The New Bedford City Council held a regular meeting on Monday, March 30, 2026, at 7:01 PM at City Hall. Key actions included approving the sale of bonds and bond anticipation notes, discussing the fiscal 2027 cost of living adjustment for retirees, and adopting 20 Community Preservation Committee project recommendations totaling $2,227,341.
It is Monday, March 30th at the City Hall at 701 p.m. calling the City Council meeting into order. In attendance, we have Councilor at Lodge, James Roy, Councilor Lodge, Naomi Carney, Councilor Lodge, Ian Abrew, Councilor of War 2, Scott Pemberton, Councillor of Ward 1, Leo Choquette, Counselor at Lodge, Brian K. Gomes, Council President Ryan Pereira, who is also Warsex Counselor, myself, Joseph Lopes, Ward 5 City Councilor, and we do have uh is it one letter to be read into the record? No, I have no letters. We have no letters to Burdenford Records, but I did receive a text message from uh Council of War 3 Sean Oliver stating that he would be 10 to 15 minutes late. You can read it. Item number one is a communication. John Taxios, uh Treasurer Collector to Councillor Joseph P. Lopes, Chair Committee on Finance, requesting a vote of the Finance Committee to permanently finance various projects in the amount of forty-three, excuse me, forty-seven million three hundred and forty thousand dollars, and to issue a renew temporary notes for various projects in the amount of thirty-six million six hundred and twenty one hundred and sixty-nine dollars. This debt was previously authorized by a vote of the finance committee is required uh to approve the actual sale. It was received here on March 16th, 2026. Item number one is before you. Opposed, the ayes have it. John, if you'd like to go to the podium. That's number two. Thank you. Investors have previously anticipated more than two rate cuts before year end, and markets are now pricing in no cuts at all. Despite these developments, we received favorable rates on both the bonds and bans. The successful bidder of the 42,510,000 general obligation state qualified municipal bond issue of the city dated April 9, 2026. Was Huntington Securities at a price of 42,689,377, and a true interest cost of 4.02%. The city received 11 bids on the bonds. Due to the premium received, the debt was resized to 41,075,000 as shown in the revised letter. The successful bidder of the $37,448,169. General obligation bond anticipation notes dated April 10th, 2026, was TD financial products with a net interest cost of 2.63%. The city received four bids on the bands. Affirm the city's double A minus double A minus underlying bond rating and assigned the SP1 plus rating to the notes, which is the highest municipal short-term rating attainable. The rating agency cited the city's expanding and diversifying local economy, stable financial performance, increasing reserves, and forward-looking conservative management with strong financial management policies and practices as positive credit factors. Furthermore, SP Global Ratings assigned the double A plus enhanced rating to the bonds as debt services secured by the State Qualified Bond Act. Thank you for your consideration of my request to approve the sale of the bond and bans. Thank you, John. We do have questions, Council Choquett, on your first. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, John. Again, I'm kind of putting you on the spot here, but I was just looking at the uh reports here on the credit highlights. Do these does this bond rating was it does this reflect uh our recent um you know bout with the Snow Mageddon blizzard there that we had that depleted quite a bit of the because I'm reading right here where it says um I just lost it here. Okay, we note that the fiscal 2026 budget included a cut to the snow and ice budget that removed the city's ability to deficit spend in that account and a cut in the police budget by the city council, which was filed by uh filled by an allocation of free cash that we view as not sustainable. I was just curious if this was before any of that. Okay. So we think we got that in before the budget classification. I mean the uh the bond classification, the grading, right? Yeah, so all of this debt that we have listed here was part of the 25 CIP and some other pieces for school that were related to those projects, but it did not include anything that was more recent. Okay. That yeah, that's I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield. Thank you, Councillor Kitt.