Roberto Jimenez-Rivera got more votes than anyone else on the Chelsea ballot in November 2025. In January his colleagues elected him council president. He is, by both measures, the most broadly supported elected official in the city, and he did not grow up here.
Where he comes from
He was born in Norwood, the son of a teacher and a small business owner. His campaign biography says his parents moved the family back to Puerto Rico so he could grow up around relatives, and he finished high school there. He has a sister, Laura.
He went to the University of Michigan for both degrees, a bachelor’s in business administration in 2012 and a master’s in higher education the following year.
The job before the job
His career started in college admissions, working to widen access for low-income students and students of colour. That work supplies the line he still repeats about the applicants whose files he read: “If I could do it, so could they. Why weren’t we giving them the chance?”
He came back to Massachusetts in 2014, became a community organizer, worked on Ayanna Pressley’s first congressional campaign, and has organized with the Boston Teachers Union.
In 2019 he ran for the Chelsea School Committee and won as the highest vote-getter in that election. That is a pattern worth noticing. He has now topped the ballot in two different races for two different bodies.
The fight that defined his first year as president
The council president does not get to vote twice, and the real test of the job is what happens on the floor. In 2026 that was housing.
City Manager Fidel Maltez proposed loosening Chelsea’s inclusionary zoning ordinance, the rule that requires developers to set aside affordable units. The original proposal would have raised the trigger from projects of 10 units to projects of 50, and cut the fee a developer pays instead of building those units from $400,000 to $200,000. The argument for it was money: the schools were facing a shortfall of roughly $6.6 million after losing close to 350 students, and loosening the rules was supposed to spur building and property tax revenue.
Jimenez-Rivera did not go along with it. He told the Boston Globe: “I would not be in favour of loosening a restriction and then having the same development that would have gone up otherwise get created and then we lose out on the affordable housing units.”
At the council he was blunter about the diagnosis, telling colleagues in April that “on the policy itself, I remain a bit unconvinced that inclusionary zoning is the problem.” He also said that if the vote were held that day he would vote no, while arguing the process should continue so the public could weigh in.
That is a particular way to run a council. He kept a proposal alive that he opposed, on the reasoning that killing it early would deny residents a hearing. Whether that reads as principled or as too clever depends on where you sat.
The ordinance that eventually passed on 25 June was not the one the city manager asked for. Instead of a flat 50-unit threshold, the council adopted a sliding scale that starts requiring affordable units at 10.
Housing again, in his own name
Two zoning amendments introduced by Council President Jimenez-Rivera appear on the council’s June 22 agenda: one to the Fitzpatrick-Prattville Smart Growth Overlay District, and one to the Inclusionary Housing section of the zoning ordinances. Those are the two levers that decide what gets built in Chelsea and how much of it a working family can afford.
His stated priorities are education justice, housing, transit, environmental justice, state education funding, worker protections, and infrastructure.
The household
He is married to Sarah Neville, who serves on the Chelsea School Committee and was inaugurated for a new term at the same January ceremony. Their son Robi was born in 2020. Of her he said: “I am a better leader for Chelsea because of her, and her leadership, both on and off the school committee, makes Chelsea a better place.”
Two members of one household holding two seats in city government is worth stating plainly rather than leaving for someone to discover. The council and the school committee are separate bodies with separate powers, and the council does not appoint the school committee. It does vote the money that reaches the schools.
The numbers
In the 4 November 2025 election he led the at-large field with 1,146 votes, ahead of Kelly Garcia at 1,081 and Leo Robinson at 1,040. Yessenia Alfaro took 631 and Nicholas Gregoretti 593. 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.