Essex Select Board Adopts Uniform Tax Rate, Approves Hazard Plan, and Eyes DPW Hire

ESSEX — November 3, 2025 — Essex Select Board holds uniform tax rate and preps 28 articles for November 17 town meeting. The board voted unanimously Monday to maintain a residential factor of 1.0 — keeping tax rates equal across residential, commercial, industrial, and personal property classes — on the recommendation of the Board of Assessors, which noted commercial values rose roughly 10 percent this year and residential roughly 4 percent, with new growth coming in just below $100,000. The board also authorized the chair to sign two pending state legislative earmarks — $30,000 for a Chebaccod Lake study shared with Hamilton and $60,000 for a three-bridge study through MassDOT — and accepted an $11,375 green crab trapping grant from the Division of Marine Fisheries. The meeting's sharpest debate centered on the Memorial Park tennis court redesign, where Town Administrator Brendan Egan warned that any soil coring could expose the town to open-ended remediation costs tied to legacy contamination, prompting resident Ruth Farine to warn the board against "putting the taxpayers in jeopardy of potentially millions of dollars of cleanup fees." The board adopted the Town of Essex Hazard Mitigation Plan 2025 Update and finalized reader assignments for all 28 fall town meeting articles, with the Select Board meeting and town meeting both scheduled for November 17 at Essex Elementary School.