, and then adds a sentence most charters leave out: the legislative branch shall never exercise any executive power, and the executive branch shall never exercise any legislative power. Everything the Mayor can and cannot do follows from that one line.
Section 3-2 says the executive powers of the city are vested solely in the Mayor. The Mayor supervises and directs every city agency, enforces the charter and the ordinances, and is the city’s chief procurement officer, responsible for every contract the city signs. Section 3-3 gives the Mayor the appointing power: every city officer, department head and member of a multiple member body for whom no other method is set, except the people who work for the School Committee and for the Council itself. The Mayor may appoint a public safety department head for up to five years and everyone else for up to three.
What the Mayor cannot do is finish anything alone. Under Section 3-7 every order, ordinance, resolution and vote the Council passes goes to the Mayor, who signs it or returns it with written objections, and a returned measure becomes law anyway if the Council passes it again by a two thirds vote of the full council. A measure the Mayor neither signs nor returns within ten days is approved automatically. Appointments run the other way: the Council reviews them, and an appointment takes effect on its own on the forty fifth day after the Council first receives it at a regular meeting, unless the Council votes it down first. Two doors, and a resident can knock on either.
One more line is worth knowing before you ever need it. Section 3-8 makes the President of the City Council the acting mayor whenever the Mayor cannot serve for ten working days or more, and the Vice President after that. The city’s chief executive has a named substitute, written down in advance.
The Current Mayor
Salem Derby
Salem Derby was elected Mayor of Easthampton on November 4, 2025 under the city’s ranked choice voting rules. No candidate reached 50 percent on the first count, so the instant runoff the charter requires kicked in, and Derby won the second count. The charter sets the mayoral term at four years, beginning on the first Monday of January after the election.
The city’s own Office of the Mayor page describes what he brings to it: more than two decades of public service, including over 22 years on the Easthampton City Council, and more than 30 years as a teacher, 20 of them at Northampton High School. He is a father of three, a coach, and a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah).
He also holds a second seat. Charter Section 4-1 makes the Mayor the seventh member of the Easthampton School Committee, so the same person who proposes the school budget sits on the body that votes the policy it pays for.
If you want twenty minutes of his time, the office publishes a way to get it. The Mayor hosts monthly Meetings with the Mayor on the first Thursday of each month, in person at City Hall or on Google Meet, and the sign up form is on the Office of the Mayor page.
| Term | Four years, beginning the first Monday of January (Charter Section 3-1) |
|---|---|
| Office | Municipal Building, 50 Payson Avenue, Easthampton, MA 01027 |
| Phone | 413-529-1400 Ext. 110 |
| mayor@easthamptonma.gov | |
| Website | Office of the Mayor |
How a Budget Actually Passes
A budget in Easthampton starts in the Mayor’s office, built department by department, and it is proposed as one package. The City Council then holds hearings on it and votes. Those hearings are the point in the year when a resident’s argument reaches the people who hold the vote, and they are public. If you want to change a number in the city budget, that is the room and that is the month.
The school side runs on its own clock. The School Committee publishes a summary of its proposed budget in a local newspaper at least seven days before it votes, holds a public hearing, and cannot take the final vote until everyone who wants to speak has spoken. The budget it adopts goes to the Mayor at least 21 days before the Mayor has to file a city budget with the Council. When the Council finally votes the school appropriation, it votes the total and only the total: the charter says the Council may recommend but may not allocate the money among accounts.
One number decides most of it. Under Section 2-6 the presence of five councilors is a quorum, and five affirmative votes carry any measure, ordinance or appropriation order. Five people out of nine.
Reach the Office
- Municipal Building: 50 Payson Avenue, Easthampton, MA 01027. Main line 413-529-1400.
- Mayor’s Office: 413-529-1400 Ext. 470, mayor@easthamptonma.gov.
- Assistant to the Mayor: Evan LeBeau, 413-529-1400 Ext. 143.
- Meetings with the Mayor: first Thursday of each month, in person or on Google Meet, by sign up through the Office of the Mayor page.
The Council is the other half of every decision the Mayor proposes.
MassCivics last checked this page on October 20, 2026.
Sources
- City records: City of Easthampton, Office of the Mayor, as of October 2026.
- City records: City of Easthampton, RCV Detailed Report, November 4, 2025, Unofficial Results, as of November 4, 2025.
- City records: City of Easthampton, Staff Directory, as of October 2026.
- Charter and bylaws: City of Easthampton, Easthampton City Charter (2025), as of 2025.