35 years later, Chelsea reflects on an unprecedented experiment

Thirty-five years ago, the city of Chelsea started the week without enough money to pay its teachers, police officers or firefighters and ended the week as the first Massachusetts community since the Great Depression to be taken over by the state. 

It was the first time the Legislature, rather than a court, had placed a city into receivership. A law signed by Gov. Bill Weld canceled the upcoming mayoral election, limited the aldermen to advisory-only roles, and gave broad powers over the state's smallest and at the time poorest city to a receiver — former state Transportation Secretary James Carlin — serving for $1 a year. 

Chelsea would remain under state control until 1995, and multiple former mayors would be swept up in a federal corruption probe. But that initial week in early September, no one knew what to expect. 

“If this is the beginning of the resolution of Chelsea’s ills — both financially and the lack of political will — we will all look back at some point and say it was a worthwhile week,” Ted Sharp, part of the Boston University team that had already been managing the city’s schools, told Education Week in September 1991.

Chelsea’s four post-receivership city managers — Fidel Maltez, Thomas Ambrosino, Jay Ash and Guy Santagate — are now preparing to sit down this Sept. 16 for a version of that lookback. 

"For me, personally, it was always such a mythical story — not necessarily in a good way," said Maltez, who moved to the U.S. from Nicaragua at age 7 and has lived in Chelsea since 2011. "In a very, very bad way."

The panel discussion will explore the financial mismanagement and corruption that led Chelsea to bankruptcy and receivership, and the progress the city's made since then. 

Maltez credits Ash, now head of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, with pushing to grow Chelsea's tax base and Ambrosino, now the state’s trial court administrator, with helping the city pull together when it was hammered by COVID-19 as one of the pandemic's early epicenters. 

The Chelsea of today still faces challenges. A fifth of its population lives in poverty. Maltez said the federal crackdown on immigration enforcement and the fear it created locally made 2025 “probably one of the hardest years we’ve had in Chelsea.”

Local officials have pointed to that climate as one driver of a new era of school finance headaches — as immigrant families move away, student populations drop, and so too does state funding. 

But overall, Maltez is bullish on Chelsea. He describes it as a dynamic city, with an accountable and representative local government, a bustling Broadway corridor, a palpable sense of community and a system of social services that is "probably the best in the commonwealth." 

"It's quite the opposite of what it was in 1991, where it was a community in decline," he said. "Now we're a community that is rising."

Were you around for the pre-receiver days in Chelsea or the debate around a state takeover? Send your memories my way at [email protected]

8:00 | North Shore Chamber of Commerce hosts a "state of the region" breakfast forum. Speakers include mayors Ted Bettencourt of Peabody, Michael Cahill of Beverly, Paul Lunderberg of Gloucester, Jared Nicholson of Lynn, Dominick Pangallo of Salem and Sean Reardon of Newburyport, as well as Danvers Town Manager Jill Cahill | Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical High School, 565 Maple St., Danvers

8:00 | Boston election officials plan to begin the recount process for votes cast in the race for the Suffolk and Middlesex District Senate seat. As of Sept. 4, Sen. William Brownsberger was up by 34 votes against challenger Daniel Lander | Haymarket Room in Boston City Hall at One City Hall Square, Boston

9:30 | Belmont election officials plan to begin the recount process for votes cast in the race for the Suffolk and Middlesex District Senate seat | Belmont Town Hall Auditorium at 455 Concord Ave., Belmont

10:00 | Watertown election officials plan to begin the recount process for votes cast in the race for the Suffolk and Middlesex District Senate seat | Council Chambers on the third floor of Watertown City Hall at 149 Main St., Watertown

10:00 | Dartmouth election officials begin recounting votes in the race for the Ninth Bristol District House seat. As of Friday, there were 14 votes separating Democrats Edward Pacheco and Stephen Medeiros | Room 304 in Dartmouth Town Hall at 400 Slocum Road, Dartmouth

10:30 | Mayor Wu joins city officials and community leaders to celebrate Boston’s designation as 4-star Certified Welcoming City and kick off this year’s Welcoming Week programming | City Hall - Third Floor Mezzanine, 1 City Hall Sq., Boston

11:00 | New Bedford election officials begin recounting votes in the race for the Ninth Bristol District House seat | Mayor Charles S. Ashley Public Meeting Room in City Hall at 133 William St., New Bedford

11:00 | Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Aging meets | Agenda and Livestream

11:00 | Joint Committee on Public Service holds a public hearing on a dozen bills tied to Acushnet, Worcester County, Montague and Turner Falls, West Springfield, Somerville, Middlesex County, Stockbridge, Warren and Lawrence | Room A-1 | Agenda and Zoom

11:00 | Division of Insurance holds its first listening session about out-of-network costs. Stemming from a recommendation from her Health Care Affordability Work Group, Gov. Healey has tasked the division to establish default out-of-network payment rates | More Info and Access

11:15 | Gov. Healey holds a media availability after participating in a MassBio town hall with biotech CEOs | 700 Technology Sq., Cambridge | Press RSVP to [email protected]

12:00 | Governor's Council meets | Council Chamber | Livestream

12:00 | State Library of Massachusetts hosts an author talk with Virginia Buckingham focused on her memoir, "On My Watch." She was the head of the Massachusetts Port Authority, which oversees Boston Logan International Airport, during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks | State Library, Room 341 | More Info and Livestream

12:00 | Mayor Wu appears live on GBH’s Boston Public Radio for Ask the Mayor | Livestream

1:00 | Board of Early Education and Care meets. Agenda includes a fiscal 2027 budget overview and updates on the Commonwealth Cares for Children grant program | 50 Milk St., 5th floor, Boston | Livestream

6:30 | Early Education and Care Commission Amy Kershaw is the featured speaker on Strategies for Children's 9:30 Call, with the special edition slated for the evening | Register

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DATA ENTRY: Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order setting new rules around future data centers in Massachusetts, including a requirement that the projects have local support and a community benefits agreement. Data center developers will also be required to provide their own clean energy or pay into a state fund. | MassLive

TRY AGAIN: The Healey administration is eyeing an upcoming closeout budget as a vehicle to take another swing at a $100 million boost in school aid and could also fold in some still-pending measures from the municipal empowerment legislation that Gov. Healey filed last year. | State House News Service (gift link)

PARDON PARCEL: After Lindsay Clancy's lawyer appealed to President Trump for a pardon, Gov. Healey — the official with pardon power for state-level charges — says she can't recommend a pardon without a conviction. Clancy's murder trial ended in a mistrial last week. | Boston Globe

GALVIN WITH DRONES: Secretary of State Bill Galvin calls the Trump administration’s push for new rules around mail-in voting ahead of the midterm elections “absurd” and said he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure Massachusetts voters can cast ballots. He doubled down on comments he made “half-jokingly” in late August: “If I have to get drones, I'll get drones.” | WCVB

RED BOOK REPORT: The so-called "red book" — the state's voter information booklet that summarizes ballot questions ahead of each election — is a record 88-pages long this year, with nine initiatives to break down. The books are set to arrive in mailboxes this week. | GBH News

CHANCELLOR OUT: UMass Boston chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco plans to step down in February after seven years leading the campus, saying the school is more stable than it's been in a long time. After a sabbatical, he plans to return to the UMB faculty with a focus on climate resilience and ethical use of AI. | Dorchester Reporter

POLICE REVIEW: The Worcester City Council voted 8-3 against establishing a civilian review board for the city's police department in five-hour meeting that featured public comment from residents describing their experience with police and a presentation from city leaders recommending strengthening existing oversight instead of creating a new body. | Worcester Guardian

CATCHING THE BUS: On Boston's first day of school, 61% of buses arrived on time. It's the second-highest on-time rate for a first day, a slight dip from last year's level, and district leaders say they expect the numbers to keep rising. | | Boston Herald

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Director of Centralized Project Development, University of Massachusetts Amherst Donahue Institute

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