Ten of the eleven members of the Chelsea City Council were already there before the 2025 election. Deron Hines is the eleventh.
He beat incumbent Melinda Vega in District 2, 206 votes to 147. That was the only seat on the entire council to change hands.
Raised here, by the institutions here
Hines was born and raised in Chelsea. When he describes how he got here he names the institutions rather than himself: coaches and mentors from Pop Warner, CYBL, Roca and the Boys and Girls Club, and neighbors who invested in local kids.
That list is worth reading closely. Roca in particular is a Chelsea-founded organization built around intensive work with young people at the highest risk of violence and incarceration, and it is one of the more studied intervention models in the state. A councillor who came up through those programs is describing a specific civic infrastructure, not a generic upbringing.
The day job
He is a social worker. He has worked with families and communities on supporting youth and advocating for people who are underserved.
Social work is uncommon training for elected office and it shows in what he ran on. His campaign was built on connecting residents to City Hall and telling them what is being decided on their behalf, which he framed as three things: government transparency, youth mentorship, and housing protections. He described himself as a community-first voice who listens, shows up, and works with people rather than for them.
Why the seat mattered
Four of the eight district races in 2025 drew no challenger at all. In that context, District 2 was one of only three district contests where voters had a choice, and the only one anywhere on the council where they used it to change the occupant.
Turnout in that race was 353 votes in total. That is the scale at which Chelsea municipal government is decided.
What we could not confirm
We could not verify where he trained as a social worker, his current employer, his age, or his committee assignments for 2026. He is the newest member and the least documented, which is normal for a first-term councillor. We will update this profile as the record fills in.
The numbers
Elected November 4, 2025, 206 to 147. His first 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.