New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
The following is in response to the New Bedford City Council reviewing a petition to move the grills and tables at Hazelwood Park due to the air pollution.
“How about you use your platform to help keep Hazelwood Park for the people who live and have been paying New Bedford city taxes for generations?
We have new people who bought property near our public park and now with friends on the board for parks and recreation are trying to stop residents from carrying on with family traditions. Lots of families born and raised here have held their family cookouts in the same spot for over 40 years and that’s a fact.
These families have grown up in this city and are all like family to each other. That’s the day we hold our family cookouts where people fly in from other states to come home for that day. It’s sad that newcomers are trying to push those of us born and raised here out?
You use the New Bedford name in your title, how about you use your platform and stand up and help us out?
Too much is being taken from lifelong residents of New Bedford. I have a yard and a pool. There are so many [people] in the city who the park is all they have in the summer to cookout and swim. We go on the 4th of July for our traditional family cookout along with other families we grew up with who also do the same. Our families have been doing this faithfully every 4th of July for over 40 years. My grandfather and his brothers started when my mother was little. We have kept the tradition. People fly home for the cookouts. That’s the one time of year we see family and friends from way back.
How do new people get to harass people for the last three years and not having a way to get it all stopped?
New Bedford is going down the same path Newport did. Lifelong residents had to leave. Check the rent in Newport or prices for homes. Look how our property taxes keep jumping up. People have been losing their homes. Our beach used to be free. When they first started charging for what our taxes already pay for I questioned it the first year and was told the money was going towards the dog park. Well, I don’t have a dog, but we needed one. Now the price goes up, dog park is up, we still pay the taxes, the money is getting pocketed.
Now they want to push everyone away from our park and cookouts so they come up with lies to have a reason to do that. Come on. They need to stop pissing on our backs and telling us it’s raining.” – BJ London.
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