John Chaimanis is a longtime Newton resident, a father of three, a business owner, a former educator and a renewable energy professional.

He’s looking to start a new chapter of his life with another title as he runs for the one of the two at-large City Council seats in Ward 4.

“I’m a business owner who risked everything I had to start my business, and I think that’s going to contribute in a really powerful way,” Chaimanis said. “I know how to do more with less, I know what it means to be accountable to your employees and the people you serve, and I know what it’s like to make payroll.”

Chaimanis said he’s coming with a facts-based approach, strong community engagement and a small-business friendly agenda.

“How do you take something great and make it even better?” he asked. “You measure, you analyze, and you make adjustments.”

Who is John Chaimanis?

Chaimanis moved to Newton in 2001 with what he calls a foundation in community service and civic engagement, lessons he attributes to his upbringing.

“My parents taught me to believe in the good of people, to work hard, and to give back,” he said.

Early life experiences reinforced this, with Chaimanis serving as an Eagle Scout and building houses for Habitat for Humanity while studying finance at Villanova.

But he later diverted from the finance path and volunteered as a teacher in Roxbury, and soon afterward he co-founded the Uphams Corner Charter School in Dorchester, where he would serve for over three years as the school’s CFO and COO.

In 2005, Chaimanis began to attend the Babson College’s F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business to pursue his MBA, a degree he leveraged to kickstart his career in finance and sustainability.

He currently works as the Managing Director of Kendall Sustainable Infrastructure, which he co-founded in 2012. His company has invested over $500 million in clean energy projects across the United States, creating many jobs and producing enough clean energy to power roughly 25,000 homes.

Alongside his entrepreneurial work in clean energy development, Chaimanis has continued to work as an educator, lecturing to graduate classes at Villanova, Babson, Harvard Business School, and Northeastern on finance and sustainability. Remarking on how this experience would help him as a councilor, he noted, “I bring a set of skills that I think is probably less represented on the city council today.”

He has mentored students, both through his teaching work and by generally supporting young people in the community, and has served as a coach for nearly a dozen youth sports teams.

“If I see something that needs doing, I’m gonna pick up the phone,” Chaimanis said.

At his church, Our Lady’s and Sacred Heart in Newton, he once noticed neglected flower beds and petitioned the pastor to organize a community planting event, inviting parishioners to help dig and plant fresh bulbs, turning a small improvement into a community-building effort.

Transparency talk

Chaimanis said he wants more transparency with the city’s finances, not just broad budget summaries.

“People want to know what’s being spent and how it’s being spent,” he said, praising efforts by the League of Women Voters to publish a 2024 municipal transparency report on governance in Newton.

Noting two possible “fixes” identified by the League, he said that the city could release budget reports in excel form (more user-friendly than pdf) and break down budget information online to the department level.

Such changes are especially timely, Chaimanis said, with current discussions about a possible Proposition 2 ½ override.

With an override decision, he vowed to “digest as much and as granular of the data as I can in the budgets to really understand where things are being spent, and what they are being spent on.”

Down to business

Support for small businesses is crucial to Chaimanis’ vision for a more localized economy in Newton.

He noted the struggles of small business owners navigating permitting and regulations, referencing closures like Boca Bella and Just Next Door in Auburndale where he lives.

“There’s a huge amount of spending before you even open the door and turn the lights on, so what are we doing to make that process quicker,” he said, criticizing slow permitting and an “antiquated red tape system.”

“Every day that you’re not at the storefront, you’re not making money,” he said.

In his view, fiscal strength comes directly from commercial vitality within Newton. Chaimanis said the city’s fiscal strength will comes from the vitality of its business community and that he’d be open to public-private partnerships as a useful tool for implementing city sustainability initiatives efficiently.

He cited his work in energy finance, where he had already experienced such relationships firsthand. And he pointed to performance contracts for private contractors and third-party retrofits as ways to modernize municipal energy usage without accruing high upfront costs.

“We can work with a third-party contractor that will pay for it out of their pocket, and then that contractor will receive a portion of the energy savings that we produce,” he said, describing how contractors shoulder initial costs, and how the city benefits from lower consumption due to modernized systems or practices, and lower bills over time.

What to do about housing

Housing is on a lot of minds these days, with high demand and low inventory making affordable housing scarce.

Chaimanis said he understands there’s a problem with affordability but that solutions must balance growth with retaining the city’s current character.

He spoke about protecting what he calls “naturally occurring affordable housing,” such as aging homes or multigenerational residences, and advocated for an increasing diversification of housing stock.

Still, he stressed that affordability was an unlikely goal due to a consistently growing housing demand in the city.

The future was also on his mind when considering how Newton could sustain an exponential pace of growth, pointing to school-to-work connections (internships and possible STEM partnerships) as a low-cost way to foster opportunity and innovation.

“The best way to deliver STEM education isn’t just buying textbooks; it’s connecting students with local businesses for hands-on experience,” he said.

Transportation and climate change

Chaimanis said he wants to make Newton’s transportation and infrastructure more efficient and environmentally responsible.

“We need better public transportation. The commuter rail and the T just aren’t going to cut it,” he said.

Chaimanis believes that small, privately operated shuttles—like ones offered by Lasell and Boston College—show how targeted transportation routes could help to connect residents to city centers, again without incurring major up-front costs.

He highlighted energy efficiency upgrades as a tool to reduce both municipal costs and carbon emissions, citing the city’s Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance and the aforementioned performance-based contracts, where contractors fund the upgrades and recoup costs from the long-term energy savings they generate.

“You save money because you use less electricity,” he said. “That’s a win-win.”

Trees and green spaces also play a major role in his vision for an even more climate-conscious Newton. Chaimanis praised city-wide initiatives like the Newton Tree Conservancy, which partners with residents to plant trees at zero cost.

“Not only do they protect our canopy, which is good for carbon sequestration, but they also make [Newton] a much more pleasant place to live,” he said.

He added that increasing tree coverage around homes could also help to reduce energy costs by providing natural cooling and reducing the need for often-burdensome AC systems.

Chaimanis also wants smart controls in air conditioning and lighting systems, well-timed traffic lights, and climate-conscious building design.

Newton’s election will be Nov. 4.