Melrose City Councilor-at-Large Ward Hamilton is seeking reelection in 2025. Elected in November of 2023, Hamilton has served in many roles and functions over the past sixteen months, including being the City Council representative to both the Water & Sewer Committee and the Public Safety Facilities Advisory Committee. As promised during the last campaign, his focus has been on the critical—but sometimes-mundane—business of day-to-day municipal governance.

 

Born and raised in Melrose, Hamilton’s ties to the community span four generations.  His great-grandparents, Herbert and Ruth Hamilton, moved their family to Melrose from Revere in 1907. Since then, four generations of the family have matriculated through the public schools and graduated from Melrose High School. Ward attended Auburn University as an undergraduate and earned a master’s degree in 2012 from UMass-Amherst. He has been married to his wife, Andrea, for thirty-one years. They are the proud parents of five children: Hannah, Joseph, Grace, Johanna, and Seth; as well as a grandson, Ethan Ward Connor.

 

Hamilton is the owner of Olde Mohawk Historic Preservation on East Emerson Street, a business specializing in masonry restoration, traditional roofing systems, and architectural woodwork. A mason by trade, he got his start in construction with the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers. Ward has been fortunate to work on some great buildings, but his favorite projects have involved adaptive reuse. By repurposing existing buildings for affordable housing and other uses, Ward believes we can prolong the useful service life of structures that would otherwise end up in a landfill.

 

Ward Hamilton is the vice president of the board of directors at Congregational Retirement Homes, a non-profit that owns and oversees one-third of the affordable housing stock in Melrose. In 2020, he was elected to represent Melrose on the Northeast Metro Tech School Committee. In 2021, as the school embarked on its plan to build a new $320M school, he was selected by his peers on the committee to serve as its treasurer. He is also the treasurer of the Friends of Melrose Football, a position he has held since 2008.

 

Ward’s motto is “Be of service to others.”  He has a strong sense of civic responsibility, and his track record demonstrates that he cares about what happens in Melrose. In the past, he has served on the Melrose Historical Commission, including two and a half years as the chair and, in 2020, he was appointed to the Superintendent of Melrose Public Schools Screening Committee. Ward has also served on the Melrose High School Site Council, the Melrose Public Safety Building Committee, and he coached middle school football for several years.

 

Ward Hamilton believes that good government is about good stewardship, and that the people of Melrose deserve to be represented by elected officials who will follow best practices in the allocation and oversight of the City's resources. As some of his colleagues have used their positions to advance special interests and promote self-serving agendas, Ward has remained laser-focused on being fiscally responsible, caring for our aging infrastructure, delivery of municipal services to our residents, and expanding affordable housing opportunities for seniors in Melrose.

 

“It has been a privilege to serve on the City Council and represent the people of Melrose,” Hamilton said. “We find ourselves in challenging times and the current fiscal reality calls for prudence as we wade into the dark waters ahead. We must be objective and poised, exercising proper due diligence and operating strategically from a position of financial conservatism. Emotionally charged, knee jerk reactions and stop-gap measures will do nothing but kick the proverbial can further down the road. The time has come for us to take stock of our values as a community, examine our priorities, and make the hard decisions that will keep Melrose on a trajectory for continued fiscal stability.”

 

To learn more about how your support can strengthen leadership in local government, click on the link to contact The Committee to Elect Ward Hamilton or email us at wardhamiltonforcitycouncil@gmail.com today.