Biography

Rob Consalvo

City Councilor Rob Consalvo represents District 5 on the Boston City Council.  District 5 encompasses Hyde Park, Readville, Roslindale and Mattapan with a diverse population of about 80,000 residents.  A lifelong resident of District 5, Rob Consalvo resides in his hometown of Hyde Park with his wife Michelle and children Amanda, Anthony and Austin.

Often cited as the hardest working City Councilor, Rob Consalvo’s work on the City Council has focused on improving the quality of life for the residents of District 5 and ensuring that the District receives all of the services it needs and deserves.
 
His person-to-person style of representation has made him a fixture at community meetings and crime watches, meeting people in coffee shops and in their homes and businesses and responding to their phone calls or e-mails as he strives to provide the services his constituents need.  Whether it’s a broken street light, a street or sidewalk needing repair, a playground needing to be fixed, a community center requiring rehabilitation, creating a K-8 school, helping a business with a permitting problem or bringing zoning guidelines into the 21st century, Councilor Consalvo’s energy and perseverance gets the job done.

But Councilor Rob Consalvo also sees the bigger picture – focusing on larger scale solutions to problems facing the City of Boston and its residents.  Laws and programs he proposed and which have been adopted are having a citywide impact: “John’s Law” to keep drunk drivers off the streets; “Shotspotter” a new policing technology which instantaneously identifies where gunshots have been fired; a foreclosure ordinance protecting neighborhoods from the blight of abandoned buildings; a new program allowing senior citizens to reduce their tax burden through volunteer services; responsible pit bull ownership; requiring shopping carts to be retained within the business establishment’s property to eliminate them from the city’s streets and streams, and cracking down on  noisy and often dangerous unpermitted after hours parties, among others.

Councilor Consalvo’s current agenda focuses on creating a better Boston, including environmental, technological, and public safety actions ranging from banning plastic shopping bags in Boston, using cameras to stop illegal dumping in the city, increasing the use of technology in policing, improving local business districts and working to increase affordable housing.

Councilor Consalvo serves as the Chairman of the Boston City Council Housing Committee.  He is also the Vice-Chairman of the Government Operations Committee. Councilor Consalvo is the Boston City Council’s Trustee on the Neighborhood Housing Trust, which has awarded approximately $84,000,000 in linkage funds since its inception to build affordable housing in Boston.

A graduate of Catholic Memorial High School in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, Councilor Consalvo matriculated to Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio and graduated with a Bachelors degree in Political Science.

Upon graduating, Consalvo served on the professional staff of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy in Washington DC, both in his Senate Office and the Health, Education, Labor and Human Services Committee, and later in Boston.  Rob also served his community at the Massachusetts State House as Director of Constituent Services for State Representative Angelo M. Scaccia. Councilor Consalvo’s duties included researching and contributing to the development of state budgets, writing language, drafting budget amendments and developing state legislation.

Outside of the City Council, Rob remains very active in his community, continuing to serve as a Corporator of the Hyde Park Savings Bank, a member of the Board of Directors of the Hyde Park Board of Trade and the MA 54th Regiments, a group honoring the participation of African-Americans in the Civil War.  He is also a member of the Hyde Park Lions Club, the Roslindale Sons of Italy, the West Roxbury Elks, the Sons of the American Legion, and is a friend of the Hyde Park and Roslindale Branch Libraries.  His past community service included coaching youth baseball and serving on the board of the Hyde Park Jr. Athletic Association, Vice-Chair of the board of the Hyde Park YMCA and a board member of the Greater Roslindale Health and Dental Center.