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On the same night Marblehead voters approved a $15 million operating override, they returned the override's leading champion to the Select Board and left its most cautious critic off it.
The contested races doubled as a second verdict on that fight. In the two that drew real campaigns — Select Board and School Committee — voters lined up behind the candidates who had pushed to raise taxes and turned away those who preached restraint, the same divide that ran through the spring. Of the 24 seats on the ballot, only one sitting incumbent was voted out: Jean Eldridge, on the Housing Authority, by 67 votes. The boards that will now spend the $15 million will be run by much the same coalition that fought for it.
Backers carry the marquee races
The Select Board race, the night's most closely watched, sent three candidates after two seats. Erin Noonan, an attorney on the board since 2021, led the field with 4,776 votes. She had helped write the phased override and said she would vote yes on all three tax questions.
"Marblehead chose the best way forward today," Noonan said.
Rossana Ferrante took the second seat with 4,323, capping more than a decade of town service — seven years on the Planning Board, three on the Recreation and Park Commission, which she now chairs, and two on the Town Charter Committee. She had backed the middle $12 million tier as the pragmatic path.
"Now, it is time to get to work," she said.
Jennifer Schaeffner finished third with 2,562 votes, 1,761 behind Ferrante for the final seat. The former banking executive, who chairs the Housing Authority and served two terms on the School Committee, had run on spending discipline and declined to endorse any tier.
The School Committee broke the same way. Melissa Clucas, a chief financial officer appointed to the committee in September, kept her seat atop the field with 5,217 votes. Ann-Marie Jordan, a former teacher and administrator with more than 25 years in schools, won the second seat with 5,007 in her first run for town office. Both had campaigned on the need for the override.
Sarah Fox fell short again. The two-term member, who chaired the committee's budget and facilities subcommittees before losing her seat last year, had run against what she called a breakdown in transparency and pressed for a zero-based school budget. She finished third with 1,892 votes, more than 3,000 behind Jordan.
Down the ballot, one upset
Jack Attridge won a fifth term as town moderator, turning back Peter Jaffe, 5,038 to 2,082.
"It is an honor and privilege to be entrusted once again with stewardship of our community's most sacred democratic tradition," said Attridge, who has worked in local real estate for nearly 40 years and called Marblehead's open town meeting, now in its 377th year, a responsibility he does not take lightly.
The one seat that changed hands was the Housing Authority's. Jeffrey Weeden, who works for the Lynn Housing Authority, unseated Jean Eldridge, 3,108 to 3,041.
Eldridge, who could not attend the candidates forum, had told voters in a statement read into the record that she had served several terms and offered institutional knowledge and a commitment to residents.
Long roots and a record turnout
Elsewhere, voters rewarded long roots.
Sally Bull Sands, a lifelong resident with ancestors interred in four of Marblehead's burying grounds, won a two-year unexpired term on the Cemetery Commission over Rose McCarthy, 3,605 to 2,416. Appointed to the board in February, she had run on historic preservation and on drawing residents to a commission few attend.
On the Recreation and Park Commission, six candidates competed for five seats. The one left out was Kenneth Klaiman, who finished sixth with 2,477 votes. Voters returned incumbents Christopher Kennedy, with 4,632 votes; Shelly Bedrossian, with 4,217; Larry Simpson, with 4,017; and Karin Ernst, with 3,894; and added newcomer Michael McCarthy, with 3,951, who outpolled Ernst despite missing the candidates forum for a medical issue.
The commission had divided publicly over artificial turf, with Simpson, a horticulturist, the lone vote against it over health and environmental concerns and Kennedy supporting it for the Reynolds Park fields.
Three candidates ran unopposed for three seats on the Board of Health, which is expanding from three members to five, but the order of finish set the terms. Thomas McMahon, the incumbent, led with 4,548 votes and a three-year term; Julie Selbst followed with 4,045 and a two-year term; and Kristin Dubay Horton took a one-year term with 3,741.
"I'm really pleased with all the overrides that passed today. Clearly Marblehead is ready to invest in its future," Dubay Horton said, adding that she planned to run again next year.
Voters also filled a slate of uncontested seats: Bryan Adams as assessor; David Meyer for a full term on the Cemetery Commission; Gary Amberik and Katherine Barker as Abbot Public Library trustees; Matthew Harrington as municipal light commissioner; Robert Schaeffner Jr. and Marc Liebman on the Planning Board; and Barton Hyte and Gregory Burt on the Water and Sewer Commission.
Turnout reached 8,092 ballots, or 47.5 percent of the town's 17,040 registered voters — the highest for an annual town election in the Independent's records dating to 2006, and well above the 39.7 percent who voted in 2025.
The voters who turned out in those numbers had just agreed to tax themselves $15 million. On the same ballot, they chose the officials who asked them to do it.
Reporting and writing provided by Chris Stevens, a Marblehead Independent stringer, Sophia Harris, editorial director at Essex Media Group, and columnist Brenda Kelley Kim.
