Essex signs fall warrant: Nov. 16 town meeting, Dec. 10 school vote

Essex selectmen on Monday signed the warrant for a Nov. 16 Fall Town Meeting, set a Dec. 10 special election on the new Essex Elementary School, and approved the job description for the town's first full-time fire chief.

What happened

• The fall town meeting is Monday, Nov. 16, at 6:45 p.m. at Essex Elementary School. The warrant has 19 articles, including six zoning changes, the $95,351,985 school project and the switch to a full-time fire chief.
• Voters will also decide the school question at the ballot box on Thursday, Dec. 10, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Public Safety Facility.
• The board approved the fire chief job description and settled on a five member screening committee. The Finance Committee said the fire department's plan to pay for the chief and two weekday shifts in fiscal 2028 can work on paper.
• Three Community Preservation requests go to that committee: boat racks at Red Gate Road beach, design and permits for erosion work at Centennial Grove, and design and permits for a short rail trail behind Town Hall.
• The board approved the weekly warrant of $457,626.53, the Oct. 5 minutes and 2027 retiree health insurance rates, which rose 6.8 percent.

Chairman Ann Cameron and Selectman Dexter Lee-Viator were in the room. Selectman Peter Phippen was absent. Town Administrator Brendhan Zubricki joined by video.

What the school would cost on a tax bill

Zubricki said the school district's financial adviser has now run two ways to pay back the borrowing. With level payments, where the yearly bill stays about the same, the new cost is about $1.18 per $100,000 of property value in Essex and about 84 cents in Manchester. That is on top of older school debt that is being paid off. The Essex number is higher because homes in Manchester are worth more, so the same style of house has more "hundred thousands" to spread the cost over.

With level principal payments, the town pays more at the start and less each year after. Zubricki said that drops the peak cost to about 70 cents per $100,000 in Manchester and to about 95 to 99 cents in Essex, and taxpayers pay less overall.

Nothing is decided yet. Zubricki said the state's share has gone up a little since the community meetings, to about $21 million, so each town's share comes down slightly. The warrant lists the state grant at $20,994,876, the Essex share at $24,802,081 and the Manchester share at $49,555,028. The district plans short-term borrowing from spring 2027 to spring 2029, then permanent borrowing in 2029 and 2031, with the choice between the two payment plans made after the Dec. 10 votes.

Finance Committee Chairman Jodi Harris said her committee took a straw poll and six of its seven members backed the project. She said renovating the current school would cost about $53 million with no state money, about $7 million less for the town, and would not change the building for students. Manchester's special town meeting is also Nov. 16. A final community meeting on the design is Wednesday, Nov. 4, at 6 p.m. at Essex Elementary.

Paying for a full-time fire chief

Essex now runs its fire department through a Board of Fire Engineers, a group of fire officers. Article 8 on the warrant would adopt a state law that lets the selectmen hire a full-time chief, starting Feb. 1, 2027. The Board of Fire Engineers would end on that date.

The town had asked the department to show how it could keep two weekday shifts and add the chief in fiscal 2028 without a bigger budget. Harris said the committee met with Fire Chief Christian Hassel on Oct. 15 and went over a plan that moves $50,000 inside the department's budget: $25,000 from training salaries, $19,500 from administrative hours that the new chief would take on, and smaller amounts from equipment and other expense lines. The committee raised the administrative line from the $17,500 the department offered so the total reached $50,000.

Harris said these are reallocations, not cuts, and the committee is not approving a budget now. The new chief will build the department's budget from scratch, she said, and the committee wants data on calls and staffing from the department's new record system. Zubricki said no vote was needed on the plan.

The board then voted, as the town's Personnel Board, to approve version 5.0 of the chief's job description. Cameron said she had three copy edits. The preliminary screening committee will be Lee-Viator, Zubricki, Hassel for the Board of Fire Engineers, a member of the fire company to be named, and Harris for the Finance Committee. Finance Committee member Joshua Franklin had been suggested but travels every other week. Zubricki said the first meeting will decide where to advertise the job and how the process will run, and that he has drafted interview questions.

Three preservation requests

Zubricki said the cost figures for the town's possible Community Preservation Act projects arrived the same day. Boat racks at the Red Gate Road beach on Chebacco Lake would cost about $12,000. Fixing erosion on two slopes at Centennial Grove, which a study says washes phosphorus into the lake, would cost about $178,000 start to finish, or $38,000 for design and $11,000 for permits. Design and permits for a nature trail along the old rail bed behind the Town Hall tennis courts would cost $187,000, most of it for a possible link to a small island.

The board asked to split the erosion project so the committee sees the design and permit cost first, with construction to follow at a later town meeting. The two members agreed to send the racks, the erosion design and the trail design to the committee, which met Oct. 21.

What else is on the warrant

Planning Board Chair Lisa O'Donnell said the first six articles are "pretty low key." They update the wetlands overlay district to match state law, define battery storage systems and data centers, require a special permit for battery storage, put a moratorium on data centers until Jan. 1, 2028, add an inclusionary housing rule that requires 10 percent affordable units in projects of six or more homes, and raise the top zoning fine from $20 to $200 a day.

O'Donnell said the moratorium gives the town two town meetings to write real rules while the state finishes its own. On housing, she said the town's affordable stock is about 2 percent against a state goal of 10 percent, and a grant of about $65,000 from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the regional planning agency, will help write a rule tailored to Essex within about a year.

Other articles would replace the carbon filter media at the water plant using money from a PFAS settlement, pay for water and sewer rate studies, buy a generator, a sidewalk plow and plastic sanders for the DPW, replace a police cruiser, add to the town's savings funds and put money toward retiree health costs. Zubricki said the town's free cash was certified Monday at about $1.2 million.

Budget season starts

At the quarterly meeting of department heads, Zubricki said the memo for fiscal 2028 budgets went out Oct. 8 and departments must file by Jan. 11. Harris said the committee wants level funded budgets, data behind every request and a close look at the use of outside contractors. She called the town's limited room under the 2.5 percent tax levy cap its biggest stressor and said the committee hopes to avoid another override. Zubricki also said the town's new Facebook page now posts meeting notices automatically and a posting policy is being written.

What was decided

• Weekly warrant, $457,626.53: approved.
• Minutes of Oct. 5: approved.
• Open, fill, close, approve and sign the Nov. 16 warrant: approved, 19 articles as presented.
• Special election Dec. 10, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., Public Safety Facility: approved.
• Retiree health care rates for 2027: approved.
• Full-time fire chief job description, version 5.0: approved.
• Adjourn: approved. All votes were voice votes with both members in favor.

What happens next

• Wednesday, Nov. 4, 6 p.m.: last community meeting on the school design, Essex Elementary School.
• Monday, Nov. 2, 6 p.m.: next selectmen's meeting, Town Hall auditorium, with time for questions about the warrant.
• Monday, Nov. 16, 6:45 p.m.: Fall Town Meeting, Essex Elementary School. The school borrowing needs a two-thirds vote.
• Thursday, Dec. 10, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.: special election on the school override, Public Safety Facility. A majority wins.
• Jan. 11: department budgets due for fiscal 2028.

Where to find the records

• Board of Selectmen agenda, Oct. 19
• 2026 Fall Town Meeting warrant and the Town Meeting page with the override FAQs
• Meeting recording on YouTube
• Agenda Center, where the minutes are posted when approved

Earlier coverage: Monday on Cape Ann: Essex sets its Fall Town Meeting and a Dec. 10 school override vote (Oct. 16), the preview of this meeting. Essex sets out how it will choose its first full-time fire chief (Oct. 9), the Oct. 5 meeting. Essex fire officials bring their plan for a full-time chief to the Finance Committee (Oct. 14). Essex preservation committee to weigh kayak racks, Centennial Grove erosion work and a rail trail design (Oct. 15). Essex school building committee OKs $95.4M design, 10 to 0 (Oct. 17).

How we did this: Cape Ann Current watched the meeting online and checked names against the agenda, the posted warrant and the board rosters on the town website. These are our meeting notes, not the town's minutes.