Meet the Candidate- Mary DeLai (Ward 6, City Council)

This profile is part of a “Meet the Candidate” series. All candidates were given the opportunity to answer the same questions. Their responses are published verbatim, without any editing.

Why did you decide to run for office?

During my time as a Newburyport resident, I’ve developed a strong connection to our neighborhoods and city. Through active participation on volunteer boards my desire to serve this city has only grown stronger. I believe my experience as a public sector employee, specifically in municipal government and school administration, will allow me to have a significant positive impact and be a strong voice for the residents of Ward 6.

Our Ward and our City will face many challenges in the years ahead including maintaining excellent schools and municipal services in the face of budget constraints, responding to climate change, protecting our water supply, and providing more affordable housing options for citizens.  I’ve had to tackle many of these issues in the past and that experience will be an asset to our city. I genuinely feel that this is the time for me to use my many years of public service for the benefit of Newburyport.

If elected, what would be your top 3 priorities?

1. Protecting our city’s water supply and water quality, including addressing pollution as well as vulnerabilities due to climate change, investing in infrastructure that addresses those vulnerabilities, and ensuring that we are prepared in the event of future critical incidents.

2. Maintaining excellent schools and municipal services in the face of increasing financial pressure by identifying and leveraging opportunities for cost savings, revenue enhancement, and operational efficiency and by facilitating respectful, albeit difficult conversations about community needs and wants.

3. Ensuring our community and our ward remains safe and affordable by investing in traffic safety (such as the three roads intersection), providing safer access for pedestrians and cyclists, implementing more flexible zoning that supports the creation of more affordable housing and stems the tide of “mansionization”, and examining programs and policies that alleviate the burden of taxes and fees on our fixed income and lower income residents.

How has prior experience (either professional or personal) prepared you for this role?

I have thirty years of experience in the public sector having served at the federal, state, county, and local level. Twenty of those years have been in municipal government and school administration. I have served as a superintendent, chief financial officer, human resources director, climate resiliency manager, and policy analyst. I have developed and managed multimillion dollar budgets; secured millions in school construction, state, and federal grant funding; and identified efficiencies which produced significant savings for municipalities. I have collaborated with members of legislative delegations and the governor’s office and advocated for resources for the cities, towns, and districts. I have been an active and engaged citizen, serving our city as a member of the Energy Advisory Committee, and, more recently, as one of Newburyport’s representatives to the Whittier Tech School Committee. These experiences will allow me to “hit the ground running” and to minimize the steepness of the learning curve, allowing me to have a more immediate positive impact.

What can city government do to make local housing more affordable?

The city has already implemented several strategies to address housing affordability including the development of a comprehensive housing production plan, the adoption of an affordable housing ordinance, and the creation of a transit-oriented multi-family zoning overlay district. The city has an Affordable Housing Trust that works to create and preserve affordable housing and offers the HOMEPORT program that provides down-payment and closing cost assistance to eligible first-time homebuyers.

Since Newburyport does not currently have Safe Harbor status under Chapter 40B, developers are able to bypass certain local zoning regulations to build affordable housing. A current example is the proposed Plaza Landing Project at the former K-Mart site. Ideally, through progress toward the goals of the Housing Production Plan or achieving the required 10% subsidized housing inventory, the city will be able to achieve Safe Harbor status to better manage future affordable housing development.

Many of our residents have observed that the “affordable” units being built are not truly affordable. In Newburyport, affordable housing targets households at or below 80% of the “Area Median Income” (AMI) which is based on the metropolitan area that includes Boston, Cambridge, and other affluent locales. This causes our AMI to be much higher than it would be if it were limited to Merrimack Valley or Essex County. Unfortunately, that is not something that we can change. But what we can do is negotiate with developers to target households at lower income thresholds or provide higher percentages of affordable housing as part of larger projects.

Another option is examining zoning changes that might allow for more multi-family home construction, particularly in places like Ward 6. We tend to have larger lot sizes so builders will often tear down smaller homes and build much larger (and expensive) single-family homes. Builders have shared that because a special permit is required to build two-family or three-family homes in R2 and R3 districts, they tend to avoid that process. In many communities, two- and three-family construction is permitted by right in R2 and R3 districts. Such a change in Newburyport might incentivize builders to consider this type of construction rather than large single-family homes. We could also create an ad-hoc task force to work collaboratively with the builder community and other non-profit housing agencies to identify and remove the obstacles to more affordable housing projects.

Do you think residents are getting their money’s worth in city services from taxes?

To answer this question, we must first understand how our tax dollars are spent. Nearly half of our taxes go to funding our schools, while a quarter are spent on city services, nearly twenty percent on employee benefits, and five percent on debt service.

School spending includes Newburyport Public Schools, Whittier Regional, and Essex Tech. All three schools have strong records of performance, with Newburyport schools known for their academic excellence. One of the challenges our district faces is its size. We are a small district, with just four schools, one for each grade span. This can lead to inefficiencies when there are only one or two sections at a grade level, making it difficult to reduce sections while maintaining appropriate class size. Newburyport schools do participate in the school choice program which allows us to offer any additional seats to students in other communities and generate revenue for those seats. Rather than reducing classrooms and increasing class size, we earn $5,000 for those additional seats. This is an important strategy for addressing inefficiency and ensuring we get our money’s worth from our investments.

City services include public safety, public works, libraries, parks and recreation, and community services.  Most residents I speak with feel good about the quality of our public services available. As with any municipality, there are complaints about road and sidewalk maintenance, snow removal, and infrastructure investment. But the city has implemented several initiatives to address those concerns and to provide residents with an opportunity to voice those concerns.

One area we must examine more closely is employee benefits, which comprise nearly 20% of the city’s budget. In FY2026, the increase in the city’s budget was driven predominantly by a 14.5% increase in health insurance premiums. My experience has demonstrated that competitive procurement of health insurance and collaboration with public employee bargaining groups over plan design can result in savings and reductions in annual premium increases.

We should also continue conducting resident surveys to gather feedback on the quality of our city services. The city had been using Flash Vote to conduct surveys, although the budget was reduced during FY2026 budget deliberations. That said, there are many free tools the city could use to gather that information. As part of my campaign preparation, for example, I conducted a survey using a simple Google Form which was very effective for soliciting concerns and priorities of Ward 6 residents.

How would you balance historic preservation with more practical concerns like safety and accessibility?

Newburyport is fortunate to have a large inventory of historic assets. Ensuring accessibility while preserving historic elements can be a challenge. Achieving that balance starts with identifying where safety and accessibility may be at odds with historic preservation, which is often done through the master planning process. Newburyport’s current Master Plan was published in 2017, which means it was developed almost ten years ago. Typically, communities update their Master Plan every 5-10 years so Newburyport should be thinking about commencing a new Master Plan process soon. Through proactive and extensive community engagement, we can identify where these objectives might be at odds and seek solutions together.

One recent example is the discussion around brick sidewalks in the downtown historic district, and whether this type of material is compatible with accessibility and safety goals. While these discussions were contentious, I believe that we as a community must continue to engage in meaningful and respectful dialogue around these issues, and that a comprehensive master plan process is the right vehicle for those conversations.

Both safety and accessibility are very important to our community. Safety and accessibility and historic preservation are not mutually exclusive. There are many examples to draw from both here in Massachusetts and in other parts of the country. We should seek out those examples and determine what can be replicated here. It is possible to adapt historic structures, rather than dismantle historic features to make them accessible. Collaboration with experts in architecture, engineering, and accessibility will help produce better results that address these seemingly competing objectives.

How do you think Newburyport schools stack up against others in Essex County?

To answer this question, we must identify what metrics are most important as we compare ourselves to other districts. Are we looking at academic indicators like graduation rates or are we also looking at measures of school culture such as attendance and discipline? Similarly, we must identify which districts are truly comparable. Essex County includes communities like Lawrence, Lynn, Salem, and Haverhill, who do not have the same financial resources that our schools have. These districts are also substantially larger than Newburyport.

One metric often used is student performance on MCAS, particularly in Grades 3-8. Newburyport typically ranks in the top third, behind communities like Andover, Ipswich, Lynnfield, and Marblehead, but ahead of communities like Amesbury, Beverly, Danvers, or Georgetown, and far ahead of cities like Haverhill, Lawrence, Peabody, and Salem. Graduation rate is another metric, and Newburyport has one of the highest rates in Essex County at 98.6% (2024). We also have very low rates of student discipline and high rates of student attendance, which speak favorably to school culture.

Meanwhile, Newburyport’s per pupil spending is below per pupil amounts in Andover, Amesbury, Hamilton-Wenham, Ipswich, Marblehead, Gloucester and Salem, leading me to conclude that we are relatively efficient in our education spending, particularly given our small size.

Thus, I think it’s fair to say that Newburyport stacks up well against most Essex County school districts on most measures of academic performance, student success, and spending.

What else should voters know about you?

I look forward to the opportunity to serve Ward 6 as our next City Councillor. Those who have worked with me will attest to the fact that I work hard, do my research, and use data and input to inform my decision making. I am semi-retired, so I have the bandwidth to dedicate the hours necessary to be an effective, engaged, and informed Councillor; to be highly accessible and available to listen to constituent concerns; and to keep residents informed about matters that impact them. I have always been able to work well with any elected official, department head, or municipal employee. I greatly appreciate and respect our municipal workforce and believe we can hold employees accountable for achieving goals, so long as we commit to providing the resources and support needed to succeed. This is, no doubt, due to my time as a public servant which has taught me to always lead with humility, empathy, and integrity.

Mary DeLai is a candidate for Newburyport City Council, Ward 6. Election and early voting information can be found here.