“No one person is going to solve all the problems in the city. You have to listen to other voices. I know we do that in my own family. There’s people out there that probably have the greatest ideas that I never thought of.”
Category: Jack Spillane column
Posted inJack Spillane column
Shawn Oliver: A candidate who can properly represent its diversity will give Ward 3 a chance to establish a true identity
Oliver talks like a guy who’s interested in building consensus, almost like a Team New Bedford. “We’re all trying to fight for the same goal, to live well in a city and a place that we enjoy,” he said.
Posted inJack Spillane column
John Robinson: Trash, traffic, streetlights … neighbors’ concerns should be what drives a ward councilor
He’s just one of those guys who remembers when things worked better and wonders why they can’t work better again.
Posted inJack Spillane column
City Council dysfunction is on full display
Sometimes I think that the smaller the stakes are, the worse elected officials behave. But that doesn’t mean we the public have to like it. And it doesn’t mean that this kind of hard-ball tactics and mean-spiritedness in our office-holders is right.
Posted inJack Spillane column
Clumsy effort results in outrageous wage increases for some New Bedford employees
The council ignored the human resources expert, and in the end, voted 10-0 in favor of the raises. What all the council’s shenanigans did was to raise the cost of these salaries by about a million dollars a year.
Posted inJack Spillane column
New Bedford surrenders to army of chewing squirrels
This year, for the first time in a decade or so, there are no Christmas lights at Custom House Park. The downtown squirrels evidently ate through the wires for so many years that the DPI has given up, declining to spend “thousands and thousands” of dollars on replacements.
Posted inJack Spillane column
Ventura offers ‘proof’ of what he calls residency
Ward 3 candidate is now saying the document is “proof” that he lives in New Bedford. That’s fair enough, I guess, as legal proof of his residency. But I don’t think it says anything about whether he lives there on a day-to-day basis.
Posted inJack Spillane column
As Jacob Ventura eyes Ward 3 special election, some cry ‘carpetbagger’
Ventura is being criticized by at least one of his potential opponents for moving into New Bedford shortly before exploring a run for City Council
Posted inJack Spillane column
New Bedford board tries to balance needs of recovering addicts with downtown merchants
RCCA lawyer Benjamin Fierro came before the ZBA last week and basically threatened that if New Bedford did not allow his client to open its medical office to dispense Suboxone prescriptions on Union Street, it would sue.
Posted inJack Spillane column
Counting votes isn’t what it used to be
In light of media scrutiny, New Bedford’s elections chair says new procedures resulted in significant changes to counting and reporting of votes.
