Beverly Home Charter Amendments Approved For November Ballot

BEVERLY, MA — Beverly voters will not only head to the polls next month to choose a mayor for the city, but they will also choose how long future mayors will serve in between campaigns.

The long-awaited state approval of the city's proposed charter amendments means those proposals will now go to the ballot on Nov. 7.

The first is a proposed change to the mayoral term from two to four years. If approved, this would not take effect with this election but start with the next election cycle beginning in 2025.

The same is true for the proposed expansion of the city's school committee. If accepted, the new school committee would include an additional school committee member from Wards 1, 2 and 3, and one from Wards 3, 4 and 5. This would also be effective as of 2025.

The final change on the ballot concerns the residence of City Councilors and School Committee members. If approved, those who move out of their ward would be able to complete the term to which they were elected as long as there were 18 months or less remaining in that term.

In 202o, City Councilor John Frates was forced to relinquish his seat in Ward 6 when he moved out of the ward to the Ward 2 Goat Hill part of the city. Currently, the councilor must leave the city within the calendar year of his or her moving out of the ward.

There will be two candidates for mayor on the Nov. 7 ballot with local businessman Jamie Zarella challenging incumbent Mike Cahill. The two are set for a candidate forum on business issues hosted by the Greater Beverly Chamber of Commerce on Thursday morning at Off Cabot on Wallis Street.

Cahill and Zarella advanced out of the preliminary election as the final two candidates for the general election to be held on Nov. 7.

In the preliminary election held last week, Cahill received 2,728 votes (55.8 percent) with Zarella second at 1,760 (36.0 percent), according to unofficial results. Phil Venezia was third with 312 votes (6.4 percent).

Zarella won Ward 1, while Cahill won in Wards 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Most of the other City Council and School Committee races are uncontested on the ballot — not including potential write-in candidates — including Danielle Spang as the lone candidate on the ballot to replace Estelle Rand, who said this spring she would not run for re-election in Ward 2.

The lone contested race on the school committee comes in Ward 3 where Geraldine Cahill is challenging incumbent Kimberly Jo Coelho.

There are three City Council At-Large candidates — Hannah Bowen, Julie Flowers and Brendan Sweeney — with the highest vote-getter automatically becoming the City Council Chair for the next term.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)