Correction and update, September 17, 2026: An earlier version of this article said Rule 31 requires two readings for appointments to boards and commissions. It does not; Rule 31 governs minor public works requests, as described below. The two-readings requirement is a separate rule. We regret the error. On September 14 the council referred the Rule 31 order to the Rules and Administration subcommittee, 4 to 3. Of the other eight orders: the Market Basket, quiet zone, housing list, Broadway subcommittee and senior repair orders were adopted; the scooter order was adopted and sent to the Public Safety subcommittee; the stop sign order was amended from Congress Avenue to Highland Street and adopted; and the Central Avenue pothole order was withdrawn. The full results of the meeting are here.
The big items on tonight’s City Council agenda are the solar agreements, the Chief Economic Development Officer and the Broadway land takings. Below them sit nine new orders from two councillors, each a sentence or two long, that say a good deal about what residents are calling about.
Five from Leo Robinson
Councillor-at-Large Leo Robinson filed five. The first asks City Manager Fidel Maltez to “reach out to and meet with the owners of Market Basket to discuss their ongoing development plans and report back.” The Market Basket plaza is one of the two anchoring properties inside the West Chelsea overlay district the council created in June, and the city’s own zoning presentation named Market Basket and North Colony as the landowners whose plans matter most there. The council has not been told what those plans are.
The second asks for a status report on the commuter rail quiet zone. The council put $1,000,665 in free cash toward the quiet zone in May 2022, more than four years ago. Trains still sound their horns at Chelsea’s crossings.
The third calls a Public Safety subcommittee meeting with the police “to discuss how the City can address scooter safety.” Police Chief Keith Houghton told the same subcommittee in April that electric scooters are a problem in Revere and Boston as well, and that chasing a fleeing scooter rider is dangerous for officers. The fourth asks Maltez to collect from nonprofits a list of residents looking for housing and to work out what the city can do about “credit eligibility, rent costs and homeownership.” The fifth calls a Housing subcommittee meeting with the Department of Housing and Community Development on Broadway, “including, but not limited to: safety, parking, and housing,” to “begin work on a plan to revitalize Broadway.”
Four from Giovanni Recupero
District 6 Councillor Giovanni Recupero filed four. One asks the administration to look into a fund that would pay for repairs to senior citizens’ homes. One asks the Traffic and Parking Commission for stop signs on Congress Avenue in both directions at Maverick Street and at Essex Street. One directs Public Works to fix “the large hole at the corner of Central Avenue and Highland Street.”
The fourth would change how the council does its own business. It strikes Rule 31 from the council’s rules. Rule 31, as the Council Clerk read it into the record on September 14, concerns minor public works requests: the council will not accept one as an order unless it comes with a work order that has gone unanswered for at least two weeks, and it will not accept an order asking a department for information or a work assignment when a work request or a call to the department head would get the same result. Recupero said he wanted the rule changed so that constituents could see, on the record, that he had asked for the work. Rule changes go to the Rules subcommittee before a vote.
And the rest
The Traffic and Parking Commission reports that on September 2 it approved the Downtown Broadway construction plans and three handicap parking signs, on Addison Street, Maple Street and Crescent Avenue. The council will open with resolutions for the 131st anniversary of Zion Baptist Church and Bishop Robert G. Brown’s 47th year as its pastor, National Hispanic Heritage Month, Lewis H. Latimer Day, and the Chelsea 5K Road Race. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall, 500 Broadway.