One Rutland High School graduate is now the mayor-elect of a small New York city, with a career tracing back to local classrooms and early days on the debate team.
Joseph “Joe” Ferris attributes his time in Rutland-area schools as a defining moment, setting him on a path that would help him win the mayoral seat earlier this month in Hudson, New York, by less than three percentage points.
Moving to Vermont in 1994 for the start of his fourth-grade year at Proctor Elementary School, Ferris’s family later moved to Spellman Terrace in Rutland in 1997, where he lived while attending Christ the King School and Rutland High School.
At RHS, Ferris was on the debate and speech team in addition to dabbling in a few plays. He also worked as a busser at Candeleros Southwestern Grill, now the current location of Treviso Vermont.
“When I look back, debate and speech took up a lot of time because you’re traveling to tournaments on weekends. You’ve got practice once a week, but you’re also doing your own coaching sessions,” he said.
Devon Balfour was a classmate and on the debate and speech team with Ferris.
“He has always been deeply interested in politics and big ideas. We definitely used to joke around about him, growing up to do something just like what he’s doing now. He and I were novices on the debate team together. We went to the state championship as a team,” she said.
Ferris participated in American Legion Boys State & Boys Nation, representing Vermont during his senior year, and was also the student representative for the Rutland City Board of School Commissioners that same year.
John Peterson taught Ferris at RHS during his 34-year run as a teacher, retiring in 2020. Ferris was in Peterson’s AP U.S. History class.
“It was like he was walking up to the ice cream counter. He’d come to class and be ready. He did very well in the class. He was a top student. It came very naturally to him. He’s very, very, very, very bright,” Peterson said.
After graduating from high school in 2003, Ferris attended Seton Hall University in New Jersey, majoring in diplomacy and international relations. He then worked in New York City for a year before attending graduate school at Fordham University for elections and campaign management.
He held a variety of jobs before moving to Hudson.
He was a press aide at the New York City Campaign Finance Board during the 2009 NYC election cycle, a communications director during a 2011 city council race in Boston, returning to NYC for a communications coordinator position at a nonprofit, and later working at the NYC Downtown Alliance in their communications writing team.
“I moved to Hudson in 2022, and for the last two years, I’ve worked at Hunger Solutions New York as their government relations manager. I recently stepped down to focus on the transition and get ready for January 1st when I take office,” Ferris said.
His campaign for mayor began this past February and was running against incumbent Kamal Johnson, who had held the office for six years.
Ferris said he focused primarily on “the grassroots” and door-knocking to meet as many individuals as they could. He added that Hudson is a dense city, being only 2.2 square miles with a population of more than 5,500 people, and the third-busiest Amtrak station in the state.
“I have identified the 10 most dangerous intersections in the city. In those (first) hundred days, I want to present solutions to them so that we can move forward on making these intersections safer. One of the things I love about Hudson, and that brings people, is its walkability. There’s restaurants, shops, coffee shops, bars, bookstores, but there are some intersections for pedestrians, bicyclists and even drivers — it’s just a roll of the dice. I believe deeply that those types of projects are foundational to what a city government should be doing,” Ferris said.
Peterson mentioned Ferris’s spirit and personality, sharing that he often sends postcards to Peterson of his travels to various historical sites. Balfour mentioned a similar experience, saying that Ferris sent her son a book on the building of subways and trains throughout history, after learning they shared a similar interest.
Ferris invites anyone passing through Hudson to stop by and say “Hi.” He added that without the experiences he had in high school, he would not have become the person he is today.
“I imagine next time I see him, putting my hand out and saying, ‘How do you do, Mr. Mayor?’” Peterson said.