Like neighboring city Northampton, Easthampton also now has four candidates seeking the mayor’s office. The latest to join is Salem Derby, the city’s interim mayor. He spoke with WAMC about his decision to run and hopes for the community.
Derby says when he first came into the role of interim mayor in July, he had no intention of running for the job full-time. The race already featured three other candidates and his teaching and city government work kept him busy as is.
But, after a short while on the job and meetings with department head after department head, he says, things began to click. Before long, he was taking out papers to run.
Elections are nothing new for the councilor of 22 years. Representing Precinct 4, Derby became president of the council earlier this year before later finding himself in the mayor’s office – taking over after the already-outgoing Mayor Nicole LaChapelle announced she would be leaving sooner than expected.
“I always worked really well with Nicole, and when we sat down on that faithful Wednesday - I had no idea what I was coming into the office for - she said ‘Hey, are you ready to be mayor?’" he recalls.
By mid-July, LaChapelle was out, becoming the state’s next Department of Conservation and Recreation Commissioner. Per city charter, Derby took her place, and after several weeks in the mayor’s office and working with department heads, he decided to seek a full term.
“I didn't realize how uniquely qualified I was for this position - my time in a nonprofit, managing grants, was really helpful, understanding budgets was really helpful, being a small business owner and having my finger on the pulse of what other small business owners, what their needs are in the community,” he says.
Moving to the city 25 years ago, it wasn’t long before Derby became involved in municipal matters.
Some of his earliest work included time on the city’s Properties Committee, helping secure a MassWorks grant to revamp a blighted stretch by the Pleasant Street mill buildings – improving the bike path and repairing a crumbling lot, one that now hosts food trucks and parking for the mill buildings, now filled with bars and restaurants.
“… and it was also such a cool confluence of the city working together with the state and the mill owners, and those types of partnerships are so valuable, especially in a small city like Easthampton,” Derby says. “Being able to work with developers, work with property owners, work with the city and pull resources in to do something that is greater than the sum of its parts... Easthampton is good at synergy – we’re good at pulling things together and making them bigger than their individual pieces.”
He says the city’s changed greatly over the last the few decades, from a former mill town to a spot with a distinct arts and culture scene. Like the other candidates seeking the mayor’s office, Derby says affordability is a top issue. Out-of-state property buyers and rising rents have his attention, as does the work of the council’s rent study committee.
He adds there’s a hope that more projects across Easthampton coming together could make a dent in the issue.
“… housing availability and housing affordability [are] going to be top of the list every single time and I think that with projects that we have in the works, we have an opportunity to potentially take some of the pressure off that,” Derby tells WAMC. “… between all of the different projects that could come online within the next four to eight years, it’s going to add a decent number of units to Easthampton, which is going to, hopefully, help some of those prices come down.”
A teacher at Northampton High School, he adds education and supporting Easthampton Public Schools are at the top of his priority list as well, as is looking at ways to improve downtown, bolstering what he considers an already vibrant stretch.
In a city that uses ranked-choice voting for its mayoral race, Derby will face the current executive assistant to the mayor, Lindsi Sekula, as well as fellow councilor JT Tirrell and resident Bob Laferriere on Nov. 4.
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This piece originally aired on Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025.
