By Mia Occhino ’23
Image: Signs supporting Beverly candidates | Image credit: Jennie Oemig, Wicked Local
On November 2nd, Mike Cahill was reelected as the mayor of Beverly, marking his fifth term in office. He received 72% of the vote against challenger Esther Ngotho. Cahill won the vote in all six of Beverly’s wards, despite a strong campaign from Ngotho, who was Beverly’s first ever mayoral candidate of color. Cahill had also not faced an opponent for mayoral reelection since 2015.
For the at-large City Council race, Julie Flowers earned the council president seat with 5,898 votes. The remaining two at-large seats on the council were given to Flowers’s runners-up Hannah Bowen (4,363 votes) and Brendan Sweeney (3,658 votes), both first-time candidates.
The ward councilor contests were won by Estelle Rand (Ward 2), Steven Crowley (Ward 3), and Matt St. Hilaire (Ward 6). St. Hilaire took the spot from Dominic Copeland, Beverly’s first Black city councilor. Todd Rotondo (Ward 1), Scott Houseman (Ward 4), and Kathleen Feldman (Ward 5) all ran unopposed for re-election to the council.
The voter turnout for Beverly’s elections was 27%, about 4 times greater than the embarrassingly low turnout of 7.1% for the preliminary elections.
