Everett, MA or Everett, WA – The “other Everett” 3,000 miles away

By Neil Zolot

People looking for the City’s website on the Internet sometimes come across Everett, Washington, in their searches. “We get calls for them from people who think they’ve reached Everett, Washington,” City Clerk Sergio Cornelio reported. “They come up before us on Google because they’re bigger.”

“Everett, Washington always comes up first on Google,” City Council President Robert Van Campen confirmed.

Everett, Washington, is a city of 110,000 located 25 miles north of Seattle along Interstate Route 5. It is not quite a suburb, but is considered part of the greater Seattle metropolitan region. A good local parallel might be Framingham, which is 22.8 miles from Boston or Lowell, which is 30.1 miles away. Everett is 5.6 miles from Boston. “Plenty of people commute from here to Seattle to work and vice versa,” Everett, Washington, Executive Assistant to the City Council Angela Ely reported.

Naturally they root for Seattle’s sports teams: the Mariners in baseball and the Seahawks in football. They were undoubtedly disappointed when the New England Patriots beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl in February 2015. The Seahawks coach was Pete Carroll, who had been the Patriots’ coach in the late 1990s.

There is one newspaper, The Daily Herald, which is owned by Sound Publishing, a subsidiary of Black Press of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

The two Everetts are 3,070.8 miles from each other. Travel time is estimated at 45 hours – mainly along Interstate Route 90.

Everett, Washington, hosts a Boeing airplane plant, so it’s a bit of a company town. Transportation Planner Jay Monty has been there. “I visited there once to take a tour of the Boeing aircraft plant, but didn’t really spend any time in the city proper, nor do I know anyone there,” he said. “Occasionally I get a misdirected email intended for Everett, Washington.”

Confusion may be the result of the similarities between abbreviations WA and MA.

Mayor Carlo DeMaria’s Chief-of-Staff, Erin Deveney, reported, “Sometimes job applicants will see our vacancy announcements and apply for jobs here under the mistaken impression that they are applying for a job in Washington State.”

School Department Communications Director David O’Connor said he gets about one phone call a year from someone in Washington State. “There’s a moment when they say something that tells you they’re calling the wrong place and it ends up being a humorous conversation,” he said.

“Even though my email has “ma” in it, I still get emails intended for Everett, Washington,” School Superintendent William Hart added.

“We get stuff for them, usually once or twice a year,” Ely’s local counterpart, Michael Mangan reported. “People are looking or something and for some reason they get the wrong Everett.”

Alfred Lattanzi owns a chain hardware store here. He said there’s one in Everett, Washington, and in Everett, Texas, as well and “sometimes bills get mixed up.”

Everett, Texas, is 1,997.8 miles away along Interstate Route 40. Travel time is estimated at 29 hours over a more circuitous set of roads than going to Washington State.

Inaccurate communications go the other way, too. “It doesn’t happen too often, but once or twice, I have seen an event in Everett, Mass. accidentally included in an event list for Everett, Washington,” that city’s Public Information Officer, Simone Tarver said. “I don’t know a ton about the other Everett.”

“Some emails mistake us for Everett, Massachusetts,” Ely added. “I’ve heard other staff here get mistaken emails as well. People are asking about stuff, but they’re looking at the wrong city.”

“It’s a common mix-up,” Everett, Washington City Councillor Mary Fosse feels – “Sometimes when I’m looking for information, the other Everett comes up.”

When told by this reporter that the phone call made was from Massachusetts, she responded, “The other Everett?”