The Worcester City Council meets on Tuesday, Sept. 30, after its last meeting on Sept. 16, which ran for just 22 minutes. The council did not meet in observance of the Rosh Hashanna holiday last week.
Agenda, Agenda, Agenda
After a short work night two weeks ago, we come to this week with an agenda chock full of items to discuss!
The Committee on Public Safety sent four items to the council agenda via orders of committee chairperson Kate Toomey. The first asks for a report with a list of languages that the real-time translation software used by the police department. It also asks that any that languages spoken within Worcester Public Schools that are not already included are added.
The second is for a report about the costs of Shotspotter and Resource Router yearly since 2014. A report provided to the city council in April said that over the past three years, the total cost averages $573,563.
The third is for Chiefof Police Paul Saucier to provide a report “of arrests and/or detainments made as a result to gun violence in the city and which arrests and/or detainments were made with assistance from ShotSpotter activation calls, the “number of arrests and detainments made via ShotSpotter, and to compare the amount to other calls for gun violence.” It also asks for the report to ” include details relative to the treatments administered by the Worcester Police Department (WPD) on scene at said calls.”
The final order is about asking the Fire Department to have ‘civil service recruitment’ events.
The number of orders coming out of that committee is interesting, given the upcoming election takes place in just over a month.
ICE in Worcester
Item 13b is a resolution proposed by Councilor King related to ICE and police cooperation. Here is the text:
CITY OF WORCESTER
A Resolution of the Worcester City Council for the City Manager and Chief of Police to Oppose Entering into a 287(g)Task Force Model Agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
WHEREAS: the Worcester Police Department is committed to protecting public safety, enforcing the law, and ensuring that community trust is preserved, andWHEREAS: Lunn v. Commonwealth establishes that local law enforcement officers have no authority to arrest or detain individuals solelybased on a federal civil immigration detainer beyond the time they would otherwise be entitled to release from state custody; and
WHEREAS: Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes state and local law enforcement agencies to enter into agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) to perform certain immigration enforcement functions under ICE supervision and oversight, and
WHEREAS: the Task Force Model JFM) of the 287(g) program enables participating local law enforcement officers to carry out designated immigration enforcement functions during routine field operations, and
WHEREAS: the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision on Monday, September 8th 2025 in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo reversing the judgement of lower courts that barred immigration agents from stopping individuals without reasonable suspicion and from relying solely on four factors — alone or in combination – including: “(1) their apparent race or ethnicity; (2) whether they spoke Spanish or English with an accent; (3) the type of location at which they were found[…]; and (4) the type of job they appeared to work.”; and
WHEREAS: this resolution affirms the City Council’s position that the City Manager and Chief of Police should not engage in immigration enforcement functions in cooperation with ICE through a 287(g) Task Force Model agreement or any other agreement or arrangement that gives federal immigration powers to Worcester officials, even as such agreements become more common nationally,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED:
That the City Council of the City of Worcester does hereby oppose the pursuit, exploration, or entering into a 287(g) Task Force Model agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or any other agreement or arrangement that gives federal immigration powers to Worcester officials. (King)
This item forces the city council to take a significant vote before the election.
More than ever, 287(g) agreements, which empower local law enforcement to with the power to make federal immigration arrests, are being signed across the country. According to the Department of Homeland Security, more than 1,000 such agreements exist. These agreements include cash payments to agencies, and bonus payments based on the number of trained officers.
According to sources within the Worcester Police Department and City Hall, City Manager Eric Batista and Saucier discussed the potential of opting into 278(g) over several weeks after the election of President Donald Trump. The financial benefits the federal government provides to municipalities and local agencies which opt-in were a significant part of the conversation.
While the police officials and a staffer within the city manager’s office who spoke with This Week in Worcester said they had direct knowledge of those conversations taking place, each declined to provide details of those conversations.
Those conversations led to the decision that the city would decline to pursue an opt-in to 287(g), according to the same sources.
These conversations took place months prior to the ICE arrest on Eureka Street or City Manager Batista issuing executive orders related to local immigration protocol.
A spokesperson for the office of City Manager Eric Batista said “at no point did a discussion between City Manager Batista and Chief Saucier take place regarding the department signing a 287(g) agreement with ICE.”
During the city council meeting on Sept. 30, Batista said he had no previous knowledge of 287(g) prior to Councilor Khrystian King placing the item on the council agenda for that day. He also said that he never had a conversation with Chief Saucier about the matter until King raised the topic.
Batista also released the following statement via social media:
My response to a recent This Week In Worcester article. pic.twitter.com/P2AHix5TVq
— CM-Batista (@CM_Batista) September 30, 2025
The Department of Corrections has the only existing 287(g) agreement in place with the federal government in Massachusetts.
In an interview with Masslive’s Sussanah Sudborough earlier this year, Worcester County Sheriff Lew Evangelides expressed that ICE doesn’t seem interested in Worcester.
“When asked whether he would welcome a 287g contract, Evangelidis said ICE officials have never expressed a desire to enter into one with his office. As such, he assumes ICE doesn’t need one to carry out its work in Worcester County.
“I feel like what I’m doing currently is everything I need to do to protect the citizens of my county,” he said.”
This resolution may lead to an interesting discussion on the floor, and several groups around the city are planning to go to public comment. This alone guarantees a longer meeting than last week.
Cable Television Items
We have a whole bunch of items from my favorite ever topic: the Charter-Spectrum Cable Franchise Agreement! One jumped out to me immediately: 9j.
FROM THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SERVICE AND TRANSPORTATION – Request City Manager consider allowing for representation from WCCA TV as part of the negotiation team when negotiating the upcoming Charter Communications/Spectrum contract.
This order violates asks for an act that would violate federal law. Part of the franchise agreement includes what customers see on their bill as a “franchise fee.” While those funds are collected by Charter-Spectrum, they are reverted to the city, making it a tax. WCCA receives a portion of those tax dollars.
Under federal law, only elected or appointed officials and their designees can represent the people in ongoing tax-related agreements. The current charter of the City of Worcester provides no room for WCCA to be designated in any such way, and the former Cable Television Advisory Board has already selected and forwarded an attorney that the city manager approved. This order would open the city up immediately to a lawsuit from current subscribers to Charter-Spectrum and any taxpayer.
Suffice to say, this meeting is going to go long. See you on Tuesday!
(Editor’s Note: This piece was updated on Oct. 1 to clarify the timeline provided by sources within the Worcester Police Department and the city manager’s office, and to include the city manager’s statement.)
