Norieliz DeJesus ran the Chelsea City Council for two years. In January she handed the gavel to Roberto Jimenez-Rivera and took the vice presidency. In November 2025, when she stood for re-election in District 3, not one person filed against her.
A Chelsea childhood
She is a Chelsea native and went to Chelsea public schools. Her mother raised her as a single parent working several jobs to keep their apartment in the city. She has described herself as a Chelsea girl, and the local paper used exactly that phrase as a headline when she first ran in 2021.
She is a mother of three.
Eighteen years of organizing
Before the council and alongside it, DeJesus has spent more than eighteen years as a community organizer. She is Director of Policy at La Colaborativa, the Chelsea organization that became one of the most visible providers of food and rental assistance in Massachusetts during the pandemic and remains one of the largest institutions in the city that is not the city itself.
That is an unusual position for a sitting councillor. She works professionally on the policy questions the council votes on, at an organization whose constituents are her constituents. It gives her a level of daily contact with residents that few councillors have.
Her stated reason for running was to carry the voices she encountered while organizing into the room where the decisions get made.
The presidency
Her colleagues elected her council president and kept her there for two years, through the end of 2025. The presidency in Chelsea is chosen by the council from among its own members, not by the voters, so it is a measure of standing inside the building rather than at the ballot box.
In January 2026 the council elected Jimenez-Rivera president and DeJesus vice president.
What we could not confirm
We were not able to verify her committee assignments for the 2026 term, her education beyond Chelsea public schools, or the specific ordinances she has introduced. The city’s official council page carries contact details only, with no biographies or committee rosters published. We have not filled those gaps with guesses.
The numbers
District 3 was uncontested in the November 4, 2025 election. Her term runs through 2027.
Sourcing: this profile draws on the Chelsea Record’s reporting, the councillor’s own published biography and professional profile where one exists, and the City Council’s posted meeting agendas. The city’s official council page lists each member’s seat and contact details but publishes no biographies and no committee assignments, so those could not be verified there. Anything we could not confirm is marked as unconfirmed rather than guessed at. Photograph: City of Chelsea. Corrections are welcome and will be published.