Special City Council Meeting — May 13, 2026

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Tonight is, uh, Wednesday, May 13th, 2026, at 7:00 PM.

I'm calling together a special city council meeting for the fiscal year '27 budget submission.

I would like to, uh, we don't have a member of the clergy with us tonight, so if we could all take a moment of silence, please.

Thank you.

We'll be led in the Pledge of Allegiance tonight by Councilor of Ward 4, Derek Baptiste.

Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

I would like to note that 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.

I am joined tonight in the council chamber by my colleagues, Councilor-at-Large Ian Abreu, Councilor of Ward 2, Scott Pemberton.

Councilor of Ward 5, Joseph Lopes.

Councilor at Large, Brian Gomes.

Councilor at Large, James Roy.

Councilor at Large, Naomi Carney.

Councilor of Ward 3, Sean Oliver.

Councilor at Large, Shane Burgo, and First Vice President.

And Councilor of Ward 4, Derek Baptiste.

I am the Councilor of Ward 6 and City Council President, Ryan Pereira.

I will ask the clerk at this time if there are any letters to be read into the record.

Mr. President, I have one.

This is from Councilor Choquette.

Dear Council President Pereira and honorable members of the City Council, I'm writing to inform you that I'll be unable to attend the mayor's FY27 budget submission meeting on Wednesday, May 13th, as my wife will be having emergency surgery in Boston.

Please read this letter into the record to make my colleagues and the public aware the reason for my absence.

Sincerely, Leo Choquette, Councilor Ward 1.

Motion to receive and place on file.

Motion to receive and place on file made by Councilor Oliver, seconded by Councilor Lopes.

Anyone on the question?

All those in favor say aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

We'll ask the clerk to read item number 1, please.

Mr. President, item 1 is communication from Council President Pereira to City Clerk Dennis Farias requesting that a special city council meeting be called for Wednesday, May 13th, 2026 at 7 PM for the submittal of the FY27 City of New Bedford proposed budget.

Motion received and placed on file.

Motion received and placed on file.

The communication's been made by Councilor Burgos, seconded by Councilor Abreu.

Anyone on the question?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Uh, at this time the council will take a brief recess, uh, to go and get Mayor Mitchell.

We're going to come back to session, please.

Council President Pereira, honorable members of New Bedford City Council, Mayor of the City of New Bedford, Jonathan Mitchell.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Good evening, everyone.

As we gather here tonight for the annual presentation of the city's proposed budget.

You no doubt have sensed that this is no ordinary year.

Amid reports of local governments struggling to pay their bills, and after years of warnings from me and from others about the growing sources of pressure on the city's finances, I'm here to tell you that your instincts are right.

Going into this budget season, the gap between what is needed to run the city and the money available to us was $32 million.

This is more than twice the largest gap in the last 15 years— far too large to be addressed by the incremental measures of past years.

Years.

The only responsible way to balance the budget for the coming year, as we must do under state law, is to increase revenue and reduce services.

That is only for the coming fiscal year.

The budget is still in a long-term imbalance.

Because the cost of city government is projected to rise faster than the revenue coming in, still more sacrifices will be necessary to stabilize the budget.

This is a difficult reality.

The current state of our finances feels out of place with the city's hard-earned recent successes— lower crime rates, waterfront construction, new housing, and growing arts and restaurant scene an improved reputation, and so much more.

But to those who have observed or participated in the budget process of late, it should not be the least bit surprising.

Over the last several years, in budget presentations, State of the City addresses, and countless media appearances, I have explicitly warned that our ability to operate city government effectively and affordably was being suffocated by diminished state aid and growing non-discretionary costs such as pension and healthcare obligations.

New Bedford is hardly alone among Massachusetts cities and towns that are struggling with the fact that the state has not kept up its obligation to fund general government aid.

This spring, there have been nearly daily reports of layoffs of municipal employees around Massachusetts.

But I also have repeatedly said that the council's unwillingness to rein in the growth of healthcare and pension costs would make our budget unsustainable.

And as I stand here today, I wish I were wrong.

For a few years, we were able to keep things going through a series of efficiency measures.

These steps were appropriate, but they're not nearly enough.

The reality is that the budget has reached a boiling point.

The tough decisions can no longer be avoided.

Today, I am presenting to you my best effort at achieving a balanced budget while minimizing the impact on city services and the disruption in the professional and personal lives of our employees.

In the next few minutes, I will explain in detail how we got here, what steps are necessary to balance this year's budget, and what we must do together to set the city's finances on a more stable course.

Let's begin with the revenue side of the budget.

City government relies on a variety of funding streams.

Many of them support specific activities, such as user fees for water and wastewater services and federal and state grants for discrete programs.

Most of city government, however, is funded from 2 sources: property tax receipts, and local aid from the state.

Massachusetts has 2 major local aid programs for city services: state education aid, sometimes called Chapter 70 aid, which can only be used for the schools, and unrestricted general government aid, which is used for the rest of city government.

In the last several years, thanks to legislation called the Student Opportunity Act, State education aid has increased significantly, and our school department is better funded than it has been in a long time.

But as you no doubt have heard in the media, unrestricted aid has fallen far behind.

The problem originated with the 2008 financial crisis, which prompted the state to impose significant local aid cuts and merge 2 existing, existing local aid programs together.

As you can see from this graph right here, and you've seen some variant of this before, once the financial aid crisis passed, the state didn't restore the earlier funding level.

Instead, it increased aid year over year steadily, but at rates lower than inflation.

And so you end up with this big gap right there.

Now remarkably, remarkably, this current fiscal year was the first time we received more unrestricted aid than we did in 2009.

Think about that for a second.

Think about how much more expensive everything has gotten since 2009.

The red line shows where aid would have been had it kept up with the rate of inflation.

And that's the gap right there, ladies and gentlemen.

Had the state kept up its local aid commitment, we would have received approximately $13 million more— $13 million more this current year.

Last week, to much fanfare, the State Senate proposed an increase in unrestricted aid that would result in about $600,000 more for New Bedford than the House of Representatives number.

Now, the Senate's effort was laudable, but it barely makes a dent in that $13 million gap.

As the state has steadily closed off the spigot of local aid, local taxpayers, of course, have footed more of the cost of local government.

And so you might ask, well, how could that happen?

Simple answer is that the state officials don't have to answer for higher local property tax bills.

However unfair it may be, local officials get the call when the tax bills go up, even if the reason is that the state has not kept up its end of the bargain.

Lest anyone listening to this would suggest that we're simply begging the state to bail us out, or that we're casting blame in the general direction of Boston, make— it is important to note that state aid is not charity.

For various reasons, the state has an obligation to help fund local government.

For one thing, the benefits of municipal services are enjoyed by people who don't live in town, and this is especially true for a center city like New Bedford where people come and go all the time.

So when someone from Fairhaven decides to go out to dinner in the city, We don't tell them, oh, I'm sorry, because you don't pay taxes in New Bedford, we're not going to send an ambulance if you get into a bad car accident.

We don't do that.

It's only fair then that the responsibility for funding such services is spread beyond the city's borders.

The state also imposes all sorts of mandates on municipalities that require us to spend money.

For instance, as we'll discuss in a moment, we're required to pay for employee healthcare and pensions under very specific terms that are quite costly.

If the state doesn't back up these mandates with funding, local taxpayers have to foot the bill, and they have.

For years, I've advocated that the state must do more, and I appreciate that members of the council have raised their voices as well.

And I will tell you here, we cannot let up this effort even if it isn't an overnight exercise.

Then there's the cost side of the equation.

This year's general fund budget totals $535 million.

This familiar pie chart right here depicts the major components.

As, as you all know, you've seen this every year.

As the council is aware, the city's ability to control certain items in the budget is constrained again by state law.

The largest component, of course, is the school department, which now comprises 66% of the general fund budget, the big purple piece right there.

So the most important thing to remember is that we budget schools at the so-called foundational level.

We do so not because we believe that schools don't need more money, but it's all that we can afford.

Because the foundation level— foundation budget level is the minimum allowed under state law, we cannot reduce the size of that largest slice of the pie.

Now, many councilors recall that the school department was only about 40% of the budget just a few years ago.

One reason that it's much larger now has to do with an accounting decision we made a few years ago to assign the cost of healthcare for school employees to the school department's budget, which was an appropriate thing to do.

But the other reason is that the Student Opportunity Act, which I noted significantly increased the amount of state education aid also required the city to raise its contribution to the school foundation budget.

That share has gone up 6.6% in each of the last 3 years.

The upshot is that the school department budget has grown faster than the rest of the budget, and it has required a larger contribution from the city each year, and it can't be reduced.

Pensions are another major cost contributing to the city's burden on taxpayers.

State law dictates that the city must make yearly payments to the retirement system to eliminate the system's unfunded liability.

In other words, to ensure that the— that there are sufficient funds in place for retiree pensions.

As the next chart starkly shows, Right there, that one.

The city will be obligated to make larger payments every year because, thanks to some short-sighted decisions both locally and at the state level in years past, New Bedford has one of the lowest funded retirement plans in the state.

On this front too, city government is constrained in its ability to control costs.

State law does not allow the city or the city's retirement board to achieve savings by narrowing pension eligibility rules or reducing benefits.

But the Retirement Board, along with the Council, do have the authority to increase benefits, which they have repeatedly done in recent years, adding millions to our unfunded pension liability and raising the city's required annual contributions every year.

And I, I agree that under normal circumstances, we should figure out a way to support our retirees, especially as things are getting more expensive.

But when pension costs are contributing to the crowding out of city services and a rise in property taxes We can't afford to add more to the bill.

Then there's healthcare costs.

As you know, employee health insurance is a substantial driver of cost increases in the city budget, and as such, it is a major contributor to the property taxpayer burden— property tax burden on New Bedford residents.

Healthcare costs have risen 10% in each of the last 2 years, and are projected to do so again this year.

This far outstrips the new growth in the city's tax base, which is running at about 2% a year, so that doesn't compute.

The increasing cost of healthcare is, of course, a national problem, but there are 2 reasons why healthcare costs for the City of New Bedford as an employer are higher than they could be.

The first is that we pick up a large share of employee premiums, as it is starkly reflected in the chart— this next chart.

And if you can't read it, you're all going to get copies of it.

It all— you're all going to see this.

The city of New Bedford pays 75% of premiums, which is far more than our suburbs pay.

So there's every, every community in Greater New Bedford, and at the top is New Bedford, what we pay at 75%.

And everybody else is lower and some way lower in terms of their share.

So the CFO's office has calculated that what would happen if we reduced that share.

Well, it works out to a pretty substantial number.

For every percentage point, it's about $320,000 annually.

It's a lot of money.

It's a big difference.

So you might ask, well, why, why don't we do that?

That sounds pretty straightforward.

Everybody else has done it.

Everybody else around here has done it.

So why not New Bedford?

Well, the reason is pretty simple.

Changes to premium splits require negotiations with the public employee unions, and to date they have been unwilling to entertain a lower premium split, period.

Full stop.

The other reason healthcare is more expensive here is that— than it could be— is that we have not adopted a law, namely Sections 21 to 23 of the Municipal Healthcare Reform Act, that would give the city greater authority to make sensible changes to healthcare benefits.

In the absence of this authority, the unions wield an effective veto over any city proposal.

Now, it doesn't have to be this way.

Again, virtually every city and town in our region, along with the majority of municipalities and school districts statewide, have adopted Sections 21 to 23, and with good reason.

They have realized measurable cost savings over time while still meeting employee— the employer's obligation to cover the healthcare of their employees.

Sections 21 to 23 level the playing field between the unions and the taxpayers when healthcare plan redesigns are considered.

When the parties don't agree, an independent arbiter decides whether the benefit levels are reasonable compared to other plans in Massachusetts.

Now, I believe our employees deserve reliable healthcare, but as the slogan for the Liberty Mutual Insurance commercials go, which we all hear during football games, we should only pay for what we need.

Without placing taxpayers on a level playing field, the city can expect more of the same— occasional tactical compromises from employee unions that will yield no significant budgetary savings.

On 4 separate occasions, 4 separate occasions, I have proposed that the council adopt this modest measure.

I did so because I believed it would be— it would enable us to achieve savings without an onerous imposition on employees so that we did not have to resort to more painful measures.

Nearly everyone— again, nearly everyone else around here has done it, and the sky hasn't fallen.

Yet the council has rejected it every time.

It's fair to say at this point that these were missed opportunities.

There are other decisions that have made matters more difficult this year.

In the last 2 years, in an evident attempt to demonstrate its responsiveness to those who understandably complain about the increasing costs of government, the council resorted to measures that lent the appearance of fiscal responsibility, but actually made it more difficult to manage the budget.

The council made cuts to items that the city could not realistically cut, either for legal or practical considerations that every— anybody can understand.

For instance, the council cut the healthcare trust fund even though the city would be on the hook for employee healthcare claims no matter how much was budgeted.

It cut the employer share of Social Security and Medicare payments, FICA.

Right?

Everybody sees that on their paychecks, even though federal law requires us to pay them.

It even cut the amount set aside to pay the electricity bills of certain city buildings, which of course in 2026 is not realistic.

These and similar other measures kept the tax levy down, but artificially so, as the bills still had to be paid.

We were forced to use— we had no other choice but to use reserve funds, one-time funds, to fill the void.

And as I pointed out in my State of the City address and elsewhere, this is not a sustainable practice.

It prevents the tax levy from keeping up with the rising costs of government.

Because costs such as mandated education, healthcare, and pension costs are going up fast, we are left with a wider gap between the amount of money we're taking in and what we are spending.

And this has made the budget gap this year feel so much more sudden.

When we add it all up, as I noted, the gap between the city's total revenue and costs as we started the budget process was $32 million.

To put that number in perspective, the largest gap during my tenure at that point in the budget process has been $12 million.

So how do we eliminate the gap, a gap that large, so that we can balance the budget?

What do we do?

Where do the funds come from?

And what needs to be cut?

The financial team and the department heads have been working for weeks to figure out the answer to those questions.

We invited counselors in to get your ideas, and I'm grateful for those of you who participated in that process.

As you look across the budget pie chart, there are a few places to go.

In the biggest category, schools, we picked up approximately $3 million in savings by using the most conservative calculation of net school spending.

We cannot reduce pension benefits, of course, as I said, nor can we reduce healthcare benefits without the assent of the unions in the absence of— and in the absence of the council adopting Sections 21 to 23.

So the only way to save on those items is to reduce the number of employees slated to receive those benefits.

To round out our picture, I just note one of the other items, and they're debt and assessments.

I point out that mandatory assessments to the places like Bristol County and Greater New Bedford VoLTECH cannot be reduced because they are, well, mandatory.

And of course, we are obligated to pay the debt down the bottom right-hand corner that the city has issued to build things like— to rebuild things like buildings and roads and other stuff that the city owns.

I note that for a city of our size, we carry a very modest amount of debt.

So the place that we have to make up this historically large budget gap is in the roughly 18% of the general fund budget that supports traditional municipal services.

This is the part of the budget that funds the activities we most closely associate with municipal government— public safety, libraries, parks, street maintenance, and so forth.

Given the size of the gap, we had to reject more than $8 million in service enhancements proposed by department heads.

Nearly all of these items were worthwhile and would have been important to our residents, but right now we can't afford to expand services.

Addressing the gap we face now and will continue to face beyond this year will require a whole lot more.

We must raise more revenue and we must eliminate services.

We would be calling on everyone to sacrifice, and unfortunately some more than others.

On the revenue side, back to the revenue side of the equation, there is no avoid— avoiding raising the levy.

None.

Going into this year, we had a healthy balance of what is referred to as excess levy capacity.

Which is the cumulative amount of taxing authority we do not use— we did not use in previous years.

We will use all of it this year.

We will need— and this will be an imposition on our residents at a time when many of them are struggling to pay their bills.

Nevertheless, this additional revenue will close only about half of the gap.

There's no getting around the fact that services must be reduced.

I believe the council will agree that there's no low-hanging fruit here.

No service we provide is frivolous.

So we began by identifying which services can be eliminated or deferred to another year with modest disruption.

And then there were a few that are relatively straightforward.

There's a long list, but I'll give you a few examples.

We will reduce the hours of operation across our library system.

We will not renew our contract with ShotSpotter, the gunshot detection system, as we, as we shift to greater reliance on a fixed camera system.

We will defer the start of the process to construct the new police headquarters on Cogswell Street.

DPI will be cutting back on holiday decorations and support for public events.

And the new trash contract, we will reduce the frequency of yard waste pickup.

There are— there's a whole lot more, and the council will see the whole long list that touches every single department in city government.

Unfortunately, all of these and many others don't add up to nearly enough because— and I'm pointing now to these 2 slices of the pie.

That's 8— at 18% is the 30 or so departments in city government.

In that, in that part of the budget, what we do operationally, that's where it is.

Because 78% of the cost of city operations are personal salaries, there's no way to get to a balanced budget as legally required without eliminating positions.

Not even close.

Suffice it to say, balancing the budget by cutting positions is really difficult.

City government is not overstaffed.

We don't have positions to spare.

In fact, the general fund supports nearly 100 fewer positions than it did in 2009.

It's— it has been slimmed down.

As the council also knows, our employees work hard and they work efficiently.

I put them up against their counterparts in any city in America.

The task is not as simple as eliminating vacant positions.

Every position turns over at some point, and just because a position happens to be vacant during budget season doesn't mean that it is expendable.

The question, rather, is what services can we most afford to reduce or to eliminate?

These are difficult judgments, but it's our responsibility to make them.

In general, the largest departments can absorb the largest service reductions.

The 2 departments with the most employees supported by the general fund by far are the police and fire departments.

Although we have been rebuilding the police department after years of declining ranks, we will need to tap the brakes on recruitment.

We will end the signing bonus for new officers, and we will eliminate some 24 positions scheduled to be filled this year.

The consequences will be that the ranks of the police department will not return to pre-pandemic levels as quickly as we had hoped.

I am confident that with the reforms that are being implemented by Chief Thody, the department will continue to perform at a high level.

In the fire department, we have run up against the hard fact that we provide a level of staffing well beyond that of other municipalities that has become extremely difficult to afford.

As you can see from this table— from the slide, excuse me— New Bedford is one of 3 departments in Massachusetts that still staffs a minimum of 4 firefighters to an apparatus.

The other 2 are Boston and Brookline, 2 municipalities whose tax bases per capita are far higher than New Bedford's.

We can no longer afford a fire department that both runs 9 companies and staffs 4 firefighters per piece.

In the absence of an agreement with the firefighters union to reduce manning per apparatus we will be forced to shut down a fire company.

Although Chief Medeiros is understandably reluctant to close any company, closing Engine 9 on Ashley Boulevard would have the least impact on overall operations.

Unfortunately, this will result in the laying off of recently hired firefighters at the beginning of the fiscal year.

And even then, Still more reductions will be necessary in the non-public safety departments, this last sliver of pie here, which includes almost 30 departments, 9% of the budget.

Because these departments are much smaller than the fire and police departments, the elimination of positions can disable the department entire— a department entirely from, from conducting in completing its mission.

The way to achieve savings is to consolidate departments and then reduce services.

Accordingly, we intend to merge Parks, Recreation, and Beaches— Parks, Recreation, Beaches, Community Services, Veterans Services, Licensing, and the Health Department to create a new entity called the Department of Health and Human Services, an agency that existed in essentially the same form about 20 years ago.

We will also eliminate certain community services, including after-school programming.

This unfortunately will result in layoffs in non-union personnel.

All in all, the proposed budget will entail the reduction of 94 positions, including 36 layoffs.

We have built a vacancy savings into the budget, as has been done in recent years, but because we've eliminated most of the vacant positions, only a modest vacancy savings can be achieved.

In addition, I will file a proposal with the council suspending the cost of living adjustments and step increases in the coming year for Unit C management positions.

This will slow the rate of increases in personnel costs for the coming fiscal year and beyond, but realistically, it's a measure we can only use once, or we risk losing still more people.

There's no sugarcoating the personal impact of these decisions.

Being laid off is jarring, not only for the recipients of pink slips, but their families as well.

Many of those on the list have worked for the city for a long time.

Some I consider to be personal friends.

In all cases, they are committed public servants who care deeply about New Bedford.

My pledge to them is that we will do everything we can to ease the inevitable disruption in their lives.

But all of us should be clear about one thing: given the reality we face now, the steps we're taking to balance the budget are the responsible thing to do.

We'd of course prefer not to be in this position, but we don't have to look hard to find examples of cities that have ignored their financial realities, the ones that decided kick the problem down the road.

They might use rainy day funds to fill budget gaps with the false hope that they'll grow their way out of the problem, or they figure that the next occupants in their positions will be forced to fix it after it all finally comes home to roost.

The result inevitably is a larger problem, and in many cases inexorable decline.

We're not going to let that happen here in New Bedford.

This city is better than that.

It's no mystery what we have to do from here.

We must get serious about dealing with healthcare and pension costs.

On that front, I look forward to a discussion about reasonable steps that we can agree on to preserve employee benefits in a way that is affordable to taxpayers and balances the budget.

At the top of the list is the adoption of municipal healthcare reforms and the deferring of the expansion of pension benefits.

The unions must have a seat at the table, but they also must be willing to acknowledge that the financial stability of the city is in the long-term interest of their members.

Each of us who has the privilege of serving in public office does so out of a love for the place and the people who live in it, and we owe them our best.

Avoiding hard decisions is always the comfortable thing to do in the moment, and that's what makes them hard.

Whenever we are done with our time in office, we want to be able to look ourselves in the mirror and say we made the city better off for our efforts, even when it wasn't easy.

This is one of those times that demands our best.

We know what to do, and I know that we have the resolve to do it.

Thank you for listening, everyone, and I look forward to the work ahead.

Thank you.

Without objection, at this time I will ask the clerk to read items 2 through 9 together.

I'll ask the clerk to read the orders, please.

Mr. President, item 2 is an order appropriating $493,130,000 $39,486 from ordinary revenue and municipal receipts of FY beginning July 1st, 2026 and ending June 30th, 2027 for the payment of current expenses of various municipal departments.

Item 3 is an order appropriating $1,408,557 in 12 equal monthly increments from airport receipts of FY27 in the airport budget.

Item 4 is order appropriating $133,747 from the hotel and lodging tax and the Arts, Culture, and Tourism Fund in 12 equal monthly increments from FY27 municipal receipts.

Item 5 is an order appropriating $1,492,045 in 12 equal monthly increments from enterprise fund receipts of FY27 and the Cable Access Enterprise Fund.

Item 6 is an order appropriating $68,500 now standing to the credit of the account of CCDA Traffic Handicap Parking as follows: $64,000 to Commission for Citizens with Disabilities purchase of services and $4,500 to the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities and supplies.

Item 7 is an order appropriating $1,124,735 in 12 equal monthly increments from the Enterprise Fund receipts in FY27 in the downtown parking account.

Item 8 is an order appropriating $33,789,652 in 12 equal monthly increments from wastewater receipts in FY27 in the DPI wastewater budget.

Item 9, Mr. President, is an order appropriating $23,234,872 in 12 equal monthly increments from water receipts of FY27 in the DPI water budget.

Motion to receive and place on file orders 2 through 9 and refer them to the Quasi-Committee of the Whole.

Second.

Motion to refer the Quasi-Committee of the Whole made by Councilor Oliver, seconded by Councilor, uh, Burgo.

On the question, the chair recognizes Councilor Burgo.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Excuse me, I'm sorry, Mr. Councilor.

The chair would like to recognize that we were joined by Councilor Shokat a while ago.

Thank you.

As we're referring these budget items to the quasi-Committee of the Whole, I know it's not customary that we speak, but it's just appalling, that presentation that we received, the hypocrisy that we saw as the mayor's scurried away, as he typically does during these budget hearings.

You had department heads that were notified today that they were laid off after preparing a budget and wasted their time.

We should only pay for what we need was the quote that he very cutely said about the Liberty Mutual commercial that he always adds into his budget line, some kind of cute commercial.

There's nothing cute about what we're facing right now.

He talks about the school budget and the cut that he faced.

He only talked about a $3 million cut, but really it was a $4.5 million reduction in the school budget.

And I want to make sure people got that, because last year he did the same thing, and Jonathan Darling that's here lied to people and told you they didn't make that cut last year, and they did.

And they did it again this year.

And the best part of it, he wasn't there on Monday night when our elected school body voted on that budget.

He sent forward these cuts.

And he talks about— and I want to get this right— discussions on reasonable steps forwards and a seat at the table.

All fallacies.

Because our unions and other people, yes, they want to have these discussions.

And he talks about the current mechanisms we have now gives the unions a veto.

No, he wants to be the only one in the room that has a veto.

We are all willing to have discussions— union members, the school committee, the city council, the state delegation, everyone— and he is the only one who refuses refuses to make any concessions, and this is why we're in the situation that we are in.

And I hate to raise my voice because all that will be written is Councilor Burgos is angry and he's furious, and I am.

I'm pissed off because these presentations are bullshit.

These binders that we're getting— Councilor Burgos, excuse me one second.

If we could just refrain from comments from the gallery, please, applause and everything, until after our meeting, where there was no applause or commentary during debate.

Thank you.

We're only now about to receive the binders, and I want the general public to understand, as elected officials, as your city council representation, We are just now getting this budget.

We are just now learning, just like all of you, about Engine 9.

I know there was speculation about it, but not only is Engine 9 closing, but the firefighters that work there are being laid off.

And they obviously put up, oh, the survey of 1 in 3 firefighters— excuse me, 1 in 3 cities and only 3 firefighters per ladder.

What about those other towns?

What are the death rates there?

What is the makeup of those areas?

We want more data on that.

You can give us just the favorable statistics, but what more?

It's unfathomable to have these presentations where there's no accountability.

Sure, there's some blame to go around, but none when it comes to the coroner office.

So I, again, I apologize.

I know typically we just send this to the quasi-committee of the whole and we have our discussions, but it's important That we have on the record the cuts that the mayor makes to the school department without any collaboration with them, without any reasonable steps and discussions that he's asking us to have, without any public comment, and the fact that all these people that are being laid off just finding out now.

It's unacceptable.

It's not the way to run government, and I'm disgusted by it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else on the question?

The chair recognizes Councilor Gomes.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

I've been here a long time.

This is a first.

Let me first say, you wouldn't jeopardize the public safety of this city by laying any firefighter off, shutting down any firehouse, taking any police officer off the street, you got to be out of your comp— I can't say it, not publicly.

You got to be out of your mind.

You got to be out of your mind.

The question that we must ask this evening is, how did we get to this point?

How did we get to this point?

My administration, I would have known when we were $250,000 in the hole, because that's how you're supposed to run the place.

$13 million, blaming it on state aid.

Where you been?

Why haven't you been fighting in Washington for the mandates?

Why haven't you gone and see your friend Maura Healey and tell her what kind of situation the city of New Bedford's in and that we need the help?

Maybe stop spending billions of dollars other places that don't immediately affect the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or this city.

You.

I'm not going to take any blame for none of that.

You can make that circle, and that's why some of you have met.

And I'm one of those that did not meet with the mayor.

And I did not meet with the mayor for the simple reason, in 16 years, he never wanted to meet with anybody on the city council when it came to the budget.

Now all of a sudden he wants to meet with the council because he's tying you in.

He's tying you in on all the BS.

How did we get to this point?

He'll tell you that it's about the pensions.

He'll tell you it's about this, it's about that.

You didn't— you see this coming?

Didn't you see this in the healthcare coming?

You put up on the screen New Bedford and the surrounding towns.

You didn't put the cities, the surrounding towns.

Totally different budget, totally different pay.

Totally different healthcare system, the whole bit.

Flowers and nice garden to throw at us.

We're in a situation and we must get out of it.

But you know what?

Like I said earlier, the mayor has had plenty of time.

And I've called it in this room.

Go to Boston.

We're not taking pictures today.

I'm here because my city's in trouble.

Go to Washington.

My city's in trouble.

You've heard me ask department heads here.

And I've gotten a line, once a— yeah, we're doing that.

I don't see any recovery.

I don't see them coming down handing us the check.

We've been getting our butt kicks around here and somebody's been BSing us.

Don't let it continue.

I will fight tooth and nail for our public servants.

I am sorry tonight to hear what I've heard, which was rumor.

We wanted to get the facts and we got it tonight.

Don't try to close Station 9, sir.

You're jeopardizing this city.

You take these men and women off them engines, you're jeopardizing this city.

Maybe you don't understand, but I've been around for a while and I understand it and I pay attention to it.

So you pictured Engine 9 saving somebody on Ohio Street who has just had a heart attack.

Not far from there, huh?

You take that away, where's the next engine coming from?

Where's the next emergency vehicles coming from?

We have a major fire, and we've had some, whether they're small kitchen fires, whether it's carbon monoxide in the house, whether it's a spill, whether it's one of our fish plants, whether it's one one of our industries, what are you going to do?

What are you going to do?

I don't have time to wait for mutual aid.

I need my people out there, our people, our firefighters, our police, our EMS.

Mayor, I understand what you've said tonight, but I also understand that what you're doing is wrong.

And why it's wrong?

Is because you're going to hurt a lot of people and you're going to hurt the city, and it's going to come back to get you.

And you've heard me use the term Russian roulette in this place.

We're playing it again.

He's playing that game, and you're playing it with the people.

You're playing it with the firefighters.

You're playing it with the people of the city.

This is not a good thing.

This is not a good thing.

Get off your ass, get to Washington, get to Boston, and do the job that you're supposed to be doing.

You're the administrator.

And again, ladies and gentlemen, how did we get to this point and nobody caught it?

Nobody was saying anything about it.

You can hum about this healthcare, you can hum about all of that.

Think about what I have said here tonight.

Didn't Fall River, by the way, get money from governor to make sure that all them engines were manned, huh?

Because they were running short.

We didn't see that up on the screen tonight, did we?

We didn't hear about that.

Again, I'll fight tooth and nail for our public servants, the people who not represent this city, the public servants of this city who are in jeopardy right now, who are in trouble.

I will stand up for them.

I will stand for our firefighters.

Don't close them station.

Don't close that station.

Don't take these people away.

We've already been here.

We know what the consequences can be.

To be.

I thank you for allowing me the time.

I have a great love for this city of New Bedford.

I'm not here because it's the thing to do.

I'm here because I love what I do.

And this is one night that I'm not accepting, and I'm not taking the blame for.

The administration has to take the blame on this one and hold other people accountable, from Washington to Boston, whomever.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Thank you, Councilor.

Thank you, thank you.

Uh, anyone else on the question?

Seeing none, all those in favor of referral to the Quasi-Committee of the Whole say aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Seeing no further business business before us.

Motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn has been made by Councillor Burgos, seconded by Councillor Roy.

All those, uh, anyone on the question?

All those in favor say aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

We are adjourned at 7:55 PM.