It's Official!

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes. Last night's inauguration was exciting and emotional and one that I won't forget. I am ready to get to work.

As a body, we will be working hard to listen to each other, and work at building consensus and compromise to keep Salem moving forward to create a strong, vibrant community.

As a first Ward 3 update: the work by National Grid to replace the gas mains on Jefferson Ave, Wheatland St, and Lawrence St has been delayed in order to get approval from the Conservation Commission. Work is not expected to start until sometime around January 24.

Our very first order of business last night was about Ward 3: to send the issue of the zoning change for a portion of the old Cinema World property on Highland Ave to OLLA. The Planning Board sent this back with a negative recommendation. We will be dissecting this recommendation in subcommittee, and I will be urging my fellow councilors to approve this zoning change. This project has been an example for other developers in Salem: the developers worked very closely with the Barnes/Clark/Wyman neighborhood Association, and listened to Salem residents who attended the community meeting about a vision for Highland Ave. We should be encouraging that kind of open discussion between residents and developers, in order to build projects that work for our neighborhoods.

Thank you to the Salem News for the photo from the 2020 Salem City Council Inauguration.