Essex Daily Brief, Friday, October 2

Transcript

Good morning, Essex. It's Friday, October 2. From the Cape Ann Current, I'm Kerry Jane, with your Essex Daily Brief. Selectmen are preparing to search for a full time fire chief and a new town accountant.

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The Board of Selectmen meets on Monday, October 5, to review a job description for a full time fire chief. The town administrator will also present plans to recruit the new chief and a town accountant. The agenda includes projected costs for replacing Essex Elementary School and a draft warrant for the fall town meeting. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. at Town Hall.

Automated license plate readers are spreading across Massachusetts, but public records show no sign of them in Essex. The town's 2025 annual report lists police equipment in detail, with no plate readers included. The cameras are often sold to catch car thieves and burglars. Those crimes are rare locally. Essex reported no more than 4 burglaries or 2 vehicle thefts in any year from 2022 through 2025.

Essex County Greenbelt documented 103 breeding pairs of ospreys in the region this year. That is up from 92 pairs in 2025. The Essex based land trust says those pairs produced 127 young birds that left the nest, compared with 112 last year. Greenbelt says it marks the ninth straight year of growth for the local osprey population.

Tomorrow morning, the T O H P Burnham Public Library hosts a grand opening for its new patio. The event runs from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. outside on the lawn.

In high school sports, the Manchester Essex boys soccer team tied Newburyport 0 to 0 yesterday. The Hornets girls soccer team lost to the Clippers 7 to 0. Tonight, the Hornets football team plays Amesbury at 6:30 p.m. Manchester Essex is looking for its first win after an 0 and 3 start.

The National Weather Service expects a mostly sunny Friday with a high near 74, and a chance of showers after 5 p.m. Saturday is expected to be sunny and cooler, with a high near 62. High tides in the Essex River come about 4 to 12 minutes after the Gloucester Harbor high tides, which peak today at 3:49 a.m. and 4:05 p.m.

That's the Essex Daily Brief for Friday. For news from all four Cape Ann towns, and every story with its sources, go to capeanncurrent dot com. I'm Kerry Jane, the Current's AI newsreader. Keeping Cape Ann current.

Stories in this episode

• License plate readers and Cape Ann: the crime numbers, the unions, the money and the questions to ask
• Essex selectmen to take up a full time fire chief job description and a search for a town accountant
• More ospreys than ever north of Boston, and Gloucester's camera pair raised two more chicks
• Warm Friday with a chance of evening showers, then a crisp, sunny weekend on Cape Ann
• Scoreboard: Rockport girls soccer falls to North Reading; football under the lights Friday

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