Columnist covering all things New Bedford
Ward 3 councilor finalists are fresh faces for voters to choose between
Shawn Oliver and Carmen Amaral will now face off in a Feb. 28 special final election that looks like it could bring as much attention to Ward 3 as has anything in years.
City Council rejects one of New Bedford’s finest for Voc-Tech School Committee
It was not her good qualifications that defeated Carol Pimentel. Rather it was the determination of the City Council not to follow the state’s 2021 directive to vocational technical schools to change their admission policies so that more English learners and disabled students can attend. Pimentel and the mayor support the reforms.
Walking the walk and talking the talk with Ward 3 candidates
In the past month or so, I’ve had a chance to walk with all of these candidates in their home neighborhoods within the ward. I’ve learned a whole lot about both them and the different enclaves — some of them quite out of the way — that they call home.
Jacob Ventura: Ward 3 newcomer brings legal acumen, listening skills to the race
Ventura is running perhaps the most traditional of the campaigns. He has issued a spate of press releases outlining his positions on issues, even criticizing certain actions of the current council.
Bob Bromley: Budget analyst for R.I. state Senate says he’ll bring his financial acumen to the Ward 3 job
“I’m just mad about what’s going on. I want to get in and basically right the ship, get it in place, and then be able to move on and pass it on to somebody else.”
Carmen Amaral: As a lifelong advocate, ‘I have the skills’ to represent Ward 3
Her advocacy is hard-won and emblematic of an immigrant’s success story. Amaral came to the U.S. when she was 4 years old, with parents who spoke no English. She grew up in the Portuguese enclave of triple-deckers around Madeira Field.
Bob Cabral: He sees his local government, sees its problems, and wants to fix it
He’s taking a chance to see if he can knock on enough doors, leaflet enough cars, to possibly win this seat and perhaps shake this city government up a bit.
Kathy Dehner: People of Ward 3 need somebody to listen, and to do something about their problems
“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.”
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.
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.
Watch The Chat and meet the seven candidates for the Ward 3 city council primary
Join longtime New Bedford political writer Jack Spillane as he interviews the candidates during a special edition of The Chat on Wednesday, Jan. 11 at 7 p.m.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Watch: New Bedford’s under-appreciated role in the Underground Railroad
Lee Blake and Timothy Dale Walker will join New Bedford Light columnist Jack Spillane for the latest episode of The Chat on Wednesday, Dec. 7 at 1 p.m. for a free hour-long discussion via Zoom about New Bedford’s place in the Underground Railroad.
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
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.
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.
It was the people of New Bedford who rose up against Hodgson
What finally did in Tom Hodgson was the decent, hard-working people of the city of New Bedford, Bristol County’s largest working-class community and the place that undoubtedly has sent the largest number of inmates and correctional officers to tangle with the county’s chief jailer these last 2½ decades.
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