New Bedford Port Authority Refutes OIG Allegations on Popes Island Marina
OIG Findings Compromised By Incomplete Investigation
Jeffrey S. Shapiro
Inspector General
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
John W. McCormack State Office Building One Ashburton Place, Room 1311
Boston, MA 02108
Re: Pope’s Island Marina
Dear Inspector General Shapiro:
On November 18, 2025, the Massachusetts Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) issued a report following a two-year investigation of the Pope’s Island Marina. The marina has been managed by the New Bedford Port Authority (“NBPA”) for more than thirty years under a series of operating agreements with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), which owns the marina’s docks. The report alleges that neither the NBPA nor DCR could fully account for payments the NBPA was required to remit to DCR under the operating agreements from 1994 to 2015, that the NBPA failed to make timely repairs to the marina, and that DCR in general was “not a good steward of public assets.”
The NBPA responds below that whatever the OIG’s findings about DCR’s management and financial practices, the OIG has unfairly painted the NBPA with the same brush. The OIG did not develop a working understanding of the NBPA’s financial practices or its management of the marina because it failed to take basic investigative steps. It did not seek to interview any NBPA employees; it did not ask for essential financial records such as the NBPA’s annual operating budgets or third-party audits; and it did not conduct a physical examination of the marina. It glossed over applicable laws that govern the retention of public records. There also is no indication that the report’s findings rely on any witness statements except from the anonymous complainant (or complainants), whom the report does not identify. The report should not be accepted as an accurate portrayal of the New Bedford Port Authority or its management of the Pope’s Island Marina.
