Promoting Area Councils

Mayor-elect Warren supports the use of neighborhood Area Councils, as provided in the Charter. Currently, the only active Area Council is in Newton Highlands. Area Councils might conduct meetings with local politicians and policy experts, do independent research on projects, and make recommendations to city government on how to best serve their areas. The group suggested that Area councils would be successful if we:

• Call on the current neighborhood associations, but made a clear distinction between their roles and those of the Area Councils
• Give Area Councils clearly structured mechanisms to report to City Hall
• Make a point to get a lot of people involved
• Make information about the Area Councils easily accessible on the website
• Promote synergy from Council to Council