The Pittsfield Mayor’s Office

Peter M. Marchetti

When a Pittsfield street goes unplowed or the Berkshire Athenaeum cuts its hours, one elected official owns the result. Peter M. Marchetti is the chief executive of Pittsfield under the city’s strong-mayor charter, which means he runs the city day to day. He files the entire city budget, the single document that decides whether your school keeps its teachers and how many firefighters are on duty tonight. He appoints the people who lead the police, fire, public works, and health departments, and he can remove them, and he sits as chair of the School Committee that governs your schools. Marchetti was sworn in on January 2, 2024, the first openly gay mayor in the city’s history, but he is no outsider. He graduated from Pittsfield High School, spent more than three decades at the Pittsfield Cooperative Bank, and served sixteen years on the City Council, eight of them as President, chairing the finance committee that picks apart every line of the budget. By the time he won the corner office he had read more Pittsfield budgets than almost anyone alive. He inherited a city still recovering from the loss of General Electric, the company that once employed thousands here, and he has aimed the job at filling the storefronts on North Street, defending the schools, and steering money toward housing and the cleanup of the Housatonic River. Because Pittsfield hands real power to an elected mayor, when a city service works or fails the responsibility lands on this desk.