If you want to know why something in Chelsea works the way it does, Leo Robinson was probably in the room when it was decided. He is the longest-serving member of the city council.
Old Ward Two
Robinson is a lifelong Chelsea resident and the third generation of his family from here. His mother was born in Chelsea, and so was her mother. He grew up in what he calls Old Ward Two, which he describes as the most diverse section of the city.
He went to the Williams School and graduated from Chelsea High School in 1968. He attended Burdett College and later completed a pre-master’s programme at Cambridge College. He served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War.
Accounts of how many times his colleagues have elected him council president vary between five and seven, depending on the source and the year it was written. Either way, no one else on this council comes close.
What he built
Two things come up in every account of his record. The first is that he wrote the city’s Affordable Housing Ordinance. The second is the inclusionary zoning policy requiring new residential development to produce affordable units, which he describes as among his greatest accomplishments.
He has also overseen three city manager searches. In a council-manager city, hiring the manager is the single largest decision the council makes, because the manager runs the government day to day. Doing it three times is institutional memory that cannot be handed to anyone else.
In 2020 Robinson and District 8 Councillor Calvin T. Brown together proposed the order that launched and funded a city diversity and inclusion office. In March 2021 he was honoured at the State House during “Black Excellence on the Hill.”
Outside City Hall
With his brother Ronald he co-founded and directs the Lewis H. Latimer Society, named for the Black inventor and draftsman born in Chelsea who drew the patent illustrations for Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone and did the work on carbon filaments that made electric light practical. Latimer is the most historically consequential person Chelsea has produced, and for most of the last century the city did close to nothing with that fact.
He serves as treasurer on the board of the Chelsea Restoration Corporation, and formerly served as president of the Community Action Programs Inter-City Real Estate Board. He coached the girls’ basketball team at Pope John XXIII High School for thirteen years.
The 2026 position that surprised people
Robinson wrote the inclusionary zoning policy. In 2026, when the city manager proposed loosening it, Robinson argued for the loosening.
His reasoning was revenue. In the April debate he argued that new growth is what funds social services, and by the final vote in June he put it as plainly as it can be put: “If we don’t build, we don’t have any revenue.”
Chelsea was staring at a school shortfall of roughly $6.6 million and around 50 positions cut. Robinson’s view was that a rule producing nothing on land nobody is developing produces no affordable housing either.
He was among the five who voted against Deron Hines’s amendment on 25 June. It passed 6 to 5 anyway, and the full ordinance then passed 11 to 0, Robinson included. The author of the original policy losing a one-vote argument about how to revise it, then voting for the result, is about as good a snapshot of this council as exists.
Beyond the city
In January 2022 Robinson announced a campaign for state representative, one of three sitting Chelsea elected officials in that primary. He was not elected and has continued to serve on the council.
The numbers
He finished third in the at-large field on 4 November 2025 with 1,040 votes, behind Roberto Jimenez-Rivera at 1,146 and Kelly Garcia at 1,081. His term runs through 2027.
The rest of the council is in our guide to all eleven members.
Update, September 14, 2026: How this councillor has voted and what they have filed in 2026, part of our council record series.