Guiding lights in a storm, they shepherded New Bedford’s LGBTQ+ community through decades of public rejection and finally found its rainbow in the years following the legalizations of same-sex marriage.
Category: Column
Posted inJack Spillane column
Advocates: New Bedford’s COVID-19 relief funds should be spent on affordable housing
The housing crisis has worsened over the last several years, and both New Bedford and Fall River have now joined larger cities in seeing rental and mortgage prices increase beyond the reach of average working people — particularly young people starting out.
Posted inJack Spillane column
Local Cape Verdean women empowered by effort to recapture ancestors’ history
“At a distance, I see my silent sister Santa Luzia / Watching over me / Finally, I land to open arms at Cabral’s door in Sal / As I transcend in this vast sea of history / Engraved in me”
– Iva Brito, from the poem “Nos Terra (Our Land)”
Posted inJack Spillane column
Councilors’ stance on arts funding stalls Mitchell’s bid to use pandemic relief funds
It’s a mystery, really, why a number of councilors should resent the growth of arts and tourist attractions that bring diners, shoppers and visitors to the city year round.
Posted inJack Spillane column
Community Preservation Act could fuel 3 affordable housing projects
These government incentive-grants have enabled the preservation and reuse development of historic structures across the city for what New Bedford greatly needs right now — a larger and better-quality affordable housing stock.
Posted inJack Spillane column
Lack of education may be the root of New Bedford’s COVID struggles
Both local and national talk radio, along with powerful national cable television shows, pump out a constant stream of conspiracy stories about the vaccines and masks.
Posted inJack Spillane column
Innovators Charter School sparks now-familiar struggle in New Bedford
There is nothing quite so discouraging to the hopes for the future of New Bedford as this never-ending, always acrimonious debate over each new charter school as they open or expand.
Posted inJack Spillane column
New Bedford City Council mask meltdown illustrates the deep divisions in our country
So the careless grocery shoppers are determining how dangerous the trip to the supermarket will be for everybody else. The folks who just won’t mask up decide how much more stress the poor, overburdened nurses and doctors’ families from St. Luke’s will have to suffer through.
Posted inJack Spillane column
Hovan takes advantage of closed hearing and connected lawyers
People who live here would want to know why Keith Hovan has chosen to accumulate all these guns and ammunition in a town that is more and more like a suburb than a rural community.
Posted inJack Spillane column
When it comes to inaugural ceremonies, New Bedford likes to do it big
What’s wrong with City Council members being sworn in right in their own chambers, where they do the people’s business? What’s wrong with the new School Committee members taking the oath of office in the school auditorium?