Metro Mayors Coalition

The Metro Mayors is a groundbreaking coalition made up of 13 communities in Greater Boston. It is a voluntary forum where members exchange information and create solutions to common problems.

MAPC helped establish Metro Mayors in 2001, and provides staff support and financial administration. The municipal officials comprising this group represent over 1.2 million constituents.

The membership includes mayors and managers from Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Melrose, Medford, Quincy, Revere and Somerville. In 2006, Brookline and Winthrop joined Metro Mayors, and in 2008, Braintree joined, raising the membership to 13 municipalities.

Metro Mayors has become an effective vehicle to address common issues confronting urban core governments and has made significant strides in overcoming the obstacles that hampered past attempts at inter-local cooperation. The Coalition's success demonstrates the tangible benefits achieved through collective action.

Recent highlights of the coalition's work:

• Held a Transportation Summit at South Station to highlight the need for increased transportation funding throughout the Commonwealth. See video from the event here.
• Receiving $150,000 from the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security to finance a feasibility study to determine the costs and benefits of creating a Regional Emergency Communications Center.
• Developing a publicly accessible website mapping service of available commercial and industrial sites within the Metro Mayors municipalities to increase business development in the region. The service was made possible by grant from the Economic Development Administration and funds from member municipalities.
• Successfully advocating for the inclusion of proposals of particular interest to Metro Mayors communities with the legislature, including the Legislature's Special Commission on Municipal Relief. Advocacy efforts have focused on the need for municipal health insurance reform and local options taxes.
• Establishing the Metro Mayors Shannon Grant Community Safety Initiative, which works to find regional solutions to pressing gang and youth violence problems in the Metro Boston area, as well as to provide programmatic opportunities to help local at-risk youth.

MAPC and these contemporary and enlightened mayors and town managers have finally designed a collaborative model that works for greater Boston --- a model in which MAPC helps facilitate collaboration amongst neighboring municipalities and provides the staff necessary for carrying out locally developed inter-municipal programs and regional legislative advocacy efforts.

Questions?

If you have any questions regarding the Metro Mayors Coalition, please contact MAPC Government Affairs Manager Rebecca Davis at 617-451-2770, ext. 2029 or at rdavis@mapc.org.

The Metro Mayors Coalition is funded by member municipalities and in-kind contributions from MAPC.