IN THIS ISSUE
SO CLOSE
BOO!
STORIES
Magicians play a great game but lose by 3
The Current has you covered on Halloween happenings
Dan Dixey talks about his latest book on Marblehead
Page 12
Page 13
Page 9
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MARBLEHEAD, MA PERMIT NO. 25
NEWS FOR PEOPLE, NOT FOR PROFIT.
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OCTOBER 29, 2025
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VOLUME 3, ISSUE NO. 9
FIRST WAVE 1
There are calls for a spring override to prevent painful cuts. Page 1
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MARBLEHEADCURRENT.ORG
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Town settles arbitration case with officer, pushing costs over $600K. Page 1
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ON SOCIAL @MHDCURRENT
monk accuses and son open 3 Local 5 Entrepreneurial 4 Father town of colluding a winter sanctuary siblings are designing
with the feds. Page 7
for vintage cars. Page 6
Marbleheadopoly. Are you game? Page 3
Five facts from this week’s Marblehead Current.
GLOOMY FORECAST
To maintain services, override seen as unavoidable BY LEIGH BLANDER The town’s fiscal 2027 revenue is projected to decline by $514,462 to $109,244,857, leading Finance Director Aleesha Benjamin to predict the need for the first general override since 2005 “to sustain high-quality services.” Benjamin presented a gloomy
financial forecast at a Select Board meeting Oct. 22. In local receipts, the town’s interest income is expected to drop $800,000. Building permits and fees are projected to dip by $100,000, due to a slowdown in local building. Local automobile excise taxes are predicted to drop $200,000. While state aid is expected
to increase 1% to $9 million, it will not keep pace with inflation at 3%. The town is projecting $2.1 million in additional property taxes (the limit under Proposition 2 ½), bringing the total amount of property taxes to $77.8 million. Meanwhile, costs are expected to soar. The town is about to sign a new trash and recycling
contract that is predicted to increase costs by $800,000 to $1 million. Employee insurance costs are increasing 14%, and personnel costs (which make up 80% of the town’s budget) are set to climb about 3% due to contractual obligations. Pension costs are also expected to rise. Other expenses are not yet known. Town department heads
are being asked to prepare levelfunded spending plans, which will be undercut by climbing costs. Benjamin also warned that the town shouldn’t be tempted to tap into free cash (money left over from previous years), as it has for many years. Finance OVERRIDE, P. 7
HALLOWEEN TRADITION
Haunting hobby: Architect reveals latest creation BY LEIGH BLANDER
CURRENT PHOTO / LEIGH BLANDER
Marblehead architect Tom Saltsman, on the ladder, works on his latest Halloween installation Monday afternoon. His brother, Charles, and volunteer Tim Sullivan look on.
COURTESY PHOTOS
Tom Saltsman’s latest Halloween creation, a giant hermit crab, will be live with visual and sound effects Oct. 30. Saltsman built eight motors and a pulley to animate the crab.
Marblehead architect Tom Saltsman reached back into childhood for his latest largerthan-life, magical Halloween installation outside his home at 32 Pleasant St. Saltsman has designed and built a giant, mechanical hermit crab and is creating a tide pool in his driveway, complete with barnacles, seaweed, lighting and sound effects. It’s been visible since the weekend but will be animated with visual and sound effects by Thursday, Oct. 30, Saltsman said. Everything in the display is scaled up about 100 times, Saltsman said, including the barnacles, some of which are two feet in diameter. “It’s inspired by my childhood memories of playing in tide pools,” Saltsman told the Current as he gave this reporter a sneak peak last week. “Tidepools are a childhood fascination.” Salstman grew up in Connecticut and has fond memories of tide pooling in Old Saybrook and along the Long Island Sound. “I wanted it to be apolitical,” he said about this year’s installation. “I wanted to focus on the kids, talk to the kids.” Saltsman built the hermit crab, 10 feet tall and 14
This moving, grunting gorilla was one of Saltsman’s favorite Halloween installations.
»Check out more Halloween happenings in Current Events, page 12. feet wide, from wood and Styrofoam. It has two claws, six legs, several mouth parts, a body, eyes and two sets of antennae. It has eight motors to animate different parts and a pulley system that will move the crab in and out of its shell. “It’s like a giant puppet,” Saltsman said. In the past, Saltsman has built incredible scenes including a dragon breathing smoke, a 22-foot-tall grunting gorilla and an 18-foot-tall translucent walking man. He often transforms the inside of
his garage to fit the theme and invites people to walk through. The owner of a design and construction firm, Saltsman has been creating awe-inspiring Halloween pieces for nearly 20 years. It all started when his now-grown daughter was a student at the old Coffin School, and he created a Halloween experience for kids there. This year marks the 10th anniversary of his driveway installations. Each October, passersby on foot and in cars start slowing down outside Saltsman’s home to check on his latest creation. Last year, he created a scene from 2124 with a large, lit face with expressions and moving eyes, along with a robot, tethered dog and enlarged, bio-engineered mite. The year before, he created a mythical forest troll in his driveway with an eerie woodland inside his garage. In 2023, he designed and built a 20-foot Egyptian goddess with the head of a cobra and body of a woman. Saltsman works full time and spends dozens of hours in the evenings and on weekends working on his Halloween projects. He started working on the hermit crab in September with his wife, Brooke Trivas Saltsman, and a handful of loyal friends/ volunteers who help him each year, including Jill Dearborn and Tim and Katie Sullivan.
CASE CLOSED
Town to pay $295K in settlement with officer BY LEIGH BLANDER The town has settled an arbitration case with Marblehead Police Officer Chris Gallo, Select Board Chair Dan Fox announced Oct. 22. On Feb. 12, an arbitrator ordered the town to reinstate Gallo nearly a year after the Select Board terminated his employment. The Select Board then decided not to appeal that decision. The town will pay Gallo a
BLACK CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW
total of $295,000 for salary and missed overtime and details he might have earned during the time he was suspended with pay in June 2021 through his reinstatement in March. The total also includes $35,000 for reimbursed insurance payments. The money will be paid in two installments, this fiscal year and next fiscal year. Gallo was accused of spending extended amounts of time at home during his overnight shifts. He was
also accused of conduct unbecoming of an officer related to a domestic incident involving his girlfriend. The arbitrator, however, ruled that the town’s findings were flawed. The $295,000 is on top of the at least $340,149 in legal and other expenses incurred by the town during Gallo’s suspension and arbitration process, according to town financial records obtained through public records requests. That
total includes the $251,824 the town paid Gallo while he was on leave. Fox called the settlement a “full and final resolution of all financial matters” related to the Gallo case, “without admission of guilt on either side.” “This is always a compromise,” he said. Fox did not immediately respond when asked by email where the town would find the funds for the Gallo settlement.
CURRENT PHOTO / LEIGH BLANDER
The town will pay $295K to Police Officer Chris Gallo in an arbitration settlement.