First elected in 2011, Jon Mitchell is New Bedford’s thirty-eighth mayor. He has been re-elected four times, and he is the City’s first mayor to be elected to a four-year term.
Jon has sought to re-establish New Bedford as one of the leading cities in the Northeast. He has moved aggressively to reform the city’s schools, improve public safety, modernize the port, and to elevate the quality of life in every neighborhood. This approach has paid off, as under Jon’s leadership the City has achieved both the highest bond rating and highest high school graduate rate in its history, lowered crime by nearly forty percent, secured hundreds of millions of dollars in new port investments, and positioned itself to become the leader in the emerging offshore wind industry.
Prior to running for office, Jon was an Assistant United States Attorney in Boston, having previously served as a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. in the Attorney General’s Honor Program. During his career, Jon prosecuted cases of national significance, which included his serving as the lead prosecutor on the task force searching for Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger.
The product of local public schools and the son of public school teachers, Jon graduated from Harvard College and the George Washington Law School. He also served six years in the Army National Guard. He is married to Ann Partridge, a professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and a breast oncologist at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. They are the proud parents of three daughters: Grace, Natalie, and Lauren.