Special City Council Meeting — September 15, 2026

Check, check, 1, 2, check.

Rule number 2.

Let's take a stupid rule.

It's their rule.

No cats in the gym.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Tonight is Tuesday, September 15th at 6:03 PM, and I am calling together this special city council meeting.

We do not have a member of the clergy present, so at this time I will ask everyone for a brief moment of silence.

Thank you.

Tonight we are led in the Pledge of Allegiance by Councilor of Ward 3, Scott Pemberton.

Oh, well, Ward 2, excuse me, that was a typo.

I pledge allegiance to the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you.

I apologize, Councilor.

I am joined in the chamber by my colleagues, Councilor at Large Ian Abreu, Councilor of Ward 2 Scott Pemberton, Councilor of Ward 1 Leo Choquette, Councilor of Ward 5 Joseph Lopes, Councilor at Large Naomi Carney, Councilor at Large First Vice President Shane Burgow, and Councilor of Ward 4 Derek Baptiste.

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

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

Mr. President, we have one from Councilor Oliver.

Dear Council President Pereira and council members, I am writing to inform you that regretfully I will be unable to attend the special City Council meeting on Tuesday the 15th due to a prior commitment.

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

Sincerely, Sean Oliver, Councilor of Ward 3.

A motion, motion to receive and place on file is made by Councilor Abreu, seconded by Councilor Pemberton.

Anyone on the question?

All those in favor say aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

I'd like to 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.

I will ask the clerk to read item number 1, please.

Mr. President, item 1 is communication from yourself calling a special City Council meeting for Tuesday, September 15th, 2026 at 6 PM with Mayor Jonathan F. Mitchell for the purpose of discussing the future plans for Fire Station Number 9.

Motion received and placed on file.

Motion to receive and place on file made by Councilor Burgo, seconded by Councilor Carney.

On the question, all those in favor say aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

Colleagues, I would just like to state that— well, first let me ask, Clerk, have we received any communication from the mayor of New Bedford?

No, sir.

Okay.

Any communication from his office?

No, sir.

Okay, thank you.

So I was informed prior to the meeting that the chief is available, uh, to represent the administration.

Now, in the normal course of our investigative purposes and committees, that would be acceptable, uh, and we could ask the chief questions.

However, I would like to note that I have called a special meeting of the New Bedford City Council to talk directly with the named mayor, Jonathan F. Mitchell, to discuss such an important issue.

I do not believe it to be appropriate for the chief to be standing up here answering questions on a decision the mayor has made.

So I respect the chief for coming.

I have talked to him already.

I will not allow testimony or questions of the chief.

What I would say is that the— given the magnitude of this item The, the, A, the respect that our firefighters deserve to know what their futures are for their jobs and, and the future of Station Number 9 and the residents of that area.

It is highly, highly, uh, in my opinion, necessary for the mayor to have been here to answer that.

So I'm going to instruct the clerk to send communication to the mayor requesting 2 dates to have this meeting again.

To further discuss with the administration his plans.

And so I will instruct the clerk to do that.

I would like to note we were also joined by Councilor at Large James Roy.

Thank you, Councilor.

So who had— who was, uh, in, in having discussions with, uh, the president of Local 841 Firefighters— there he is— Billy Sylvia is here.

He is prepared to answer questions, so I will allow President Sylvia to come to the podium if he wants to make a statement, and then I can recognize councillors.

So I see Councillor Burgo.

I don't know if you want to make an opening statement or you want me to go right to questions.

Sure, I'll just, I'll just make a quick opening statement.

First of all, thank you for calling this meeting and council for your continued support.

Of course, this isn't the first time we've been here for this.

It seems all too commonplace over the years with the administration It just seems lackadaisical and, you know, just not a care for public safety and looking to cut services to the, to the city.

We see it as a dangerous, dangerous trend.

And some of the information that I have here today shows exactly what happened in the past when we had blackouts and other cuts from this administration and also the other services that our members have provided and help this community.

Again, unfortunately, you know, it's a little bit ridiculous.

A budget should not be balanced on public safety's back.

It's a dangerous game to play, plain and simple.

Thank you.

Chair recognizes Councilor Burgos.

Thank you.

And just to really quickly take care of this, President Sylvia has provided all of our colleagues with 5 separate documents.

We can motion to receive and place that on file.

To receive and place on file the documents made by Councilor Lobergo, seconded by Councilor Lopes.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Um, and I'm, I'm glad you brought up, uh, Mr. Sylvia, uh, balancing a budget, because this council, I'm sure you're aware, recently sent appropriation orders to the mayor Obviously, Mr. President, you know that the job of the mayor is to make sure we do have a balanced budget, and this council freed up the funding in the tax levy to keep this station open, to provide that funding.

The money is available.

I'm sure you're aware of that.

The mayor is aware of that, and I'm just— that's why we were hoping to have this conversation with him to find out why he doesn't want to apply the those appropriations.

So I'm glad you brought that up.

My question to you, I guess, is obviously we know when he came before us for the budget hearing to publicly announce, even for us as a council, as elected officials, first time hearing that.

What was the communication like from just that point before, before hearing now this meeting?

But at that point, What was the communication like once we knew the Fire Station 9 was closing, the 26 firefighters that were being laid off?

What was communication like with— communication with the administration?

Yes, with the city.

It was absolutely zero, zero communication.

In fact, there's 2 packets that I did hand out to you guys.

We had to file an unfair labor practice against the city because as soon as the announcement came up about the budget and the cuts to— and the cuts and layoffs to Engine 9 and the layoffs to our members, we immediately went through our legal attorney and requested— made public requests for documents pertaining to the budget, a number of line items and all this stuff.

It was— we did it by law through our attorney.

That was a requirement for the city to respond, and they failed to do so.

And it's not the first time.

The same thing happened with Engine 11 back in 2012.

2020, and also later in the year in 2020 when the administration changed— tried to change our response protocols to cut our call volume.

We did have to file the unfair labor practice with the Department of Labor Relations.

A couple weeks ago, we had an investigative hearing with an outside investigator, and he did see cause that the city did violate the law.

So they are going board with a full investigation from an outside party, from the Department of Labor.

I do see that here.

So it looks like on August 25th they found probable cause to believe that the violations of the law occurred.

Yes.

So, um, the, the mayor made that announcement, um, in May with his budget.

We immediately tried to, to help the city and try to solve the issue and look for money elsewhere.

Uh, we went right to the State House with our state delegation from the PFFM We were able to lobby that $500,000 from Mark Montigny, Mark Montigny in the Senate, which absolutely did help.

But we got zero communication, zero phone calls from the mayor or his office or anybody on his team.

And that's the way it was for months.

They had just reached out to us late in the middle of this weekend, only after the call for this meeting was made by, by you, Council.

So just to clarify, the budget announcement happens, the union tries and tries to communicate, gets nothing.

So then you go above to our state delegation, they answer the call literally and figuratively, they put forward Senator Montigny's appropriation, the $500,000 to get us somewhat to the way there, the $1.8 million shortage that we know of.

Now instead of $1.8, $1.3 million, which we— again, I want to reiterate, we have that money available if the mayor wants to appropriate it but won't.

Now that you have that $500,000, you try again to communicate with the administration, yet they still refuse.

They did— they didn't want to communicate at that point.

And you're saying to us now that just recently when this meeting was called by our council president to have the special meeting that the mayor refused to show up to they finally now are reaching out to communicate?

Correct.

Yes.

Interesting.

As far as we know, too, as far as the department, I don't want to speak for anyone else, but all of our contacts, everyone else that we reached out to, everyone is in, is in the black.

Nobody knows what is going on.

There has been zero communication from the administration and the coroner office.

And the question is not just about whether or not keeping Station 9 open and whether or not he's going to apply the appropriation.

If sure, he's not going to apply the appropriations, I think the other question I have for myself, and I'm sure you do as well, is okay, the $500,000 has been applied, and thankfully Senator Montigny earmarked it the way he did.

Otherwise, I'm sure this administration would have spent it however they wanted to.

But how long will that $500,000 last?

When will the doors be closed?

Obviously, when the budget was announced, we figured at the end of the fiscal year, June 30th.

But since that didn't happen, now when is the end date?

We're left unknown.

And that's a part of the communications that obviously didn't happen.

As far as we know, the department has been again left with no communication, trying to figure out that on their own.

We have ourselves— the local has not received any information on what date that money would go to, or even, even, you an estimate.

It's, it's, it's in— it's out in the open.

It's open.

The data is open.

We don't know.

It could be, you know, days, weeks, months.

We don't know.

We, again, we know that there was zero communication.

Okay.

And so obviously there's safety concerns regarding any closures, but I believe that we— you've talked in the past about reports that we— there have been regarding this specific station being closed.

I believe this particular administration committed commissioned the reports for if the potential of closing Fire Station 9 ever happened.

Can you speak to that, of what safety concerns would occur if this station closed?

Yes, absolutely.

Uh, the, the mayor did have, uh, in a couple years ago, 2 separate studies from outside consultants that had zero connection to our department, to our city.

They were outside consultants, independent, and they came in One was the purpose of eliminating Engine 9 and its impacts, and one was the purpose of combining Station 5 and Station 9 and what would happen.

And the recommendation in both of these reports that the city spent— they still refuse to acknowledge them at all and to tell us how much money they actually spent on the studies.

But both studies in black and white say they do not recommend cutting any apparatus especially Engine 9.

We cannot cut staffing.

If anything, we should be adding apparatus and adding manpower.

Our response— our response time is critical to responding to any emergency, whether it's a fire, a car accident, a hazmat.

We know what everything that's in the city with the North End all the way down to the waterfront.

There's numerous hazards across the city.

Seconds matter in any kind of emergency.

And again, it's black and white and 2 separate reports that the city paid money on that we should not be closing anything, especially Engine 9.

Yeah, we received and placed on file those reports.

I remember when this first happened.

And speaking of these safety concerns, these aren't hypotheticals because also a part of the packets you've provided us, back when Engines 7 and 8 had blackouts dating back and all the way from 2019, spanning across multiple years that you provided us here.

All the examples right here in 2019, Coffin Ave, Engine 8 blacked out.

First apparatus to arrive was Ladder 4 with no water, performed search and rescue with no backup, located an elderly female and extracted from the building.

The victim later succumbed to their injuries.

Just one example of many of real-life examples.

These aren't hypotheticals.

Of Engine 7 was blacked out, Engine 8.

So we've already seen real, real-life scenarios where New Bedford, when this administration has blacked out other stations, what has occurred.

Yes, unfortunately, again, we've been through this road and we felt the impacts before.

Blocks away, Engine 8, the first due water company to a structure fire with an entrapment, and the— unfortunately, the individual because they had no water to go in there, protect, and search and rescue and try to get there sooner.

It happened again not soon after that same year.

Myrtle Street, Engine 7 was blacked out a mere blocks, blocks away.

The neighbors reported the male victim on the second floor in the window asking for help, screaming for help.

By the time the first due apparatus could have seen, nobody knew where the individual was.

They had to do a search and rescue, and they found him.

They pulled him out, they resuscitated him, but later on, unfortunately, succumbed to his injuries.

Just a few years ago, everybody remembers the Crown fire, the Crown apartment fires on Acushnet Avenue in the middle of the day.

The amount of videos that came out of that and what was going on, people jumping from windows, the amount of rescues from 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floor stories.

We cannot afford to cut any apparatus, let alone any kind of manpower throughout this city.

Any emergency like that can happen at any time.

Day, night.

Look, the population that we have, the congestion that we have, the housing that we have, the rail, uh, you have the fish houses with chemicals everywhere down there.

You have industrial park, the same thing up there, uh, the airport, the waterfront, whatever you name it, we have, we have all these hazards in the city.

Um, this list that I gave you was just a, you know, a small number.

There, there is more since 2019.

I wasn't able to fall, uh, get them all in in a quick order, but 11 fatalities just from 2000— the end of 2019.

We've also had 15 rescues since then, and the number is even higher.

But again, I couldn't, I couldn't go back and, and get all of them.

15 rescues.

If the roll of the dice is made and the administration does make cuts, whether it's to our staffing or to any apparatus, that number is going to climb.

These were already close calls with people being pulled out of 3rd-story windows, 4th-story windows, people ready to jump out of windows, being pulled out unconscious, covered in burns.

And they later survived because our members are doing what they're trained to do and what they're here for.

So if you cut anything in this fire department, those numbers are going to climb, plain and simple.

Well, I appreciate you bringing all of this to us because it's important to recognize these are not hypotheticals, real-life examples.

I want to just read one more here that I keep staring at.

From April of 2021, a Cushion Ave fire, Engine 8 decommissioning, large structure fire in commercial and residential building, 2 fatalities at that point, 2 deaths.

And then the mayor later announced keeping Engine 8 open.

Only after 2 deaths he decided to change his mind.

And at that time, we were extremely busy in the city with fire after fire.

What does it take for him to stop cutting this department?

Yeah, I'll, I'll leave it there.

If any of my other colleagues— again, thank you for actually showing up and wanting to have the conversation and attempting to reach out to the administration at no avail.

And but it sounds like they're finally willing to talk now.

So I, uh, hopefully you'll get somewhere, and thank you for the work that you're doing.

Yes, uh, you know, the hope is that maybe we can figure something out and work with the city, but, uh, you know, the, the history isn't the greatest.

But we're going to try like heck to hopefully, um, you know, get something done and keep, keep our department whole and our members working on the trucks to represent and to serve the people in this city.

So again, thank you for having me.

Thank you.

Oh, I got more questions for you, Billy.

Sorry.

Chair, thank you, sir.

Good evening, Billy.

Hello.

Good to see you again.

You too.

Um, let's just start off with very basic information.

To your knowledge or understanding, how many folks are in the service area of Engine 9— constituents, businesses, schools, all that demographic information?

I, I don't have that number, but I know for schools it's, it's, uh, over 3,000 just in students, just in that one area.

We also have, um, some elderly housing, uh, um, uh, some rehab, rehab housing for elderly.

You have the airport down the road, the train going through that area, small businesses, large businesses.

Talk about the response time.

You touched upon it a little bit briefly during your opening line of questioning.

And the answers, which I felt, you know, was very compelling and telling, to be honest with you.

Um, Engine 9's blacked out or even gone off service, no more.

Talk about that ripple effect of having other engines and ladder companies responding to the far north end by the Freetown line, and then if heaven forbid something were to happen down on Belleville Ave at Whale's Cove, and that ripple effect of what that does when you're ping-ponging trucks all over the city and that chilling effect that it could have?

So that scenario was actually talked about in those 2 studies that the city had done.

And that's why they recommend we don't close anything, actually add, because the surge protection the city has because of the size of the population and all the hazards that we have.

Seconds matter.

Literally, a fire can double in size every 30 to 60 seconds because of all the manmade products and synthetics that we have right now in our home, whether it's lithium-ion batteries, your televisions, the plastics, your furniture, all that stuff.

It just takes off.

Flashover is in a mere minutes now, where everything in your— in a fire origin room just spontaneously combusts.

So literally seconds matter.

We need to have a full crew.

The first responding apparatus needs to be on scene within 4 minutes so they can properly do their job to attack that fire.

If you cut Engine 9, you're not going to be anywhere near that in that area because you're going to rely on Engine 5 coming from the far north and Saskatoon area.

You're gonna have Engine 8 coming from Davis Street going through all that traffic, the traffic lights depending on what time of day it is, and then you're also taking those apparatus out of their own area continually.

After Engine 11 was closed, it's common now to have Engine 7 on a daily basis in the South End.

That's leaving that whole West End to the beginning of North End open.

It's not uncommon to see Engine 8 from McCushion Avenue and Davis Street also in the South End or the West End because they have to cover while everybody else is busy.

That leaves only Engine 9 and Engine 5 in the North End, and that's if they're not busy.

So if you take one of those engines out of the scenario, everybody, you know, you can quickly figure out the dangers and what could happen.

So when we say seconds do matter, response times matter, boots on the ground when an emergency is going down, we need to be there as fast as possible.

If you had your druthers, put a chief hat on for a minute.

I know you're not the chief, but I'm just saying if you were in that administrative role, what number should we be at to be at full complement where you as a union leader, labor leader, would be comfortable in protecting this community?

In reality, we should— in reality, by NFPA standards, we should be up at least to 250, 260 with another engine and a rescue truck.

We should actually have 4 ladder trucks instead of 3 in the city.

We obviously know because of budget constraints and all that stuff, it's tough to do.

But the, the studies that the city did have done recommends to have another engine another ladder truck added.

If you can't do that, we should also have— we should have a rescue truck, a heavy rescue truck fully manned in the city because of the amount of hazards that we have.

Let's talk about the scenario that's been out there.

We all know about it.

The administration's kicked it around.

It's been talked about in the media, this whole going down to 3 per apparatus as opposed to 4.

I think everyone knows how I feel about that.

I think it's foolish.

But I want you to go on the record and talk about how dangerous that is for your members to go from 4 men and women to 3, or 3 men and women on a truck at any given time.

It's also, it's another dangerous game to play.

We've seen the scenario what happened right down the road in Fall River last year at the Gabriel House.

10 fatalities because they didn't have enough people on scene.

They didn't have enough people working that were on the rigs.

They didn't have enough people that were working in the city.

They, they, it was hours later they said they were still searching, looking into rooms.

This is why we need a fully staffed department on every single apparatus.

It's going to restrict our job when we pull up on scene with, with 4 people, 4 members, whether it's an engine or a ladder truck.

Every single individual on that apparatus has a specific job to do, whether it's get water, whether it's operate the pump to get water to the 2 members going inside to attack the fire while they protect the stairwell while somebody's trapped inside so the search and rescue team can go up the stairwell and pull them out.

Because if we don't have water and we don't have enough members, you can't enter that building.

And if you don't have somebody pumping or if you don't have somebody getting water to that engine to pump, we can't protect the stairwell.

There's no guarantee that we get that person out.

We need somebody on the roof to vent, to get the heat out of the building and the toxic gas so the survivability of somebody trapped in that building can get out, and also for our members to actually operate in a safe environment.

Somewhat safe environment.

It's a— then it's an inherently dangerous job of what we do, but we accept that, and that's what we want to do to help to make those 15 rescues that I just talked about.

You were just talking— why we're here.

And, and this isn't a game, okay?

It's more than just fires, as you so eloquently mentioned.

It's being a first responder, saving that life, that child, that individual in distress, medical, mental, whatever the case may be.

You're there sometimes before the police or the ambulance, you're there right up, you know, and that's— what— how's the morale with your rank-and-file membership?

How's the morale right now?

I tell you, it's not good.

People aren't happy.

There's, there's, you know, the cloud hanging over the department.

There's an unknown.

We have, you know, young members that are facing going out the door where they just had children, they got babies at home, just bought a house, got a mortgage, you know, married, or, you know, you name it, it's there.

But Nobody wants to lose their job, no matter what you, what you do for work.

Um, you know, people take pride in what they do and they want to hear and serve, be here and serve.

Well, on the spirit of that, and then I'll yield, Mr. President, so out of respect for the time and let others come in.

Um, we're seeing with the police officers, and, and Lorenzo and the union there have been talking about this for months, actually over the last year, members leaving left and right due to a whole host of reasons.

We're not going to get into that tonight.

It's not about the police tonight, but Are you seeing that on your end where other fire departments are saying, hey, we'll come poaching because we'll treat you right, we'll pay you right, and there won't be any talk of 21/23, no talk about minimum manning, any of that foolishness?

Yes, we have seen more than usual over the past few years with people leaving this department, especially since the announcement made.

There's no guarantee here anymore.

We don't have— we over the years with this administration, we have not had any kind of support, no backing from— it's always, you know, a question about looking over our shoulder.

What is he going to come for next?

As everybody can see, it's, you know, it's just a trend.

It's, you know, every, every so often, whether it's months or years, he's coming back for something.

I've been here— this is my 10th year.

It seems like every year there's a go-around with this, whether it was you or Tommy Carrero or, you know, all the union leadership I've dealt with over the years, Kevin.

It's just— it's constant.

Every year there's a battle.

Literally, there's a battle every year.

I mean, how many times have we— Billy, how many times have we been on picket lines together?

It's, it's common.

It's, it's, you know, it's a trend.

We can see it.

It's all the time.

Well, you know where my heart is.

You know I'm with you, and I would, you know, I believe this entire body is as well.

You see the motions, you see all we do.

It's always unanimous, 11-nothing.

So that speaks for itself.

So Thank you for all you do, Billy.

We really appreciate you.

Thank you.

With that, Mr. President, I'll yield.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chair recognizes Councilor Choukat.

Thank you, Mr., Mr. President.

Thank you, Billy.

You know, there's a lot I could say, and for the sake of decorum in this public gathering, I should probably keep it, you know, on the, on the level.

But what, what I will say is that I, I don't— I can't come to any other conclusion other than the mayor has become a serious threat to the day-to-day operations of this city and to the people in this city.

That's the only, the only conclusion I can give.

He had a chance to come here tonight and explain what his rationale is, why he's doing what he's proposing to do.

He certainly owes ladies and gentlemen of the New Bedford Fire Department an explanation, okay?

Uh, he owes us, the city council, board of direct— we're the board of directors of this city.

I think he owes us an explanation, but he's not here.

He's not.

Um, so again, all I will say is that Whatever problems you have, Mr. Mayor, with the PEC board and with the unions, the residents of this city don't care.

They expect that when they pay their goddamn tax money, that these services are provided.

Now wake up and stop gambling with people's lives.

I've said it 3 times in the past in this council.

Okay, I've met you in, in private to talk.

This is not a game.

You're going to get somebody killed.

You're going to get some child killed.

You want that on your conscience?

Because I don't want it on mine.

So you either do what's right and be a mayor and use the money that we gave you and fund this fire station, and that's it.

You got to stop with these games.

You are scaring a lot of people.

And for the voters out there, I hope you're paying attention to what's going on because these shenanigans have to come to an end.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Okay, Councilor Baptiste.

Thank you, Mr. President.

How you doing, Billy?

How's everything today?

Thank you very much.

You know, it, it's sad that, you know, you guys coming here And expecting just, you know, some, some positive— well, you don't know from the corner office you're not going to get a positive conversation, but at least give you guys a sense of— how can I say it— security, right?

And knowing what's going forward.

Councilor Abrams must have read all my notes because he asked all my questions.

But what do you think, not just with the morale of the group like he asked, but how your union is going to grow, how people are going to come in?

Because we're going to have retiring firemen, right?

And you have to have people to come in.

And when you don't have a strong back and a strong next group coming in and people that the veterans there to lead the way, right?

And you're closing a key cog in the city, right?

We'll call it— because they're all key cogs in the city, right?

Because if you take one away, it takes so much away from other stations, right?

So it leaves the city vulnerable.

But what about your union?

Like, you know, how do you feel like it's going to grow with them cutting down stations?

Yeah, it's not easy.

Like you said, the morale is you know, at an all-time low.

Again, it's not the first time we've been here.

As far as the future, you know, I still say today this is the best job in the world.

I still hit the lottery.

It's been 20 years for me.

I still love the job.

Any, any one of these members here will tell you the same thing.

Everybody loves the job, the camaraderie.

Camaraderie— you got family, you know, you meet for the rest of your life.

But who in their right mind would want to come work here as a new probationary firefighter, or even just a few years, where, you know, you have that cloud hanging over your head and that door is always open behind you because the administration is ready to push you out.

So it's going to be tough to recruit people, you know.

I'll tell you this from my— from my— just me personally.

I have a son that is about to turn 20, and his— he was— he wanted to, you know, he's a plumber now, but he said, you know, I'm going to take the fire exam, you know, because that's a good job.

While I'm doing my plumbing, like, and to see how he don't talk about that anymore because of the station closing and having unrest and knowing what it's going to be for the future.

Right.

I was there up North End that day when people were jumping out the windows and stuff.

The look on the firefighter's face that day, I— that was the most uneasy I've ever seen any situation personally.

Right?

I've been around a lot of fires and a lot of things that went on, but personally, the look of exhaustion, the look of just, you know, of a little bit of after working so hard, some of that fright that they seen people like, you know, you see people passing away, you see people getting hurt, and the severity that happened, man, like that should be like when you said only 2 deaths, made him keep stationing.

Like, only 2 deaths?

Like, how many more deaths do we have to have?

How much more do you guys have to go through as well?

Like you said, you have families.

You have, you know, guys coming in that are quitting jobs to be firefighters, that are stopping other employment and other opportunities to be firefighters.

I just feel bad for you guys that the mayor didn't give a rat's ass about coming downstairs and giving you an explanation.

You know, I think it's very sad and disrespectful, and these guys should be disrespected.

And I think that it's in poor judgment to send the chief up over here because he has to deal with all this stuff too.

He has to deal with all the loss and, you know, stations cutting down.

And, you know, that ain't fair to him, right?

Because I'm sure everybody makes their budget, but I'm sure he don't have a chance to make his own budget.

Like, so I, I just wish you luck, right?

We'll always support support you, you know, we'll always be here.

I just, I just think it's crazy that, that you have to go through this, you know.

So I'm, I'm, I'm sorry, you know, personally, because, you know, I would like to see this— I would like to see New Bedford grow, like, you know what I'm saying, and your company grow and firefighters stay here and families be safe.

So I'm sorry, and I just pray New Bedford is— thank you— it's going to be okay, man.

Thank you, Billy, man.

Thank you.

I, I You have the floor.

Thank you, Councilor Chiracnis.

Councilor Lopes.

Thank you, Council President.

Really, I got— I guess it's one or two questions.

So the city is now trying to grow ADUs and everything else in the city.

I'm assuming that if ADUs do take hold in the city, now you're trying to put out a fire while saving another structure on a piece of property that's under 5,000 square feet.

Has the NFPA or the International Association of Firefighters put out anything for what that should look like for the fire department with the future of ADUs being supported in the Commonwealth by the governor?

Not that I'm aware of at this time.

Just a standard NFPA response.

The 1710 that we have right now currently is the model.

So that would go to part 2 of the question.

Thank you.

So average house in the city, say it's 1,500 square feet.

Can you explain how many firefighters would need— would be needed for an average house fire?

Not a Tripp Towers or a mall, but an average house fire that the regular person can relate to.

So there's a couple parts to it.

Again, we'll go back to— first start off with response time.

Response time, they require a minimum of 4 minutes to get on scene for the first due apparatus, and they go off of a little bit different base model of what we have for construction in the city.

So if you get a one-story home, about 2,000 square feet with no basement and no exposures, you're going to need 16 to 17 firefighters on scene for that structure fire, perform search and rescue, ventilation, fire attack, all that, and have RIT backup for any kind of downed firefighters or anything like that.

But that's not really— that doesn't really compare to anything that we have in the city.

What we're going to go off of is the next scenario up would be an apartment 2 units or above, or a taxpayer they'll call, where you have, you know, a storefront and then 1 or 2 apartments above, we're going to need a minimum of 27 to 28 firefighters on scene for 1 structure fire because the housing is congested.

You're going to have multiple occupants in the building that you're going to need more for search and rescue, evacuation, more for ventilation.

You're going to have more exposures.

We all know how close the 3 tenements and apartment buildings are to each other in the city.

So, you know, you need to protect any exposures on top of the fire building itself.

Now we get into a high-rise fire where we have multiple in the city— Olympia Towers, you have Tripp Towers, Harborview— just to name a few.

You're going to need a minimum of 42 to 43, which we cannot meet.

We haven't met that since Engine 11, and we were barely meeting it since Engine 11 was in service.

And when was Engine 11 taken out of service?

That was taken out in 2020.

So we've gone 6 years, by the grace of God, without having a catastrophic event.

And at one time, uh, it was very common to have fires in high-rise, including Tripp Towers and Harborview, and also, uh, New Bedford Hotel, I believe, uh, and Bedford Towers.

I think we had some structure fires in those too.

Thank you.

And if you hear anything about the ADUs and how that affects the fire department, I would love for that to be shared with the body.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilor.

Chair Agnes Councilor Carney.

Thank you, Mr. Mr. President.

Hi, Billy.

Hello.

How are you?

Good, thank you.

Well, as you know, I mean, we're all behind you, and it's awful what's happening now.

And there's a lot of worries that I have with the closing of the station, with the with the administration trying to lower the manpower.

One question I had was.

How long does it take you— how long it takes from start to finish for a firefighter from going in, passing the test, going through the academy, and getting online?

I think 3 months to 4 months.

Usually it's about 3 months.

We do— most of the time we do an in-house academy because we have a large department and a number of instructor-certified firefighters and officers that we can do our own.

The state academy does come down and do some instruction as well.

We've also in the past sent a small number of new hires to the state academy.

I think when we do it in-house, we do save a little bit of money at times depending on the class size.

But between hands-on practical and then written exams, it could be 3 to 4 months.

And then, then you have to— you also have to wait because we're still a civil service state, so you have to wait to get people to pass that test before you can get your recruits to come to New Bedford to work.

Because that's— I mean, I feel so bad what's going on here, and I feel so bad for your firefighters that they're sitting under a cloud and getting crickets from the administration, and you do not have a plan of what's going to happen to the station and what's going to happen to your firefighters.

So I mean, when you said that they're going to be leaving, that was one of the questions— how many are we losing as this continues?

Because every day that this happens, somebody that looks like they're on the chopping block and they get offered a position at another town or city, they're going to leave us.

And then all of a sudden, we're going to be less an engine and less a whole bunch of firefighters, and it's going to take us civil service, and plus all that time to get people online.

This is nothing but a horrible, horrible situation.

It's a huge safety situation for me as not only as a resident of New Bedford living there and living on the street where we've got condensed housing, because I've known— I've been to these fires, I've watched these fires.

It doesn't only affect that house, it's burning the house beside it too because we're so condensed in the city.

So you're not fighting one fire, you're fighting several fires when you go out.

This is a very scary situation right now that we're facing.

And as a city council that has to be responsible for the public safety of this city, it's not good.

So we're going to be behind you 100%.

Hopefully the mayor wakes up and does not pull this and take that engine offline, because if nothing, it's going to be a disaster.

And you— I've been to your ops, I've watched the films.

And I saw how fast these things go up, and it is really frightening to see how fast it goes up.

You could be in your living room sleeping, and by the time you wake up with the smoke, you could be dead because it goes up that fast.

So we're going— we're praying for you.

I'm praying for you, and I'm— we're hoping that the mayor comes to his senses and does not shut that engine down.

But you have us entirely behind you to fight it as much as we can to make sure that engine stays open.

So Thank you for coming, and God bless all our firefighters because it's a special, special person that goes out there to save other people.

Thank you, thank you, and thank you again.

Thank you, Mr. Chair— Mr. President.

Thank you, Councilor.

Anyone else on there first?

All right, on there second, the Chair recognizes Councilor Chokat.

Thank you, Mr. President.

First, I wanted to apologize.

I obviously lost my cool a little while ago.

It's that hot Irish temper that I inherited from my mother, so I apologize.

But I have another— I actually have another question I'd like to ask you.

What happens when the Li Mu Emu shows up and starts assessing people's homes for fire coverage?

Liberty Mutual and all these other companies.

I would assume if fire protection goes down, insurance rates will go up.

I can assume— only assume, but I'm not an insurance person.

So, so we shouldn't assume that we're going to save with what we need or however that goes.

Get what you need, whatever that commercial thing is.

You would think, yeah, if your fire services only get what you need.

Yeah.

Your fire services go down and your response goes down.

It's completely common sense.

Yeah, right.

Obviously, you know, we're going to end up asking the general public to pay more taxes you're going to get less services, and your homeowner's insurance is going to go up.

I mean, that just sounds like a winning combination.

Just unbelievable.

Just to go back, like I talked before, today's fires are not like, you know, 10, 20, even 30 years ago.

They burn faster.

They burn hotter than ever because of the synthetics that we have.

We all have them in our homes, whether it's your TV, your couch, You know, your dining room table.

Lithium-ion batteries are everywhere.

Those are dangerous in itself.

So a small incipient stage fire can double every 30 to 60 seconds.

And then as it takes off and it's creating that, you know, hazardous smoke and dangerous smoke for you to breathe in for one, it's also increasing in heat.

And anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes depending on what's combusting, you can have flashover in a room.

That, that would be— it gets so hot that everything at once in the fire room just spontaneously combusts and catches fire.

So this is again why we need response time that we have, and we need to keep it.

Listen, you guys are the experts.

I mean, I think my 7-year-old niece knows more about firefighting than the mayor.

But, you know, with you guys, I trust everything you're saying.

Obviously, it's what you do for a living.

It's facts.

This is what you do for a— this is what they do for a living.

Okay, so if we were in a court of law, you would be the, you know, you're— you would be assumed as the experts, and you are.

So I don't understand why we're not listening to the experts.

There must be some other element that we are all not privy to.

But in any event, Again, thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Billy.

Thank you, Councilor.

Chair recognizes Councilor Abreu on a second.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Billy, um, how concerned are you now in particular with Thanksgiving around the corner, the holidays, with Christmas lights, things plugged into all these different outlets and surge protectors?

Now is like real serious critical time for your men and women, is it not?

Yeah, I mean, an emergency structure fires can happen at any time.

You know, accidents happen sometimes.

There's people that do, you know, bad things on purpose, whether it is whatever it is.

But this usually is a busy time for us where people are turning their heat, their heat on, furnaces on.

We have issues with that.

They're finding other ways, other sources to heat their home.

We all know how the cost of living today, just the gas, propane, you know, whatever, whatever you use at home for heating or cooking, whether you're using a small electric heater to try to save some money on, on gas costs or natural gas costs or whatever it is.

It is a concern.

People try to cut corners, you know, cut, cut their budget at home to save some money here and there, and it doesn't always work out the way it's planned, unfortunately.

And then, yes, the holidays is usually also a busy time.

You can see just, you know, over the years, Thanksgiving is busy with kitchen fires.

We unfortunately a few years ago had that general alarm with 3 homes went up in flames in the North End.

Christmas— we've had a number of fires on Christmas.

We have to be careful with, you know, lights and electrical strips and all that stuff.

And, you know, trees, Christmas trees, you know, those are very dangerous because Christmas trees are very flammable, are they not?

Especially when they're dry.

Extremely.

Yes.

Thank you, Billy.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Okay, so just to recap, um, you know, I, I said it publicly previously, but I will say it publicly again, um, that— well, first let me just start by— I instructed the clerk and asked Clerk Farias to, uh, issue a communication to the administration requesting his pre— uh, 2 dates that would work for him to come back before this body.

I will call another special City Council meeting so we can have a thorough conversation, a collaborative working progress— working towards progress in station number— engine number 9.

So I will make a commitment that I made publicly before, in that when the mayor, if the mayor decides to come and attend the meeting in which he is called to, that I would not allow any badgering.

We will have good conversation, good debate, so that we could move forward and figure out a plan for what is the— what is his plan for Engine Number 9 that nobody knows about, let alone the public, and what the future holds, and if we could come to some agreement, if this body could collaboratively— if the mayor would work collaboratively with this body.

So with that being said, any other last comments?

Okay, Councilor Burgos.

Um, I'd like to make a motion to request that the mayor inform the City Council, Fire Department, and most importantly the general public what plans he has for the nearly $2 million that he currently has within the tax levy, and he explained why he believes such a plan is more important than keeping Engine 9 in operation.

Okay, motion made by Councilor Burgos, seconded by Councilor Choquette.

Anyone on the question of that motion?

Councilor Bergo.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Um, so yeah, I just— again, as we're all aware, we have already drafted appropriations for the mayor.

I know he is, through his public information officer, explained that we don't have that authority.

We were well aware of that.

We put forward those appropriations to bring attention to the fact that We have the money available.

But since then, we have found the available funding.

Again, we're thankful to our state delegation for approving that $500,000, and now we have the $1.3 million that is needed to keep this engine open.

And so obviously we sent those appropriations to him to showcase to him that this body, 11 to 0, is fully behind funding Engine 9, and he sent it back to us unsigned.

So I'm just curious.

That's why we wanted to have this meeting with him, to find out why he's not communicating with us, why he's not communicating communicating with the union and why he's not even communicating with his own fire chief, which is why it wasn't appropriate to even send him here, because the fire chief and the union, they can't even tell us when he's planning on shutting down operations of this station.

So that's why I'm hoping this motion will get something from him, because as you're aware, Mr. President, when I was drafting those appropriations on behalf of the administration, his own CFO was instructed not give us any information on how much money was needed to keep that engine open.

But again, for the general public's knowledge, we have the money available to be appropriated, and I'm just curious as to why the mayor hasn't appropriated those funds yet.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else on the question?

All right.

All those in favor of the motion say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Seeing no further business before— motion to adjourn made by Councilor Abreu, seconded by Councilor Roy.

All those in favor say aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it, and we are adjourned at 6:51 PM.