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The New Bedford City Council voted unanimously to request Mayor Mitchell ask the Board of Health to reverse its mandated closing for the Whaling City Festival. ....
Businesses in downtown New Bedford are being asked to consider a fee that would be used to make improvements to the downtown area. Councilor-at-Large Ian Abreu says the non-profit New City America, Incorporated, based in San Deigo, California, would like to establish what it calls Community Benefit Districts in New Bedford with downtown being the first such district. Abreu says Community Benefit Districts exist in cities all across the nation. It is similar to the Community Preservation Act that is partially supported by New Bedford property owners. Abreu says the proposal that has been floating around for about six years now, has the support of the Mitchell Administration. Businesses would commit to paying eight cents per square foot of property that they own into the city s general fund. The money would be used to maintain current infrastructure such as Custom House Square or to fund new improvement projects within the district. ....
The Mitchell Administration should give careful consideration to a motion filed by New Bedford City Councilor-at-Large Brian Gomes that could be a game-changer in the war against COVID-19 locally. Gomes, who chairs the City Council Committee on Public Safety and Neighborhoods, wants Mayor Jon Mitchell and the New Bedford Health Department to establish a mobile unit to bring COVID-19 vaccines, tests, and information about the virus to otherwise hard-to-reach neighborhoods of the city. The unit would schedule visits to neighborhoods where residents might not have access to the internet and may not be familiar with the process of scheduling an appointment to be vaccinated. Gomes says residents of some of the less affluent neighborhoods may not have transportation to mass vaccination locations. He hopes a mobile unit might have more success reaching immigrants, who often live in the shadows, by going where they live. ....