City Councilor Brian Gomes regularly delivers straight talk to his fellow councilors and the people of New Bedford, who have been electing him for decades.
New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell still plans to remove Engine 8 from service, even after a series of large fires that rocked the city since Thanksgiving when three multi-family houses burned on Washburn Street.
Mitchell said on my program Wednesday that he plans to replace Engine 8 with a hybrid vehicle known as a quint that is both an engine and a ladder truck. His critics say there is no comparison between the two pieces of apparatus.
Veteran City Councilor Brian Gomes, who chairs the council s Public Safety Committee, also called into the program to inform us that the quint Mitchell has purchased is 15 years old and someone else s headache. He said the vehicle is too large to maneuver the tight streets in the near-North End and is a tight squeeze for Station 8 on Acushnet Avenue.