Rossana Ferrante
Recreation & Parks Commission chair, Town Charter Committee member, former Planning Board member, attorney
1. Do you support the override this June? If yes, which tier will you vote for?
I support stabilizing the town’s financial situation and services while holding ourselves accountable. We must take a measured approach to raising taxes. I attended the Super Saturday session that the Finance Committee held with all the departments — the town needs an override.
With that said, this budget season seemed hurried and did not allow enough time for the community to truly understand how the town derived the override options. Although it is not on the ballot, I am in favor of a one-year override that stabilizes current services and challenges the town to find other ways to cut costs/increase revenue.
Assuming a multi-year override passes, I recommend that a proposed underride stay on the radar in the event other non-tax-based solutions present themselves. As a result, I am leaning towards supporting Tier 1 and/or Tier 2.
In terms of trash collection, I will vote yes on the override; I recommend that we apply lessons learned from the last trash collection override. We need to start now to have the right processes and oversight in place to make sure that we are not in this situation again in five years.
2. Aside from passing an override, do you have any ideas for reducing pressure on the town budget, either by raising revenue or reducing costs? If so, what are they?
Based on the details I know today, I see opportunities in the following areas: town services/operations, how we communicate across departments and boards/commissions, and potential new processes that could set up the proper framework to reduce pressure on the town budget. Finding ways to elevate the quality of our responsiveness, timeliness and proactive
communication will save us time and money. We need to revisit and conduct a deep dive into all aspects of how we do business, i.e. insurance, contracts, town-owned property currently not in use, etc. Challenge ourselves on the status quo and find creative solutions to not raise taxes.
3. What role should the Select Board play in economic development, including support for local businesses?
The Select Board leads the strategic vision and process road map, with the combined input of the departments and community, to capitalize economic development opportunities. The first step is to make it a priority and focus — assign a subcommittee to identify opportunities, what is holding us back, potential incentives and/or strategic partnerships to close gaps, direct and
indirect ways to support existing local businesses and attract new businesses to the community. Once this focus is established, the role of the Select Board drives measurable progress and results to come from it.
4. Describe a decision by town leaders that you agreed or disagreed with in the past year. What would you have done differently?
I strongly supported and agreed with town leaders keeping the Public Works Committee in place. This committee is one of the most important public forums driving efficiency and collaboration across departments and the community. It is a proactive approach to setting projects up as efficiently as possible. For example, the Reynolds Project (funded by the Larz Anderson Trust bequest), under Recreation and Parks (led by Commissioner Shelly
Bedrossian and Superintendent Jaime Bloch), has saved over $800,000 by working through this committee. This committee supports the form of government Marblehead wants in place — decentralized and bringing decisions closer to the people.
5. What’s your assessment of the degree of distrust of public officials in the town of Marblehead? If you agree that this is a problem, how would you combat it, if elected?
As in any community, there are people who distrust public officials to some degree. The goal is to work as one community; I believe being divisive drives distrust.
What I feel builds trust: a collaborative mindset, timely and clear communication, reasonableness, responsiveness, strategic planning, process and structure to facilitate better decision-making, and a proactive approach to drive common ground and results.
Also, I recommend that we have more structure in how we work with the School Committee — I am confident that working closer together will positively impact the overall budget.
6. Assuming the state gives its final approval to the town’s plan to comply with the MBTA Communities Act, how will you look back on this chapter in the town’s history? What lessons, if any, do you take from it?
The Commonwealth’s lack of collaboration from the start set the stage for the challenges it has faced by several communities. The MBTA Communities Act seemed to only consider factors like transit access, town size and existing infrastructure when selecting towns and cities. The law was passed without consulting with any communities.
In early 2022, the Commonwealth held a public comment period where towns could provide feedback, which seemed to not make any difference. Further, in early 2025, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court confirmed that the law was constitutional. Odds were not in our favor.
In terms of lessons learned, we need to come together as one community as soon as possible — being divisive costs the community time and money. We ultimately structured ourselves to find a solution when we had all viewpoints at the table.
