On Thursday afternoon, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and Chelsea City Manager Thomas Ambrosino executed a Community Compact agreement. “fblikebutton_button” “wp-caption alignright” “We are excited to announce our new partnership with the City of Chelsea,” Polito stated. “The Commonwealth is looking forward to working with local officials to implement their chosen best practices in business continuity and job creation.”
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The Baker Administration has deployed Community Compacts as a mechanism to deepen collaboration between the Commonwealth and its municipalities. Under this framework, participating communities commit to implementing self-selected best practices, while the Commonwealth reciprocates with its own set of commitments and targeted assistance aligned with those practices.
Chelsea became the 53rd municipality to join the Baker Administration’s Compact initiative. Of the 130 applications submitted since the funding round began in May, 112 have received approval.
Chelsea’s commitment includes adopting business continuity measures: specifically, developing a disaster recovery plan for critical systems and establishing procedures for electronic backup and secure storage of municipal data. According to Allan Alpert, the city’s director of emergency management: “The continuation of government operations plan will give us the opportunity to have a solid plan in effect should something happen that prohibits us from getting to City Hall. It will help us have a plan for paying bills, doing the payroll and making sure City government continues in the event of some emergency. If all our systems fail, things are done electronically now. Nothing is done on paper. We’ll be able to create a plan if we can’t get to our systems in City Hall or if our systems fail.”
The city also commits to fostering job creation and economic growth through a comprehensive development strategy that capitalizes on Chelsea’s distinctive advantages and regional opportunities while encouraging entrepreneurial activity and partnerships with educational entities.
Community Compacts represent voluntary mutual agreements between the Baker-Polito Administration and individual Massachusetts communities. Each participating community selects a best practice to implement from multiple categories, while the Commonwealth articulates its corresponding obligations, including assistance in achieving the selected best practice.