Skip Bensley Becomes 3rd Salem Mayoral Candidate

SALEM, MA — Skip Bensley this week filed his official organizing committee for Salem mayor with the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance.

Bensley, who said on social media he intended to run for mayor last month, becomes the third candidate to officially challenge for the seat that will open when Lt. Gov.-elect Kim Driscoll resigns the post in January.

"I have an undying need to help others and that need has never been fully explored. Being Mayor will allow me to help as many of the 44,000-plus people who live here in Salem," Bensley said. "I also told my daughter long ago that if Kim Driscoll ever left I would run for mayor of Salem and here we are. I told my late father the same thing shortly before he passed at 92 last summer and he offered his unwavering support if that were to ever come to fruition."

Bensley, who joins Salem Chief of Staff Dominick Pangallo and former Salem Mayor Neil Harrington in the race, is a Chicago native who studied journalism at Northeastern University. He worked in television production in California for 10 years before moving to Massachusetts and starting his own production company in 2001.

He bought a house in Salem in 2016 and currently works in IT for a financial company in Boston.

"My daughter and I love Salem, Halloween, costumes, and the whole atmosphere of Halloween in
Salem as a whole," he said. "So looking for a property in Salem was a no-brainer."

The City Council will pick an acting mayor for Salem in January with a special election to be held to fill the remainder of Driscoll's term through the end of 2025 sometime this spring.

Bensley said he believes in "love over hate" and that "all people should be judged by the content of their character and little else."

His campaign launch statement cited support for the LGBTQ+ community, action on climate change, affordable housing, Salem Public Schools and updated traffic patterns in the city.

He also voiced support for a 5-cent deposit on nip bottles "so they can disappear from under our feet" as well as expanding senior programs and "affordable health care, taking care of our city's people and continuing the efforts started and maintained by Mayor Kim Driscoll."

Driscoll was elected to her fifth term as mayor last November but was just weeks into that term when she announced she would seek the lieutenant governor position. She outlasted a crowded field of candidates to win the Democratic nomination before she and Attorney General Maura Healey easily won the general election to become the first all-women executive team to lead the state as of January.

(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.)