“I can’t believe with nonbiased companies like Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s upgrading the city bond rating and continuing to give us a positive outlook, and talk about the budgeting process (as a reason for the upgrade), that on Thanksgiving they are talking about a charter bus,” Small said Friday. “It’s a continued attack on city leadership by three racist (expletives).”

All but about $289,000 of the cost is being paid for by state grants and the rest from the city’s vehicle budget, Small said.

The city got a $525,000 grant in 2023, Small said, and bought two sprinter vans for smaller trips with about $134,000 of it. That left $391,000 to put toward the bus, so the city only had to come up with another $289,000 to get it and the other vehicles, he said.

Other grants also paid to purchase two school buses and a handicapped-accessible small bus, Small said.

“Total waste of money. Would have been better off leasing for each event. The carrying cost of insurance, maintenance and liability God forbid something was to happen. Why take this on??” Ducktown Tavern owner John Exadaktilos, who is a frequent Small critic, wrote recently on social media.

On Friday, Exadaktilos said his main concern isn’t the cost of the bus but of staffing and running a transportation department and paying for maintenance and insurance. It will cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, he said.

“The city has no business getting into the transportation business,” he said. “Look at the history of all the equipment the city has. … Everything is beat up because of lack of maintenance, lack of accountability if you destroy something. … I’m looking at the bigger picture from the business side.”

Since Jan. 1, 2021, the city has spent $225,244.08 to lease charter buses, Small said, adding the average cost of leasing to go to Philadelphia is $3,500 to $4,000 and to New York City is $5,000.

“Conservatively, if we did 25 trips a year at $4,000 each, that’s $100,000 in one year,” the mayor said.

In addition to Exadaktilos, who has run for office as a Republican, the criticism is led mostly by out-of-town Republicans, Small said.

“All of their following is out of town and they don’t mean Atlantic City any good,” Small said. “The people of Atlantic City are with me. We will overwhelmingly win reelection in June and November.”

“This is a ploy to get votes to keep him in office,” Exadaktilos said of the bus purchase. “I doubt he’ll be in much longer.”

He called it “the dumbest purchase in the world.”

Owning its own bus will allow the city to more easily take seniors to Broadway shows and teens to college visits, among many other trips, Small said. He has long said seniors and youth are his main priority, after tax relief for property owners.

In October, the city’s senior services program took bus trips to go shopping, bowling and play pool; to visit the Columbus Farmers Market in Burlington County; to Reading, Pennsylvania; and to the Black Artisan & Farmers Market in Woodbury, Gloucester County.

This month, Youth Services took 11th and 12th graders on a daylong bus trip to William Paterson and Fairleigh Dickinson universities in North Jersey.

Drivers will be the 10 city employees who have received free training to get their commercial driver’s licenses, Small said. Even city Chief Financial Officer Toro Aboderin took the training, the mayor said.

Small also shared a photo posted by Exadaktilos doctored to show Small standing next to the bus seeming to be wearing prison orange.

“They are just disgruntled racists who, on a daily basis, wake up and attack Black leadership — I’m speaking about me and my wife — and I’m not having it,” Small said. “So game on.”

Small’s wife, La’Quetta, is the superintendent of schools in Atlantic City, and both she and the mayor are facing child endangerment charges over alleged physical abuse of their teenage daughter.

“They are being critical because I’m doing things,” Small said. “They and their out-of-town opinions can just be that — irrelevant.”