A new Congressional Redistricting map revealed this week would eliminate New Bedford from Congressman Barney Frank’s district, while also eliminating Fall River from Congressman Jim McGovern’s District.
Barney Frank, a champion of the New Bedford’s fishing industry will also lose his place on the local docks. He remained tightlipped on Wednesday. His sadness was palatable.
“They said they were going to make it more logical, they made it less logical,” he told O Jornal. “This new district seems to be to me, less coherent. Splitting Fall River from Westport makes no sense.
Frank admitted to being pained by the split.
“I feel it strongly,” he said. “It is a little like being a kid and all of a sudden you are moving away in the middle of the school year and have to say goodbye to all our friends. I have invested a lot of energy and time in working with the people of New Bedford and the fishermen. We were beginning to make some gains but it is disappointing. Districts do not exist for our egos and personalities, I am really sad that in the future I will not be as much help to the fishermen whom I admire greatly.
The fishermen, who ply trade on the docks, had found in Barney Frank a reliable advocate and now he is being cast off by the new map.
"We are going to miss him over here in the fishing industry,” said Tony Pereira, who has captained a dragger for 34 years. “Him and Kennedy were the best for the fishing industry, Kennedy passed away and now this. Barney was with us draggers and Scallopers in Washington a few years ago. The fishing industry is going to miss him a lot, that is for sure.”
That sentiment was echoed by the man known as the “Codfather “ of the docks, Carlos Raphael, who owns his own fleet of fishing vessels out of the nation’s largest fishing port.
“It leaves us in a very bad predicament,” said Raphael. “The industry is at a disadvantage now. He is very familiar with the industry’s problems. All I know is however it works out, it is not good for the industry. He knows all to well the problems that need to be straightened out. If you get somebody new to take his footsteps, they are going to need to learn all the needs of the industry and it is something you do not learn overnight.”
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