In his annual state of the city speech, New Bedford’s longtime mayor Jon Mitchell expressed a strictly positive outlook for the city’s economy, despite the president’s plans to obstruct the offshore wind industry and deport an unprecedented number of undocumented immigrants.
New Bedford’s waterfront includes a pier where offshore wind turbines are assembled and a long row of seafood processing plants, which rely on immigrant labor.
But the mayor’s wide-ranging speech touched only briefly on what he called the “sound and fury” of federal politics. Instead, Mitchell emphasized his administration’s local efforts to “forge ahead” with beautifying streets, expanding port facilities, attracting new businesses, building more housing, improving schools and fighting crime.
“At the local level, government officials, members of the press, and anyone with official or private authority must interact with everyone else,” Mitchell said. “You can be more confident about whom you can trust when you can look them in the eye, or if you know their friends and family, or where they live.”
Turning to the city’s recent accomplishments, Mitchell called attention to a new publicly owned pier for fishing and offshore wind vessels, renovations of existing fishing piers, and an expansion of the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal, where Vineyard Wind is marshaling construction for one of America’s first offshore wind farms.
“We are rebuilding the port of New Bedford at a blistering pace,” Mitchell said.
“Meanwhile,” he said, “not since the 1960s were there as many major transportation projects moving forward at once.”
Train service to Boston is set to open at long last in 2025, and a new pedestrian bridge connecting the waterfront train station to the residential parts of New Bedford is nearing completion. Mitchell also mentioned the state’s plans to replace the swing bridge connecting New Bedford and Fairhaven, which is over 120 years old.
While the cost of housing rose rapidly in New Bedford in recent years, Mitchell said ongoing construction projects will increase the supply of housing units and put downward pressure on rents.
“More housing units were completed this year than any year in recent memory,” Mitchell said.
Still, he warned neighboring communities that there is a limit to how much housing New Bedford is willing to build.
“The solution is not for New Bedford to bear the entire burden of housing everyone in the region who can’t afford to live where they came from,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell delivered the 50-minute speech to a gymnasium at New Bedford High School filled with leaders from a broad swath of the region’s institutions and largest businesses, including Vineyard Wind’s labor relations manager Jen Cullen, restauranteur Steve Silverstein, and the Immigrants’ Assistance Center president Helena DaSilva Hughes, among many others.
After the speech, Mitchell addressed the potential impacts of Trump’s second presidency more candidly with reporters.
Mitchell said Trump’s recent threats to slash federal grant funding could impact a renovation of Leonard’s Wharf, where the city is counting on a $25 million grant to expand the pier and create more berths for fishing and offshore wind vessels.
Still, he struck an optimistic tone concerning the city’s commitment to serving as a hub for offshore wind activity.
“I think the general consensus is that energy demand in the United States will only grow in the years ahead,” Mitchell said. “Climate change is not going away as a problem. We have a four-year presidential term but the runway for climate change is a much longer one. So we’re going to be talking about every renewable energy source, I suspect, for years to come.”
On immigration, Mitchell said New Bedford “will follow the law and we will share information with federal law enforcement.”
“But at the end of the day our police department has lots of work to do,” Mitchell said. “We won’t be out leading those raids.”
