Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the committee on appointments and briefings.

It is December 16th, 2025, and it is 701.

Note this meeting is being live streamed and recorded.

City Council and Committee meetings can be viewed on the City of New Bedford's homepage under quick links, then meetings.

Joined in the chamber are my colleagues in government.

And Councillor Lodge and Council President, Shane Burgo.

And myself, Naomi Carney, Council Lodge, and the Chairman of the Appointments and Briefings.

Thank you all for coming.

Do we have anything to read in the record?

I have uh two letters and a uh communication to uh notify you of.

This first letter is from Councillor Giester.

I'm writing to inform you that I will unable to attend the Committee on Appointment Briefings meeting on Tuesday, December 16, 2025, 7 p.m.

due to a prior commitment.

I ask that you read this letter into the record to make my colleagues and the public aware of the reason for my absence.

Second letter is from Councillor Morat.

I'm writing this letter to inform you that I will be unable to attend the Committee on Appointments briefings meeting on Tuesday, December 16, 2025 at 7 p.m.

due to a prior commitment.

And I ask that you read this letter into the record to make my colleagues and the public aware of my absence.

Motion made by Councillor Gomez second by Council Burgo.

All in favor say aye.

Oppose the ayes have it.

Madam Chair, just a point of information.

Counselor Oliver just texted me to let you know and the public know he's about ten minutes late, he's running behind.

Okay, just for the record.

Thank you.

And I also received a communication from Councillor Lopes that he had an family emergency and will not be in attendance tonight.

Yes, and I just want to make note that um councillor Lect, James Roy is also with us this evening.

Thank you for coming.

Item number one is citizens' input time not to exceed the first thirty minutes of the meeting.

City transparency, it was referred to on November 18th, 2025.

Mr.

Lamontang.

I'm here to establish record.

For over two years, a nine-unit residential property in this city existed with a documented outdoor rat infestation in a high traffic area.

The primary source, a dumpster with a hole in the bottom of it, actively attracting rodents.

It was known, it was visible, and it was preventable.

Residents called the Department of Health only after police intervention did the Department of Health inspect the property.

At that point, the conditions were classified as rat activity.

No distinction was properly applied.

After exposure, not prevention.

That is not diligence, that is reaction.

What concerns me most is not rats, it's process.

When enforcement language shields landlords, when follow-up disappears, and when accountability only arrives after public pressure, the system no longer serves residents.

It only serves to protect itself.

Because when systems fail quietly, accountability disappears, and the public pays the price.

Thank you.

I'll continue with Mr.

Mellow's portion.

Honesty is the backbone of credibility.

Under 105 CMR 410-550, a department of health inspection is required to determine two things.

Whether a property is free from rodents and whether conditions exist that permit rodent harborage or feeding.

In this case, rodent borough holes were observed on the south side of the property, which legally establishes rodent presence.

Once boroughs are observed, 410-550 requires evaluation of all related indicators, including droppings, tunneling, feeding activity, nesting, and environmental food sources, especially dumpsters.

That required evaluation did not occur.

Instead, the inspection record relies on an off-property photograph which omits on-property conditions, including a dumpster and food source known to attract rodents, and therefore fails to document the actual conditions present on the inspected premises.

Under Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 11, Section 122, the Board of Health has an affirmative non-discretionary duty to identify and abate new nuisances injurious to public health.

An inspection that omits known on-property rodent conditions cannot lawfully support a nuisance determination or enforcement action.

Following these inspection failures, I Kevin met directly with the Director of Health, where he detailed at length procedural deviation and property circumvention and presented video and photographic evidence documenting on-property conditions.

Immediately after that meeting, a non-public meeting occurred between Director Stephanie Sloan, the city solicitor Eric Jakes, and Catherine Schuko, defense attorney, from what we understand.

Concerning this same matter, neither meeting, mine, well his, nor the subsequent internal meeting appears in the public record.

I have spent he has spent significant time reconstructing this sequence through records requests and corroborating materials, revealing not isolated error, but a systemic failure of transparency, the misuse of administrative process, and the weaponization of procedure to shield error rather than correct it.

As a result, enforcement was misdirected, the public health nuisance remained unabated, and statutory obligations were not fulfilled.

This is not disagreement.

It is a failure of regulatory and statutory compliance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Item number two is a public hearing on the application of LeGrea Pierre Mark doing business as LS transport for a special permit for motor vehicle sales and/or rentals and general repair at 724 Ashley Boulevard, New Bedford Mass 02740.

The application was received on November 5th, 2025.

It was duly advertised in the Standard Times.

On Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025, and Tuesday, December 9th, uh 2025.

Number two is before you open the hearing?

Yes.

I'd like to open the public hearing at this time.

I'll entertain a motion to open the public hearing.

Maybe Council Burgo, second by Council Gomes.

All in favor say aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

The public hearing is now open.

Mr.

Mark.

Le Pierre Mark.

No.

Mr.

Mark.

Okay, so hey.

You can continue this.

Right, we have to continue.

No, because the F it hasn't been just close the money.

Do we want to just maybe it's running late?

What time is that?

You want the table?

Um, can I get it?

Well, we're not going to table, we're just going to hold out the public hearing now, see if he comes in, because if not, we're going to have we'll close it up.

We do not have a date in January for appointments and briefings.

And if we continue it, we would have to continue it with a date.

And we don't have one at this time.

Okay, so technically you can't continue the hearing for two months.

Okay.

Let's do that.

Okay.

Yeah, but the point she's making is that you might arrive in the past.

So instead of doing that.

Right, then it would have to reapply, and then we'd have to re-advertise again.

So that's it.

February 18th is a uh is uh Wednesday night.

No.

24 years.

Well, that's assuming that you're going to be the chair.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay, so we are gonna before continuing the public hearing.

We want to see if anybody's here to speak on this issue.

If anybody's here to speak on the issue?

Yes, sir.

In favor or against?

Approach the podium.

Excuse me, sir.

Can I have your name and address for the record?

Pardon me?

Your name and address for the record.

Arthur Amarall.

Sixteen Fieldstone Drive, Westport, Massachusetts.

Okay, you want to lift up your microphone so we can hear you a little better.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Okay, again, Arthur Amarall.

16 Fieldstone Drive, Westport, Massachusetts.

Thank you.

Okay.

The floor is yours.

Okay.

The reason I'm here tonight is because he got the letter and uh it addresses 724 Ashley Boulevard.

I own the strip mall across the street from it on the same side of Ashley Boulevard.

It's a strip mall that I built in 1987.

Interestingly enough, it had a seven bay gas station on it.

When I took it over, I immediately had the uh building knocked down, the gas tanks removed, and um uh completed the building.

So ever since then uh it's been owned, it was owned by Morrison's uh autops.

And then uh they had a son-in-law that was running a repair business out of it.

So to come up to date, I understand that uh the gentleman who owns it now bought it about one year ago.

And it uh since then, not a thing, nothing has been done to address uh the the building and the grounds.

All the windows uh have plywood and they're boarded up, the doors, the pavement in front is half cement, all broken up because when they uh took the tanks out, and the other portion is uh hard top.

It's a mess.

Every time it was plowed out when they were doing the repair business, the uh the the uh plow would push a lot of earth, dirt uh and a lot of stone onto my property.

So the thing is I went through the rat problem with the all the other neighbors, but uh I have I haven't had much time.

This was a very short notice.

The problem is is that uh I want to know if this gentleman is going to knock the building down and improve the property.

I rather doubt it because if he was going to do something, you wouldn't be waiting over a year to get started.

Am I guessing correctly that he is going for a variance?

No, he's it he's asking for a special permit.

It's my understanding that that's a retail area.

And what he's proposing is industrial.

Is that correct?

I'm not sure.

That's what I'm not sure.

Are you in favor of the proposal or against it?

Against strenuously.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

So when you when you get done speaking, I'm gonna ask the commissioner to top to come to the podium.

Okay.

I'm done.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do is there any questions from the the body for this gentleman?

Any questions?

No?

Danny, you want to come up?

Welcome, Commissioner.

So you heard the gentleman's question.

Yep.

It's an allowed use.

Excuse me.

It's an allowed use in that area.

Okay.

And do you know any more about what this man is doing for the special department?

If you can give us a little background on it.

Special permits for um he wants to have a car lot with eight cars.

He also wants to do repairs, but he can't do repairs because there is an MDC trap at the present time, unless he puts one in.

So he's he's got some work to do there to do what he wants to do.

He started repairs.

He started um got a building permit to do the roof.

The roof is complete, but inside it's he's got a lot of work to get done.

I don't believe he wants to um tear it down because he put the roof on.

Okay.

Um council, any questions for the commissioner?

No.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you, Commissioner.

You're welcome.

Okay.

Does anybody want to speak in favor of this project, speak in favor?

Be recorded in favor.

We have one person that spoke in opposition.

Does anybody else want to speak in opposition?

Anyone want to be recorded in opposition?

Seeing none at this time, we will continue this public hearing until February 17th.

Oh, I need a motion to continue the public.

Okay.

Motion been made to continue this uh the public hearing made by Sean Oliver to continue it to February 17th at 7 p.m.

In the chamber.

In this chamber.

Made by Council Oliver, second by Council Burgo.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

All right, sir.

Um it's continued to February 17th.

You can come back.

Hopefully the gentleman will be here to speak, and then we can ask him questions about what's going on.

So you can come back and and state state what your issue is again.

Okay.

February 17th at 7 p.m.

right here.

Thank you.

Okay.

Yeah, you will not get another letter, so you will have to remember.

Another letters won't be issued because it's continued.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

And I don't know.

Um let the record show that um Council Oliver from Ward 3 has joined us and also Council Baptist from Ward 4.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Okay.

Item number three is a communication.

Mayor Mitchell to the City Council submitting the appointment of Jason Thurdy as the New Bedford uh police chief.

It was referred here on November 13, 2025.

Number three is before you.

Second.

Motion made to receive and place on file.

Made by Council Burgo.

Second by Council Oliver.

All in favor say aye.

We have a communication from the Chief.

I'd like to have that received in place on file.

Thank you.

Made by Council Oliver, second by Councillor Burgo.

All in favor say aye.

Sure.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Okay, Chief.

Come on up.

Dun dun dun.

Yes.

Good evening.

Okay.

So would you I know you hand his uh you're there?

Do you want to go over things and just give us a background?

Talk to us.

Sure.

So I think the the last time I was here I gave a little bit of of a background.

Uh but now I've I've been here for almost five months now.

So forwarded to City Council kind of the one year plan.

Uh I I uh I thought it was important for uh for everyone to kind of see what we're looking at doing in the in the police department.

Um that will be a living document, I'm sure, as things uh things come up and and we get things kind of checked off.

Um I started putting that that uh one year plan together probably back in October or so, and there's some things that we've kind of completed early.

Um and and so that that's a good thing.

Uh also submitted my resume just to show folks kind of where I came from and and what my background is and what my experience is.

Um happy to see some some folks from the PD here to support me, so that's uh that's good.

Uh at least uh uh in in four people's eyes.

I'm doing a good job so far.

So uh that's a good thing.

Um, but in all seriousness, it it's been good.

We've been we've been able to get some things done.

I think uh I've been re I've been uh uh really impressed with the folks that uh that work here, uh not just in the police department, but in city government.

Um it's been uh it's it's been a great uh a great five months, and I'm looking forward to hopefully uh continuing on.

Thank you, Chief.

Uh, Council Pereira, and you're first.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good evening.

So um thank you very much for coming before us tonight uh for questioning.

I uh do have a couple of questions um, you know, pulling some information I had off of your resume.

Um in under your uh uh uh serving as chief of police in the city of Hartford, uh you saw an uh uh part one crime was reduced by 31 percent is something denoted.

Can you uh elaborate what part one uh means or denotes?

So that's that's part one recorded crime to the FBI.

So that's uh you know, the FBI requires that police departments across the country submit certain crime reports on certain categories.

If you look at uh the Comstat package um uh that that kind of depicts those those crime categories.

So homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, um burglary, larceny, uh those are all all part one crimes.

Okay.

All right.

And um another uh piece of information here as uh in your role with Glass Shield uh consulting is um oversight uh helping another advising, I believe, another advisor in um working on Connecticut's red light and speed camera implementation.

Can you discuss um how that is going or how that went, where that's at?

Um it's something that while Massachusetts would need to enact stuff, I think would be uh very helpful uh to address a lot of concerns that my constituents have, and I'd like to hear your experience in that um or or in your view on that as well.

Absolutely.

So I was uh that that was something that's relatively new to the State of Connecticut.

So uh in my role as a consultant uh after I retired in July of 2024, um I knew I wanted to continue uh in in my law enforcement work.

Uh so starting a consulting company, uh I I did that.

And I think uh probably the the thing that was that was asked of me the most was kind of interpreting the statute, where these red light cameras could go, what the process was for applying for them.

So that the statute was somewhat complex.

Uh the state of Connecticut to make sure that this wasn't a money make uh a money grab.

Um this was more of about safety.

Uh so there were parameters about where you could put them, school zones, um if you wanted to put them outside of a school zone.

School zones are generally accepted as a place you could put them.

If you wanted to put them outside of school zones, though you had to do some homework.

Uh you had to look at car accidents in the area and you had to show that X number of car accidents had occurred.

Uh you had to show that it wouldn't have a disparate impact on the community.

Um there was a lot of hurdles that you had to go through.

So in my consulting, I was uh kind of on one side, uh was asked by a company to look at those and give them recommendations about uh where they could maybe where they could maybe put these cameras and have the best effect.

And then on the law enforcement side, because I was a chief of police and knew just about every chief of police in in the state of Connecticut was kind of giving them advice about how to go through it, um, how to go through that process.

Uh and and they're in pretty good shape.

Um the first place that put them in in Connecticut is a very was a very small town.

Uh they essentially put them on two ends of the town.

They had one main road that went through the town, um, and and they wanted to control speed as they you know, you kind of came into this one horse town and um and actually uh it was named Winchester, ironically enough.

Uh and they had a small little downtown, and then you kind of exited stage left out out of the other side of the town.

Um so uh it was a pretty simple one, the first one.

Um but now uh the city of Middletown has them, the city of Waterbury has them.

Um there's a bunch of places that have that have gotten on board with them.

Um so I think if you look at the news, uh there are some concerns about how uh places are collecting fees, uh what the fees are, what the fees are going to.

Um so uh you know this is one of those things that it's it's good to do your homework if it's something you're interested in doing uh because um the nice thing about not being first to the table is that you can kind of learn from other people's mistakes, and I think some clarity.

Uh I think we'll see some changes in that statute.

I think they'll clarify some things uh to make sure that they're actually uh they're getting to the goal of of traffic safety.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Um my last question for now uh correlates to um uh again back in your time in uh City of Hartford police department.

Uh I think it was something uh 400 uh close to 500 sworn officers, I believe, something like that.

475 was our was the authorized strength of Hartford, sure.

Can you um uh you've obviously been involved in this city's police department for a little while now any parallels to the um uh in back in Hartford in regards to the workforce issues and um as you know we're short quite a bit of officers uh any correlation to what happened in Hart was that as going on in Hartford in your time there and any strategies or plans forward to help bolster to a full uh complement of officers here in the city of New Bedford.

Yeah so the parallel is is clear.

I think it's you know it's a it's another uh relatively you know major city um you know in in Connecticut it's the capital city so we had the largest municipal police department in the state um got hit really hard with uh with retirements and resignations and difficulty recruiting like police departments across the country did in kind of the the post-COVID or or in the middle of COVID and post-COVID and and the the you know after the the murder of George Floyd uh that was a reality in police departments I think you know in in talking to the officers in Hartford and in talking to the officers here I think police officers uh across the country felt under undervalued um in many ways um uh you know felt like they were being uh you know attacked and punished for things that they didn't have any control over and and things that happened uh hundreds and thousands of miles away.

Um so uh that was a tough time.

I I will say that uh you know the some necessary changes in statutes occurred uh police accountability bills occurred in Massachusetts they occurred in Connecticut um a lot of them had good reforms in it uh I think it was the delivery that wasn't met well with the law enforcement community.

Um they didn't have really a seat at the table and I think if they did uh some of us as chiefs did had some advisory roles in some of those things but I think if generally you know law enforcement felt that you know that they had the ability to be part of their own reforms it would have probably been received differently.

But that created uh massive losses we were over a hundred officers down in Hartford.

So the one one parallel I can say that's a positive for here is that um it didn't cut as deep here and New Bedford has rebounded much better um before I came here I think within a week or two before I came here um they they graduated 14 new officers uh in a in an auth as a city that's authorized 250 260 you're bringing in a class of 14 in my old department we were authorized 475 we were lucky to get a class of six or eight um I think it you know it comes down to uh you know how the community reacts I think in New Bedford the community is is pro-police I I I they support the police officers here and I think that's why the pendulum shifted quicker here.

We've got um numerous officers in the academy right now.

We've got another large class coming up in the next month or so probably as many as sixteen we're still kind of doing the backgrounds on them and stuff.

So uh you know New Bedford is definitely on track to do better at recruitment retention.

Um I think a lot of it is marketing.

Um New Bedford does a great job of of of social media marketing of the department and the good things that the officers do.

I think the fact that a lot of officers live here in New Bedford or their parents live here in New Bedford or their their friends, their family they grew up here, they went to school here has a lot to do with how much quicker uh New Bedford's rebounded in staffing.

So a lot of positives and I think we just have to keep our foot on the gas um and continue to make it an attractable place to to be a police officer.

Okay.

Thank you very much Madam Chair um I might have some more questions later but I yield at this time thank you Council Pereira council Council Oliver.

Thank thank you Madam Chair uh thank you um Chief Thordy for being here um I was obviously fortunate enough to be on the uh one of the members of the council that were um on the committee um so I had maybe a little bit more knowledge or pre-knowledge of your extensive background and I think that showed is you being one of the finalists and ultimately being selected by the administration but my question to you um uh is um you're operating here uh well you operated on a on a uh a force that is almost um well we'll just say double um in both size and uh budget do you find that that do you think that that'll be a restraint for you or um how how how have you taken to it thus far and or look to continue um operating in the future as your budget and force uh a lot as as is different from where you were from yeah it it definitely is um you know I think timing too was tough because the budget kind of process you know I came in uh mayor made the announcement in the end of June and came in in July just after kind of the new budget goes in play so it didn't have a lot of opportunity to stand in front of this body or s or sit in front of the mayor um and talk about kind of where where I saw budget priorities and things like that.

So look I look forward to being able to have that opportunity for next year and I guess the the the if the upside to that the glass have full side to that is that I'll have more time here making evaluations about you know where uh where we can where we can tighten things up but where we we may want to spend more and invest more.

So that'll be a good process I look forward to that.

You know that the two cities are pretty similar uh when you think about it the New Bedford hovers around 100,000 people, Hartford you know between 118 and 12000.

Uh Hartford's 17 square miles New Bedford is around 20.

If you take the water out we didn't have water uh we didn't own water in in Hartford um which which I really like here by the way um so uh you know we've got major hospitals in Hartford you got a major hospital here you you the Hartford has an airport we have an airport.

So uh a lot of similarities which is kind of what drew me here.

Um the size of the department is a little bit smaller and I think that's a reflection of call for service volume.

It's a reflection of the lower crime rate here which is great.

I remember when I was in Hartford we we had a chief come in from New York City.

He wasn't the chief of police in New York City but he was a very high ranking officer in New York City Pat Harnett.

And when he came in uh you know he said you know that the the I'll make a golf reference here you know the pace of play was a little slower.

You know things were come you know you're drinking from a fire hose in New York City but you know the problems are just as serious and they take just as much deliberation uh you know to to fix and to and to to steer the ship.

So I I find the same thing here.

You know the the the volume is is a little bit less.

There's a lot of things uh that are that are beneficial here as I mentioned some of them you know having officers that are invested in this community that generally grow up in this community I think out of 475 officers in Hartford we had about five or six that were actually residents of the city.

Much harder to get buy in to fix quality of life issues and to to and to kind of invest your public safety uh you know goals in the community that you live in is a lot easier than if it's a community you don't live in.

So I have found um that that the New Bedford Police Department is on a solid foundation.

I appreciate you know the the uh the Jensen and Hughes report and the CP21 report for kind of coming in from the outside and looking at some of those things but um you know I've I've now kind of lived there for five months.

You know I have found that you know the that that the reforms that that are that are necessary here are manageable and the team that's in place to to uh you know to kind of implement those uh is a strong one so um it's different um I would say just about every way it's different in a positive way um budgeting that's challenging I think anywhere you go um you know the any city especially um Hartford we had our budgeting challenges and we found ways to work around them here uh we've got some great people that are looking for grants that are good at writing grants we didn't have that uh in Hartford um so that's a plus um so uh you know I think I think everything here is on a good foundation.

I think you know my my real responsibility here is to kind of to kind of give the New Bedford police department an outside look maybe at how other places do it at you know some some things that may work um that may work better uh then the way we've done it here all you know all along so thank you for that I I wanted to get the the budget question out of the way um it says here uh obviously um the uh the what is it the GSC uh group there the Glass Shields consulting um it's still I just and because this is we just took this in for uh public record it still says present are you still working in consulting with that or is that just needs to be updated that resume was I submitted and as an application you'll notice that this position isn't on there yet right so uh I'll add this position someday uh when I re when I when I have to uh you know put my my resume together again and but no I it's I'm not gonna and that's kind of why I wanted to ask that question because I I I recognize this was from before but now that it's those weren't public record before now this is so I just wanted to make sure clarify that for the public.

One of your um bullets here is um the uh you tell the um over uh 199 organized protests through a troubling time in our nation really um and only uh two arrests um and no reported property damage can you talk to how efficient or the efficiency of your your um your uh police department is uh contributed to that or what was it that you know that 199 organized um gatherings uh and only two arrests that's pretty remarkable so if could you speak about that?

Can you talk to how efficient or the efficiency of your your um your uh police department is uh contributed to that or what was it that you know that 199 organized um gatherings uh and only two arrests, that's pretty remarkable.

So if could you speak about that?

Yeah, I mean, you know, some of it was um uh the investments that you make in your community and the relationships that you have between your police department and your community, right?

If you have if you have community trust um when when things like that occur uh creating a dialogue, it's not you're not starting from gr from the ground and working your way up.

You know, if you're if you're trying to reach out and and engage with people about uh an issue as important as as police misconduct uh while uh while the tensions are high, it's not always as effective.

So a lot of that was the groundwork that was laid by um by myself and by previous chiefs and and by our our you know community officers and lieutenants and sergeants out there uh and everybody that interacted with the community.

We had a good relationship with the community when uh the murder of George Floyd occurred.

And so when those protests happened, um, you know, we we had some we had credibility uh as an agency.

Um another another thing is transparency.

You know, some of these are kind of buzzwords, but um we had put uh our policies out in a forward-facing policy portal through Power DMS um long before this occurred.

So when people talked about like why wouldn't this happen here?

You know, what what guarantees can you give us uh as many guarantees as you can that this wouldn't happen here?

And a lot of it was you know, we stayed up to date on our policy.

We made sure our policy talked about the sanctity of life, we made sure our policy addressed chokeholds and things like that.

Um and so and those people could look at on the line uh online.

They didn't have to do an FY request or anything like that.

Um and then it was probably you know our reaction, you know, looking at um we got out there early.

You know, I I was out in front of the police department on the very first day of those protests meeting with the protesters.

Um I remember that day uh well because that's one of those days where you say things can either go really well here or can go not so well.

Um and you know, I went out there with uh an assistant one of my assistant chiefs and one of my captains that wanted to come with me.

We went out there, we we had a nice conversation with the the folks that were leading the protests.

They gave me a little a little pink bullhorn, which there's pictures of that I can't uh I can't get deleted despite my best efforts.

Uh I I did buy a bullhorn after that in case I ever had to go out there again.

Um but you know, we were just genuine in the way we discussed things with folks.

Within a week we had some of the members of of Black Lives Matter 860, which is the area code in in the Hartford area, 860.

Um we had them in uh around a table to talk about what they would like to see different in in interactions and policy and training.

We we laid out how we go about all those things.

Um that really just kind of laid laid the groundwork for the next five, six months.

Um we were the capital city, so the protests all happened there.

Um it was everybody came to Hartford.

Uh and we watched as other police departments uh you know brought shields and helmets and batons.

We had bicycles that shut streets down so people could be heard and and walk around.

Was it an inconvenience sometimes for folks?

Yeah, when we shut down roads for you know 45, 50 seconds while while folks would walk through.

Uh there was some minor inconveniences.

Was it a lot less inconvenient than having to have officers stay in hotels and work 24 hour shifts because we had things on fire?

Uh I'll take the way we did it all day long.

And and a lot of that was not just me.

It was uh you know, the the team of officers that were working our our community events that were uh you know deciding how we go about uh disorder.

Um and we were prepared, you know, folks said like that's a big risk you did there, Chief.

You know, nobody wa everybody was standing on their heels.

What if it didn't go well?

We had we had preparations.

They just weren't visible.

Um they were ready in case we needed to respond, uh to either to either save, you know, look look around the country.

I mean, we we could have had to deploy to save protesters' lives, we could have had to deploy to to to protect property.

There's a million things that could have happened.

And we were prepared for all that.

But we didn't have this outward show of force that escalated the situation, and it led to um literally two people getting into an argument, one person spitting on one person and one person throwing a piece of asphalt at the other, and that was the dual arrest.

We we made them in the same day.

We made one on each on each team, and um and that was it.

Um so it worked out well.

It also helped, you know, some places you see in country in the country had you know professional protesters being bust in.

We had school teachers that were off because of COVID that just wanted change.

Um and how many times do we have an incident and call for change and no change, and then an incident and a call for change and no change, and then it calms down.

So it was kind of the perfect storm.

Um and and we you know we we ended up a much stronger PD with a with a much better relationship.

And I'll add and thank you for that.

So I'll ask one more question and I'll I'll yield for my colleagues because I'm sure everybody has some thing to discuss.

But um you kind of touched upon it in your explanation there with uh transparency and keeping the public informed and stuff, and uh I don't know about everybody else, I'll just speak for myself, but I I often hear that the communication piece between the um uh police department and the general public is you know there's a little bit of a breakdown there.

I think everybody even the general public realizes you can't say everything, especially about ongoing investigations, but it seems like uh not most of these things are not being uh shared with the public, only the accolades, which accolades are great.

Um and I understand the mentality of we don't want to be putting all of our dirty laundry out there, if you will.

Um but folks need to hear that too.

So I didn't know if there was uh if you have any idea if or how Hartford did it, but if there's you have any vision to uh increase, I guess that communication piece with the general public.

Yeah, I mean I it's hard to think of how you're gonna communicate externally in every situation that you encounter, but um, you know, if you look at how I did business in in my previous role, um, you know, we were transparent with just about everything, whether it was good news, whether it was bad news.

Um I I will admit that there are some different kind of rules at at play here in Massachusetts versus versus Connecticut when it comes to what you talk about.

You know, everybody handles personnel matters differently.

Um, so I lean on uh on the solicitor's office.

Um but as you know I I get more comfortable with that.

You also have you know that your your public component in a city agency also comes from your boss, right?

So working with the mayor to figure out exactly how we want this information to go out because we don't want it to be um bifurcated, we don't want it to come different ways.

Um but I am a I'm a big advocate of of being out front, not waiting for you know, hey, hey, we got a media inquiry, um let's put this out.

Um you know, I I took a media class uh many years ago uh where the kind of the philosophy was that if you if you're if you're active on your Twitter feed and if you're active in social media, you get to a point where you don't have to put press releases out.

They go to that feed because you're keeping them constantly, you know, in the loop.

Um there is a little bit of of kind of figuring that out in a new role like this, which is kind of what I'm in the process of doing.

But but my personal philosophy is that put it out early, put it out often, um, you know, and let everybody know that you know if it's something good, you're gonna reward it, and you're gonna want to see that behavior continue.

If it's not something good, you know, you're gonna want to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Thank you.

I did say that that was my last one, but you touched on it.

So the relationship with your boss, aka the administration, and putting that information out there.

Have you found that to be the case?

Is that a hurdle or have you been able to no?

I think it's just figuring out you know what you know what like I said, the the the mayor has many departments that you know that all have uh interactions with the media at one time or another.

Police is probably leads in that category just because of the nature of our work, but fire as well, EMS as well, um, you know, uh public works is what we called it.

But you know, when it when you start getting into snow season, you know, emergency management and and so there's a lot of that, and I just want to make sure that you know we don't end up in a situation where I'm doing that business differently than other departments.

And you know, maybe some of my ideas will will translate to other departments, and maybe some of theirs will translate to me.

But I definitely don't see it as a hurdle.

Um it's been five months, but I've got a great relationship with the administration and others over here that I that I meet with regular, probably more often than um than the solicitor once.

But um I got a lot of questions, what can I say?

Um so no, it's definitely not a hurdle.

It's just like you know, you you want to figure out kind of how you're gonna do this and make sure it's consistent.

All right.

Well, thank you, and uh good luck.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Council Alvin.

Council Abrew.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good evening, Chief.

Good evening.

Good to see you.

Um you certainly, since you've uh taken taken over at the helm, have been investing a lot um in the professional development of your staff and trainings.

I think it seems like your philosophy has certainly been not top down, bottom up.

Can you speak to that a little bit about sort of elevating your leadership team and your staff to give them more resources to do their jobs better?

Yeah, I mean we kind of we kind of already talked a little bit about budget in the world of resources, so we'll we'll we'll pause that conversation until next year uh when I'm when I'm up here on my knees begging for begging for more resources.

But um but when it comes to like career development and things like that, um, you know, the one thing that if you look at my resume, I was given a lot of great opportunities in my careers.

I had I had mentors that believed in me and and said, look, you know, we want you to do well and uh sent me to trainings that were great trainings.

So already um, you know, we've got I've got two uh I've got two uh mid and upper management folks going to PERF, the police executive research forum, um it's called SMIP, SMIP, Senior Management Institute for Police, it's on my resume.

Um it'll be on their resume soon.

But um I I have a lieutenant and one of the assistant deputies going to that this coming year.

Um the administrative officers course down in Louisville, Kentucky.

It's the uh it's the um Southern Police Institute, uh very well, very well regarded program.

Um I have the other assistant deputy chief will be attending that this coming year.

Um and then we've got kind of a new program that comes out of the University of Chicago that that's an advan that's similar, it's an advanced leadership program where they kind of come out and and recruit you.

It's a free program.

Uh they do a week on and and they do one week of the program every uh every every month for five months.

Um and I got uh one of my lieutenants in it before I left Hartford.

She just graduated not too long ago, um, and we're we've got a lieutenant from here heading out that way in in July.

Um so those are all kind of um investments in you know, not just in the educational component, but learning how other places do it.

I I will say um, you know, of the things that I saw here, and there's a lot of positives here, the one negative is how many times a day that I hear this is the way we've always done it.

Um that is a that is something that that I will change you know for sure.

Uh seeing the way other places do it, um talking to other professionals from across the country, learning from other places mistakes so you don't make your own.

Um that's really what these these programs are about.

Some of these programs you're in you're in the program with 80 other people.

Um and then kind of from the bottom up, um, I think we've got to give our officers opportunity.

If we look at like millennials today, um they're really kind of hungering for new things to do.

Uh you know, one early success we were able to do here is is add, you know, add an SRO at it at a community police officer.

Uh you know, the the it's kind of a negative, but but it comes from the right place.

Our new officers want to be like detectives tomorrow and they want to be like sergeants the next day.

And you know, they they just the the expectation of advancement and the hunger for doing something new is real.

Um so uh we we also did uh bike training, you know, getting officers out there.

So they're doing the same job, but they're doing it in a more visible way to the community.

Um unfortunately with the government shutdown, we had some grant funds that we were going to buy some new bicycles.

We got a little delayed in that, just long enough for it to be 14 degrees outside.

So you will see those bicycles in the spring and a bunch of officers that'll be out in the fresh air.

You'll be able to yell to them, which you can't do if they're in their cruisers with the windows rolled up.

Um it's kind of a hybrid between uh, you know, everybody likes walk beats, but walk beats limit us so much.

You can only get so far.

The bikes are a good middle ground.

So we'll keep doing that stuff and finding new things, uh, new challenges for the administration and new things for the the young officers to do.

Well, I was gonna ask you about the bikes, but I'm glad you brought that up.

I think that's a great hybrid, as you said, and it's very progressive as far as thinking goes.

Um the work that you and your team have done on the ATVs and the scooters, um your predecessors, I've I've been here for three chiefs before you, and I'm not putting them down, they're all great guys.

We had many a hearing about ATVs and scooters here, and your predecessors always had the laissez-faire attitude of, hey, we can't chase them, we'll do the best we can, but it is what it is.

Talk about your philosophy and how you've been able to really crack down on that and through your leadership and working with your team.

Yeah, I mean, some of that is you you gotta put yourself out there a little bit.

You know, there's no doubt that quads and ATVs and scooters and and all these things nowadays um pose a challenge for law enforcement.

You know, do you want to take somebody, um a kid, let's say, for this example, um, that's just out there joy riding and uh and and chase them with a cruiser, you know, God forbid they could get hurt, we could hurt another member of the public.

So there's a reason that there are some strict rules in place about chasing them.

But that doesn't mean that we can't, you know, use a little bit of uh uh we can't think outside the box and and and find different ways to do that.

Um we've done that uh where where I came from, we we had a lot of success with drones.

I think I mentioned that to some folks here um at the public safety committee, um uh and those those come in into play.

and uh and and chase them with a cruiser you know god forbid they could get hurt we could hurt another member of the public so there's a reason that there are some strict rules in place about chasing them but that doesn't mean that we can't you know use a little bit of uh uh we can't think outside the box and and and find different ways to do that um we've done that uh where where I came from we we had a lot of success with drones I think I mentioned that to some folks here um at the public safety committee um uh and those those come in into play but we've used fixed wing aircraft we've used helicopters uh as recently as a few weeks ago you know Massachusetts state police have really turned out to be a great partner with us in anything that we've asked them for um to to agree to bring a helicopter out for a for a scooter uh um uh a scooter interdiction uh event is pretty impressive um but you know fine finding where people oftentimes people bring them into the city uh on trailers finding where they're unloading them where they're then they joyride them and then they bring them back there's a lot of ways to do that you've just got to kind of you can't throw your hands up you've got to be proactive on it and you got to let your folks know that you'll back them up in in in the event that something goes wrong as long as you follow the policy you know somebody could get hurt at the end of the day folks are driving around at 1130, 12 o'clock at night with scooters.

We've had a couple shots fired incidents in the last month, month and a half uh that have been from a scooter stolen scooter two people on it one driver one person on the back that that fires rounds off they're dressed all in black uh they've got they've got ski masks on and they're driving a scooter around when it's 25 degrees at 1130 at night.

You don't have to be you know you don't have to go to detective school to know that there's something wrong with that picture.

And my encouraging the officers to take proactive action on that and letting them know listen, you know you've got to be careful but sometimes things happen and when they do I'm not gonna leave you out there hanging how often do you communicate with the leadership of the rank and file of the police union and how's the relationship been so far it seems like it's been pretty good between yourself and uh the leadership of the New Bedford police union.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

Absolutely I'm gonna but between threading the needle obviously you're their boss but you obviously need them and want them to work for you and with you and be happy so you've got to walk the line there but uh can you talk a little bit about that?

Absolutely so um I'm gonna knock on wood but um that the the union has been great so far.

The the president uh Lorenzo uh and the vice president Tony uh are uh I communicate with them at least once a week uh normally probably at least twice a week um on small little offshoot issues and then I meet with um the executive board once a month um and sometimes if we call a special meeting uh more often than that we've we've implemented committees because I want the officers to have a say in in how their department changes so we've implemented committees on the uniforms uh we've implemented committees on on getting time off on uh the 150th anniversary which is coming up next year which would be a big yeah for the New Bedford police department and each of those committees we go through the union uh to get representation on those communities uh on those committees so given the union a voice in in what goes on in that department other than grievances and other than you know contract negotiation and arbitration is important we've had a good relationship so far uh we both kind of led with hey listen we're not always going to be able to agree uh on the administration you're you're the union there are times that we're not going to agree but the good news is is there's pretty established uh you know protocols on how we do that you know go go to an arbiter and and the arbiter decides and then we it's not personal right so um I think the you know the union's been involved in everything that we've done um outside from presence with kids the other day we had you know we had folks from the union there doing that um you know when they need something whether it's a training day or whatever it is we you know we work hard to to accommodate them so I I think it's been uh very good I've been very pleasantly surprised um at how uh we've worked with the union so far.

That's great.

Last question for me, Madam Chair.

Um when you and I had a discussion the other day talking about a whole myriad of issues but there was one thing you had said to me that really stuck out in our conversation you're talking about how when you speak to your officers you encourage them that when they see things like litter on the street and if they are just parked or walking by pick it up.

If you see uh a pothole or a street light outload the C click fix app, let DPI know it's about that sense of working together and sort of dovetailing all of our departments together to really create that city of one so we're not in silos.

Talk a little bit about that.

I I thought that was very powerful.

Yeah I mean it the timing timing is good but uh it was one of the things that you know I kind of saw here we've got um you know I I will say that we've got a a a fleet of officers out there 24 hours a day seven days a week three hundred and sixty five days a year we're I probably the the leading eye and ear agency in the city of New Bedford you know fire department works 24-7 but you know nothing against the fire department sometimes they're in bed.

You know the the we're out there in the we're out there you're on the record chief I'll text Brian right now.

But uh they're not necessarily out there seeing these things all the time like our officers are so uh uh assistant deputy Corolla uh put together a nice little uh message and uh took the initiative to have the New Bedford Connect app put on all of the MDT so the MDT is a mobile data terminal.

Um so uh uh assistant deputy Corolla uh put together a nice little uh message and uh took the initiative to have the New Bedford Connect app put on all of the MDTs.

So the MDT is a mobile data terminal.

It's basically the laptop that's in every police car that goes out there.

So we have the the NB Connect app on all of those cars.

Um and really the message was a good one.

It was a message of encouragement.

You know, we a lot of us live here, uh all of us work here.

Um a lot of us have relatives, friends that live here, and we want to be proud of this city.

We want to be, you know, and we can we are kind of the the tip of the spear in in being able to report these issues and get them fixed.

So um i it literally we talked about it today, the the email went out today.

Today we got confirmation that um all of the the the uh the laptops have the app on it and it's something that we're gonna be pushing out through the lieutenants through the sergeants, just to say, you know, I I we don't I don't need you know the police officers to be dumping uh you know trash cans that are full of garbage in their in their trunks, but but they can report that and we can get somebody out there.

They can report a light out because we know crime prevention through environmental design, we want our lights to work.

We want we want the streets to be well lit.

Um we we want to if if a resident comes up to us and reports a rat issue, put it in there, you know.

Um let's make sure that we're following up on those things.

Those things are quality of life and and they affect us every day and they affect every resident every day.

Well, I wish you luck.

And you do have my vote of support tonight, so congratulations and keep up the great work, okay, Chief?

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, I'll yield thank you.

Council of April, Council Baptiste.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um Chief, thank you for coming here today.

How's everything going with you today?

Good, thank you.

I'm good.

Um couple of questions just to ask.

Um first and foremost, you know, you got hired in the summer.

I know it must have been a tough time like to start a new job, you know, vacation in time, probably had stuff planned outside of getting this job beforehand.

Um how did you get how fast did you get acclimated after fully move in to the city?

How long did it take you to fully move it and get into the city first of all?

Um get acclimated with your offices in the city as a whole, like in that whole time in that little time period.

So some of that is not a one-year plan, but it's still it's still going on, right?

So I I came to the case.

So yeah, as well, it's we're at we're at kind of at five almost almost to the day.

Um, you know, got got the call um from the mayor that I was going to get uh the position, um that he had selected me for the position.

I was on vacation with my family and my wife's family in in Maine, and I had so I had to drive from Maine back here through Boston traffic um for the announcement in June.

Um that Boston traffic was, you know, if I made it through that, it w I was all in.

Um so uh then you know, starting in July, uh I I lived in a hotel for the first week uh, you know, that I was that I was up here and then got an apartment very quickly, so it was only in that hotel for one week, and then I was in the apartment uh up in the north end.

Um and then recently Mo I when I bought a house in the south end and we are renovating that.

So um still acclimating in the world of like moving in.

I I will be very excited to move in to to our own house.

Um but uh but as far as acclimating to the city, um, you know, really that was expedited by the city um you know, from uh members of council to you know to the mayor to uh you know the the officers in the police department to the community uh as a whole.

It's just a very welcoming city, I can tell you from coming in from the outside.

Um I did not uh I did not get really any hostility.

You know, you get some folks that want to see some changes, and that's understandable.

Um but everybody's been great to both me and my wife.

So the acclamation process was quick.

Um like I said, I did not come in to any like active things on fire in the police department.

Um you know, there have been some recommendations that that we are gonna carry out.

I have found some things above and beyond those recommendations that uh you know that I think we'll we'll we'll look at and and with the with the team come up with some maybe some better ways of doing it.

Um but you know, it was um I've never come in uh when I did consulting for for many years, uh I would always come in, give advice, and then leave.

You know, this is the first time I actually came in as an outside chief, so I really didn't know what to expect.

Um but the welcome has been great.

Um the staff at the police department, both sworn and civilian have been great to work with.

Um and I I really couldn't have asked, I I wouldn't change a thing.

I couldn't have asked for it to go any better.

All right, thank you.

And um the the deputy chief position been open for a while.

How do you plan on and when do you plan on filling that position and do you plan on filling that position from within, or do you plan on having a search outside the department for the position?

I think that you know, with going outside the department for the chief, I think that you know, trying to keep some stability within the city.

You know, that's this is me personally, not everybody up over here would like to, you know, I would like to see someone, you know, people who start moving through the ranks in the city instead of having to go outside.

Nothing against you, you know what I'm saying, but like as far as moving forward, I would like to see, you know, more people become qualified in the city through trainings, through um through um moving up in rank, because there's you know, and there's been a lot of you know, promotions that have been stopped when it was time for people to you know move up in rank, and I and I think that it's been kind of unfair that way in the past that has nothing to do with you.

This is just stuff that's happened.

But getting back to the deputy chief position, what is your plan with that?

So um recently within the last few weeks, I've actually gone through the and and created the posting for that position.

So that position will be coming out uh within the next week or two.

As far as where it's going to be posted, um, you know, one of the things uh that was pretty apparent uh as I went through the process was uh you know, the and and in my conversations with the mayor since the process is that you know the goal is to really make sure that we have the very best people in the positions um that are that are doing the work.

Uh that said, uh I can I can attest as I stand here today that we have some very qualified, strong uh people within the New Bedford Police Department.

You heard me talk about some of the trainings, two uh the my highest ranking folks right now are two assistant deputy chiefs.

Both of those are going to high level uh chiefs trainings for lack of a better term, leadership command trainings in this coming year.

Uh it is my goal that someday, hopefully many moons from now, um when I move on uh to either full retirement or to another job or whatever it might be that this department is in a place where uh uh uh a lifelong new Bedford officer takes takes the chair and becomes the chief of police, and I feel like that's one of my responsibilities is to prepare them for that.

Um you know, in in looking at kind of where the police department is now, I think you know, I'm a little biased, but I I think that this is a good time to get an outside look um at kind of how other places do it, not just how not just the way New Bedford's done it.

So that posting will go out uh to both internal and external candidates to see um what's out there and who's gonna apply for the job.

Uh and and we'll go from there.

Um but like I said, that is not because I don't think that we have um qualified people internally.

Um and then as we fill those positions, backfilling the positions behind that is also important.

Um but law enforcement is one of those jobs where you don't want to be learning as you go.

You know, you've got to establish a a pretty solid foundation um to make sure that you're making sound decisions because sometimes those decisions are truly life and death.

I mean we just can sit and watch recent events um you know on television and and some agencies just answer the bell uh better than others, and a lot of that is because of the leadership that's in place there.

So my commitment is to make sure that any promotion I make, any position that I fill is filled with somebody that I'm confident can that can do that job on day one.

Um so those positions will be filled shortly um and and uh um uh and and by the the best candidate uh to your point.

I I I truly hope that that that is somebody that's uh that's uh uh uh a lifer here in Bedford PD.

Yeah, uh because I heard you talk about trainings and sending guys on trainers.

I think that that's been um I think a lot of people went on trainings in the past, but it was a lot of the same people that went on trainings in the past.

And I think that hindered a lot of people from getting promotions in the past and moving up in rank and stalling out where they you know could possibly reach their zenith within the department.

So and and that's what we worry about too.

And like I'm gonna say, it's spreading the wealth on that for sure.

Yes, yeah, you know, it's it, you know, a lot of the it wasn't like that.

And like I said, there was there was a lot of um stalling when it was time for guys to get promoted in rank as well.

Um and I know, you know, hearing from uh a bunch of officers that I that I grew up with and that are friends um within the police that like I I I wasn't even expecting calls from from people in and you know, just just saying that, you know, they was worried about how they feel about their their moving up and you know how things get stalled when you know when they st when people start moving up in the ranks.

And it's normally um Kver I'm gonna be honestly Cape Verdean and Spanish offices.

Um they usually get stalled, they feel like they get stalled going forward, um, and there's always freezes.

And I think that you know, we I think that we need to do a better job as far as not like I said, this is the past baggage, not you know what you're doing, and hopefully this all gets cleaned up that we get you know guys treated equally within the force, you know, equally trained, um so they have uh room for ad so they have you know a chance for advancement and doing things like that.

But I I commend you for doing the job that you're doing, hopefully, you know, you do it with safety and you know you're fair.

And that's all I asked for.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Baptiste.

Council Burgo.

Thank you, um, Madam Chair.

Uh so kind of piggybacking off uh my colleague from Ward 4, uh you know, I share some of the the same sentiments that um he shared um in regards to not just the deputy chief position, but I know there's a captain position and other positions when we're talking about promotions or even just appointments.

Um typically I wouldn't ask this of a candidate, but obviously in the unique situation that we all know that we're in here, you're obviously been working in this position.

Um so with that, I guess the question I would have is in regards to uh morale overall.

Um that would be the elephant in the room that I would want to address first and foremost.

What would you say in regards to the experience?

I know you spoke a little bit to the fact that you've felt welcomed.

Um but if we're being honest here, who's not gonna be nice to the boss, right?

Um but you'd be surprised.

Well, that's true, yeah.

So I guess you know, if you could speak a bit more candidly on what you've experienced with when it comes to being an outsider coming in and knowing that New Bedford tends to be more so I'm sure you've heard from my public remarks and from others in this room that we wanted a a chief that was from New Bedford, and obviously we're expressing to you now when it comes to other positions that we're hoping that a internal candidate, not only an internal candidate, but someone from New Bedford, because even earlier, as you mentioned, you shared with us, which I was glad to hear, that one of the things that set uh this department apart from Hartford was the fact that you the recruitment and retention piece was a lot easier because of the fact that you had people from New Bedford that were willing to serve.

Um so that's I think uh speaks to what we're trying to say here, and I think you've you've already seen that.

So with that, I'll I guess I'll hear from you.

Yeah, uh I think you know there's not um there's pros and cons for from coming coming from the outside.

Uh but one of the pros that I have found is that I think there's always in law enforcement my previous agency and other agencies that I've consulted with and worked with, there's always this kind of perception of like, you know, who's aligned with who gets certain things, whether it's training or the new car, or whether it's like who gets, you know, i it's discipline fair across the board.

And there's perceptions about that internally, uh, you know, in the New Bedford Police Department.

I'm literally the only person that's not that didn't start my career in the New Bedford Police Department that's currently there.

Uh everybody else uh ha has come up through there and they've aligned themselves in certain ways.

We there's been, you know, I I I've heard everything that there is to hear about how previous chiefs may have done it.

And and the goal here is to kind of you know start fresh in that regard.

And I don't have uh I don't have favorites.

I I don't have people that I was um you know on the tactical team with like I did in Hartford where people are knocking on your door, hey, we went through doors together.

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

You still have to be disciplined the same as everybody else.

Um that's tougher when you've worked side by side with people for 20 years than when you kind of come in from the outside.

You're able to be more independent.

Um that said, you know, the decisions to promote and and hire uh is kind of uh is a team approach with me and the mayor.

Um you know, this is uh there is a difference here uh where uh in Hartford where I came from, um, you know, I I made all those decisions.

I fired, I I hired, I I promoted, I demoted.

Um, you know, here uh that ultimate authority, you know, rests with the mayor.

Um so uh you know working through that is is kind of a plan, and the plan that we had, you know, is is to fill the senior leadership team um first.

And the reason, as I said, that that the deputy chief position is going to be posted outside is to see who applies for that job and and what the credentials are for the people that apply for that job.

You know, that said, I completely agree with you.

It's it's great to see and I consider it one of my probably most important roles is to prepare the folks here in the New Bedford Police Department to lead the New Bedford Police Department and not and not look to the outside.

I think that's the goal of a lot of places.

But if you look around in Hartford for example I did 28 years there not counting myself I had 11 chiefs in 28 years.

That that equates to just a little over two year life expectancy of a chief.

It's hard when there's inconsistency like that.

And of them I think three or four were outsiders.

And those were times where it was clear that we needed a look we needed a different look.

We're living in a time as we spoke earlier from some of the first questions where there was this like kind of vacuum where people that could retire left.

And many of them were in positions to kind of come up and be you know the next the next leadership in in the in the department.

You know we had a captain retired just before I got here.

So it's kind of this balancing act where you you want to see the officers within the ranks of the New Bedford police department or any police department move up and take on more responsibility.

But you want to make sure they're that they're ready for that responsibility.

The worst thing you can do is is give them responsibility that they where they don't know what they're doing and they're not ready for it or they just haven't done it.

Sometimes that takes time.

Most of the time where I've seen outside folks come in it's it's because you know a change was necessary and they came in, made those changes, prepared people for those roles and the department then moved on with with uh you know in a stronger place and better prepared for kind of the next the next chapter.

You know I I can't tell you you know what who's going to apply for those jobs but I can tell you no internally that is my goal is to fill those those positions.

There is a lot less to be honest there is a lot less decision making when it comes to other ranks right there there's a civil service process here.

You know if if I want to make a uh a captain I I generally have to go right by that list.

Same with Lieutenant same with sergeant you know you've got some ability to to do it differently when it comes to detectives and community officers and SROs.

You know there we have the ability to sit down and say round peg round hole you know who do we want in these spots with a civil service process the way that this one is you know you know you promote off that list.

And so I would love to have the ability to you know reach to to make assessments here and reach down and promote people that I think you know would do great things for the diff for the for the diverse sections of community that are in New Bedford.

You know there's a lot of diversity here.

The reality is that some of those positions are tested and and that's the person that you have to promote.

So when you're looking to diversify you know your your ranks stuck with with with those um with those uh those test scores right in heart in in Connecticut and and especially in Hartford I had the rule of three so if I wanted to make one promotion I was given three names off the list.

People took a test just like here and they were ranked just like here but I didn't know their ranking.

All I knew was that I asked for three I asked for one promotion say let's use captain as example I said I I want to promote a captain I got I got three names.

I had no idea where they finished on the list.

If it was a fresh list you you got number one number two and number three but I didn't know how that was did interviews looked at their history looked at their discipline history their missing reports their sick time looked at everything that I could look at.

If I if one person, if I could make a selection, I would make a selection of of those from those three people and it could be the number thir three person, it could be the number two person, it could be the number one person.

I didn't know that.

If I couldn't make a decision because everybody was equal everyone was awesome right then I would say give me the the highest the person that finished highest on the test and then HR would give me that name and that would be the person that got promoted.

So I had a little bit more room you know to to do that round peg round whole thing.

I also can see the other side of that depending on the chief that you have that could be abused and you know you get to the to the good old boy network where we're certain people again promoted off that list of three.

So I think there's there's give and take there but um you know my commitment is to make sure that we put New Bedford police department in the strongest place possible so we're making the best decisions possible and keeping the community as safe as possible.

Great.

Are you concerned?

I would say, I guess the direct question would be, are you concerned at all about the morale when it comes to the New Bedford police force or the department as a whole?

So five months is tough to say anything solid.

Again, sometimes you know the being the boss is a little bit is a little bit difficult.

But um, you know, the reaction that I've gotten from, you know, I predominantly am with the command staff way more often than I'm with uh you know the the line level officers.

But I'm out there at roll calls on Thanksgiving.

I'm out there at roll calls, you know, when when things occur um, you know, uh you you like to praise in public and chastise in private, so when things go well, we're you know, we just gave uh some some pins and some coins out to a couple officers that delivered a baby.

So I like to be out there and doing that kind of stuff.

My assessment of it is that um that the morale is improving.

Um that uh I could be wrong there, right?

I mean, I think that's where you talking to your neighbors and the people that you know, and like uh like Councilman Baptiste said, you know, folks that that are in the police department that you went to school with.

Um I encourage you to talk to those people and if and if you hear concerns to bring them to me.

You know, there's they're not gonna walk into my office and say, hey man, I really don't agree with this.

Uh that's the reality is that's not gonna happen.

Um I don't think the morale in the I've seen bad morale in my 28 years in law enforcement.

I don't think that the morale in the New Bedford Police Department is bad.

Um I think they've got some reasons.

Um listen, they they the contract is going to arbitration in law enforcement.

That's that's tough for officers to swallow.

Um no one has blamed me for that.

You know, I kind of came in uh when that ship had kind of already sailed.

Um I think it would be good if we get that you know squared away sooner rather than later, uh whether that's through arbitration or through through finding uh you know common ground.

Um but some of that stuff's not uh not in my hands.

I think if there is a morale issue, it probably surrounds that based on what I've seen, and getting that, you know, getting the contract done uh will I think will be good for everybody, good for the city, be good for me, and it'll be good for the officers.

But but I have not um really witnessed poor morale within um the ranks of of the of the New Bedford Police Department from the command staff that I work with more regularly uh down through the officers.

I think um you know I've bumped into officers at Walmart that have introduced me to their kids.

You know, I've I've been out there.

I think a lot of it is being present.

I've been out there at at all the events, at the presence for kids events, interacted with them, met their met their wives, met their kids.

Um, I think um I think that's been a welcome change for them.

Good.

Um the other uh highlight here uh under your resume uh during your time as uh assistant chief of police, uh uh it's highlighted here that you were the liaison to the city council there in Hartford, um, which I was excited to to read.

Um I'm sure you are aware of the uh relationship between the mayor's office and the city council.

Um I guess the question that I would have to you is just do you plan on still having a role of that uh type of being a liaison?

Uh oftentimes uh our public safety chairman will ask for the chief to attend our meetings.

Um will you take the approach of coming to those meetings and and being responded uh responsive to uh either our public chairman or sending an assistant deputy or deputy chief?

So two two kind of answers.

One, yep, as soon as uh I was invited I came.

Um I will I intend on being here.

Uh it was odd, I will say, I can say this now because I'm stayed away.

Um for me to be the one going to those meetings.

I started doing that when I was a captain uh and I was kind of sitting in in front of City Council.

There was 11 uh council members in Hartford.

Uh and the chief didn't attend.

It was it was just me.

And sometimes the questions are kind of about like policy and philosophy, and you know, I uh I never got myself in trouble, but it was always sometimes kind of odd that like I I wasn't that that the chief wasn't there.

Ironically enough, when I became chief, that was no longer an option.

Uh the mayor said, you're you're the one that's gonna go.

And I think that's the right call.

I think the chief should be here.

But in the world of preparing, um, as as both of them, both of my assistant deputy chiefs are here um saying I'm thankful I'm not that guy, uh it's I do want them to be the ones that come here and get this experience, right?

Kind of knowing um making sure that you're prepared.

It's important.

Um and and so they they will come with me.

I will bring different people depending on the topic.

You know, there's been topics from towing cars where we bring somebody from the traffic division.

So I'll bring people with me, but yes, I will be the one that that comes here, unless something happens.

I think there was one meeting where we had uh something that was on the agenda and I unfortunately had to be back in Connecticut because I still have a couple lingering um you know things to do there uh with with the house back there and stuff but um actually ADC um B long was here in my stead.

But uh unless for some reason I can't be here I will be the one that's here.

Well I appreciate that and I I think obviously you might not be able to make every meeting but I think the overall theme that I'm looking forward to is just the open communication for us.

There's been a breakdown of communication I would say and we've seen in the past oftentimes department heads not just whether it's the police department or the any other department head um might have been instructed to not communicate directly with the city council and I think that's more so where my questioning is to make sure maybe not that you can't attend a 7 p.m meeting at night but that that open line of communication is there.

So I was glad to see that you have experience being able to communicate with the different elected officials and personalities and at the at the interest of public safety.

Absolutely that can be a tightrope as we know you know political this is a as much as uh I don't think police officers get in this job to end up you know in political positions there's no question that being the chief is a is a political position.

So you know I it's I I've I've got the advantage of having walked that tightrope before but um you're not gonna you're not gonna get uh a lack of communication out of me for sure.

And the the other aspect here uh under your tenure in Hartford and now as chief of uh during your uh time as chief of police you mentioned expanding the community policing and it highlights including faith based and non-governmental organizations to address quality of life concerns.

So I guess my question now especially uh even in your short time that you've had are there partnerships you've already started to build or you plan to build especially as we know here in New Bedford uh our the unhoused population that continues to grow other quality of life issues that are major concerns in New Bedford uh have you crafted a plan in that sort to mirror that um approach with the many faith-based organizations that we have so yes um so but that's uh that that's one of those ones that kind of takes a village right that's not a police department centric plan the last thing I want to do is come in and create a plan that does you know that may not include everyone so as as recently as as last week um I met with the mayor and with the uh chief operating officer and some of the folks that kind of surround the unhoused population and how we respond um we're going to be meeting on the HART protocol and try to you know try to make that uh work more efficiently and come up with some some plans that bring in all the different that pull all the different levers that's not just the police centric plan.

You know on our side that there we have a role and it's an important one.

On our side we're meeting with you know we with the uh I'm gonna call it the state's attorney's office but it's not called that the district attorneys uh meeting with the judges to try to explain to them we had some success in Hartford in saying uh and getting some of the more serious offenders that are not just unhoused but are making it unsafe for other unhoused people um you know a lot of times these folks are victimized and we don't know about it.

Um when it be when it gets to that point that's where kind of the law enforcement piece really has to take action.

And when we do, we have to communicate to the courts that this isn't just like we're not looking to flood the courts with arrests for trespassing and uh you know and disorderly conduct and things like that.

When we make that arrest it's because we've tried all other avenues you know and I think that that's where the courts start to take what you do more seriously and they don't they don't dismiss things as as summarily as they as they get credit for unfortunately a lot every you know everyone everywhere I go I hear people complain well you know if you arrest them the courts just let them go.

If you look at some of our uh you know uh uh feel good stories that we put out on on Facebook you know you get a lot of cynicism in the comments that the courts are just gonna let them go.

Well if you kind of present a plan to them that says look this isn't this isn't our only approach.

This is one prong of of a multifaceted approach.

And these are the things that we've tried with this individual and this individual be it a he or a she is going to either harm himself or harm you know a a member of the community or harm somebody that you know a somebody else that's in the unhouse population and this is why we have to take this seriously and we have to get them some mental health help or we have to you know take them out of of that environment to so that we change something.

We can't just keep putting them out in the same environment and expect the change.

So I think that's the kind of collaboration that that has been successful in the past.

The faith-based piece um we've got some some reverend that I've met with uh that work with the police department um but but I think we can expand that more the NGOs um I think New Bedford PD and actually the city of New Bedford has a a really big head start in that just the other day um we had we we we doled out five hundred thousand dollars in the opioid money um to some of the uh you know PACA and some of the other uh uh NGOs that that do some of this work here there's a there's a good head start there um you know can we um can we make sure that we're we're all kind of marching to the same beat better?

The NGOs um I think New Bedford PD and actually the city of New Bedford has a a really big head start in that just the other day um we had we we we doled out 500,000 in the opioid money um to some of the uh you know PACA and some of the other uh uh NGOs that that do some of this work here there's a there's a good head start there um you know can we um can we make sure that we're we're all kind of marching to the same beat better sure uh on the police department side um but I think there's a there's a real um there's a real advantage to New Bedford there uh I do think we can do more with the faith based side though especially in a community that's got a lot of um got a lot of churches got a lot of ministers got a lot of people here that are willing um to kind of extend um extend their assistance through the police department because when it came to being successful with protests um the uh the faith based voice was a loud one you know when they have a hundred two hundred sometimes five hundred people in their congregation and they invite me there um and and say listen you know we we trust what what the police department is doing they're not going to be perfect all the time put their hearts in the right place that resonates a lot with with the community so I I think we're gonna we're gonna build more on that faith based piece for sure great yeah and that as you mentioned the heart uh team or heart protocol year I I know I noted that you had been the chief to implement it in Hartford which the H there stood for Hartford here it stands for homeless yeah um but that was a comfort to me knowing that it's something important that uh uh my colleagues and I often uh utilize uh often here in New Bedford so um with that um I'll yield uh and I I thank you again for being here tonight and for serving thank you thank you counselor Burgo Council Gomes thank you madam chairman chief thanks for being here and welcome to the city of New Bedford I think I've done that already several times um thank you I want to go right away to what makes you ready to be promoted in this city in in in your department you should you you to you spoke on that that you want to make sure that people are ready to assume positions.

I've seen a lot of people assume positions in this city and whether they were ready or not I think it was a learning experience as it came as the position came.

So I just want to um touch on what do you mean by that you want to want to promote from what the in inside and I'm going to tell you something I've been here for a long time I'm not into the good good old buddy network.

That doesn't make a great police force the good old buddy network just takes care of certain people and does not take care of a department as a whole and I'm looking for that if I could if you could answer that question.

Yeah absolutely so I don't know that anybody can be a hundred percent prepared for everything and I I think it's unfair to ask that but what I'm looking for especially in senior leadership right um you know and it's different with every rank you know when what you're looking for in an officer being promoted to detective is uh their history and how they handle cases.

Do they see things through do they uh turn over every rock do they go back the next day and and check with the victim and and do they knock on every door and see if there's cameras do they look for technology what do they do that shows you that they have the mindset and and the stick to it to be a good detective that's detective.

Supervision do you have people that that generally follow the rule that know the rules they know the union contract they know the policy they follow those things uh they go about their business in a professional way nobody's perfect people will have uh you know blemishes but generally speaking they practice what they preach um they they've they've been an FTO they've been a mentor to a new officer they've taken a new officer under their wing that makes a good supervisor when you get to the higher levels when you get to the assistant deputy chiefs the deputy chiefs uh the you you know the have you run a station have you run a shift have you been involved in changing policy have you had to go um have you had to deliver bad news have you had to discipline an officer um have you had to do uh an in an investigation into officer misconduct and and call somebody out on that misconduct so those roles are are different depending on what you're being promoted into but experience is key um you can't create it you can create training though and training translates into experience so that's why I think it's so important to do some of these senior leadership trainings at the top and do some of the I I failed to mention it earlier but um uh we're we are also going to bring in for every sergeant and above all the way up through me uh on three separate days we're gonna bring in an outside entity to come in and do supervision training that talks about conducting investigations um one of the things here that that that I am changing is PSU professional standards unit did a lot basically all of the misconduct investigations here you had if you have an officer that um you know procedurally does something wrong in the course of their in the course of their work uh it's not uh an illegal search it's not uh it's not a citizen complaint they didn't accost a citizen but they just didn't do something right they didn't follow a policy they didn't follow a procedure you need the people that they work for to do that investigation their supervisor their sergeant that and their lieutenant and their captain have to

Um you had if you have an officer that um you know procedurally does something wrong in the course of their in the course of their work.

Uh it's not uh an illegal search, it's not uh it's not a citizen complaint, they didn't accost a citizen, but they just didn't do something right.

They didn't follow a policy, they didn't follow a procedure.

You need the people that they work for to do that investigation.

Their supervisor, their sergeant that and their lieutenant and their captain have to be in the loop on that.

If you just punt it over to PSU, the professional standards unit, they do an investigation, they've got no context behind that employee.

They don't know what other good things they've done.

So when they're rec making a recommendation about retraining versus disformal discipline, uh how severe the discipline is, they're doing it kind of without that context, right?

And then they also we don't have a chain of command that understands what happened and how we fixed it and how to prevent it from happening again.

So empowering these folks um in in the supervision levels uh to to do their job and to understand that the goal here um is to correct issues and make sure that they don't happen again.

So I think that that um that combined with some academic training in the do's and don'ts, some knowledge of the of what liability looks like when you don't do that.

Um if you bring pull an officer aside and you discipline them, maybe an oral reprimand, you might not get a Christmas card from them.

But if you don't correct that behavior, he might have to be terminated if he doesn't get back on the tracks, right?

If he doesn't get back on the straight and air, if he doesn't learn how to do the job the right way, could lead to much worse discipline.

I'd rather see him have a have a fulfilling career that and not get a Christmas card than than the alternative.

You've spoke tonight about um going to the outside for a deputy pos uh chief's position or or whatever.

Um let me ask you something.

You you said there's a um uh um a working relationship with the administration.

But who is running this department?

You.

Oh yeah, I have not I have not had any interference.

You you um uh That's what I'm getting at.

I are you going to be a chief that runs the department or would you and I don't mean to put you in this situation, would you um do what you're told by the boss knowing that it's not the right thing to do.

I mean that's a that's a tough one.

So whether I think it's the right thing to do and whether it's not a lawful order are two different things, right?

Um I will never do uh I will never carry out an unlawful order.

Um at the end of the day, the way that city government works is that the mayor is in charge.

Um the mayor selected me because a lot of our visions align.

All of the conversations that I've had with him in the last five months have been great and he's been very supportive.

Um sometimes he has points that I didn't think of, and I think sometimes I have points that he didn't think of.

Um but I would always uh follow a lawful order.

Now I was told many moons ago when I went to PERF in 2015, so over a decade ago, I was told um never take a chief's job that you can't walk away from.

Um it was true when I took the Chief's job in Hartford, and it's true here.

Uh if I ever found myself so misaligned with philosophy, um, whether it be uh you know, city government as a whole, the mayor, whatever it might be, um I'm I'm always willing to to uh to walk away from from a position before I'll do something that um that I think is is is wrong.

Um that's about the best way I could answer that question.

How would you um handle uh well uh I've seen how it's being handled and you have a very I think you have a great relationship going on with the state police right now as far as these scooters and everything out on the streets and uh just the other night uh uh Representative Markey has filed a bill to help out uh what I've seen with the interaction of your department and the state police is one good working relationship as far as this is concerned, and I I would hope that that would continue.

I want to get back to um within the department and and I've always been a fan of cheering on those that have come up through the ranks and think that those that come up through the ranks where they uh local or live just outside the city, whatever, they came through the New Belfort Police Department should have every opportunity to rise within the department and not um so much look for the outside.

In your case uh the this administration wanted to uh go on looking for a chief but not only local you wanted to go on the outside.

Would you do you support every officer having that opportunity to climb through the ranks.

I think you touched on that before but I just want to make that a little more clear that we have uh a a chief that's in place that i it will recognize the men and women within this department as they do the work and and look to to rise up the ladder.

And again I'll go to that good old boy network.

I didn't get the position but counsel Pereira got it because he's closer to you.

Yeah I mean I I I think I've said it a couple of times and it's uh you can't say it uh often enough.

I mean I I find I believe that one of my key responsibilities is preparing um everyone in the department for the next step uh if that's a step they want to take uh I also believe that there's no shame in the officers that want to stay patrol officers their whole career.

It's a fulfilling job um it's uh in my opinion it's God's work that they're doing out there on the on the on the front not everybody wants to be a supervisor but I think even in the short time uh you know I've shown an investment in in the folks that are here um in opportun in giving them opportunities that that they may not have had the previous thing I think what I'm trying to say to you Chief is that um looking for the opportunity for the men and women to come up through the department to just have that opportunity that that opportunity is is not taken away and um you know there's been some rumblings about some different changes and I haven't seen it yet and I'm gonna tell you sitting here as chair of public safety and I've been here 34 years and I'm very proud of that and very proud of the accomplishments within the department and what I've had an integral part of whether it was tasers or the cameras or computers in the cruisers I somewhat have been ahead of my time as far as what equipment is to to the department would you um I I I heard you say about the drones would you be in favor of going full out with it with drone um patrols in the city of New Bedford?

Drone is first responder, yeah.

I mean drone patrols it I guess it depends on kind of how I call it a drone patrol I I mean I'm looking yeah I'm not looking to send a toy up in the air.

Yeah.

Some departments have uh you know I've been in the situation here where we talked about drones and I we were showing them some plastic stuff.

I want something that's can deal with the weather can deal with almost anything and uh again be an integral part of helping this department to be a better department to protect the people of this city.

Not um tech technology is the next step.

I mean uh we in Hartford we were able to to create a real-time crime center that I sent um some folks from from New Bedford down to take a look at um that you know it it's not cheap.

Uh we're gonna have to work together to find money to to fund that kind of thing but um you you know there's a lot to consider in a drone program and there's a lot of people that have made that mistake including uh myself and Hartford we purch our the first drones that we purchased were drones that came from uh China and had the potential to be a security risk and we had to down we had to deadline them and we had to get different ones right so um you know that that um th those again i you know there's it's sometimes it's good to be the first one and sometimes it's good to learn kind of when other people uh are doing that sort of stuff but you you look at you know pluck anything from the headlines look look at the tragedy at Brown University.

You know the the public expects there to be more video footage of that incident so that we can catch that person quicker.

Ten years ago nobody would be we'd be excited if we found one little piece of video that might connect us to that crime.

But if you looked at many of these crimes nowadays they're being solved through technology through video um you know through analytics uh so I I am very much a proponent of that I watched the the landscape of public safety change in Hartford through that technology but we have to accept the fact that it's not inexpensive and and and investment is is key in that in those areas.

And I would agree with you that the the support for that would if it's really taken seriously in this Commonwealth in the city in the Commonwealth in this country I would see state and federal assistance for that.

And I'm surprised I haven't seen a bill come out of Washington yet to address mainly public safety and in increasing their abilities to have the 21st century um technology, whether it's drones, whatever it may be within um uh your your hands to um I'm sorry, within your department's hands to um protect the people of the city.

Uh Chief, how would you um deal with some of the minor things that go on in the city?

And I've heard you talk about it already, but um I I'm gonna give you some scenarios.

I have a beach area down here you know about the water area down here in the South end.

I've continuously on the city council tried to help with putting up signage which your department has told me the signage and the rules and regulations makes it easier for the department to enforce.

What I'm basically asking you if we say that there's no pocket down the beach at nine o'clock after nine p.m, are you going to enforce these rules?

These minor rules that would um I and I think send a clear message to to the public is that it's not a bully force here but we have rules and regulations that we work on the in the city in order to give quality of life issues to the people that live within them areas and the safety of those areas.

Would you um be in favor of that kind of approach with your men and women I'm talking about the the car the and the the the cars that are parked at nightclubs throughout the city that are right up on the sidewalk impeding impeding the pedestrian walkway.

Maybe even the safety of emergency vehicles or whatever.

That type approach to um like I said we're not bullying you but you you did wrong you broke the law I got to ticket you and I've got to move you.

Will you be taking that kind of approach.

So I'm not sitting here at night receiving calls or my colleagues receiving calls that 1130 at night we've got a hundred people down the beach and we haven't addressed the issue where we should address the issue right away at nine o'clock and send a clear message that the beach is shut down, the parks are shut down.

Yeah absolutely I you know I think there's there I have found in my experience that there's some things to that right you got to make sure that um that the message is being sent and received and that what you're doing is being successful in solving the problem.

If you give out you know 200 tickets on the peninsula and there for you know ten dollars or fifteen dollars uh people are going to come back and park there tomorrow.

Um so uh one of the things that we ran into that I've ran into in my history is that you've got to look at what what are you going to do that will change behavior.

Your goal is to change behavior.

We don't want to have to ticket cars at nine o'clock we want them to leave and not have to ticket them at nine o'clock.

So are you just going through the motions the way we've always done it and are we just ticketing to ticket?

Is it a revenue generator?

Because that I don't support.

What I do support is doing things to change behavior.

In in in what I've looked at and I haven't had a full summer down there yet um I did go down there uh and look at a couple of the issues um not just in the South end but in the north end as well um and I do think that there may be some changes that might need to be made uh if if it is our goal to actually change behavior.

Um we've got to do something that's that's results driven.

And if you look at you know if you look at the fact that um that that problem has been going on a long time we've got to do something else.

We've got to do something different.

Can't do the same thing.

Also staffing it is is another issue as we as we get more cops out there, we have more time to do quality of life enforcement at 9 o'clock on a Friday on a sunny day when people are are are parked at at the beach there is a good chance that we're stacking calls for service and can't uh every day can't release a cop right at nine o'clock right so as the staffing increases we have more officers that can do that.

As we're able to put community police officers in those roles they become the ones that focus on doing that sort of thing.

So I think there's a lot to that approach but you you can't let you can't let the tail wag the dog and I understand what you're saying about the priority calls and you're not going to go down the beach but um if we've got a proper plan in place we don't have to worry about that.

I often talk about a plan a plan of action this is the the chief's plan of action myself council Pereira put together a a a action plan for the South end you know bring the traffic down to 20 miles an hour asking that we move everybody out of there at the nine o'clock hour and it's not because you don't want people to enjoy the atmosphere or the water side that we are very lucky to have it's just it turns into something else.

It's not the same of old it's the bottles of liquor out it's it's the loud music it's it's the dancing and that's where I see that getting out of hand and when I say a proper plan meaning nine o'clock comes as soon as we can get a unit or you've already assigned a special unit just for that approach to the beach areas to make sure that it's it's clear or any other area in the city as you said not whether it's northwest or whatever um that that approach is made.

I I I think it makes it a lot easier for the department then going there at 1130 when you've got a hundred rowdy people who are drunk and everything and now you've got to call every assisting unit to try to move everybody where we arrive at nine o'clock and you have a speaker and you tell everyone that the beach is closed and you have a tow truck standing right by with you because those that do not want to again I don't want to bully people but I also want the law enforced and I think I'm not saying we haven't but we've let some of the minor things go that um we should just put the the gas on and send a clear message law and order in the city of New Belfort and the quality of life and everything else can be a beautiful thing.

And we see it in other places wherever we go and the the the the police get the respect and the people also get the respect in return for the proper um attitude.

I agree.

Last thing I say to you Chief is that um I look forward to you your your work and your implementing please always consider um the men and women at this department a lot of them have put their hearts and soul into the job that they do.

We've got 99 percent I said I've been around for long we've got 99 percent of people out there that come to work every day and just want to do a job and protect the people of the city that you would see that that um that happens and that um me and yourself as I've offered you you can get a perspective from your department on what they see.

I can give you a perspective of 34 years of what I've seen in this city, what the changes that have come through this city, the approaches by the department in in solving crimes or whatever.

A lot of things have happened in this city that we were somewhat in denial about and uh I I don't want to see you in that position.

I want to see you in the front of that position and I would hope that me and you would have that opportunity to take that ride as I I've offered to you as chair of public safety just so I can show you a perspective of what I've seen, what I've learned and what I've learned from your men and women and many of them on this department because they're just that kind of caliber.

You always have like a that one percent that don't really want to have anything to do with political with the politics but that's okay.

I don't play I don't play it as a politic game.

I look at it as a position that I have the position that you have I want it the best for the department I want the best for the people thank you Chief.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Gomes.

Thank you, Councillor Gomes.

Counselor Shocet?

Yeah Okay.

Thank you.

Counselor Abraham Yeah this would be very quick.

Just one last question for you Chief I didn't get to ask you and it didn't come up during this hearing.

What's been your directive with immigration customs enforcement if you had department obviously you can't and won't impede with federal ICE investigations or actions but what's been your directive and uh what do you tell men and women to do if and when they come across ICE officers or that they've been reaching out for communications or have they and how does it all kind of play out just so the community knows kind of what your philosophy is on ICE.

Yeah I think you know in the in the interest of time probably the best way to see that is we we put out a directive publicly we put out a directive within the department and then we also made that a forward facing document that's both on the website and we put it out through social media.

So when I got here long story short there really was no directive on on what the New Bedford police officers were expected to do when it came to ICE.

I looked at Massachusetts law um looked at you know kind of the the the broader uh picture of at land landscape of what's going on in the country and uh we came up with a very comprehensive directive on responding to these issues.

You've seen uh I also think uh you know it's important to to to give clarity like every time uh people in the community see uh a uh you know uh a federal agency or an unmarked car with with some vests on they automatically assume it's ice so we've tried to be proactive in putting out you know hey no this is the investigation it's a it's an FBI investigation this is a DEA investigation whatever it might be.

We have not had um direct contact with ICE uh I've reached out a couple times to see um I said it um you know from the very first day that I was here um to take kind of a uh a completely hands-off approach where we're not gonna have anything to do with them um I don't think serves our our community the best I think you know if we can be involved in a situation be able to de-escalate I can't control what they do and and we don't enforce immigration I and we won't enforce immigration.

But you know before I got here I I I I did my homework and there was an issue here where I smashed a window and and dragged somebody out of the car.

I asked myself if we had uh you know an officer um that that was here that that I know has had de-escalation training um the entire New Bedford police department has been through de-escalation training through PERF.

I wonder if that could have ended differently.

Would the person be taken into federal custody at the end of the day?

Probably but they would have done it without a broken window and without potentially being injured.

I asked myself if we had uh you know an officer um that that was here that that I know has had de-escalation training um the entire New Bedford police department has been through de-escalation training through PERF I wonder if that could have ended differently would the person be taken into federal custody at the end of the day probably um but they would have done it without a broken window and without potentially being injured um so if we can be um helpful to our community to keeping our community safe uh that's the stance that I've that I've taken um but that directive really answers all of those questions about exactly how we respond body worn cameras one supervisor two officers making sure that the law is not being broken make sure that the federal law enforcement agents are are at least safe uh we've seen some you know some videos of these folks um getting accosted uh they are not they are not uh political that they're doing a job uh and and there I I feel terrible because you know in one month their job is one thing and in another month their job is something else and I wonder how much training did you give them to switch that function from an administrative function to now um you know banging indoors and and doing like kind of like high risk police work right so uh the the director is there for everyone to see um I thought it was important that we um that we make it clear for our officers exactly what's expected of them.

Thank you Chief Thank you Madam Chair I'll yield thank you.

Any more questions from the floor counselor Gomes just one short one but Chief um I don't know how much of it you have done but uh you are going to be willing I know you've got a lot on your plate uh coming in uh are you willing to meet with uh cre the community throughout the city oh yeah I've I've met with a lot of people uh there's a lot to go um I think uh everyone here that's been to the community events has have seen me out there um you know that's that's actually one of my favorite parts of the job uh no I know I know you have been out there in within the community different functions and things are I'm talking about when it comes down to the issues of crime or whatever if you feel the the the need to put people at ease no matter whether it's in the Northern or the South end would that be the approach of Chief Doherty in the city of New Bedford Absolutely I've been invited a few times I was up in the North end with uh with Councilman Choquette um uh early on asked me to come up there I think I was able to answer a bunch of questions he had to bow out early for a big debate um but um all the time he left you all alone there he did he did I mean no he didn't no he did not he he he did a nice introduction and and we had a good uh good dialogue with some of the folks but those community events especially the community meetings is really where you hear a lot of what drives what the community expects your department to do.

You know and and ironically enough most of those in my experience both here and where I came from you know is are more about quality of life speeding loud exhaust um things that affect people's life parking um things that affect people's life I was probably uh 30 minutes about a parking issue up in the north end um it's good to know what what people expect so that you can meet those expectations thank you very much for that because I think the people of the city while you have a department to run they also look at you as the leader within the department to listen to their complaints every once in a while when they want to talk to their chief absolutely and that is that is kind of the key to to having good uh you know deputy chief assistant deputy chiefs people that keep the trains running on time so that you know that I can be out there uh and and and be that that agency head to face of the department that's another that's another reason it's very important to have folks that can that can do uh that can do those jobs really well thank you chief thank you madam chairman thank you counselor gombs any more questions saying your pleasures counselor motion to refer out to the full city council with a favorable recommendation motion made by counselor burgo to refer out to the full city council for vote uh for favorable recommendation second by counselor abroad anybody on the question roll call okay um on the question I'd like to counselor Oliver would you take the Chief you can you can sit if you want yeah sure thank you the chair recognizes Councillor Carney on our thank you so I I'm not gonna stand I'm just gonna sit because this committee meeting but first of all um I do want to welcome um the new chief to the city of New Bedford.

The City New Bedford are great people and I'm sure they opened their arms and welcomed him and um I can't say enough about our great city.

But I just want to mention a few things.

Okay.

First of all um there was a search that went out for our chief of police and I do believe that we have a phenomenal police force and we have many many men and women of our police force that are very capable and are very good at their jobs.

I noticed that the police when I read his resume came up to the ranks.

He was a patrol man, then he was then he went to uh a detective, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, assistant chief of police, and then chief of police.

He worked his way through that, and that's the way I was looking at this when this nomination came down.

I think that was a great achievement for a chase, and I and I read his resume, and I think he did a fantastic job when he went through all the things he did in Hartford and what he's done and the education behind him.

But I also think that promoting within is very major, and it's good for the morale.

We had three candidates, three great candidates before this administration.

A female, a chief that was selected, and one of our captains, Captain Nate Rodriguez.

Captain's been on the force for 21 years, although I I knew captain, a new chief has been on his force for 28 years.

He came from Hartford.

We had a homegrown person here within our ranks, somebody that I felt was very capable of being chief of police, somebody that is part of this community, part of the fabric, grew up here, has stayed here, went to the schools here.

It knows our community, and this has got nothing against this new chief of police, because I think he's he's gonna be he will be appointed, and he will be our next chief, and I think he's gonna do a great job.

My reservations are not with our new police chief, it's with our administration.

This is not the first time that we did not look at our look at our employees who are quite capable, who worked in these jobs for many, many years, and yet we brought somebody else in.

And most of the times they did not work out.

But unfortunately, we lost those people that were in that second position because of the morale.

They said, uh, what am I doing here?

I was I like to hear what the the chief said about looking at promoting within and looking at his staff, sending them to training and doing that.

But there was one thing that discouraged me out of this whole thing.

He said he was going to go out externally also for the deputy chief.

I'm not sure whether that was something that was the administration had said because the administration likes to go out externally and not look at the value and the gold that he has within his people here, whether it's in this police department or any of the departments within the city.

You know, I just I just get very discouraged.

And I know some people that got discouraged that applied for jobs that were quite qualified in the city of New Bedford that didn't get it.

Some of them didn't even get interviews because the way our our our um administration works and the way this government works, there is one boss for all the department heads, and he happens to sit in the corner office, and what he said goes.

And I appreciate it, but that's the way our charters written up.

The mayor has all the say.

But it's very disheartening, very, very disheartening that we look over these people.

We don't give them the value that they have in the city.

We have great people in the city, we have a great workforce, and we have plenty qualified people in the city to do the jobs.

So for that reason, it's nothing against the new chief, because I will work with him, I will support him, and I have hope to have um have a meeting with him so I can talk to him about the things that I'm concerned about within the city, and I'm glad he's for drones because I think that could do something very good for the city and take some of these these crazy motorcycles and dirt bikes out the street because we can actually follow them and then get them and won't have to chase them with cars.

But so I've listened to him all night long and listened to his ideas, and I think he's going to lead the force because that's what he's been there, and he will get appointed tonight.

But I'm just making a stand to this administration and say, hey, you've got valuable people, don't lose them, and give them the value they deserve.

And when you start promoting people, promote within.

Because listen, you had a great screening committee for the police chief.

You, vice chair was sitting in vice president of chair, were you sitting on it, and public safety.

And you saw the value with one of our own.

Because you put him there in the top three.

And those top three went to the administration.

And he picked them without.

So like I said, um I I know that you knew that it had, you know, Council President already told them how I felt, because he told me so.

Um but it's like I said, it's nothing against our chief.

He had nothing to do with it.

This man was on the outside.

This is between the City of Bedford City Council and how I feel what we should be doing and look at the value, the value of the people in New Bedford.

They are great people.

We have smart people, we are educated people, and we can do the job.

You don't always have to leave this city to bring somebody in in a top position.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you, Council Carney.

Anyone else on the question?

Roll clock.

Seeing none a roll call.

Seeing none of roll call vote has been requested, I'll have the clerk call the roll.

I'm referring to the full city council recommending approval made by Councillor Virgo, seconded by Council Abel, Councillor Abru?

Yes.

Yes, Council Abel, Council Baptist?

Yes.

Yes, Council Baptiste, Council Burgle?

Yes.

Yes, Council Burgo, Council Carney?

No.

No, Council Carney, Councillor Cherquet?

Yes.

Yes, Councillor Trickett, Councillor Gomes?

Yes.

Yes, Council Gomes, Council Oliver?

Yes.

Yes, Council Oliver, Council Pereira?

Yes.

That passes seven to one.

Passes seven to one.

How about you referring to the following city council?

It will uh on January January 8th.

All right.

That'll be referred to the full city council on January 8th.

Yeah.

And uh Chief, if you'd like to be there that day, uh we'll we'll uh waive the rule and you'll be able to be sworn in that day as well.

So bring your family and a camera.

Thank you for sure.

Okay.

Item number four is a communication mayor Mitchell to the City Council submitting the appointment of George M.

Vivaris, New Bedford Mass to the Board of Park Commissioners replacing Lee Blake, who has resigned this term will expire on May 2026.

It was referred here on November 13, 2025.

Number four is before you.

Motion to receive and place on file.

Motion made to receive and place on file, made by Council Oliver.

Second, second by Council Burgo.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

The ayes have it.

Mr.

Oh, I don't see.

Oh Mr.

Vivaris.

Yeah, go ahead.

And you said it was going to be a quick one.

Well, Council Oliver.

Yes, would you like to give us a little brief overview of you?

Why you want to be on the park board?

Um I've been involved with um a lot of different things.

Uh athletics.

I'd like to see that uh improvement continue.

Um maybe make it even better.

Um there are some issues like everything else.

But I think overall it would be something that I would enjoy.

Um because I did before.

So now that I'm retired.

I think I could make that happen.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Council Oliver.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Vivaris, for being here and seeking the position.

Um I just wanted to ask um, was this something that you were approached for or something that you approached the administration about?

How did you come to learn of the uh the uh the position?

He approached me.

He approached you.

Was there any other positions to just uh discussed, or was this kind of something that you wanted to be part of?

Uh there were a couple of things that got kicked around.

Yeah.

But um when this was available.

That's right.

I wanted to chase that.

And uh could you just talk about that a little bit more and what you kind of foresee you would like to accomplish um being on the park commission.

I think um whether it's recreational or organized.

Um take your time.

Yeah.

You caught me off God.

Um I want to see that go to another level.

Okay.

Inclusive to everyone.

Um we have leagues currently that um special needs.

Um we have leagues that are very, very well organized.

Um City Little League, for example.

Um at my part with the uh Greater New Bedford Softball League.

I was a player, a sponsor, a board of director.

And um I got involved with uh United States Speciality Sports Association.

I became a district director.

We um had a program to send officials to the highest levels of competition.

And um it was nice.

But the big thing is the team that's around you.

Uh I'm good at that, as you see from social and other other uh other things that I ventured into.

Um you don't have a team behind you.

You're in trouble.

So I'm not looking to change.

I don't know what needs to be changed.

We're gonna find out, hopefully.

But um everybody's got something to bring to the table.

And uh you can't um poo-poo someone's opinion.

Uh you try to find a way to make it work.

Thank you for that.

And involve everybody.

Good.

Thank you.

And one one last question.

The uh the various parks uh the friend uh have um friends of Brooklawn, friends of uh Button Wood, I believe there's Friends of Hazelwood.

Um do you um look to kind of um work with those folks also to make our some of our green spaces a little bit more uh friendly and and uh community oriented.

Sure, that's part of uh team building.

If you're on the same page, uh good things happen.

And when you're not on the same page, hopefully experience uh honesty takes it to that level.

Awesome.

Well, thank you, Mr.

Vivaris.

I appreciate your willingness to come forward and serve on the park board and uh look forward to supporting you in that.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you for using my correct pronoun.

I appreciate that.

Uh anyone else on there first?

Seeing none?

Motion refer to the subcity council made by uh Councilor Abrew, seconded by Councillor Oliver.

Anyone on the question?

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, the ayes have it, Mr.

Babares.

Your uh appointment has been referred out to our January 8th council meeting.

If you'd like to attend, you can uh most likely it's been uh favorably recommended.

We can waive the rule uh um Rule 40 and swear you in that night, or you can come in at another time uh to be sworn in by our city clerk.

But that's up to you.

It will be heard on our January 8th meeting.

Very good.

Thank you for being here all night.

I know it was a long night.

I apologize for the agenda, but I appreciate you sticking it out.

And thank you for your support and your confidence.

I appreciate that.

Thank you for your willingness to serve.

You have a great night.

You too, and have a great Christmas.

Same to you and Mr.

Varius as well.

You should have to put it up.

Mr.

Chairman.

Um on item number five and item number six.

I believe that the petitioners have have left.

I would I would assume second.

I I would assume a motion to um well, leave the reading and table is in order.

Well, we wouldn't have to be table.

So for number six um this is the one that was tabled for a hundred years on the city council agenda.

Uh can we refer it out for no further action?

So motion made by Councillor Abrew for item six uh to refer all for no further action Councilor Choquette.

Uh all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed the ayes have it and motion to adjourn.

No table number five automatically be tabled it will automatically be tabled because we didn't read into the record it was remains on the table.

Yeah.

So motion may uh adjourn made by Councilor Baptiste seconded by Councillor Abreu anyone on the question of adjournment?

No.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed the ayes have it we are adjourned at nine eleven PM never forget.

God bless you I was just