City Leadership
The Mayor’s Office
The Office
For 250 years Greenfield governed itself the way most Massachusetts towns still do, first by open town meeting and then, after 1921, by a representative one. In 2002 the voters ended that. On June 11 of that year they approved a revised charter, and on July 1, 2003 a mayor and a city council replaced the board of selectmen and the town manager. The charter that came out of it is unusually direct about where power sits: the executive powers of the city are vested solely in the Mayor.
That one sentence decides a great deal. The Mayor supervises and directs every city activity placed under the office by general law, charter, bylaw or custom, and enforces the city’s own ordinances. The Mayor appoints the members of every board and commission in Greenfield, and by virtue of the office sits as an ex officio member of every multiple member city body and as a full voting member of the School Committee. The Mayor may declare a state of emergency. The Mayor may review proposed legislation and veto it, subject to the charter.
What the Mayor cannot do is spend money alone. The budget the Mayor writes is a proposal until the City Council votes it, and a mayoral appointment to a board is reviewed by the Council under Section 2-10 of the charter, which lets the Council affirm it, reject it, or let it take effect on its own thirty five days after it is submitted. Those two facts are the reason a Greenfield resident has two doors rather than one: the office that proposes, and the body that votes.
The Current Mayor
Virginia “Ginny” Desorgher
Mayor Desorgher was sworn into office for a four year term on January 2, 2024. She is the fourth person to hold the job since Greenfield created it, following Christine Forgey, William Martin and Roxann Wedegartner. She came to the office through the room she now works with: she served as a City Councilor before running for Mayor, and before that she spent her career as an emergency room charge nurse. She has lived in Greenfield for more than a decade.
She also holds a seat most residents would not think to look for. The city charter makes the Mayor a full voting member of the Greenfield School Committee, not an observer, so the same person who proposes the school budget also votes on the policy it pays for.
| Term | Four year term, non-partisan. Sworn in January 2, 2024 |
|---|---|
| Office | City Hall, 14 Court Square, Greenfield, MA 01301 |
| Phone | 413-772-1560 |
| mayor@greenfield-ma.gov | |
| Website | greenfield-ma.gov |
How a Budget Actually Passes
A budget in Greenfield starts in the Mayor’s office, built department by department, and it is proposed as one package. The Greenfield 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 Council’s capital budget meeting for fiscal year 2027 was held on May 20, 2026, in the John Zon Community Center, with the Mayor, the City Clerk, the schools’ Interim Superintendent, the School Committee Chair and the city’s Financial Director all in the room. Meetings like that one are on the calendar months ahead, they are recorded by Greenfield Community Television, and the minutes are published afterward.
Reach the Office
- City Hall: 14 Court Square, Greenfield, MA 01301. Main line 413-772-1500.
- Mayor’s Office: 413-772-1560, mayor@greenfield-ma.gov.
- Chief of Staff: Erin Anhalt, 413-772-1581.
- Communications: Jonathon Weber, Communications Director.
The Council is the other half of every decision the Mayor proposes.