The Committee on Public Safety and Neighborhoods met on March 9, 2026, at 7:00 PM in City Council Chambers to discuss park signage, special police officer age limits, police department staffing, and abandoned vehicles. The meeting was live-streamed and recorded. Councillor Ian Abreu was absent due to a prior commitment; his letter was read and placed on file.
Good evening, everyone like to call this meeting of public safety and neighborhoods for March 9th, 2026, meeting at seven o'clock in City Council Chambers room two fourteen. This meeting is being live streamed and recorded on City Council and committee meetings can be reviewed on the city's New Bedford homepage under the quick links, then meetings. Dear Chairman Gomes and honorable members of the committee, I am ready to inform you that I'll be unable to attend tonight's committee meeting due to a prior commitment. Please read this letter into the record to make my colleagues and the public aware of the reason for my absence. Sincerely, Ian Abreu, Councillor at Large. Motion received a place on file by Councillor Lopes, seconded by Councillor Roy. All in favor? Um in attendance for tonight's public safety meeting is Ward 2, Councillor Scott Pemmington, Wad one Councillor Leo Shikette, Ward Five, Councillor Joe Lopes, Ward Six Council and City Council President, Ryan Pereira, Councillor at Large, James Roy, Councillor at Large, Naomi Carney, and just walked into the room, Councillor at large, Shane Virgo. Sir Clark. This signage would welcome visitors to these areas and also provide instruction on the laws, rules, and regulations of the parks and beaches within the city of New Bedford, including the noise ordinance, no public drinking, parking, and the hours that these spaces are open to the public. Yes, Councillor. So on this uh motion, I was just wondering so we did the Bricklaw Packets not included. If I can make amendment to include the question, no, all parks have been included. This this kind of was for down the south end, but all parks have been included for that signage. Okay, thank you for that for that quote. Yes, and I'm getting a nod from Mary. Mr. Chairman. Yes. I don't know if you already received this hand out from the I've received it. I haven't had a chance to go through it, but you want to do that. So motion to receive and place on file to hand out the first time. Seconded by Councillor Lopes. All in favor? No objection from the chair. Um this is something we've been working on for a long time. And um we did receive CPA funding to do phase one. So phase one is going to be all the major parks and all of the uh the beaches as well. Um really all of the parks except some of the smaller neighborhood parks. We just didn't have it in our budget, but those will be phase two. But um so I did give you a handout, and on the handout you can see the timeline. We're working with a signage company out of Texas that's going to be fabricating and installing. Um they're working with a local contractor to install. Um so these are the the what I've handed out to you are the major signs. So all of the locations, all of the major parks as well as the beaches, we'll be getting one of these major signs. And I do have a sample here of the material, the colors. The only difference at the beach is we're going to go with that like teal blue here instead of the yellow. Otherwise, they're the same signage. And I can I don't know if anyone wants to see that, I could pass it around. So the signs are they're pretty good size, as you can see from the the handout. They will have all of the parks rules and regulations, both in English and Spanish. They'll have um some visual icons for folks who are you know not reading. And they'll also have a QR code that will take them to the city website to our site, so that they can get more information about the parks, but also any additional information about renting renting anything, additional rules and regulations, that sort of thing. Um the company has told us that they intend to have all of these signs installed by the end of June. I think personally that's a little ambitious, but I do expect that they will all be in and um installed by the end of the summer. And we did give them the list of parks that were in the um the order, and so those will be prioritized for installation. And um the major parks and and also West Beach are going to be getting more than one sign because they're they're large parks. We need to be able to orient people who are coming in from different directions. The uh some of the major parks will also be getting finger posts. So, for instance, if you come in on West Rodney Front into Fort Tabor, it would be nice to have a finger post to show you, hey, this is the way to the community center, this is the way to the beach.