New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
The New Bedford City Council has held four formal meetings to finalize the City of New Bedford budget for 2021 – two councilors have been completely absent from all four meetings with another attending only half of them.
New Bedford Guide requested the budget attendance logs with Assistant City Council Clerk Susan Henriques. The attendance records revealed that At-large City Councilor Debora Coelho and Ward 3 City Councilor Hugh Dunn have not attended any of the four meetings and At-large City Councilor Brian Gomes has attended two of them. In Feb of 2020, Councilor Debora Coelho announced that after 14-years on the city council she would retire at the end of this current term that started in January and lasts two years.
Seven of the eleven city councilors have attended all four budget meetings; Ian Abreu, Naomi Carney, Linda Morad, William Markey, Derek Baptiste, Scott Lima, and Joe Lopes. Councilor Giesta missed one meeting due to a family emergency.
Councilor Dunn explained his absence: “I have reviewed the budget book extensively and prefer to go directly to department heads when there are questions. I feel it is important to clarify that these are discretionary briefings, no votes take place at the meetings, and they are recorded and available to be viewed after the fact if necessary. My absence has no impact on my ability to effectively represent my constituents as we navigate the budget process.”
Councilors Coelho and Gomes were emailed and given a full day to provide a comment but didn’t respond at the time of this article being published.
Finalizing the City budget is one of the critical roles of the City Council. Mayor Mitchell presented his 2021 City Budget before the New Bedford City Council on Wednesday, July 15, via virtual meeting due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The budget total is $365 million, but the City Council can make cuts to it or leave it alone. Councilors meet with department heads to discuss their portion of the budgets and then make cuts based on these discussions. The size of the budget will also play a major role in property tax increases or fee hikes. Additionally, Mayor Mitchell has proposed closing the downtown police station and decommissioning Engine 8 – decisions the City Council will have to approve.
There are six total budget meetings this year with the final two meetings among department heads scheduled for 10 and 12 August. The final budget meeting and vote is on Aug 24.
Here are the attendance logs for the first four New Bedford City Council budget meetings:
Monday, July 27, 2020
PRESENT:
• ABREU
• BAPTISTE
• CARNEY
• GIESTA
• LIMA
• LOPES
• MARKEY
• MORAD
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
PRESENT:
• ABREU
• BAPTISTE
• CARNEY
• GOMES
• LIMA
• LOPES
• MARKEY
• MORAD
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
PRESENT:
• ABREU
• BAPTISTE
• CARNEY
• GIESTA
• GOMES
• LIMA
• LOPES
• MARKEY
• MORAD
Thursday, August 6, 2020
PRESENT:
• ABREU
• BAPTISTE
• CARNEY
• GIESTA
• LIMA
• LOPES
• MARKEY
• MORAD
Agree with decomissioning Engine 8 – there are too many fire trucks around anyway – in today’s world with better building codes there are fewer fires than there used to be, ergo, you do not need so many fire trucks, so if you are looking to save money, that is as good a place to start as any. That said I don’t know where the notion comes from of closing downtown police station. This city has drug problems as it is, and we need all the qualified police we can get and then some. Mitchell is up a creek without a paddle on that one.