Alex Bregman’s failed contract negotiations with the Red Sox have entered into a debate around a Massachusetts city’s selection of a new ambulance provider, ending a 25-year partnership with a previous company.

The city of Medford is set to transition to Cataldo Ambulance on Monday, following weeks of back-and-forth with the City Council, which requested that leaders pause the move until more information and transparency were provided.

City Councilor George Scarpelli has advocated for the city to stick with Armstrong Ambulance, a company that he says provided “impeccable” service for the past quarter century, instead of bringing in Cataldo.

During a meeting last week, Scarpelli compared the city’s discussions in selecting a new ambulance provider to Bregman’s contract negotiations with the Red Sox.

“Those people that follow the Red Sox — Alex Bregman was going back and forth while the Chicago Cubs gave a better deal. He’s gone now,” Scarpelli said. “Well, at least they went to the Red Sox and said, ‘What is it? Can you do this?’ And the Red Sox said, ‘No. We’re not gonna give you a no-trade clause. We’re not gonna put that in.’”

“It’s no different,” the city councilor added.

Bregman signed a five-year, $175 million deal with the Cubs last week, after he opted out of the three-year, $120 million contract that he signed with the Red Sox last February.

Unlike the Cubs, the Red Sox refused to offer Bregman, who turns 32 in March, a full no-trade clause. This was a top priority for the veteran third baseman, who sought a stable long-term home to raise his two young sons.

“Literally, the first second free agency really opened, it felt like we knew the Cubs wanted our family to be here,” Bregman told reporters in Chicago on Thursday. “We had a lot of conversations over the course of the first three months of the offseason. … It was pretty evident they wanted me to be here.”

In Medford, controversy swirled after Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn and other officials announced before the new year that the city had entered into a three-year contract agreement with Cataldo, breaking away from Armstrong.

Officials reiterated that the city didn’t terminate a contract with Armstrong and that the last agreement with the company expired in November. Concerns ranged from inadequate response times to a claim that the company refused to pay $75,000 in annual reimbursements owed to the city.

Nina Nazarian, the mayor’s chief of staff, emphasized that officials continued talks with Armstrong while beginning negotiations with Cataldo last spring.

“Honestly, I wish we weren’t here today. I think you all know that,” Nazarian told councilors last Tuesday. “I want to state that we frankly just didn’t want this to drag on. I also want to state very clearly that we didn’t want to cast shade on Armstrong Ambulance, but here we are.”

City officials have also highlighted how they expect service to improve through Cataldo as the company provides resources in responding to mental health and substance use emergency calls.

Scarpelli said he found it “alarming” that contract negotiations reportedly didn’t involve the fire and police chiefs, the city’s dispatch supervisor, nor the mayor. He claimed that the city’s outside legal counsel, KP Law, spearheaded discussions.

“That’s all I ask for: Everybody sit back at the table. We wouldn’t be here right now,” Scarpelli said. “We would clarify and clean up certain issues.”

No information about any of the children, their hometowns or health history has been released by the state.

State health officials could not be reached for comment Friday night.

At least two of the children were younger than 2 and were in Boston, the city’s Public Health Commission said. They are the first reported flu deaths in children in Boston since 2013, officials said.

Adult deaths from influenza are up to 107, according to the health department’s weekly influenza update. Forty-five adults died during the week from Dec. 28 to Jan. 3, the dashboard shows.

National health officials say 32 children have died from from flu so far this year and estimate there have been 9,300 adult deaths.

The flu season nationally appears to be waning with two straight weeks of decline in measures of flu activity, according to the latest government data released Friday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted data — for flu activity through last week — that showed a big drop in flu hospitalizations and a smaller but significant decrease in medical office visits due to flu-like illness.

CDC officials are calling the current respiratory virus season “moderate.” But that doesn’t mean the season is over, especially for flu. Second surges in flu activity often occur after the winter holidays.

There were 470 flu-related deaths in Massachusetts during the 2024-25 flu season, up from 251 in 2023-24, according to DPH.

The flu season typically spans from October through May, but the first flu-related death in Massachusetts this year was reported in August, data shows.

This year’s children’s deaths underscore the severity of this season’s influenza outbreak, public health officials said.

In November, state health officials warned of “rising flu activity and the potential for a significant surge” this season and have urged people to get vaccinated.

Medical experts have worried about this season because it has been dominated by a kind of flu virus, called A H3N2, that historically causes the most hospitalizations and deaths in older people.

Even more concerning, about 90% of the H3N2 infections analyzed this season were a new strain that differs from the version accounted for in this year’s flu shots.

In Boston, hospitalizations almost tripled and confirmed flu cases increased by 126 percent during the week of Dec. 14 to Dec. 27, city health officials said.

Nationwide, there have been at least 18 million flu illnesses and 230,000 hospitalizations reported, according to the CDC.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez.

LUDLOW, Mass. (WWLP) – Several communities across western Massachusetts have put parking bans in effect for Saturday’s snowstorm.

Snow is likely on Saturday with potential accumulation of one to three inches. Temperatures will reach the low 30s and although most roads should remain manageable, drivers should allow extra travel time due to the expected snow.

Ludlow

No on-street parking from 12 a.m. Saturday until 12 a.m. Sunday.

Russell

No on-street parking from 8 p.m. Friday until 8 p.m. Saturday.

22News will update this list as new parking bans come into the newsroom.