A group of labor and community activists will picket City Hall today to urge the City Council not to allow the Cliftex mill to be demolished.
People First!, led by the Greater Southeastern Massachusetts Labor Council, will picket City Hall at noon.

"The City Council needs to consider the needs of the people of New Bedford," said Cynthia Roderigues, president of the labor council and a member of People First!'s board of directors.

"There can be no confusion about what those needs are. Affordable housing and good jobs are most certainly at the top of the list. The Cliftex building could provide both."

The group includes other local groups like the Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts, Coalition For Social Justice and the Coalition Against Poverty.

In June, the City Council voted 8-0 to approve a demolition request from the owner of the Cliftex mill, Edward W. Fitzsimmons Jr. of Dartmouth. Mayor Scott W. Lang then vetoed the City Council's motion. The City Council will consider overturning Mayor Lang's veto at its meeting Thursday.

People First! will hand out informational flyers today saying: "New Bedford City Council: Serve Us All!" and that demolishing the Cliftex mill "Will be a loss of city history." The flyer ends by stating: "Politically Wired is not Politically Wise! Sustain the Veto!"

When Cliftex was a working mill employing thousands of people, the labor union represented them, Ms. Roderigues said. She said the argument, made by Councilor at-large Debora Coelho, that knocking down the mills would help erase the memories of the working conditions inside the mills "is upside down."

"Nothing would honor them more than a rebirth of the mill as affordable housing or a workplace with decent-paying jobs," she said. "Using that logic would get you run out of town in Lowell or Lawrence!"

She said the labor union decided to picket, in part in response to Mr. Fitzsimmons' picket of City Hall a few weeks ago.

Mr. Fitzsimmons picketed City Hall to urge Mayor Lang to allow the demolition request to go through.

"As leader in the city, councilors should put away the wrecking ball and try to provide benefits to the community," she wrote in a prepared release.