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I was a bit surprised when Gov. Maura Healey’s office emailed me late last week and asked if I’d like to sit down and talk with the governor.
It’s no secret that I’ve sometimes been a pointed critic of Healey – particularly as far as her hands-off approach when UMass Dartmouth abruptly closed its downtown New Bedford fine arts campus in 2023.
Here’s how one of Google’s ubiquitous AI summaries described my columns from two years ago: “Jack Spillane’s analysis in The New Bedford Light frames the Star Store campus closure as a result of UMass leadership — specifically Chancellor Mark Fuller and President Martin Meehan — orchestrating the exit, while the Healey administration prioritized fiscal calculation over cultural value.”
Well, it’s AI so it’s not exactly precise. I thought Healey had calculated that a downtown New Bedford campus was not worth going to war with the politically powerful Meehan, and his appointee, Fuller. I also knew she thought her hands were tied when Sen. Mark Montigny had zeroed out the Star Store campus budget in order to shut off the endless state payday to its owner, Paul Downey.
Here’s what I wrote then: “Gov. Maura Healey, by her ongoing low profile, seems to have made her position known. She’s not in a rush to take up arms for New Bedford’s fine arts campus.”
Fast forward to this week and Healey had a different opinion. Here’s what she said when I asked her whether any kind of UMass Dartmouth campus, fine arts or otherwise, would ever return to downtown New Bedford.
“I think that… there could be,” she said. Notice her pause in the middle of the statement. Then the governor told me she’d be interested in my thoughts on the issue. Which is a change from the very few public comments she made and her refusal to take a position in favor of saving the Star Store campus when it was actually closing.
Healey made some good points about her overall record on public higher education, that she had increased funding for it in her first term by 40%, that she had made two-year community colleges free, and that she had increased financial assistance for students attending the four-year state colleges and universities.
“I’m a big believer in public education,” she said.
I believe she means that and I applaud her for it.
Healey, of course, also emphasized during our interview what has become the mantra of her re-election campaign, stressing the devastating effects of President Donald Trump’s cutbacks to federal government programming, in this case to science and research programs at colleges and universities.
Then she astonishingly said she knows that whenever you have a college campus somewhere it brings “vibrancy.”
“That’s important to local economies,” she said.
Healey was attempting to explain, I guess, why she sold the downtown New Bedford College of Visual and Performing Arts down the river.
Chancellor Fuller had claimed it would be prohibitively expensive to keep the campus open but former New Bedford Light reporter Colin Hogan demonstrated convincingly that the chancellor’s figures were wildly exaggerated, and based on worst-case scenarios that could have been easily addressed through legislation and practicality.
“It’s about math right now, and what works,” Healey said. “We just put some money into UMass Dartmouth, the renovation of their campus.” Their Dartmouth campus, that is.
When I pointed out to Healey that in the same way that many city residents can’t easily reach medical care in Dartmouth or Fairhaven, they also can’t reach the Dartmouth UMass campus easily, she asked if it helps that she has made the regional buses free.
The free buses have enormously helped low-income people get around in Greater New Bedford for the first time in at least a generation. But it’s not the same as having easy access to a university that was already located in the center city.
“I’m serious, I’ll take a look at it,” she said. “And if there are particular programs… state tax dollars, I’ve got to get an ROI (return on investment) for that.”
Healey said she is trying to get public colleges to create programming that local employers need. She gave the example of marine science as a career where students can earn a living. New Bedford has long had a marine science campus on the South End peninsula.
I know the governor was trying to be practical, but her comments set me to thinking about the recent news that both fine arts and liberal arts programming at UMass Dartmouth could be endangered by the Trump administration’s announcement that it will no longer provide financial assistance to college majors where the graduates are not earning a benchmark liveable wage.
I can’t even explain how bad a precedent that would be. To embark on a system where only expensive private colleges offer fine arts and liberal arts majors would permanently lock out untold numbers of talented working-class youth and others from higher education in the arts.
But just like Healey is now pivoting on a downtown UMass campus, the governor then quickly pivoted on higher education in the arts.
“Totally wrong-headed,” she described the Trump administration’s policy even though she had just finished explaining that she needed a return-on-investment on what kind of schools merited a campus in the city.
Healey said she was a liberal arts graduate herself and that she supports it continuing in state higher education, but her actions two years ago with the CVPA and her comments about ROIs in the meeting with our staff contradict that.
She tried to nuance it.
“That’s a big question,” she said, of whether there will continue to be funding for fine arts and liberal arts at state schools. “Just looking at public higher ed, we absolutely need liberal arts. We need arts education. I think it’s really important to who we are as a country, as a world, and it’s important to our economy as well.”
That’s the right answer, governor. But when the press, not to mention the graduate students at the CVPA, made the same case to you two years ago, you were nowhere to be found.
Healey also said she and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll have increased funding for arts education in the state budget, but she again reverted to blaming Trump for his cutbacks. “There’s so much there where we have to step up and do right now,” she said.
Look, the closure of the downtown New Bedford fine arts campus was an impossible situation for the governor. She was caught between two powerful political forces — UMass President Marty Meehan and his attempt to make UMass Dartmouth and UMass Boston the same types of largely self-funded research universities as UMass Amherst, and Sen. Montigny’s efforts to permanently wean a politically-connected and savvy landlord off of state subsidies.
She chose to remain silent as scores of graduate students at the downtown campus did not receive the quality of education that they had bargained for, and New Bedford lost a vital economic engine to its downtown. Walk up and down Union Street today and you’ll see one empty storefront after another. That’s one legacy of the departure of the Star Store campus.
Downtown New Bedford needed Maura Healey when the state’s higher education system and its politicians failed it. She didn’t get it done.
Will Healey do better next time? I think she might.
The fact that her office reached out to me as a local guy who knows the city a little speaks well of her. She wanted to know what I thought were the region’s priorities.
But Healey is doing it now in the midst of a political campaign. And she is doing it in the wake of a recent MassINC poll that shows she is underwater in her approval rating, because of the demoralizing increases in the cost of living in Massachusetts.
A MassINC poll last week showed that 45% of Massachusetts voters have an unfavorable view of Healey vs. 39% who have a favorable view. She was particularly weak with male voters, who have trended toward Republican views in recent years even as women have trended Democratic.
So Healey is making the local rounds in an election year. Good for her. An old progressive like me largely agrees with her policies, although as with most, maybe all, politicians, I just wish political concerns did not enter her calculations so often.
The conventional wisdom is that Healey in a Democratic state like Massachusetts is going to have an easy walk to re-election. That may not be true however.
If the Republican nominee is biotech businessman Mike Minogue, that’s a candidate who is said to be worth at least $240 million, and who has already demonstrated he will spend millions of his own money on the campaign. The indications are he’ll try to run as a Charlie Baker-type moderate, which could be a problem for Healey. If the GOP nominee is venture capitalist and former MBTA executive Brian Shortsleeve, she can expect a slightly more conservative opponent, who will probably tack back to the middle in a general election, and who will also no doubt be able to raise enough money to be competitive.
Either way Healey is going to have to bring the progressives back in line while at the same time winning the majority of the moderate vote against either Minogue or Shortsleeve.
That’s why she’s making the rounds in places like New Bedford and taking questions from guys like me right now.
Note from Jack: As I’ve said, the interview with Gov. Maura Healey took place at her office’s request. I’m very happy to do an interview with either Mike Minogue or Brian Shortsleeve should their offices reach out to me.
Jack Spillane is a New Bedford Light columnist and reporter. He can be reached at jspillane@newbedfordlight.org.
Tell is the worst governor in state history to work on restructuring state aid to help with city and town budget issues. We can’t afford what we have now in this city.
It’s not the state’s responsibility to foot the bill for communities like New Bedford that refuse to take full advantage of their tax base.
Sure Mitchell has to go, his vision has failed the city, but your dead wrong on Healey, every time the state takes another parcel of land or takes over another building, no property tax revenue is paid to the city. Further more towns and cities pay plenty of state tax and restructuring the state aid formula should be the number one priority. We need new leadership in the Governor’s office.
The downtown of “Dead Whale City” is populated primarily by the drug addicted homeless and their daily visiting dug dealers. Drive by and see for yourselves. Take pictures and post same for all to view this situation.
The MS 13 of New Bedford derive a decent income from this area and recruit young children into the drug delivery trade to this area.
Nips and needles, along with human waste, are found throughout this area.
There is no viable “downtown” and lower Union Street may become another habitation focus for these “folks” very soon.
Until this situation is acknowledged and successfully addressed, it is pointless to believe a relocated “college facility” can alter this situation.
Has “Dead Whale City” changed for the better since 2012…..NO!
New Bedford’s median household income, adjusted for inflation, has decreased since 2012. Quite an accomplishment for Mayor Jon Mitchell to crow about. New Bedford has gone “progressively downhill” since 2012 and no end is in site for this decline.
Sounds more like an indictment of the entire population of New Bedford and its obvious lack of industriousness than the fault of a single politician. With all of the bitter and aggrieved right wingers in NB, why would any young person with something to offer want to live or invest there?
I live in Downtown New Bedford. My neighbors and I are neither drug addicted, nor homeless, nor drug dealers. It is populated by decent people. Perhaps the view is better walking on the sidewalk than driving by.
We are accustomed to such accusations, though, from rage addicted anonymous libelers like yourself, who derive a decent income from maligning the area and spreading bigotry in the minds of young children, who are recruited to deliver hatred in the future.
Your bigotry and the human waste of your soul are found throughout your comment.
Your refusal to see the people here as people, putting them in scare quotes rather than seeing us as the human beings and citizens that we are, tells everyone reading this everything they need to know about your character and the accuracy of your conclusions.
I hope that wherever you are coming from when you drive through downtown New Bedford, people know the choice that you have made, to be a terrible person, trying to recruit people into your blind hatred. But that is your choice. Until you decide to acknowledge and successfully address your fundamental wrongness, it is pointless to believe that your lies and calumny will alter your degeneracy.
I am glad that downtown New Bedford is a habitation focus for the decent, hardworking people who live here, and not for someone with progressively downhill moral values like those you espouse. Anyone who actually takes to the time to look at the downtown of our city, along with its other neighborhoods, sees a community moving forward. We are fortunate to leave you behind.
You can decide to stop being like this. No one will do it for you. But no end is in “site” for your decline.
Perhaps you should preach and outreach to those populating Custom House Park, the New Bedford Library steps and the New Bedford Bus Terminal. Forget me, as I am in Dante’s ninth level.
If you want an improved living area and a better life for those that are drug addicted and homeless, you need to combat the free flow of drugs in these areas. Mayor Jon Mitchell and Police Chief Thody should be great allies, however, no action has been seen from these public servants.
As you are accustomed to such accusations, others obviously feel as I do.
Your charge is to energize and do something about this situation that others see and you do not. It is the reality of human desperation that is seen in your neighborhood and your singular activism may help alleviate the situation, one soul at a time.
In the meantime, “Mass & Cass of the South Coast” will expand, as the flow of illegal drugs continues without being addressed by municipal authorities.
Your neighborhood, your actions required.
I’ve seen revitalization of community by young people before in Portland, Maine. The energy generated from the Arts is infectious—then, commerce takes a chance—restaurants and new businesses follow. The arts always brings in tourism and New Bedford can prosper because it has a fantastic diverse community and now, a commuter train . The seeds are here, a new vibrant theater, great restaurants, abundance of diverse culture and a long proud history.
You forgot to mention that Maine is haven for drug addiction, we have enough of that here, and don’t need any more tent cities in downtown.
2025 median household income comparison:
Portland, Maine………………………….$83,727
New Bedford, Massachusetts……….$56,025
To grow, seeds require fertile ground free of weeds.
Dead whale makes a good comment and there is no doubt that there are far more far left liberal lunatics than bitter right wingers in NB. But most importantly there is no one to blame for this mess in this city than Mayor Mitchell and Governor Healey. Nothing but poor leadership, failed policies, supporting big government, with reckless spending. 100% our city and state both need new leadership.
The piece is intellectually sloppy in treating Healey’s positions as contradictory. One can simultaneously believe:
liberal arts and fine arts deserve public support;
a particular building or campus arrangement was financially unsustainable; and
a future downtown program should demonstrate public value.
I read what you read – takeaway for me was the building was not viable because of the way the real estate deal was structured at the very beginning and the subsequent mismanagement by the nepotism hire, nowhere did I get that Star Store, or the CVPA downtown campus was financially unsustainable.
Of all the important fiscal and social topics facing Massachusetts voters in November, the light decides to focus on the Star Store? Goes to show you…
Your 100% correct, the NB Light is a far left liberal rag, backs the mayor, backs the governor, god forbid they post an article about Fire Station 9 closing and the impact on the safety of residents and businesses of New Bedford.
I am not going to vote for her for a multitude of reasons. She signed legislation to allow the killing of unborn babies, up to full term. She would rather push green energy initiatives than support cheaper forms of energy more suitable for New England. Not only are families burdened with high energy bills , businesses are as well , many have relocated to other States or move out of our State. She is responsible for the horrible data center in Lowell that’s disrupted lives of families that live near it. They don’t have peace. The State made the mistake. They should close the data center down or force the Markley Group to buy all the homes of the people affected. I disagree how she supports illegal immigrants in our State. I have nothing against immigration. My grandparents immigrated to the USA from Italy. They came through Ellis Island. They had jobs lined up. My grandfather was a machinist and my grandmother was a seamstress. They also had a sponsor family, my great aunt and uncle who immigrated 5 years before my grandparents. How our State handles illegal immigration is wrong. Everyone immigrating to our Country needs to be vetted and demonstrate they can support themselves. That means pay for their own housing, food, health insurance, etc. No hand outs.
Lol The public school system in New Bedford has just really failed you guys
Just a brief comment about energy bills. I am frustrated with the price of Eversource gas and electric. It is absolutely ridiculous that my bill shows I am using less energy but the cost is higher than it has ever been. Conserving energy is not the issue (at least in my house). However, when you look at the bill, you can see that the largest percentage of the bill is going to maintain the infrastructure of Eversource delivery (not the social service programs as Mr. Shortsleeve claims on his ads). While maintaining infrastructure is important (none of us want another National Grid gas explosion crisis), I question why Eversource is passing the cost to the consumer while their higher management officers are making millions of dollars a year ($36.5 million for the CEO in 2025). I also question the company’s decision to spend money to put ads on during the Olympics. A 30 second ad during the Olympics can cost anywhere between $750,000 and 1 million dollars, depending upon timing and sport placement. Why waste the money on advertising Eversource as a company? We’re stuck with them; we don’t have a choice of electric or gas supplier so who are they trying to convince that they’re a good company? Certainly not their current consumers.
I realize this is a column and not a Q&A with a candidate, but did you ask her about anything else?
Yes, I asked about a variety of issues, and so did New Bedford Light reporters at the interview. The governor’s answers to some of those questions were covered in the breaking news story by Grace Ferguson, and others will be included in other stories in coming days.
From CBS Boston: “It costs more for families to live comfortably in Massachusetts than in any other state, report finds.” This didn’t happen overnight and this State needs a drastic change in who we elect. Insanity is electing the same people over and over and expecting a different outcome. In addition electing them from only one party is not in our best interest.
I moved to the South End of New Bedford three years ago after being priced out of Boston, which was my home for over a decade. I snagged a nice little two-bedroom with a yard and driveway for 50% or more less than I would’ve found back Boston. I thought this little seaside town was a bit rough around the edges at first, but there was always something simmering just underneath.
It’s why I decided to open my own small business in this city in December 2025. It was the first year of a new Trump administration which has, by all accounts, proven disastrous for small businesses’ bottom lines and the pocket books of just about everyone I know. But I wanted to follow a dream and a passion, which this town afforded me the ability to do. We knocked it out of the park in our first few months and, in late July 2026, I moved my business to a larger spot on the corner of Union and Pleasant Streets – directly kiddy-cornered from the Star Store and the Harbor Hotel.
I see the same things every day that I have seen in the comments above. There are massive amounts of addiction, homelessness, and suffering. There is a City Hall building within view of my shop that seemingly only cares about issues affecting us all if enough people yell loudly at a City Council meeting (Source: Flock). And, most of all, there is a lot of finger pointing with absolutely no action.
Our business, not even a year old, is doing incredibly well downtown in spite of all of this. Why is that? Because we have tapped into something that I think a lot of people in this city seem to have forgotten. You are New Bedford. You are the city of Frederick Douglas. Of abolition. Of Whalers. Of industry. Of immigrants. This rich history inspired me to open a business and tap into it. I put that out into the world each day when we open our doors for business and I will continue to. Our shop is constantly full with every single kind of person, both passing through and those living here. Nothing but what we have created and tapped into in our short time here has made that possible.
I only hope that people in this thread, voters across the city, and our elected officials can put their heads together to get back to the ideas that inspired me to move here to do what I did. It is possible. But the shouting and the blaming and the “what ifs” have to stop. We can do something. So let’s do it.
211 Union Street if anyone ever wants to stop by to chat.
Three years and a lot to say for a newby. A lot of us have lived all our lives in New Bedford and have watched a steady decline in city government and quality life. We know all about the city’s history and also remember a city and a downtown area that was thriving, minimal crime and homelessness and the downtown area and city that was clean. No matter how hard you try to paint a pretty picture, New Bedford is in deep trouble. All over the city the majority of residents have had it and the current leadership is the problem.
The return of U MASS ART SCHOOL is definitely what downtown needs. Along with new types of business’s. You can thank MARK MONTIGNY for the closing of the school over political and personal grievances. SHAMEFUL.
Where is my comment.
You can’t blame oue city’s Unions or the city’s retirement board for the debacle that our city is currently in. While running for Mayor 15 years ago I warned that increasing our operating budget without any new revenue sources would lead our city to financial crisis. This Administration has grown government at an ALARMING rate, doubling our city’s operating budget. Without any new revenue sources . Raising property taxes,using ear marked monies to keep us afloat, relying on State and federal aid to run our city .Now the State and Federal Aid is not enough to even come anywhere near the money to finance the city’s operating budget. Put the blame where it belongs JON MITCHELL SHAMEFUL.
As guilty as John Mitchell is for this budget disaster, the city council has as much responsibility by approving budget after budget, year after year. The council can try and say they made cuts each year, but since this Mayor’s been in office this budget has more than doubled. Right now this city is a mess and if you think Shane Burgo or Ian Abreu are the answer to this city’s problems, all you will be doing is fast forwarding this city into receivership. Our city needs new leadership with a new vision and we have to put these failed politicians behind us.