North Adams Sees Races for Mayor, School Committee & City Council

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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The city will see races for mayor, City Council and School Committee in November. 
 
There will be no preliminary election. 
 
Tuesday was the deadline to submit nomination papers with signatures of at minimum 50 registered voters. Candidates do have until Aug. 14 to withdraw before the ballot is set. 
 
Jennifer Macksey is being challenged for a third term in the corner office by Scott Berglund. Both candidates took out papers in April; Macksey had hers back in 19 days while Berglund submitted his June 12. 
 
Richard David Greene took out papers on June 5 but did not return them. 
 
The seven incumbents running for City Council have had their signatures certified: Lisa Blackmer, Keith Bona, Peter Breen, Andrew Fitch, Peter Oleskiewicz, Bryan Sapienza, and Ashley Shade. 
 
Sapienza and Shade were the first to take out papers on March 18; Fitch was the last to submit his on Tuesday at noon. 
 
Incumbents Deanna Morrow and Wayne Wilkinson are not running for re-election. Morrow is finishing up her first term and Wilkinson has served five terms on the council and has also served on the Planning Board and as chair of the Mobile Home Rent Control board. 
 
Newcomers for council are Aprilyn Carsno (a two-time mayoral candidate), CarrieAnne Crews, Alexa MacDonald, Marie McCarron, Virginia Riehl (a member of the Planning Board) and Lillian Zavatsky. 
 
At least two will be seated, and if one more makes it into the top nine vote-getters, the council could have a majority of women for the first time. This would, of course, depend on incumbents Blackmer and Shade retaining their seats.  
 
The last highest number of women on the council was the 2014-2016 term when Blackmer, Jennifer Breen, Kate Merrigan and Nancy Bullett served. 
 
Ronald Sheldon, who has run for office before, did not take out papers until July 17 and did not have enough certified signatures to make the ballot. Joshua Vallieres and Thomas Wallace did not return papers. 
 
The School Committee will see at least one new member as Richard Alcombright did not return his papers. The former mayor was elected to a four-year term in 2021 and also serves on the School Building Committee. 
 
Incumbents Emily Daunis and David Sookey are both running for their second terms. Chelsey Lyn Ciolkowski and Eric Wilson, who ran in the last election, are vying for one of the three seats. 
 
Incumbents Taylor Gibeau and Gary Rivers are running for re-election to the McCann School Committee. Christopher Tremblay, a former councilor, took out papers on July 24 but did not return them.
 
They are currently one incumbent and one challenger for mayor; seven incumbents and six challengers for the nine City Council seats; two incumbents and two challengers for three School Committee seats; and two incumbents for two McCann School Committee seats. 

Tags: election 2025,   municipal election,   

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North Adams Updated on Schools, Council President Honored With 'Distinction'

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff

Superintendent Timothy Callahan gives a presentation on the school system at Tuesday's City Council meeting. 
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The City Council got an update on what's up in the school system and its president was inducted into the mayor's Women's Leadership Hall of Fame.
 
Mayor Jennifer Macksey, as the city's first woman mayor, established the Hall of Fame in 2022, during March, Women's History Month, to recognize local women who have had a positive impact on the city. Past inductees have included the council's first woman president Fran Buckley, Gov. Jane Swift and boxing pioneer Gail Grandchamp. 
 
She described President Ashley Shade as a colleague and a friend and a former student. 
 
"Ashley is known not just for her leadership, but for her compassion, her ability to listen, to understand and to stand up for those whose voices are often gone unheard," the mayor said. "She has been a tireless advocate for the LGBTQ plus community and marginalized communities at both the local and national level here in North Adams."
 
Elected in 2021, Shade is the first openly transgender person to hold the role of council president in Massachusetts. She also leads the first-ever woman majority council in the city's history. 
 
The McCann Technical School graduate also has served on boards and commissions, "always working to make our city more inclusive, equitable and welcoming," said the mayor. "Ashley not leads not only with strength, but with a heart, and our community is a much stronger place because of it."
 
Shade, wearing her signature pink suit, was presented with a plaque from the mayor designating her a "woman of distinction."
 
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