Update, September 22, 2026. The meeting has been held. The rodent abatement program went to the Subcommittee on Conference, the $939.20 ice cream donation was accepted on a roll call, and the three money orders, $40,438.51 in World Cup leftovers, $12,505.14 in prior-year bills and the $270,599.66 parking lot transfer, all went to Ways and Means without a vote on the merits. Seventeen appointments were confirmed. The Mary O’Malley pier resolution passed 7 to 1. Full results here.
Updated September 18, 2026, after the packet was posted. An earlier version of this article, written from the agenda alone, said the prior-year bills order on Monday’s agenda was the same $26,546.88 the council referred to Ways and Means last week. The agenda text says that, but the order in the packet is a different set of bills totaling $12,505.14. The earlier version also inferred what the World Cup events cost from the unspent balance; the City Manager’s letter credits the balance to grants. Both passages are corrected below, and the packet’s new detail on 212 Chestnut Street, the parking lot and the rat program has been added.
The Chelsea City Council meets again Monday, September 21 at 7 p.m., one week after a meeting that sent its three largest items to committee. None of them is back yet. The agenda has no unfinished business, one second reading and a set of smaller money orders, and the packet carries a draft of the city’s next affordable housing solicitation.
212 Chestnut Street
City Manager Fidel Maltez’s letter says the city has spent “the past several months” meeting developers interested in the city-owned parking lot at 212 Chestnut Street, next to the Tobin Bridge approaches, and will issue a request for proposals “over the next few months.” His model is 440 Broadway, the former Salvation Army building the city turned over to Causeway Development, which produced 28 condominiums for households at 80 and 100 percent of area median income. The lot, he writes, “is frequently overgrown with vegetation and, over the years, has attracted homeless encampments.”
The packet includes the draft RFP, still with placeholders where the appraisal, site map and deadline will go. It covers two parcels, 212 Chestnut Street at 14,745 square feet and 208 Chestnut Street at 2,378, both zoned R2 and both now municipal parking. The land would be conveyed for one dollar or less, “nominal consideration of $0.” Either rental or homeownership proposals are welcome: rentals generally at or below 60 percent of area median income with some units at 30 to 50 percent, ownership units at 80 to 100 percent. The city “will weigh favorably” proposals that keep the public parking; a bidder who eliminates it has to explain why. Proposals must include an equity and inclusion plan under the city’s Development Compact with The Community Builders and the Civic Action Project. Bidders who owe the city taxes or water bills, have unresolved code violations, or are city employees or officials, or their immediate family, are disqualified at the compliance stage. The contact is Ledia Koco in Housing and Community Development.
The World Cup money
In January the council put $125,000 of free cash into a “FIFA World Cup Community Events” account, part of a 16-item supplemental appropriation adopted 10 to 0 on January 28. On Monday Maltez asks the council to redirect what is left, $40,438.51, to “Chelsea Square Community Events.” His letter says the balance exists “due to responsible fiscal management and aggressive pursuit of grants for the FIFA celebrations,” and that the city wants to keep the square active with the kind of programming it ran this summer: farmers markets, movie screenings, music, Zumba, Salsa in the Park, spoken word. The letter does not say what the Fiesta Futbol series cost in total or which grants covered it.
The parking lot
The largest number on the agenda is $270,599.66, moved from two FY2027 capital accounts into the FY2025 project to repave the City Hall and Senior Center parking lot. Maltez’s letter explains the gap. The project was estimated in fall 2023 and then delayed while the microgrid battery storage system was built in the City Hall lot. Since then, he writes, “asphalt costs have risen significantly,” the lot turned out to be “even further degraded than previously observed,” and the design now includes a concrete pedestrian walkway. The money comes from two roadway accounts that have money to spare because the state sent Winter Recovery Assistance Program funds and a Fair Share earmark for pedestrian safety: $96,058.82 from Annual Roadway and Sidewalk Improvements, which had $642,794.39 of its $1 million unspent, and $174,540.84 from Roadway Safety and Traffic Control Enhancements, which had $439,046.39 of $500,000 unspent. The letter does not give the parking lot’s new total cost or its original estimate.
The rest of the City Manager’s list
Rats. Maltez asks for a Conference subcommittee meeting on the city’s rodent abatement program, where the administration will “share key learnings and best practices from the Boston Rat Summit” and propose moving “beyond simply responding to individual complaints” toward “a more comprehensive, proactive, and citywide strategy.”
Ice cream. Eastern Minerals, Inc. donated $939.20 worth of ice cream that police handed out at Chelsea Day on September 12. The council votes to accept it, as it does every gift.
Prior-year bills. A new order, 26F50, covers $12,505.14 in bills from past fiscal years: $7,541.68 to Ambient Temperature Corporation for HVAC maintenance in April and May 2025, which the vendor did not invoice until May 2026; $4,863.46 to LiRo GIS for water and sewer mapping work in FY2026 that ran over its contract before an amendment could be signed; and $100 to the Independent Newspaper Group for two legal notices for the Parking and Traffic Commission. The agenda’s summary of the order repeats last week’s total of $26,546.88, which is a different set of bills, still in Ways and Means. Those are described here.
Second reading: the appointments
The one item carried over from last week is the slate of appointments the council moved to second reading on Councillor Deron Hines’ motion. If approved Monday: Monica Elias-Orellana returns to the Board of Library Trustees; Giancarlo Saldana and Charlotte Dumont join the Historical Commission; Sara Nasah joins the Planning Board; Joseph LaFond joins the Conservation Commission; Yuliana Padilla, Brianna Flores Pineda, Sadiel Hernandez, Lily Castro Reyes and Jeymi Menendez join the Youth Commission, where Yurie Lee, Nina Young Lee, Catherine Hernandez, Hazel Hatleberg, Kendra Morales and Madyson Chea are reappointed; and Raymond Morales returns to the Chelsea Housing Authority Board of Commissioners for five more years. The packet includes the new appointees’ resumes.
Committee report: abutter notices
The Housing and Community Development subcommittee met at 6 p.m. on September 14, before the council session, on Council President Roberto Jimenez-Rivera’s order to expand abutter notification for new developments. Its report says his concern came from residents’ complaints about notice for the Boston Provisions and Wulf’s Fish project and from “a project taking place very close to his own home.” Permitting director William Cecio explained the current practice: state law requires notice to direct abutters, abutters across the street and abutters of abutters within 300 feet, mailed to property owners rather than tenants. Maltez said the state “is moving in the opposite direction,” toward email notice and looser rules, and called the current process “designed to slow the development process down.” Members floated certified mail, signs posted inside buildings so tenants see them, signs on the development site, and cutting the radius to 150 feet. The item was continued until the administration reports back on what it can change.
New business
Councillor-at-Large Kelly Garcia files two. The first asks for a Conference subcommittee meeting with GreenRoots, Mass Audubon and The Neighborhood Developers “to discuss their development plans for the Forbes site,” the former lithograph plant that sold to Mass Audubon for $8.36 million. The second is a resolution on the state’s restoration of the Mary O’Malley State Park pier. It says residents who attended the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s public meeting felt it “appeared to present decisions that had already been made,” and that the plan would not raise the pier, gazebo, fishing pier or seawall against high tides and sea level rise. It asks DCR to reopen public engagement before final design, elevate the structures where feasible, restore the boat ramp and floating dock, keep fishing access, and design for a future water taxi or ferry stop.
Councillor Giovanni Recupero asks the City Manager to look into helping residents understand “the terms and conditions of their residential leases.”
Also on the agenda
A certificate for Chelsea Police Officer Joseph Barker-Santiago. And approval of the minutes of the September 14 meeting, which are in the packet and match the vote tallies we reported from the meeting video. No public hearing.
The week’s other meetings
The items the council sent to committee last week now have dates. The Subcommittee on Conference takes up the Chief Economic Development Officer on Monday at 6:30 p.m., half an hour before the council meets. Tuesday, September 22 is crowded: the Planning Board’s public hearing on the master plan at 5 p.m. in the council chambers; Ways and Means at 5:30 in Room 305 on the $116,942.80 in rideshare money, the $26,546.88 in older bills and the Teamsters 911 supervisors’ contract; the Subcommittee on Conference at 6 p.m. on both solar agreements and the revolving fund; and the Charter Review Committee at 7 p.m. on the City Manager article of the charter. The Broadway reconstruction public meeting is Wednesday, September 23 at 6 p.m. at the Senior Center.