Appointments & Briefings Committee — December 16, 2025

Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the Committee on Appointments and Briefings.

It is December 16th, 2025, and it is 7:01.

Note, this meeting is being live streamed and recorded.

City Council and committee meetings can be viewed on the City of New Bedford's homepage under Quick Links, then Meetings.

Joined in the chamber are my colleagues in government: Councilor-at-Large Ian Abreu, Council Board 1 Leo Choquette, Councilor-at-Large Brian K. Gomes, Councilor of Ward 6 Ryan Pereira, and Councilor-at-Large and Council President Shane Virgo, and myself, Naomi Carney, Councilor-at-Large and the chairman of the Appointments and Briefings.

Thank you all for coming.

Do you have anything to read into the record?

I have, uh, 2 letters and a, uh, communication to notify you of.

This first letter is from Councilor DiEstro.

I'm writing to inform you that I was unable to attend the Committee on Appointments Briefings meeting on Tuesday, December 16th, 2025, 7 PM due to a prior commitment.

I ask that you read this letter into the record to make my colleagues and the public aware of the reason for my absence.

Second letter is from Councilor Morad.

I'm writing this letter to inform you that I will be unable to attend the Committee on Appointments briefings meeting on Tuesday, December 16th, 2025 at 7:00 PM due to a prior commitment, and I ask that you read this letter into the record to make my colleagues and the public aware of my absence.

Motion received.

Motion made by Councilor Gomes, second by Councilor Burgo.

All in favor say aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

Madam Chair, just a point of information.

Councilor Oliver just texted me to let you know and the public know he's about 10 minutes late.

He's running behind.

Okay, just for the record.

Thank you.

And I also received a communication from Councilor Lopes that he had a family emergency and will not be in attendance tonight.

Yes, and I just want to make note that, um, Councilor-elect James Roy is also with us this evening.

Thank you for coming.

Okay, item number 1 is citizens input time, not to exceed the first 30 minutes of the meeting.

Individual speaker may speak for a total of 3 minutes.

1A is Chris Lamontagne, 236 Hemlock Street, New Bedford, Mass., speaking on rat infestation, city transparency.

It was referred here on November 18th, 2025.

Mr. Lamontagne.

Members of City Council and other attendees, I'm not here to argue a motion.

I'm here to establish record.

For over 2 years, a 9-unit residential property in this city existed with a documented outdoor rat infestation in a high-traffic area.

The primary source: a dumpster with a hole in the bottom of it actively attracting rodents.

It was known, it was visible, and it was preventable.

Residents called the Department of Health.

Only after police intervention did the Department of Health inspect the property.

At that point, the conditions were classified as rat activity.

The source location was not cited, and the property remained rentable.

No distinction was properly applied.

It is the difference between enforcement and tolerance, and it determines who carries the risk.

The landlord or the residents.

After this communication stopped, calls went unanswered, voicemails unreturned.

Action only occurred after a resident confronted the situation himself, Mr. Kevin Mello in the audience.

After exposure, not prevention.

That is not diligence, that is reaction.

What concerns me most is not rats, it's process.

When enforcement language shields landlords, when follow-up disappears, And when accountability only arrives after public pressure, the system no longer serves residents, it only serves to protect itself.

I am not whatsoever looking for sympathy, even though my son was almost bitten by a rat and my children can't use the backyard.

I am, however, asking for transparency, a full review of enforcement practices, and confirmation that public health decisions in New Bedford are guided by facts, not by who you know or convenience.

Because when systems fail quietly, accountability disappears and the public pays the price.

Thank you.

I'll continue with Mr. Mello's portion.

Honesty is the backbone of credibility.

Under 105 CMR 410.550, a Department of Health inspection is required to determine 2 things: whether a property is free from rodents and and whether conditions exist that permit rodent harborage or feeding.

In this case, rodent burrow holes were observed on the south side of the property, which legally establishes rodent presence.

Once burrows are observed, 410.550 requires evaluation of all related indicators, including droppings, tunneling, feeding activity, nesting, and environmental food sources, especially dumpsters.

That required evaluation did not occur.

Instead, the inspection record relies on an off-property photograph which omits on-property conditions, including a dumpster and food source known to attract rodents, and therefore fails to document the actual conditions present on the inspected premises.

Under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 111, Section 122, Under New York State Health Code 222, the Board of Health has an affirmative, nondiscretionary duty to identify and abate nuisances injurious to public health.

An inspection that omits known on-property rodent conditions cannot lawfully support a nuisance determination or enforcement action.

Following these inspection failures, Kevin met directly with the Director of Health, where he detailed at length procedural deviation and property circumvention, and presented video and photographic evidence documenting on-property conditions.

Immediately after that meeting, a nonpublic meeting occurred between Director Stephanie Sloan, the city solicitor Eric Jakes, and Katherine Schuco, defense attorney, from what we understand, concerning this same matter.

Neither meeting, mine— well, his— nor the subsequent internal meeting appears in the public record.

I have spent— he has spent significant time reconstructing this sequence through records requests and corroborating materials, revealing not isolated error, but a systemic failure of transparency, the misuse of administrative process, and the weaponization of procedure to shield error rather than correct it.

As a result, enforcement was misdirected, the public health nuisance remained unabated, statutory obligations were not fulfilled.

This is not disagreement.

It is a failure of regulatory and statutory compliance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, item number 2 is public hearing on the application of LaGrea Pierre Mark, doing business as L&S Transport, for a special permit for motor vehicle sales and/or rentals at and General Repair at 724 Ashley Boulevard, New Bedford, Mass.

02740.

The application was received on November 5th, 2025.

It was duly advertised in the Standard Times on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025, and Tuesday, December 9th, uh, 2025.

Number 2 is before you open the hearing.

Yes, I'd like to open the public hearing at this time.

I'll entertain a motion to open the public hearing.

Made by Councilor Burgo, second by Councilor Gomez.

All in favor Say aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

The public hearing is now open.

Is Mr. Mark— Mr. Mark— Pierre Mark?

No.

Mr. Mark?

Okay.

So he— okay.

You can continue this, right?

We have to continue it now because he hasn't been appointed.

Or you can just close the hearing.

Do we want to just— maybe he's running late.

What time is that?

You want to table?

Um, can I get it?

Well, we're not going to table.

We're just going to hold off the public hearing now, see if he comes in, because if not, we're going to have— we'll close it up.

We do not have a date in January for appointments and briefings.

And if we continue it, we would have to continue it with a date, and we don't have one at this time.

He might arrive and remember this today.

So instead of doing that now, yeah, right, then he would have to reapply and then we'd have to readvertise again.

So that's it.

February 18th is a, uh, is a Wednesday night.

No, well, that's assuming that you're going to be the chair.

Okay, okay, so we are gonna— before continuing the public hearing, we want to see if anybody's here to speak on this issue.

If anybody's here to speak on the issue— yes, sir.

In favor or against, approach the podium.

Excuse me, sir, can I have your name and address for the record?

Pardon me?

Your name and address for the record.

Arthur Amaral, 16 Fieldstone Drive, Westport, Massachusetts.

Okay, you want to lift up your microphone so we can hear you a little better?

Perfect, thank you.

Okay, again, Arthur Amaral, 16 Fieldstone Drive, Westport, Massachusetts.

Thank you.

Okay, the floor is yours.

Okay, the reason I'm here tonight is because I got the letter and, uh, it addresses 724 Ashley Boulevard.

I own the strip mall across the street from it on the same side of Ashley Boulevard.

It's a strip mall that I built in 1987.

Interestingly enough, it had a 7-bay gas station on it.

When I took it over, I immediately had the building knocked down, the gas tanks removed, and completed the building.

So ever since then, it's been owned— it was owned by Morrison auto parts.

Then they had a son-in-law that was running a repair business out of it.

So to come up to date, I understand that the gentleman who owns it now bought it about 1 year ago, and since then, not a thing, nothing has been done to address, um, the, the building and the grounds.

All the windows have plywood and they're boarded up.

The doors— the pavement in front is half cement, all broken up because when they took the tanks out, and the other portion is a hardtop.

It's a mess.

Every time it was plowed out when they were doing the repair business, the, the plow would push a lot of earth, dirt, and a lot of stone onto my property.

So the thing is, I went through the rat problem with all the other neighbors.

But I have— I haven't had much time.

This was a very short notice.

The problem is, is that I want to know if this gentleman is going to knock the building down and improve the property.

I rather doubt it because if he was going to do something, he wouldn't be waiting over a year to get started.

Am I guessing correctly that he is going for a variance?

No, he's— it— he's asking for a special permit.

It's my understanding that that's a retail area, and what he's proposing is industrial.

Is that correct?

I'm not sure.

That's a question I'm not sure about.

Are you in favor of the proposal or against it?

Against.

Okay.

Strenuously.

Okay.

Okay.

So when you, when you get done speaking, I'm going to ask the commissioner to, to come, come to the podium.

Okay, I'm done.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Do— is there any questions from the, the body for this gentleman?

Any questions?

No.

Danny, you want to come up?

Welcome, Commissioner.

So you heard the gentleman's question?

Yep, it's an allowed use.

Excuse me?

It's an allowed use.

Okay.

Um, and do you know any more about what this man is doing for the special permit?

If you can give us a little background on it.

Special permits for, um, He wants to have a car lot with 8 cars.

He also wants to do repairs, but he can't do repairs because there isn't an MDC trap at the present time unless he puts one in.

So he's, he's got some work to do there to do what he wants to do.

He started repairs.

He started, um, got a building permit to do the roof.

The roof is complete, but inside it's— he's got a lot of work to get done.

I don't believe he wants to, um, tear it down because he put the roof on.

Okay.

Um, councilors, any questions for the commissioner?

No?

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you, Commissioner.

You're welcome.

Okay.

Does anybody want to speak in favor of this project?

Speak in favor.

Be recorded in favor.

We have one person that spoke in opposition.

Does anybody else want to speak in opposition?

Anybody want to be recorded in opposition?

Seeing none at this time, we will continue this public hearing until February 17th.

Oh, I need a motion to continue the public.

Okay, motion been made to continue this, uh, the public hearing, made by Sean Oliver to continue it to February 17th at 7 PM in this chamber.

Made by Councilor Oliver, seconded by Councilor Burgo.

All in favor say aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

All right, sir, um, it's continued to February 17th.

You can come back.

Hopefully the gentleman will be here to speak, and then we can ask him questions about what's going on.

So you can come back and, and state, state what your issue is again.

Okay, February 17th at 7 PM, right here.

Okay, yeah, you will not get another letter, so you'll have to remember.

Another letters won't be issued because it's continued.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, okay.

And I don't know, um, let the record show that, um, Councilor Oliver from Ward 3 has joined us and also Councilor Baptiste from Ward forward.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Okay, item number 3 is communication, Mayor Mitchell to the City Council, submitting the appointment of Jason Thode as the New Bedford, uh, police chief.

It was referred here on November 13th, 2025.

Number 3 is before you.

Second motion made to receive and place on file, made by Councilor Burgo, second by Councilor Oliver.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

I have it.

We have a communication from Chief, I'd like to have that received and placed on file.

Thank you.

Made by Councilor Oliver, seconded by Councilor Burgo.

All in favor say aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Okay, Chief, come on up.

Yes, good evening.

Okay.

So would you— I know you hand this, uh, you're there.

Do you want to go over things and just give us a background?

Talk to us.

Sure.

So, um, I think the, the last time I was here I gave a little bit of, of a background, uh, but now I've, I've been here for almost 5 months now.

So, uh, forwarded to, to City Council kind of the 1-year plan.

Uh, I, I, uh, I thought it was important for, uh, for everyone to kind of see what we're looking at doing in the, in the police department.

Um, that will be a living document, I'm sure, as things, uh, things come up and, and we get things kind of checked off.

Um, you know, I started putting that, that, uh, 1-year plan together probably back in October or so, and there's some things that we've kind of completed early.

Um, and, and, and so that, that's a good thing.

Uh, also submitted my resume just to show folks kind of where I came from.

And, and what my background is and what my experience is.

Happy to see some, some folks from the PD here to support me, so that's, that's good.

At least in 4 people's eyes, I'm doing a good job so far, so that's a good thing.

No, but in all seriousness, it's been good.

We've been, we've been able to get some things done.

I think I've been, I've been really impressed with the folks that, that work here.

Not just in the police department but in city government.

It's been, it's, it's been a great, a great 5 months, and I'm looking forward to hopefully continuing on.

Thank you, Chief.

Councilor Pereira, are you first?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good evening.

So thank you very much for coming before us tonight for questioning.

I do have a couple of questions.

Pulling some information I had off of your resume.

Under your serving as Chief of Police in the City of Hartford, you saw Part 1 crime was reduced by 31%, is something denoted.

Can you elaborate what Part 1 means or denotes?

So that's Part 1 recorded crime to the FBI.

So that's, you know, the FBI records that police departments across the country submit certain crime reports on certain categories.

If you look at the CompStat package, that kind of depicts those, those crime categories.

So homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny— those are all Part 1 crimes.

Okay.

All right.

And another piece of information here, as in your role with Glass Shield Consulting, is oversight, helping another advising— I believe another advisor in working on Connecticut's red light and speed camera implementation.

Can you discuss how that is going or how that went, where that's at?

It's something that while Massachusetts would need to enact stuff, I think would be very helpful to address a lot of concerns that my constituents have, and I'd like to hear your experience in that, um, or, or in your view on that as well.

Absolutely.

So I was a— that was something that's relatively new to the state of Connecticut.

So, uh, in, in my role as a consultant after I retired in July of 2024, I knew I wanted to continue, uh, in, in my law enforcement work.

So starting a consulting company, I did that, and I think Probably the, the thing that was, that was asked of me the most was kind of interpreting the statute where these red light cameras could go, what the process was for applying for them so that the statute was somewhat complex.

The state of Connecticut wanted to make sure that this wasn't a moneymaker, a money grab.

This was more about safety.

So there were parameters about where you could put them, school zones, If you wanted to put them outside of a school zone— school zones are generally accepted as a place you could put them.

If you wanted to put them outside of school zones though, you had to do some homework.

You had to look at car accidents in the area and you had to show that X number of car accidents had occurred.

You had to show that it wouldn't have a disparate impact on the community.

You know, there was a lot of hurdles that you had to go through.

So in, in my consulting, I was kind of on one side, was asked by a company to look at those and give them recommendations about where they could maybe— where they could maybe put these cameras and have the best effect.

And then on the law enforcement side, because I was a chief of police and knew just about every chief of police in the state of Connecticut, was kind of giving them advice about how to go through it, how to go through that process.

And, and they're in pretty good shape.

The first place that put them in in Connecticut is a very— was a very small small town.

They essentially put them on 2 ends of the town.

They had one main road that went through the town, and, and they wanted to control speed as they, you know, you kind of came into this one-horse town.

And, and actually it was named Winchester, ironically enough.

And they had a small little downtown, and then you kind of exited stage left out, out of the other side of the town.

So it was a pretty simple one, the first one.

But now the city of Middletown has them, the city of Waterbury has them.

There's a bunch of places that have, that have gotten on board with them.

So I think if you look at the news, there are some concerns about how places are collecting fees, what the fees are, what the fees are going to.

So, you know, this is one of those things that it's, it's good to do your homework if it's something you're interested in doing, because the nice thing about not being first to the table is that you can kind of learn from other people's mistakes.

And I think some clarity— I think we'll see some changes in that statute.

I think they'll clarify some things to make sure that they're actually— they're getting to the goal of traffic safety.

Absolutely.

Okay, my last question for now correlates to, again, back in your time in the City of Hartford Police Department.

I think it was something 400, close to 500 sworn officers, I believe.

Something like 475 was our— was the authorized strength of Hartford.

Sure.

Can you— you've obviously been involved in this city's police department for a little while now.

Any parallels to the— in back in Hartford in regards to the workforce issues?

And as you know, we're short quite a bit of officers.

Any correlation to what happened happened in Hartford?

Was that going on in Hartford in your time there?

And any strategies or plans forward to help bolster to a full complement of officers here in the city of New Bedford?

Yes.

So the parallel is clear.

I think it's, you know, it's a— it's another relatively major city.

You know, in Connecticut, it's the capital city.

So we had the largest municipal police department in the state.

Got hit really hard with, with retirements and resignations and difficulty recruiting like police departments across the country did in kind of the post-COVID or in the middle of COVID and post-COVID and, and the, you know, after the murder of George Floyd, that was a reality in police departments.

I think, you know, in talking to the officers in Hartford and in talking to the officers here, I think police officers across the country felt felt undervalued in many ways, you know, felt like they were being, you know, attacked and punished for things that they didn't have any control over and things that happened hundreds and thousands of miles away.

So that was a tough time.

I will say that, you know, some necessary changes in statutes occurred.

Police accountability bills occurred in Massachusetts.

They occurred in Connecticut.

A lot of them had good reforms in it.

I think it was the delivery that wasn't met well with the law enforcement community.

They didn't have really a seat at the table, and I think if they did— some of us as chiefs did, had some advisory roles in some of those things— but I think if generally, you know, law enforcement felt that, you know, that they had the ability to be part of their own reforms, it would have probably been received differently.

But that created massive losses.

We were over 100 officers down in Hartford.

So the one, one parallel I can say that's a positive for here is that it didn't cut as deep here, and New Bedford has rebounded much better.

Before I came here, I think within a week or two before I came here, they graduated 14 new officers in a, in an office, a city that's authorized 250 260.

You're bringing in a class of 14.

In my old department, we were authorized 475.

We were lucky to get a class of 6 or 8.

I think, you know, it comes down to, you know, how the community reacts.

I think in New Bedford, the community is pro-police.

They support the police officers here.

And I think that's why the pendulum shifted quicker here.

We've got numerous officers in the academy right now.

We've got another large class coming up in the next month or so, probably as many as 16.

We're still kind of doing the backgrounds on them and stuff.

So, you know, New Bedford is definitely on track to do better at recruitment, retention.

I think a lot of it is marketing.

New Bedford does a great job of social media marketing of the department and the good things that the officers do.

I think the fact that a lot of officers live here in New Bedford, or their parents live here in New Bedford, or their friends, their family, they grew up here, they went went to school here has a lot to do with how much quicker New Bedford's rebounded in staffing.

So a lot of positives, and I think we just have to keep our foot on the gas and continue to make it an attractive place to be a police officer.

Okay, thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I might have some more questions later, but I yield at this time.

Thank you, Councilor Pereira.

Councilor Oliver.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Chief Thode, for being here.

I was obviously fortunate enough to be on the— one of the members of the council that were on the committee, so I had maybe a little bit more knowledge or pre-knowledge of your extensive background, and I think that showed as you being one of the finalists and ultimately being selected by the administration.

But my question to you, I is you're operating here— well, you operated on a force that is almost, we'll just say, double in both size and budget.

Do you find that— do you think that that'll be a restraint for you, or how have you taken to it thus far and/or look to continue operating in the future as your budget and force a lot— as is different from where you were from?

Yeah, it definitely is.

You know, I think timing too was tough because the budget kind of process— you know, I came in, mayor made the announcement in the end of June and came in in July just after kind of the new budget goes in place.

So it didn't have a lot of opportunity to stand in front of this body or, or sit in front of the mayor and talk about kind of where I saw the budget priorities and things like that.

So I look forward to being able to have that opportunity for next year.

And I guess the upside to that, the glass half full side to that, is that I'll have more time here making evaluations about, you know, where we can tighten things up, but where we may want to spend more and invest more.

So that will be a good process.

I look forward to that.

You know, the 2 cities are pretty similar.

You think about it.

New Bedford hovers around 100,000 people.

Hartford, you know, between 118,000 and 120,000.

Hartford's 17 square miles.

New Bedford's around 20 if you take the water out.

We didn't have water.

We didn't own water in Hartford, which I really like here, by the way.

So, you know, we've got major hospitals in Hartford.

You got a major hospital here.

Hartford has an airport.

We have an airport.

So a lot of similarities, which is kind of what drew me here.

The size of the department is a little bit smaller, and I think that's a reflection of call for service volume.

It's a reflection of the lower crime rate here, which is great.

I remember when I was in Hartford, we had a chief come in from New York City.

He wasn't the chief of police in New York City, but he was a very high-ranking officer in New York City, Pat Harnett.

And when he came in, you know, he said, you know, that the I'll make a golf reference here, you know, the pace of play was a little slower.

You know, things were coming, you know, we're drinking from a fire hose in New York City.

But, you know, the problems are just as serious and they take just as much deliberation, you know, to fix and to steer the ship.

So I find the same thing here.

You know, the volume is a little bit less.

There's a lot of things that are beneficial here, as I mentioned, some of them, you know, having officers that are invested in this community that generally grew up in this community.

I think out of 475 officers in Hartford, we had about 5 or 6 that were actually residents of the city.

Much harder to get buy-in to fix quality of life issues and to kind of invest your public safety, you know, goals in the community that you live in.

It's a lot easier than if it's a community you don't live in.

So I have found that, that the New Bedford Police Department is on a solid foundation.

I appreciate, you know, the, the, the Jensen and Hughes report and the CP21 report for kind of coming in from the outside and looking at some of those things.

But, you know, I've, I've now kind of lived there for 5 months.

You know, I have found that, you know, that, that the reforms that are, that are necessary here are manageable, and the team that's in place to, to, uh, you know, to kind of implement those is a strong one.

So it's different.

I would say just about every way it's different in a positive way.

Budgeting, that's challenging, I think, anywhere you go, you know, any city, especially Hartford.

We had our budgeting challenges, and we found found ways to work around them here.

We've got some great people that are looking for grants, that are good at writing grants.

We didn't have that in Hartford, so that's a plus.

So, you know, I think, I think everything here is on a good foundation.

I think, you know, my, my real responsibility here is to kind of, to kind of give the New Bedford Police Department an outside look, maybe at how other places do it, at, you know, some, some things that may work, that may work better.

Than the way we've done it here, you know, all along.

So thank you for that.

I wanted to get the budget question out of the way.

It says here, obviously, the— what is it— the GSC group there, the Glass Shield Consulting, it's still— and because this is— we just took this in for public record, it still says present.

I Are you still working and consulting with that, or is that— no, just needs to be updated.

That resume was— I submitted, and as an application, you'll notice that this position isn't on there yet, right?

So I'll add this position someday when I write— when I, when I have to, you know, put my resume together again.

And— but no, it's— I'm not right.

And that's kind of why I wanted to ask that question, because I recognized this was from before, but now that it's Those weren't public record before.

Now this is.

So I just wanted to make sure, clarify that for the public.

One of your bullets here is the— you tell the over 199 organized protests through a troubling time in our nation, really, and only 2 arrests and no reported property damage came Can you talk to how efficient— or the efficiency of your police department contributed to that?

Or what was it that— you know, that 199 organized gatherings and only 2 arrests, that's pretty remarkable.

So could you speak about that?

Yeah, I mean, you know, some of it was the investments that you make in your community and the relationships that you have between your police department in your community, right?

If you have community trust when things like that occur, creating a dialogue, it's not— you're not starting from the ground and working your way up.

If you're trying to reach out and engage with people about an issue as important as police misconduct while the tensions are high, it's not always as effective.

So a lot of that was the groundwork that was laid by, by myself and by previous chiefs and by our, our, you know, community officers and lieutenants and sergeants out there and everybody that interacted with the community.

We had a good relationship with the community when the murder of George Floyd occurred.

And so when those protests happened, you know, we, we had some— we had credibility as an agency.

Another, another thing is transparency.

You know, some of these are kind of buzzwords, but we had put our policies out in a forward-facing policy portal through PowerDMS long before this occurred.

So when people talked about like, why, why wouldn't this happen here?

You know, what guarantees can you give us, as many guarantees as you can, that this wouldn't happen here?

And a lot of it was was, you know, we stayed up to date on our policy.

We made sure our policy talked about the sanctity of life.

We made sure our policy addressed chokeholds and things like that.

And so— and those people could look at online.

They didn't have to do an FOIA request or anything like that.

And then it was probably, you know, our reaction, you know, looking at— we got out there early.

You know, I was out in front of the police department on the very first day of those protests meeting with the protesters.

You know, I remember that day well because that's one of those days where you say things can either go really well here or can go not so well.

And, you know, I went out there with an assistant, one of my assistant chiefs and one of my captains that wanted to come with me.

We went out there.

We had a nice conversation with the folks that were leading the protest.

They gave me a little a little pink bullhorn, which there's pictures of that I can't, I can't get deleted despite my best efforts.

I did buy a bullhorn after that in case I ever had to go out there again.

But, you know, we were just genuine in the way we discussed things with folks.

Within a week, we had some of the members of Black Lives Matter 860, which is the area code in the Hartford area, 860.

We had them in around a table to talk about what they would to see different in interactions, in policy, in training.

We laid out how we go about all those things.

And that really just kind of laid the groundwork for the next 5, 6 months.

We were the capital city, so the protests all happened there.

You know, it was— everybody came to Hartford.

And we watched as other police departments, you know, brought shields and helmets and batons.

We had bicycles that shut streets down so people could be heard and walk around.

Was it an inconvenience sometimes for folks?

Yeah.

When we shut down roads for, you know, 45, 50 seconds while folks would walk through, there was some minor inconveniences.

Was it a lot less inconvenient than having to have officers stay in hotels and work 24-hour shifts because we had things on fire?

I'll take the way we did it all day long.

And a lot of that was not just me.

It was, you know, the team of officers that were working our community events that were, you know, deciding how we go about disorder.

You know, and we were prepared.

You know, folks said, like, that's a big risk you did there, Chief.

You know, nobody— everybody was standing on their heels.

What if it didn't go well?

We had preparations.

They just weren't visible.

They were ready in case we needed to respond to, you either save— look around the country.

We could have had to deploy to save protesters' lives.

We could have had to deploy to protect property.

There's a million things that could have happened.

We were prepared for all that.

But we didn't have this outward show of force that escalated the situation.

It led to literally 2 people getting into an argument, one person spitting on one person, and one person throwing a piece of asphalt at the other.

That was the dual arrest.

We made them in the same day.

We made one on each, on each team.

And, and that was it.

So it worked out well.

It also helped, you know, some places you see in country, in the country had, you know, professional protesters being bused in.

We had schoolteachers that were off because of COVID that just wanted change.

And how many times do we have an incident and a call for change and no change and then an incident and a call for change and no change and then it calms down?

So it was kind of the perfect storm, and, and we, you know, we ended up a much stronger PD with a much better relationship.

And thank you for that.

So I'll ask one more question.

I'll yield for my colleagues because I'm sure everybody has something to discuss.

But you kind of touched upon it in your explanation there with transparency and keeping the public informed and stuff, and I don't know about everybody everybody else.

I'll just speak for myself, but I, I often hear that, um, the communication piece between the, um, police department and the general public is, you know, there's a little bit of a breakdown there.

I think everybody, even the general public, realizes you can't say everything, especially about ongoing investigations, but it seems like not most of these things are not being shared with the public only the accolades, which accolades are great, and I know I understand the mentality of we don't want to be putting all of our dirty laundry out there, if you will, but folks need to hear that too.

So I didn't know if there was— if you have any idea if or how Hartford did it, but if there's— you have any vision to increase, I guess, that communication piece with the general public?

Yeah, I mean, I— it's hard to think of how you're gonna communicate externally in every situation that you encounter.

But, you know, if you look at how I did business in my previous role, you know, we were transparent with just about everything, whether it was good news, whether it was bad news.

I will admit that there are some different kind of rules at play here in Massachusetts versus Connecticut when it comes to what you talk about.

You know, everybody handles personnel matters differently.

You know, so I lean on, on the solicitor's office.

But as, you know, I get more comfortable with that, you also have, you know, your, your public component in a city agency also comes from your boss, right?

So working with the mayor to figure out exactly how we want this information to go out because we don't want it to be bifurcated.

We don't want it to come different ways.

But I am, I'm a big advocate of being out front, not waiting for, you know, hey, hey, we got a media inquiry, let's put this out.

You know, I took a media class many years ago where, where the kind of the philosophy was that if you, if you're, if you're active on your Twitter feed and if you're active in social media, you get to a point where you don't have to put press press releases out, they go to that feed because you're keeping them constantly, you know, in the loop.

There is a little bit of kind of figuring that out in a new role like this, which is kind of what I'm in the process of doing.

But my personal philosophy is that put it out early, put it out often, you know, and let everybody know that, you know, if it's something good, you're going to reward it and you're going to want to see that behavior continue.

If it's not something good, you know, you're going to want to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Thank you.

I did say that that was my last one, but you touched on it.

So the relationship with your boss, a.k.a.

the administration, and putting that information out there, have you found that to be the case?

Is that a hurdle or have you been able to— No, I think it's just figuring out, you know, what, you know, like the mayor has many departments that, you know, that all have interactions with the media at one time or another.

Police is probably leads in that category just because the nature of our work, but fire as well, EMS as well, you know, public works is what we called it.

But, you know, when it— when you start getting into snow season, you know, emergency management.

And so there's a lot of that.

And I just want to make sure that, you know, we don't end up in a situation where I'm doing that business differently than other departments.

And, you know, maybe some of of my ideas will translate to other departments and maybe some of theirs will translate to me.

But I definitely don't see it as a hurdle.

It's been 5 months, but I've got a great relationship with the administration and others over here that I meet with regularly, probably more often than, than the solicitor wants.

But I got a lot of questions, what can I say?

So no, it's definitely not a hurdle.

It's just like, you know, you want to figure out kind of how you're gonna do this and make sure it's consistent.

All right, well, thank you and good luck.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councilor Alvarado.

Councilor Abril.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good evening, Chief.

Good to see you.

You certainly, since you've taken, taken over at the helm, have been investing a lot in the professional development of your staff and trainings.

I think it seems like your philosophy has certainly been not top-down, bottom-up.

Can you speak to that a little bit about sort of elevating your leadership team and your staff to give them more resources to do their jobs better?

Yeah, I mean, we kind of, we kind of already talked a little bit about budget in the world of resources, so we'll pause that conversation until next year when I'm, when I'm up here on my knees begging for, begging for more resources.

But, but when it comes to like career development and things like that, you know, the one thing that if you look at my resume, I was given a lot of great opportunities.

Opportunities in my career.

I had mentors that believed in me and said, look, you know, we want you to do well, and sent me to trainings that were great trainings.

So already, you know, we've got— I've got 2 mid- and upper-management folks going to PERF, the Police Executive Research Forum.

It's called SMIP, Senior Management Institute for Police.

It's on my resume.

It'll be on their resume soon.

But I have a lieutenant and one of the assistant deputies going to that this coming year.

The administrative officers course down in Louisville, Kentucky, it's the Southern Police Institute, very well-regarded program.

I have the other assistant deputy chief will be attending that this coming year.

And then we've got kind of a new program that comes out of the University of Chicago that's similar.

It's an advanced leadership program where they kind of come out and recruit you.

It's a free program.

They do a week on, and they do one week of the program every month for 5 months.

I got one of my lieutenants in it before I left Hartford.

She just graduated not too long ago.

We've got a lieutenant from here heading out that way in July.

So those are all kind of investments in, you know, not just in the educational component, but learning how other places do it.

I will say, you know, of the things that I saw here, and there's a lot of positives here, the one negative is how many times a day that I hear this is the way we've always done it.

You know, that is a— that is something that, that I will change.

You know, for sure, seeing the way other places do it, talking to other professionals from across the country, learning from other places' mistakes so you don't make your own.

That's really what these, these programs are about.

Some of these programs you're in, you're in the program with 80 other people.

And then kind of from the bottom up, I think we've got to give our officers opportunity.

If we look at like millennials today, they're really kind of hungering for new things to do.

You know, one early success we were able to do here is, is add, you know, add an SRO, add a community police officer.

You know, the— it's kind of a negative, but, but it comes from the right place.

Our new officers want to be like detectives tomorrow, and they want to be like sergeants the next day.

And, you know, they just— the expectation of advancement and the hunger for doing something new is real.

So we, we also did bike training, you know, getting officers out there so they're doing the same job but they're doing it in a more visible way to the community.

Unfortunately, with the government shutdown, we had some grant funds that we were going to buy some new bicycles.

We got a little delayed in that, just long enough for it to be 14 degrees outside.

So you will see those bicycles in the spring and a bunch of officers that'll be out in the fresh air.

You'll be able to yell to them, which you can't do if they're in their cruisers with the windows rolled up.

It's kind of a hybrid between, you know, everybody likes walk beats, but walk beats limit us so much.

You can only get so far.

The bikes are a good middle ground.

So we'll keep doing that stuff and finding new things, new challenges for the administration, and new things for the young officers to do.

Well, I was gonna ask you about the bikes, but I'm glad you brought that up.

I think that's a great hybrid, as you said, and it's very progressive as far as thinking goes.

The work that you and your team have done on the ATVs and the scooters.

Your predecessors— I've been here for 3 chiefs before you, and I'm not putting them down, they're all great guys.

We had many a hearing about ATVs and scooters here, and your predecessors always had the laissez-faire attitude of, hey, we can't chase them, we'll do the best we can, but it is what it is.

Talk about your philosophy philosophy and how you've been able to really crack down on that and through your leadership and working with your team?

Yeah, I mean, some of that is you got to put yourself out there a little bit.

You know, there's no doubt that quads and ATVs and scooters and all these things nowadays pose a challenge for law enforcement.

You know, do you want to take somebody, a kid, let's say for this example, that's just out there joyriding and and chase them with a cruiser.

You know, God forbid they could get hurt, we could hurt another member of the public.

So there's a reason that there are some strict rules in place about chasing them.

But that doesn't mean that we can't, you know, use a little bit of— we can't think outside the box and find different ways to do that.

We've done that where I came from.

We had a lot of success with drones.

I think I mentioned that to some folks here.

At the Public Safety Committee.

And those, those come into play.

But we've used fixed-wing aircraft.

We've used helicopters as recently as a few weeks ago.

You know, Massachusetts State Police have really turned out to be a great partner with us in anything that we've asked them for, to agree to bring a helicopter out for a scooter, a scooter interdiction event is pretty impressive.

But, you know, finding where people— oftentimes people bring them into the city on trailers, finding where they're unloading them, where they're— then they joyride them and then they bring them back.

There's a lot of ways to do that.

You've just got to kind of— you can't throw your hands up.

You've got to be proactive on it.

And you got to let your folks know that you'll back them up in the event that something goes wrong.

As long as you follow the policy, you know, somebody could get hurt.

At the end of the day, folks are driving around at 11:30, 12 o'clock at night with scooters.

We've had a couple shots fired incidents in the last month, month and a half that have been from a scooter, stolen scooter, 2 people on it, one driver, one person on the back that fires rounds off.

They're dressed all in black.

They've got, they've got ski masks on and they're driving a scooter around when it's 25 degrees at 11:30 at night.

You don't have to be, you know, you don't have to go to detective school to know that there's something wrong with that picture.

Encouraging the officers to take proactive action on that and letting them know, listen, you know, you've got to be careful, but sometimes things happen, and when they do, I'm not gonna leave you out there hanging.

How often do you communicate with the leadership of the rank-and-file of the police union, and how's the relationship been so far?

It seems like it's been pretty good between yourself and the leadership of the New Bedford Police Union.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

Absolutely.

Between threading the needle, obviously you're their boss, but you obviously need them and want them to work for you and with you and be happy.

So you've got to walk the line there.

But can you talk a little bit about that?

Absolutely.

So I'm gonna knock on wood, but the union has been great so far.

The president Lorenzo and the vice president Tony are— I communicate with them at least once a week.

Normally probably at least twice a week on small little offshoot issues, and then I meet with the executive board once a month, and sometimes if we call a special meeting, more often than that.

We've, we've implemented committees because I want the officers to have a say in, in how their department changes.

So we've implemented committees on the uniforms, we've implemented committees on getting time off, on the 150th anniversary, which is coming up next year, which would be a big year for the New Bedford Police Department.

And each of those committees, we go through the union to get representation on those communities— on those committees.

So giving the union a voice in what goes on in that department other than grievances and other than, you know, contract negotiation and arbitration is important.

We've had a good relationship so far.

We both kind of led with, hey, listen, we're not always going to be able to agree.

I'm the administration, you're the union.

There are times that we're not going to agree.

But the good news is, is there's pretty established protocols on how we do that.

You know, go to an arbiter and the arbiter decides and then it's not personal.

Right.

So I think the, you know, the union's been involved in everything that we've done outside from presents with kids the other day.

We had, you know, we had folks from the union there doing that.

You know, when they need something, whether it's a training day or whatever it is, we, you know, we work hard to accommodate them.

So I think it's been very good.

I've been very pleasantly surprised at how we've worked with the union so far.

That's great.

Last question for me, Madam Chair.

When you and I had a discussion the other day, I'm talking about a whole myriad of issues, but there was one thing you had said to me that really stuck out in that conversation.

You're talking about how when you speak to your officers, you encourage them that when they see things like litter on the street, and if they're just parked or walking by, pick it up.

If you see a pothole or a streetlight out, download the SeeClickFix app.

Let DPI know.

It's about that sense of working together and sort of dovetailing all of our departments together to really create that city of one so we're not in silos.

Talk a little bit about that.

I, I thought that was very powerful.

Yeah, I mean, the timing, timing is good, but it was one of the things that, you know, I kind of saw here.

We've got, you know, I will say that we've got a fleet of officers out there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

We're probably the, the leading eye and ear agency in the city of New Bedford.

You know, fire department works 24/7, but You know, nothing against the fire department, sometimes they're in bed.

You know, we're out there in the— you're on the record, Chief.

I'll text Brian right now.

Yeah, they're not necessarily out there seeing these things all the time like our officers are.

So Assistant Deputy Carolla put together a nice little message and took the initiative to have the New Bedford Connect app put on all of the MDTs.

So the MDT is a mobile data terminal.

It's basically the laptop that's in every police car that goes out there.

So we have the NB Connect app on all of those cars.

And really, the message was a good one.

It was a message of encouragement.

You know, we— a lot of us live here, all of us work here, a lot of us have relatives, friends that live here, and we want to be proud of this city.

We want to be, you know, and we can— we are kind of the the tip of the spear in being able to report these issues and get them fixed.

So it literally— we talked about it today, the email went out today.

Today we got confirmation that all of the laptops have the app on it, and it's something that we're going to be pushing out through the lieutenants, through the sergeants, just to say, you know, I don't need, you know, the police officers to be dumping, you know, trash cans that are full of garbage in there.

In their trunks, but, but they can report that and we can get somebody out there.

They can report a light out because we know crime prevention through environmental design— we want our lights to work, we want, we want the streets to be well-lit.

We want to— if a resident comes up to us and reports a rat issue, put it in there, you know.

Let's make sure that we're following up on those things.

Those things are quality of life and they affect us every day and they affect every resident every every day.

Well, I wish you luck, and you do have my vote of support tonight.

So congratulations and keep up the great work.

Okay, Chief.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll yield.

Thank you, Councilor Abreu.

Councilor Baptiste.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, Chief, thank you for coming here today.

How's everything going with you today?

Good, thank you.

I'm good.

Um, a couple of questions just to ask.

Um, first and foremost, You know, you got hired in the summer.

I know it must have been a tough time, like, to start a new job, you know, vacation time, probably had stuff planned outside of getting this job beforehand.

How did you get— how fast did you get acclimated after fully moving to the city?

How long did it take you to fully move and get into the city, first of all, get acclimated with your offices and the city as a whole, like in that whole time, in that little time period?

So some of that is not a 1-year plan, but it's still, it's still going on, right?

So I can't— it's only been 6 months.

So yeah, as well, we're at, we're kind of at 5, almost, almost to the day.

You know, got, got the call from the mayor that I was going to to get the position, that he had selected me for the position.

I was on vacation with my family, my wife's family in Maine, and I decided to drive from Maine back here through Boston traffic for the announcement in June.

That Boston traffic was, you know, if I made it through that, I was all in.

So then, you know, starting in July, I lived in a hotel for the first week you know, that I was, that I was up here and then got an apartment very quickly.

So it was only in that hotel for one week and then I was in the apartment up in the North End.

And then recently my wife and I bought a house in the South End and we are renovating that.

So still acclimating in the world of like moving in.

I will be very excited to move into our own house.

But, but as far as acclimating to the city, you know, really that was expedited by the city, you know, from members of council to, you know, to the mayor, to, you know, the officers in the police department, to the community as a whole.

It's just a very welcoming city, I can tell you from coming in from the outside.

I did not— I did not get really any hostility.

You know, you get some folks that want to see some changes, and that's understandable, but everybody's been great.

To both me and my wife.

So the acclimation process was quick.

Like I said, I did not come in to any, like, active things on fire in the police department.

You know, there have been some recommendations that, that we are going to carry out.

I have found some things above and beyond those recommendations that, you know, that I think we'll, we'll look at and with, with the team come up with some maybe some better ways of doing it.

But You know, it was— I've never come in— when I did consulting for many years, I would always come in, give advice, and then leave.

You know, this is the first time I actually came in as an outside chief.

So I really didn't know what to expect.

But the welcome has been great.

The staff at the police department, both sworn and civilian, have been great to work with.

And I really couldn't have asked— I wouldn't change a thing.

I couldn't have asked for it to go any better.

All right.

Thank you.

And The deputy chief position been open for a while.

How do you plan on and when do you plan on filling that position?

And do you plan on filling that position from within or do you plan on having a search outside the department for the position?

I think that, you know, with going outside the department for the chief, I think that, you know, trying to keep some stability within the city, That's— this is me personally, not everybody up over here would like to, you know, I would like to see someone, you know, people who start moving through the ranks in the city instead of having to go outside.

Nothing against you, you know what I'm saying?

But like, as far as moving forward, I would like to see, you know, more people become qualified in the city through trainings, through through moving up in rank because there's, you know, and there's been a lot of, you know, promotions that have been stopped when it was time for people to, you know, move up in rank.

And I think that it's been kind of unfair that way in the past.

That has nothing to do with you.

This is just stuff that's happened.

But getting back to the deputy chief position, what is your plan with that?

So recently, within the last few weeks, I've actually gone through the— and created the posting for that position.

So that position will be coming out within the next week or two.

As far as where it's going to be posted, you know, one of the things that was pretty apparent as I went through the process was, you know, the— and in my conversations with the mayor since the process is that, you know, the goal is to really make sure that we have very best people in the positions that are, that are doing the work.

That said, I can, I can attest as I stand here today that we have some very qualified, strong people within the New Bedford Police Department.

You heard me talk about some of the trainings.

2 of my highest-ranking folks right now are 2 assistant deputy chiefs.

Both of those are going to high-level chiefs trainings, for lack of a better term, leadership command trainings in this coming year.

It is my goal that someday, hopefully many moons from now, when I move on to either full retirement or to another job or whatever it might be, that this department is in a place where a lifelong New Bedford officer takes, takes the chair and becomes the chief of police.

And I feel like that's one of my responsibilities, is to prepare them for that.

You know, in looking at kind of where the police department is now, I think, you know, I'm a little biased, but I think that this is a good time to get an outside look at kind of how other places do it, not just how— not just the way New Bedford's done it.

So that posting will go out to both internal and external candidates to see what's out there and who's going to apply for the job, and we'll go from there.

But like I said, that is not because I don't think that we have qualified people internally.

And then as we fill those positions, backfilling the positions behind that is also important.

But law enforcement is one of those jobs where you don't want to be learning as you go.

You know, you've got to establish a pretty solid foundation to make sure that you're making sound decisions, because sometimes those decisions are truly life and death.

We can sit and watch recent events on television, and some agencies just answer the bell better than others.

My commitment is to make sure that any promotion I make, any position that I fill, is filled with somebody that I'm confident can do that job on day one.

So those positions will be filled shortly and, and, and, and by the best candidate.

To your point, I truly hope that, that, that is somebody that's, that's a lifer here in Bedford PD.

Because I heard you talk about trainings and sending guys on trainings.

I think that that's been— I think a lot of people went on trainings in the past, but it was a lot of the same people that went on trainings in the past.

And I think that hindered a lot of people from getting promotions in the past and moving up in rank and stalling out where they, you know, could possibly reach their zenith within the department.

So, and that's what we worry about too.

And like I said, spreading the wealth on that for sure.

Yes.

Yeah.

You know, it, you know, a lot of It wasn't like that.

And like I said, there was a lot of stalling when it was time for guys to get promoted in rank as well.

And I know, you know, hearing from a bunch of officers that I grew up with and that are friends within the police, like, I wasn't even expecting calls from people and, you know, just saying that, you know, they was worried about how they feel about their they're moving up and, you know, how things get stalled when, you know, when they— when people start moving up in the ranks.

And it's normally Cape Verdean— I'm going to be honest— Cape Verdean and Spanish officers.

They usually get stalled.

They feel like they get stalled going forward.

And there's always freezes.

And I think that, you know, I think that we need to do a better job As far as not— like I said, this is the past baggage, not, you know, what you're doing.

And hopefully this all gets cleaned up, that we get, you know, guys treated equally within the force, you know, equally trained, so they have room for— so they have, you know, a chance for advancement and doing things like that.

But I commend you for doing the job that you're doing.

Hopefully, you know, you do it with safety.

And, you know, you're fair.

And that's all I ask for.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Baptiste.

Councilor Burgum.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So kind of piggybacking off of my colleague from Ward 4, you know, I share some of the same sentiments that he shared.

In regards to not just the deputy chief position, but I know there's a captain position and other positions when we're talking about promotions or even just appointments.

Typically, I wouldn't ask this of a candidate, but obviously in the unique situation that we all know that we're in here, you've obviously been working in this position.

So with that, I guess the question I would have is in regards to morale overall.

That would be the elephant in the room that I would want to address first and foremost.

What would you say in regards to the experience?

I know you spoke a little bit to the fact that you've felt welcomed, but if we're being honest here, who's not going to be nice to the boss, right?

But you'd be surprised.

Well, that's true.

Yeah.

So I guess, you know, if you could speak a bit more candidly extendedly on what you've experienced with when it comes to being an outsider coming in and knowing that New Bedford tends to be more so.

I'm sure you've heard from my public remarks and from others in this room that we wanted a chief that was from New Bedford.

And obviously we're expressing to you now when it comes to other positions that we're hoping that an internal candidate, not only an internal candidate, but someone from New Bedford, because even earlier, as you mentioned, you shared with us, which I was glad to hear, that one of the things that set this department apart from Hartford was the fact that the recruitment and retention piece was a lot easier because of the fact that you had people from New Bedford that were willing to serve.

So that, I think, speaks to what we're trying to say here.

And I think you've already seen that.

So with that, I guess I'll hear from you.

Yeah, I think, you know, there's There's pros and cons from coming from the outside.

But one of the pros that I have found is that I think there's always in law enforcement, my previous agency and other agencies that I've consulted with and worked with, there's always this kind of perception of like, you know, who's aligned with who, who gets certain things, whether it's training or the new car, or whether it's like who gets, you know, is discipline fair across the board.

And there's perceptions about that internally, you know, in the New Bedford Police Department.

I'm literally the only person that's not— that didn't start my career in the New Bedford Police Department that's currently there.

Everybody else has come up through there, and they've aligned themselves in certain ways.

We— there's been, you know, I've heard everything that there is to hear about how previous chiefs may have done it.

And, and the goal here is to kind of, you know, start fresh in that regard.

And I don't have— I don't have favorites.

I don't have people that I was, you know, on the tactical team with like I did in Hartford, where people are knocking on your door, hey, we went through doors together.

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

You still have to be disciplined the same as everybody else.

That's tougher when you've worked side by side with people for 20 years than when you kind of come in from the outside.

You're able to be more independent.

You know, that said, you know, the decisions to promote and hire is kind of a— is a team approach with me and the mayor.

You know, this is— there is a difference here where in Hartford, where I came from, you know, I made all those decisions.

I fired, I hired, I promoted, I demoted.

You know, here that ultimate authority, you know, rests with the mayor.

So You know, working through that is, is kind of a plan, and the plan that we had, you know, is, is to fill the senior leadership team first.

And the reason, as I said, that, that the, the deputy chief position is going to be posted outside is to see who applies for that job and, and what the credentials are for, for the people that apply for that job.

You know, that said, I completely agree with you.

It's, it's great to see see.

And I consider it one of my probably most important roles, is to prepare the folks here in the New Bedford Police Department to, to lead the New Bedford Police Department and not, and not look to the outside.

I think that's the goal of a lot of places.

But if you look around in Hartford, for example, I did 28 years there, not counting myself.

I had 11 chiefs in 28 years.

That, that equates to just a little over 2-year life expectancy, you know, of a chief.

It's hard when there's inconsistency like that.

And of them, I think 3 or 4 were outsiders.

And those were times where it was clear that we needed a look, we needed a different look.

You know, they're either— you know, we're living in a time, as we spoke earlier from some of the first questions, where there was this like kind of vacuum where people that could retire left, and many of them were in positions to kind of come up and be, you know, the next, the next leadership in the, in the department.

You know, we had a captain retire just before I got here.

So it's kind of this balancing act where you, you want to see the officers within the ranks of the New Bedford Police Department or any police department move up and take on more responsibility.

But you want to make sure that they're ready for that responsibility.

The worst thing you can do is give them responsibility that they— where they don't know what they're doing and they're not ready for it, or they just haven't done it.

Sometimes that takes time.

Most of the time where I've seen outside folks come in, it's because, you know, a change was necessary and they came in, made those changes, prepared people for those roles, and And the department then moved on with, you know, in a stronger place and better prepared for kind of the next, the next chapter.

You know, I can't tell you, you know, what— who's going to apply for those jobs.

But I can tell you, you know, internally, that is my goal, is to fill those, those positions.

There is a lot less— to be honest, there is a lot less decision-making when it comes to other ranks.

Right?

There's a civil service process here.

You know, if I want to make a captain, I generally have to go right by that list.

Same with lieutenant, same with sergeant.

You know, you've got some ability to, to do it differently when it comes to detectives and community officers and SROs.

You know, there we have the ability to sit down and say, round peg, round hole, you know, who do we want in these spots?

With a civil service process, the way that this one is, you know, you promote off that list.

And, and so I would love to have the ability to, you know, reach to make assessments here and reach down and promote people that I think, you know, would do great things for the different— for the, for the diverse sections of community that are in New Bedford.

You know, there's a lot of diversity here.

The reality is that that some of those positions are tested, and that's the person that you have to promote.

So when you're looking to diversify your ranks, you're kind of stuck with those test scores.

In Connecticut, and especially in Hartford, I had the rule of 3.

So if I wanted to make one promotion, I was given 3 names off the list.

People took a test, just like here, and they were ranked, just like here.

But I didn't know their ranking.

All I knew was that I asked for 3— I asked for 1 promotion.

Say, let's use captain as an example.

I said, I want to promote a captain.

I got 3 names.

I had no idea where they finished on the list.

If it was a fresh list, you got number 1, number 2, and number 3.

But I didn't know how that was.

Did interviews, looked at their history, looked at their discipline history, their missing reports, their sick time.

Looked at everything that I could look at.

If I— if one person— if I could make a selection, I would make a selection of those from those 3 people.

And it could be the number 3 person, it could be the number 2 person, it could be the number 1 person.

I didn't know that.

If I couldn't make a decision because everybody was equal, everyone was awesome, right, then I would say give me the highest— the person that finished highest on the test.

And then HR would give me that name and that would be the person that got promoted.

So I had a little bit more room you know, to do that round peg, round hole thing.

I also can see the other side of that.

Depending on the chief that you have, that could be abused.

And, you know, you get to the, to the good old boy network where certain people are getting promoted off that list of 3.

So I think there's, there's give and take there.

But, you know, my commitment is to make sure that we put New Bedford Police Department in the strongest place possible so we're making the best decisions possible and keeping the community as safe as possible.

Great.

So just to the heart of the question around— thank you, Attorney Gieratowski.

Do you— are you concerned?

I would say, I guess the direct question would be, are you concerned at all about the morale when it comes to the New Bedford police force or the department as a whole?

So 5 months is tough to say anything solid.

I can I can tell you that I have not— again, sometimes, you know, being the boss is a little bit difficult.

But, you know, the reaction that I've gotten from— you know, I predominantly am with the command staff way more often than I'm with, you know, the line-level officers.

But I'm out there at roll calls on Thanksgiving.

I'm out there at roll calls, you know, when things occur.

You know, you like to praise in public, and chastise in private.

So when things go well, you know, we just gave some, some pins and some coins out to a couple officers that delivered a baby.

So I like to be out there and doing that kind of stuff.

My assessment of it is that, that the morale is improving.

That I could be wrong there, right?

I mean, I think that's where you talking to your neighbors and the people that you know, and like, like Councilman Baptiste said, you know, folks that are in the police department that you went to school with.

I encourage you to talk to those people.

And if, and if you hear concerns, to bring them to me.

You know, there's— they're not going to walk into my office and say, hey, man, I really don't agree with this.

That's the reality is that's not going to happen.

I don't think the morale in the— I've seen bad morale in my 28 years in law enforcement.

I don't think that the morale in the New Bedford Police Department is bad.

I think they've got some reasons.

You know, listen, they— the contract is going to arbitration.

In law enforcement, that's, that's tough for officers to swallow.

No one has blamed me for that.

You know, I kind of came in when that ship had kind of already sailed.

I think it would be good if we get that, you know, squared away sooner rather than later, whether that's through arbitration or through finding a, you know, common ground.

You know, but some of that stuff's not not in my hands.

I think if there is a morale issue, it probably surrounds that based on what I've seen.

And getting that, you know, getting the contract done, well, I think will be good for everybody— good for the city, be good for me, and it'll be good for the officers.

But, but I have not really witnessed poor morale within the ranks of the, of the New Bedford Police Department, from, from the command staff that I work with more regularly down through the officers.

I think, you know, I've bumped into officers at Walmart that have introduced me to their kids.

You know, I've been out there.

I think a lot of it is being present.

I've been out there at all the events, at the Presents for Kids events, interacted with them, met their— met their wives, met their kids.

You know, I think— I think that's been a welcome change for them.

Good.

The other highlight here under your resume during your time as assistant chief of police.

It's highlighted here that you were the liaison to the City Council there in Hartford, which I was excited to read.

I'm sure you are aware of the relationship between the mayor's office and the City Council.

I guess the question I would have to you is just, do you plan on still having a role of that type of being a liaison?

Often times our Public Safety Chairman will ask for the chief to attend our meetings.

Will you take the approach of coming to those meetings and being responsive, responsive to either our public chairman or sending an assistant deputy or deputy chief?

So 2 kind of answers.

One, yep, as soon as I was invited, I came.

I will— I intend on being here.

It was odd, I will say— I can say this now because I'm a state away— for me to be the one going to those meetings.

I started doing that when I was a captain, and I was kind of sitting in front of City Council.

There was 11 council members in Hartford, and the chief didn't attend.

It was just me.

And sometimes the questions are kind of about, like, policy and philosophy.

And, you know, I, I never got myself in trouble, but it was always sometimes kind of odd that, like, I wasn't— that the chief wasn't there.

Ironically enough, when I became chief, that was no longer an option.

The mayor said, you're the one that's going to go.

And I think that's the right call.

I think the chief should be here.

But in the world of preparing, as both of them— both of my assistant deputy chiefs are here saying, I'm thankful I'm not that guy— it's— I do want them to be the ones that come here and get this experience, right?

Kind of knowing, making sure that you're prepared.

It's important.

And so they will come with me.

I will bring different people depending on the topic.

You know, there's been topics from towing cars where we bring somebody from the traffic division.

So I'll bring people with me.

But yes, I will be the one that, that comes here unless something happens.

I think there was one meeting where we had something that was on the agenda and I unfortunately had to be back in Connecticut because I still have a couple lingering, you know, things to do there with the house back there and stuff.

But actually, ADC Belong was here in my stead.

But unless for some reason I can't be here, I will be the one that's here.

Well, I appreciate that.

And I think obviously you might not be able to make every meeting, but I think the overall theme that I'm looking forward to is just the open communication for us.

There's been a breakdown of communication, I would say, and we've seen in the past oftentimes departments heads, not just whether it's the police department or any other department head, might have been instructed to not communicate directly with the City Council.

And I think that's more so where my questioning is, to make sure maybe not that you can't attend a 7 PM meeting at night, but that that open line of communication is there.

So I was glad to see that you have experience being able to communicate with the different elected officials and personalities and at the interest of public safety.

Absolutely.

That can be a tightrope, as we know.

This is— as much as I don't think police officers get in this job to end up, you know, in political positions, there's no question that being the chief is a political position.

So, you know, it's— I've got the advantage of having walked that tightrope before, but you're not gonna— you're not gonna get a lack of communication out of me for sure.

And the other aspect here, under your tenure in Hartford, now as chief of— during your time as chief of police, you mentioned expanding the community policing, and it highlights including faith-based and non-governmental organizations to address quality of life concerns.

So I guess my question now, especially even in your short time that you've had, are there partnerships you've already started to build or you plan to build, especially especially as we know here in New Bedford, the unhoused population that continues to grow, other quality of life issues that are major concerns in New Bedford.

Have you crafted a plan in that sort to mirror that approach with the many faith-based organizations that we have?

So, yes.

So, but that's, that's one of those ones that kind of takes a village, right?

That's not a police department-centric plan.

The last thing I want to do is come in and create a plan that does, you know, that may not include everyone.

So as recently as last week, I met with the mayor and with the chief operating officer and some of the folks that kind of surround the unhoused population and how we respond.

We're going to be meeting on the HART protocol and try to, you know, try to make that work more efficiently and come up with some plans that bring in all the different— that pull all the different levers, that's not just the police-centric plan.

You know, on our side, we have a role, and it's an important one.

On our side, we're meeting with, you know, meeting with the— I'm going to call it the state's attorney's office, but it's not called that— the district attorneys, meeting with the judges to try to explain to them.

We had some success in Hartford in saying— in getting some of the more serious offenders that are not just unhoused but are making it unsafe for other unhoused people.

You know, a lot of times these folks are victimized and we don't know about it.

When it, when it gets to that point, that's where kind of the law enforcement piece really has to take action.

And when we do, we have to communicate to the courts that this isn't just like— we're not looking to flood the courts with arrests for trespassing and you know, and disorderly conduct and things like that.

When we make that arrest, it's because we've tried all other avenues, you know.

And I think that that's where the courts start to take what you do more seriously, and they don't, they don't dismiss things as summarily as they, as they get credit for, unfortunately.

A lot, every, you know, everyone everywhere I go, I hear people complain, well, you know, if you arrest them, the courts just let them go.

If you look at some of our, you know, feel-good stories that we put out on Facebook, you know, you get a lot of cynicism in the comments that the courts are just gonna let them go.

Well, if you kind of present a plan to them that says, look, this isn't— this isn't our only approach, this is one prong of a multifaceted approach, and these are the things that we've tried with this individual, and this individual, be it a he or she, is going to either harm himself or harm, you know, a member of the community or harm somebody that you know, somebody else that's in the unhoused population.

And this is why we have to take this seriously.

We have to get them some mental health help or we have to, you know, take them out of that environment so that we change something.

We can't just keep putting them out in the same environment and expect a change.

So I think that's the kind of collaboration that, that has been successful in the past.

The faith-based piece, we've got some, some reverends that I've met with that work with the police department.

But, but I think we can expand that more.

The NGOs, I think New Bedford PD and actually the city of New Bedford has a really big head start in that.

Just the other day, we had— we, we doled out $500,000 in the opioid money to some of the, you know, PACA and some of the other NGOs that do some of this work here.

There's a, there's a good head start there.

You know, Can we, can we make sure that we're all kind of marching to the same beat better?

Sure.

On the police department side.

But I think there's a, there's a real, there's a real advantage to New Bedford there.

I do think we can do more with the faith-based side, though, especially in a community that's got a lot of, got a lot of churches, got a lot of ministers, got a lot of people here that are willing to kind of extend extend their assistance through the police department, because when it came to being successful with protests, the faith-based voice was a loud one.

You know, when they have 100, 200, sometimes 500 people in their congregation and they invite me there and say, listen, you know, we trust what the police department is doing.

They're not going to be perfect all the time, but their heart's in the right place.

That resonates a lot with, with the community.

So I think we're going to, we're going to build more on that faith-based piece for sure.

Great.

Yeah.

And as you mentioned, the HEART team or HEART protocol here, I know I noted that you had been the chief to implement it in Hartford, which the H there stood for Hartford.

Here it stands for homeless.

Yeah.

But that was a comfort to me knowing that is something important that my colleagues and I often utilize often here in New Bedford.

So with that, I'll yield, and I thank you again for being here tonight and for serving.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Burgow.

Councilor Gomes.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Chief, thanks for being here, and welcome to the city of New Bedford.

I think I've done that already several times.

Thank you.

I want to go right away to what makes you ready to be promoted in this city, in your department.

You spoke on that, that you want to make sure that people are ready to assume positions.

I've seen a lot of people assume positions in this city, and whether they were ready or not, I think it was a learning experience as it came, as the position came.

So I just want to touch on what do you mean by that?

You want to— you just don't want to promote from the inside.

And I'm going to tell you something.

I've been here for a long time.

I'm not into the good old buddy network.

That doesn't make a great police force.

The good old buddy network just takes care of certain people and does not take care of the department as a whole.

And I'm looking for that.

If I could— if you could answer that question.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I don't know that anybody can be 100% prepared for everything, and I think it's unfair to ask that.

But what I'm looking for, especially in senior leadership, right, you know, and it's different with every rank, you know, when what you're looking for in an officer being promoted to detective is their history and how they handle cases.

Do they see things through?

Do they turn over every rock?

Do they go back the next day and check with the victim, and do they knock on every door and see if there's cameras?

Do they look for technology?

What do they do that shows you that they have the mindset and the stick-to-itiveness to be a good detective?

That's detective.

Supervision— do you have people that generally follow the rules, that know the rules?

They know the union contract.

They know the policy.

They follow those things.

They go about their business in a professional way.

Nobody's perfect.

People will have, you know, blemishes.

But generally speaking, they practice what they preach.

They've, they've been an FTO.

They've been a mentor to a new officer.

They've taken a new officer under their wing.

That makes a good supervisor.

When you get to the higher levels, when you get to the assistant deputy chiefs, the deputy chiefs, the, you know, have you run a station?

Have you run a shift?

Have you been involved in changing policy?

Have you had to go— have you had to deliver bad news?

Have you had to discipline an officer?

Have you had to do an investigation into officer misconduct and call somebody out on that misconduct?

So those roles are different depending on what you're being promoted into.

But experience is key.

You can't create it.

You can create training, though, and training translates into experience.

So that's why I think it's so important to do some of these senior leadership trainings at the top and do some of the— I failed to mention it earlier, but we are also going to bring in, for every sergeant and above, all the way up through me, on 3 separate days, we're gonna bring in an outside entity to come in and do supervision training that talks about conducting investigations.

One of the things here that, that, that I am changing is PSU Professional Standards Unit did a lot— basically all of the misconduct investigations here.

You had— if you have an officer that, you know, procedurally does something wrong in the course of their— in the course of their work, it's not an illegal search, it's not— it's not a citizen complaint, they didn't accost a citizen, but they just didn't do something right.

They didn't follow a policy, they didn't follow procedure.

You need the people that they work for to do that investigation.

Their supervisor, their sergeant, that— and their lieutenant and their captain have to be in the loop on that.

If you just punt it over to PSU, to Professional Standards Unit, they do an investigation.

They've got no context behind that employee.

They don't know what other good things they've done.

So when they're making a recommendation about retraining versus disformal discipline, how severe the discipline is.

They're doing it kind of without that context, right?

And then they also— we don't have a chain of command that understands what happened and how we fixed it and how to prevent it from happening again.

So empowering these folks in the supervision levels to do their job and to understand that the goal here is to correct issues and make sure that they don't happen again.

So I think that, that, that combined with some academic training in the dos and don'ts, some knowledge of the— of what liability looks like when you don't do that.

You know, if you bring— pull an officer aside and you discipline them, maybe an oral reprimand, you might not get a Christmas card from them.

But if you don't correct that behavior, he might have to be terminated if he doesn't get back on on the tracks, right?

If he doesn't get back on the straight and narrow, if he doesn't learn how to do the job the right way, could lead to much worse discipline.

I'd rather see him have a fulfilling career and not get a Christmas card than the alternative.

You've spoke tonight about going to the outside for a deputy chief's position or whatever.

Let me ask you something.

You said there's a working relationship with the administration, but who is running this department?

You?

Oh yeah, I have not had any interference.

That's what I'm getting at.

Are you going to be a chief that runs the department, or would you— and I don't mean to put you in this situation— would you do what your told by the boss knowing that it's not the right thing to do?

I mean, that's a, that's a tough one.

So whether I think it's the right thing to do and whether it's not a lawful order are 2 different things, right?

I will never do— I will never carry out an unlawful order.

At the end of the day, the way that city government works is that the mayor is in charge.

The mayor selected me because a lot of our visions align.

All of the conversations that I've had with him in the last 5 months have been great, and he's been very supportive.

Sometimes he has points that I didn't think of, and I think sometimes I have points that he didn't think of.

But I would always follow a lawful order.

Now, I was told many moons ago when I went to PERF in 2015, so over a decade ago, I was told never take a chief's job that you can't walk away from.

It was true when I took the chief's job in Hartford, and it's true here.

If I ever found myself so misaligned with philosophy, whether it be, you know, city government as a whole, the mayor, whatever it might be, I'm always willing to, to walk away from, from a position before I'll do something that, that I think is wrong.

And that's about the best way I could answer that question.

How would you handle— well, I've seen how it's been handled, and you have a very— I think you have a great relationship going on with the state police right now as far as these scooters and everything.

I out on the streets.

And just the other night, Representative Markey has filed a bill to help out.

What I've seen with the interaction of your department and the state police is one good working relationship as far as this is concerned, and I would hope that that would continue.

I want to get back to within the department, and I've always been a fan of cheering on those that had come up through the ranks and think that those that come up through the ranks, whether they are local or live just outside the city, whatever, they came through the New Bedford Police Department, should have every opportunity to rise within the department and not so much look for the outside.

In your case, this administration wanted to go on looking for a chief, but not only locally, he wanted to go on the outside.

Would you— do you support every officer having that opportunity to climb through the ranks?

I think you touched on that before, but I just want to make that a little more clearer that we have a chief that's in place that will recognize the men and women within this department as they do their work and look to, to rise up the ladder?

And again, I'll go to that good old boy network.

I didn't get the position, but Councilor Pereira got it because he's closer to you.

Yeah, I mean, I, I think I've said it a couple times, and it's— you can't say it often enough.

I mean, I find— I believe that one of my key responsibilities is preparing everyone in the department for the next step, if that's a step they want to I also believe that there's no shame in the officers that want to stay patrol officers their whole career.

It's a fulfilling job.

It's, in my opinion, it's God's work that they're doing out there on the, on the front.

Not everybody wants to be a supervisor, but I think even in the short time, you know, I've shown an investment in the folks that are here and given them opportunities that they may not have had previously.

I think what I'm trying to say to you, Chief, is that that looking for the opportunity for the men and women that come up through the department to just have that opportunity, that that opportunity is, is not taken away.

And, you know, there's been some rumblings about some different changes, and I haven't seen it yet.

And I'm going to tell you, sitting here as chair of Public Safety, and I've been here 34 years, and I'm very proud of that and very proud of the accomplishments within the department department and what I've had an integral part of, whether it was tasers or the cameras or computers in the cruisers.

I somewhat have been ahead of my time as far as what equipment is to the department.

Would you— I heard you say about the drones— would you be in favor of going full out with it, with drone patrols in the city of New Bedford?

Drone as first responder, yeah.

I mean, drone patrols, I guess it depends on kind of when I call it a drone patrol.

I mean, I'm looking— I'm not looking to send a toy up in the air.

Some departments have, you know, I've been in the situation here where we talked about drones and we were showing them some plastic stuff.

I want something that can deal with the weather, can deal with almost anything, and again, be an integral part of helping this department to be a better department to protect the people of this city.

Technology is the next step.

I mean, we in Hartford, we were able to create a real-time crime center that I sent some folks from, from New Bedford down to take a look at.

That, you know, it's not cheap.

We're gonna have to work together to find money to fund that kind of thing.

But, you know, there's a lot to consider in a drone program, and there's a lot of people that have made that mistake, including myself in Hartford.

We purchased our— the The first drones that we purchased were drones that came from China and had the potential to be a security risk, and we had to down— we had to deadline them and we had to get different ones, right?

So, you know, that— those, again, you know, there's— it's sometimes it's good to be the first one, and sometimes it's good to learn kind of when other people are doing that sort of stuff.

But you look at, you know, pluck anything from the headlines, look at the tragedy at Brown University You know, the public expects there to be more video footage of that incident so that we can catch that person quicker.

10 years ago, nobody would be— we'd be excited if we found one little piece of video that might connect us to that crime.

But if you looked at many of these crimes nowadays, they're being solved through technology, through video, you know, through analytics.

So I am very much a proponent proponent of that.

I watched the landscape of public safety change in Hartford through that technology.

But we have to accept the fact that it's not inexpensive and investment is key in that, in those areas.

And I would agree with you that the support for that, which if it's really taken seriously in this Commonwealth, in this city, in the Commonwealth, in this country, I would see state and federal assistance for that.

And I'm surprised I haven't seen a bill come out of Washington yet to address mainly public safety in increasing their abilities to have the 21st century technology, whether it's drones, whatever it may be, within your hands to— I'm sorry, within your department's hands to protect the people of this city.

Chief, how would you deal with some of the minor things that go on in this city.

And I've heard you talk about it already, but I'm, I'm going to give you some scenarios.

I have a beach area down here, you know, about the water area down here in the South End.

I've continuously on the city council tried to help with putting up signage, which your department has told me the signage and the rules and regulations makes it easier for the department to enforce.

What I'm basically asking you, if we say that there's no parking down the beach at 9 o'clock after 9:00 PM.

Are you going to enforce these rules, these minor rules that would, I think, send a clear message to the public is it's not a bully force here, but we have rules and regulations that we work under in this city in order to give quality of life issues to the people that live within them areas and the safety of those areas.

Would you be in favor of that kind of approach with your men and women?

I'm talking about the car that— the cars that are parked at nightclubs throughout the city that are right up on the sidewalk impeding the pedestrian walkway.

Maybe even the safety of emergency vehicles or whatever.

That type of approach to— like I said, we're not bullying you, but you did wrong.

You broke the law.

I got to ticket you.

And I've got to move you.

Will you be taking that kind of approach so I'm not sitting here at night receiving calls or my colleagues receiving calls that 11:30 at night we've got 100 people down the beach and we haven't addressed the issue where we should address the issue right away at 9 o'clock and send a clear message that the beach is shut down, the parks are shut down.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, I think there's— there I have found in my experience that there's some things to that, right?

You got to make sure that, that the message is being sent and received.

That what you're doing is being successful in solving the problem.

If you give out, you know, 200 tickets on the peninsula and they're for, you know, $10 or $15, people are going to come back and park there tomorrow.

So one of the things that we ran into, that I've ran into in my history, is that you've got to look at what, what are you going to do that will change behavior.

Your goal is to change behavior.

We don't want to have to ticket cars at 9 o'clock.

We want them to leave and not have to ticket them at 9 o'clock.

So are you just going through the motions the way we've always done it, and are we just ticketing to ticket?

Uh, is it a revenue generator?

Because that I don't support.

What I do support is doing things to change behavior.

Um, in, in, in what I've looked at, and I haven't had a full summer down there yet, I did go down there and look at a couple of the issues, not just in the South End but in the North End as well.

And I do think that there may be some changes that might need to be made if, if it is our goal to actually change behavior.

We've got to do something that's, that's results-driven.

And if you look at, you know, if you look at the fact that, that, that problem has been going on a long time, we've got to do something else.

We've got to do something different.

Can't do the same thing.

Also, staffing.

Is, is another issue.

As we, as we get more cops out there, we have more time to do quality of life enforcement.

At 9 o'clock on a Friday, on a sunny day, when people are, are parked at, at the beach, there is a good chance that we're stacking calls for service and can't— every day can't release a cop right at 9 o'clock, right?

So as the staffing increases, we have more officers that can do that.

As we're able to put community police officers in those roles, they become the ones that focus on doing that sort of thing.

So I think there's a lot to that, that approach, but you can't let— you can't let the tail wag the dog.

I understand what you're saying about the priority calls and you're not going to go down the beat, but if we've got a proper plan in place, we don't have to worry about that.

I often talk about a plan A plan of action.

This is the chief's plan of action.

Myself, Councilor Pereira, put together an action plan for the South End, you know, bringing the traffic down to 20 miles an hour, asking that we move everybody out of there at the 9 o'clock hour.

And it's not because you don't want people to enjoy the atmosphere or the waterside that we are very lucky to have.

It's just, it turns into something else.

It's not the same of old.

It's the bottles of liquor out.

It's the loud music.

It's the dancing.

And that's where I see that getting out of hand.

And when I say a proper plan, meaning 9 o'clock comes, as soon as we can get a unit, or you've already assigned a special unit just for that approach to the beach areas to make sure that it's clear, or any other area in the city, as you said, whether it's northwest or whatever.

Um, that, that approach is made.

I, I think it makes it a lot easier for the department than going there at 11:30 when you've got 100 rowdy people who are drunk and everything, and now you've got to call every assisting unit to try to move everybody.

Where we arrive at 9 o'clock and you have a speaker and you tell everyone that the beach is closed and you have a tow truck standing right by with you because those that do not want to— about, again, I don't want to bully people, but I also want the law enforced.

And I think— I'm not saying we haven't, but we've let some of the minor things go that we should just put the gas on and send a clear message: law and order in the city of New Bedford and the quality of life and everything else can be a beautiful thing.

And we see it in other places wherever we go, and the police get the respect, and the people also get the respect in return for for the proper attitude.

I agree.

Last thing I'll say to you, Chief, is that I look forward to your work and your implementing.

Please always consider the men and women of this department.

A lot of them have put their hearts and soul into the job that they do.

We've got 99%— I said I've been around for a long time— we've got 99% of the people out there They come to work every day and just want to do a job and protect the people of this city.

That you would see that that happens and that me and yourself, as I've offered you, you can get a perspective from your department on what they see.

I can give you a perspective of 34 years of what I've seen in this city, what the changes that have come through this city, the approaches by the department in solving crimes or whatever.

A lot of things have happened in this city that we were somewhat in denial about.

And I don't want to see you in that position.

I want to see you in the front of that position.

And I would hope that me and you would have that opportunity to take that ride, as I've offered to you, as chair of Public Safety, just so I can show you a perspective of what I've seen, what I've learned, and what I've learned from your men and women, and many of them on this department, because they're just that kind of caliber.

You always have like that 1% that don't really want to have anything to do with the politics, but that's okay.

I don't play— I don't play it as a politic game.

I look at it as a position that I have, the position that you have.

I want the best for the department.

I want the best for the people.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Councilor Gomes.

Thank you, Councilor Gomes.

Councilor Choukat?

Okay, thank you.

Councilor Abram.

Yeah, this would be very quick.

Just one last question for you, Chief.

I didn't get to ask you, and it didn't come up during this hearing.

What's been your directive with Immigration Customs Enforcement for your department?

Obviously, you can't and won't impede with federal ICE investigations or actions, but what's been your directive, and what are you telling your men and women to do?

If and when they come across ICE officers, or they've been reaching out for communications, or have they?

And how does it all kind of play out, just so the community knows kind of what your philosophy is on ICE?

Yeah, I think, you know, in the interest of time, probably the best way to see that is we put out a directive publicly.

We put out a directive within the department, and then we also made that a forward-facing document that's both on the website and we put it out through social media.

So when I got here, long story short, there really was no directive on, on what the New Bedford police officers were expected to do when it came to ICE.

I looked at Massachusetts law, looked at, you know, kind of the, the broader picture and landscape of what's going on in the country, and we came up with a very comprehensive directive on responding to these issues.

You've seen— I also think, you know, it's important to give clarity.

Like, every time people in the community see a, you know, a federal agency or an unmarked car with some vests on, they automatically assume it's ICE.

So we've tried to be proactive in putting out, you know, hey, no, this is the investigation, it's an FBI investigation, this is a DEA investigation, whatever it might be.

We have not had direct contact with ICE.

I've reached out a couple times to see— I said it, you know, from the very first day that I was here— to take kind of a completely hands-off approach where we're not going to have anything to do with them, I don't think serves our community the best.

I think, you know, if we can be involved in a situation, be able to de-escalate— I can't control what they do, and And we don't enforce immigration, and we won't enforce immigration.

But, you know, before I got here, I did my homework, and there was an issue here where I smashed a window and dragged somebody out of the car.

I asked myself if we had, you know, an officer that was here that I know has had de-escalation training.

The entire New Bedford Police Department has been through de-escalation training through PERF.

I wonder if that could have ended differently.

Would the person be taken into federal custody at the end of the day?

Probably.

But they would have done it without a broken window and without potentially being injured.

So if we can be helpful to our community, to keeping our community safe, that's the stance that I've, that I've taken.

But that directive really answers all of those questions about exactly how we respond.

Body-worn cameras, one supervisor or 2 officers making sure that the law is not being broken, make sure that the federal law enforcement agents are at least safe.

We've seen some, you know, some videos of these folks getting accosted.

They are not— they are not political.

They're doing a job.

And there I feel terrible because, you know, in one month their job is one thing and in another month their job is something else.

And I wonder how much training did you give them to switch that function from an administrative function to now, you know, banging in doors and doing like kind of like high-risk police work, right?

So the directive is there for everyone to see.

I thought it was important that we, that we make it clear for our officers exactly what's expected of them.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll yield.

Thank you.

Any more questions from the floor?

Councilor Gomes.

Just one short one, but Chief, I don't know how much of it you have done, but are you going to be willing— I know you've got a lot on your plate coming in— are you willing to meet with the community throughout the city?

Oh yeah, I've met with a lot of people.

There's a lot to go.

I think everyone here that's been to the community events has seen me out there.

You know, that's actually one of my favorite parts of the job.

No, I know, I know you have been out there and within the community, different functions and things that I'm talking about.

When it comes down to the issues of crime or whatever, if you feel the need to put people at ease, no matter whether it's in the North End or the South End, would that be the approach of Chief Doherty in the city of New Bedford?

Absolutely.

I've been invited a few times.

I was up in the North End with, with Councilman Choquette early on, asked me to come up there.

I think I was able to answer a bunch of questions he He had to bow out early for a big debate.

But he left you all alone there?

He did.

He did.

I mean, no, he did not.

He did a nice introduction and we had a good, good dialogue with some of the folks.

But those community events, especially the community meetings, is really where you hear a lot of what drives what the community expects your department to do.

You know, and ironically enough, Most of those, in my experience, both here and where I came from, you know, are more about quality of life.

Speeding, loud exhausts, things that affect people's life.

Parking, things that affect people's life.

I was probably 30 minutes about a parking issue up in the North End.

It's good to know what people expect so that you can meet those expectations.

Thank you very much for that, because I think the people of the city, while you have a department to run, they also look at you as the leader within the department to listen to their complaints every once in a while when they want to talk to their chief.

Absolutely.

And that is, that is kind of the key to, to having good, you know, deputy chief, assistant deputy chiefs, people that keep the trains running on time so that, you know, that I can be out there and, and, and be that, that agency head, the face of the department.

That's another— that's another reason it's very important to have folks that can, that can do, uh, that can do those jobs really well.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Thank you, Councillor Gomes.

Any more questions?

Seeing none, your pleasure, Councillor.

Motion to refer out to the full City Council with a favorable recommendation.

Motion made by Councillor Burgo to refer out to the full City Council for favorable recommendation, seconded by Councillor Abreu.

Anybody on the question?

Roll call.

Okay, um, on the question, I'd like to— Councilor Oliver, would you take the Chief, you can, you can sit if you want.

Yeah, sure.

Thank you.

The chair recognizes Councilor Carney.

Thank you.

So I, I'm not going to stand, I'm just going to sit because it is a committee meeting.

But first of all, um, I do want to welcome the new chief to the city of New Bedford.

The city of New Bedford are great people, and I'm sure they opened their arms and welcomed him.

And I can't say enough about our great city.

But all I just want to mention a few things, okay?

First of all, there was a search that went out for our chief of police.

And I do believe that we have a phenomenal police force.

And we have many, many men and women on our police force that are very capable.

And are very good at their jobs.

I noticed that the police, when I read his resume, came up through the ranks.

He was a patrolman, then he was— then he went to a detective, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, assistant chief of police, and then chief of police.

He worked his way through that.

And that's the way I was looking at this when this nomination came down.

I think that was a great achievement for the chief, and I read his resume, and I think he did a fantastic job when he went through all the things he did in Halford and what he's done and the education behind him.

But I also think that promoting within is very major.

And it's good for the morale.

We had 3 candidates, 3 great candidates before this administration.

A female, a chief that was selected, and one of our captains, Captain Nate Rodriguez.

Captain's been on the force for 21 years, although our new chief has been on his force for 28 years.

He came from Hartford.

We had a homegrown person here within our ranks, somebody that I felt was very capable of being Chief of Police, somebody that's part of this community, part of the fabric, grew up here, has stayed here, went to the schools here, and knows our community.

And this has got nothing against this new Chief of Police because I think He's going to be— he will be appointed and he will be our next chief.

And I think he's going to do a great job.

My reservations are not with our new police chief.

It's with our administration.

This is not the first time that we did not look at our employees who are quite capable, who worked in these jobs for many, many years.

And yet we brought somebody else in.

And most of the times, they did not work out.

But unfortunately, we lost those people that were in that second position because of the morale.

They said, what am I doing here?

I was— I like to hear what the chief said about looking at promoting within and looking at his staff, sending them to training and doing that.

But there was one thing that discouraged me out of this whole thing.

He said he was going to go out externally also for the deputy chief.

I'm not sure whether that was something that was— the administration had said, because the administration likes to go out externally and not look at the value and the gold that he has within his, his people here, whether it's in this police department or any of the departments within the city.

You know, I just, I just get very discouraged.

And I know some people that got discouraged that applied for jobs that were quite qualified in the city of New Bedford that didn't get it.

Some of them didn't even get interviews because The way our administration works and the way this government works, there is one boss for all the department heads, and he happens to sit in the corner office, and what he said goes.

And I appreciate it, but that's the way our charter's written up.

The mayor has all the say.

But it's very disheartening, very, very disheartening that we look over these people We don't give them the value that they have in the city.

We have great people in the city.

We have a great workforce, and we have plenty qualified people in the city to do the jobs.

So for that reason, it's nothing against the new chief, because I will work with him, I will support him, and I have hope to have, have a meeting with him so I can talked to him about the things that I'm concerned about within the city.

And I'm glad he's for drones because I think that could do something very good for the city and take some of these, these crazy motorcycles and dirt bikes off the street because we can actually follow them and then get them and won't have to chase them with cars.

But so I've listened to him all night long and listened to his ideas, and I think he's going to lead the force because that's what he's been there and he will get appointed tonight.

But I'm just making a stand to this administration and say, hey, you've got valuable people.

Don't lose them and give them the value they deserve.

And when you start promoting people, promote within.

Because listen, you had a great screening committee for the police chief.

You, Vice Chair, was sitting at— Vice President of the chair, was sitting on it.

And public safety.

And you saw the value with one of our own because you put him there in the top 3, in the top 3.

And those top 3 went to the administration and he picked from without.

He did not pick from within.

He picked from without.

So like I said, I know that you knew that I had— I know the council president already told him how I felt.

Because he told me so.

But, but it's like I said, it's nothing against our chief.

He had nothing to do with it.

This man was on the outside.

This is between the city of New Bedford City Council and how I feel what we should be doing and look at the value, the value of the people in New Bedford.

They are great people.

We have smart people, we have educated people, and we can do the job.

You don't always have to leave this city to bring somebody in in a top position.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you, Councilor Carney.

Anyone else on the question?

Seeing none— roll call.

Seeing none, a roll call vote has been requested.

I'll have the clerk call the roll.

I'm referring to the full City Council recommending approval made by Councilor Bergo, seconded by Councilor Abreu.

Councilor Abreu?

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Abreu.

Councilor Baptiste?

Yes.

Councilor Baptiste.

Councilor Bergo?

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Bergo.

Councilor Carney?

No.

No, Councilor Carney.

Councilor Chiquette?

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Chiquette.

Councilor Gomes?

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Gomes.

Councilor Oliver?

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Oliver.

Councilor Pereira?

Yes.

That passes 7 to 1.

Passes 7 to 1.

Will that be referred to the full city council?

It will, uh, on January 8th.

All right, that'll be referred to the full city council on January 8th.

Yeah, and, uh, Chief, if you'd like to be there that day, uh, we'll waive the rule and you'll be able to be sworn in that day as well.

So bring your family and a camera.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Okay, item number 4 is a communication, Mayor Mitchell, to the City Council submitting the appointment of George M. Viveros, New Bedford, Mass., to the Board of Park Commissioners, replacing Lee Blake, who has resigned.

This term will expire on May 2026.

It was referred here on November 13th, 2025, and number 4 is before you.

Motion to receive and place on file.

Motion made to receive and place on file, made by Councilor Oliver.

Second.

Second by Councilor Burgos.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

The eyes have it.

Mr.

Wait, what do you mean?

Oh yeah.

Oh, I don't see.

Oh, Mr. Vavarez.

Yeah, go ahead.

Okay.

I think.

Yeah.

And you said it was going to be a quick one.

Councilor Alba.

Do you just want to speak first?

Yes, would you like to give us a little brief overview?

Why do you want to be on the park board?

Um, I've been involved with, um, a lot of different things.

Uh, athletics— I'd like to see that, uh, improvement continue.

Maybe make it even better.

There are some issues like everything else, but I think overall it would be something that I would enjoy because I did before.

So now that I'm retired, I think I could make that happen.

Excellent, thank you.

Any questions?

Councilor Oliver.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Viveros, for being here and seeking the position.

Um, I just wanted to ask, um, was this something that you were approached for or something that you approached the administration about?

How did you come to learn of the, uh, the position?

He approached me.

Approached you.

Was there any other positions discussed, or was this kind of something that you wanted to be part of?

There were a couple of things that got kicked around, but when this was available, that— right, I wanted to chase that.

So, and I You had spoke about your, your love for our green spaces and being involved in youth sports and stuff.

And could you just talk about that a little bit more and what you kind of foresee you would like to accomplish being on the Park Commission?

I think whether it's recreational or organized, Take your time.

Yeah, you caught me off guard.

I want to see that go to another level.

Okay.

Inclusive to everyone.

We have leagues currently that are special needs.

We have leagues that are very, very well organized.

Whalen City Little League, for example.

At my part with the Greater New Bedford Softball League, I was a player, a sponsor, board of directors, and I got involved with the United States Specialty Sports Association.

I became a district director.

We had a program to send officials to the highest levels of competition, and it It was nice.

But the big thing is the team that's around you.

I'm good at that, as you see from social and other things that I ventured into.

You don't have a team behind you, you're in trouble.

So I'm not looking to change.

I don't know what needs to be changed.

We're gonna find out, hopefully.

But everybody's got something to bring to the table, and you can't poo-poo someone's opinion.

You try to find a way to make it work.

Thank you.

And involve everybody.

Good, thank you.

And one last question.

The various parks have Friends of Brooklawn, Friends of Buttonwood, and I believe there's Friends of Hazelwood.

Do you look to kind of work with those folks also to make our— some of our green spaces a little bit more friendly and community-oriented.

Sure, that's part of team building.

If you're on the same page, good things happen.

And when you're not on the same page, hopefully experience honesty takes it to that level.

Awesome.

Well, thank you, Mr. Viveros.

I appreciate your willingness to come forward and serve on the park board and look forward to supporting you in that.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you for using my correct pronoun.

I appreciate that.

Uh, anyone else on there first?

Seeing none, Motion referred to the full City Council made by Councilor Abrams, seconded by Councilor Oliver.

Anyone on the question?

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The ayes have it.

Mr. Tavares, your appointment has been referred out to our January 8th council meeting.

If you'd like to attend, you can.

Most likely it's been favorably recommended.

We can waive the rule, Rule 40, and swear you in that night, or you can come in at another time to be sworn in by our city clerk.

But that's up to you.

It will be heard on our January 8th meeting.

Very good.

Thank you for being here all night.

I know it was a long night.

I apologize for the agenda, but I appreciate you sticking it out.

And thank you for your support and your confidence.

I appreciate that.

Thank you for your willingness to serve.

You have a great night.

You too, and have a great Christmas.

Same to you and Mr. Bavarius as well.

Mr. Chairman, on item number 5 and item number 6, I believe that the petitioners have, have left.

I would assume— second— I would assume a motion to waive the reading and table is in order.

Well, we wouldn't have to.

Second.

So for number 6, this is the one that was tabled for 100 years on the city council agenda.

Can we refer it out for no further action?

So motion made by Councilor Abreu, um, for item 6, uh, to refer for no further action.

Councilor Choquette, uh, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The ayes have it.

And motion to adjourn.

No, table number 5 will automatically be tabled.

It will automatically be tabled because we didn't read into the record.

It remains on the table.

Yeah, so motion made, uh, adjourn made by Councilor Baptiste, seconded by Councilor Abreu.

Anyone on the question of adjournment?

No.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The ayes have it.

We are adjourned at 9:11 PM.

Never forget.

God bless you.

God bless you.

God—