Town Council - Regular Meeting

The pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag, the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Lee.

Welcome.

I'd like to welcome everybody who joined us. Welcome to my colleagues on the council and to members of the town staff and to people who are participating on the Zoom platform. Joining me on the dais, we have to my right, Councilor Vice President Michael Donegan. I'm Mark Schwager. We have Councilor Karen Corinthal, Councilor Rainu Engelhardt, and Councilor Michael Zarella. The next item on our agenda is public comment, this is an opportunity for people to address the Council on items that are not on the agenda so is anyone here for public comment. Either. In the crowd or on the zoom platform. Good evening, please state your name.

Good evening, Donna Costantino, 2390 Division Road. I would just wanted to thank you for taking my suggestion with the comprehensive plan last month where I asked that it be placed on the homepage. It's definitely more visible. Today, I got a text from the town about parks and recs. So I, you know, I know I made that suggestion last month as I wasn't, I was more concerned with getting the survey on the homepage. But if we have the ability to text that comp survey out like we did today with Parks and Recs, that would be great. I saw an article in the East Greenwich News where Mr. Studley commented on the fact that we had 162 residents that, or people that took, the survey so far so perhaps texting it out the link would encourage more participation in town just a couple of comments on the survey and i i have a lot but i'm only going to bring up two tonight It appears, and I'm not sure maybe the vendor would be able to elaborate more, it appears that a person can take this survey multiple times. Okay, you're not required to put in an email, it's optional, which is nice because people can remain anonymous, but I know for a fact, a person can take this exam unlimited, for an unlimited number of times. So I don't know if behind the scenes, the data is being cleaned, but then that leads into, you know, my final comment, which I'll get to. Also, I noticed with the comprehensive survey, there's a box for a resident and a box for a non-resident. And then if you don't check either one, you can still take... the survey. So it's our comprehensive plan. This is the plan that is gonna affect our land use down the road, determine where we put houses or developments. And for some of us that live on Division Road, we're very concerned about this. So I wanna make sure and I'm speaking for the residents, that we understand the methodology behind the data that's being collected, because at some point it's gonna get embedded into this survey And then it'll be before the town council and we'll be here saying we don't like certain things in the survey. I mean, in the comp plan and it will be too late unless it's something major. So, um, those are just my comments tonight on the survey, but thank you.

Thank you for your comments. I would mention that tonight in both the manager's report and also we have a report from the planning department. There may be mentioned of the survey and some of those questions may be able to be addressed tonight. Otherwise, it will be addressed going forward.

Dr. Swigert, could I just follow Ms. Constantino's comment? Just for a clarification, we have so many people here tonight, is that the town does not possess people's personal information. We don't have your phone numbers. We don't have your email. So the basis of that statement, which is a good statement, I'm glad that she raised it, is that you as an individual have to go on to our site. The only reason that she or anyone else in town or any non-resident would receive a text message A phone call notification would be is that you individually have chosen to go online and give us that information. And when you do that, you are able to check boxes on specific items. So that would be the reason I didn't want it to be misconstrued that we have the ability to wholesale push out to everyone's mobile numbers in the community information. We would love to be able to do that, but we can't. The only thing we can do is in emergency situations, landlines under 911 information, we can reverse that call and we can push out critical information. With fewer and fewer people having landlines, that's becoming more difficult. It is incredibly challenging for us to have individuals go online and actually register for a subject, recreation, planning, PD, fire, whatever it might be in town to receive that information. Because what we find is after you start receiving them, you then get frustrated you're getting too many and you you take yourself out of the system so just a point i i thank you for the time what the point of clarification with so many people here tonight that we don't have the ability to text everybody in the community unless you want us to thank you

Donna Costantino, 2390 Division Road. Then I would like to know why I got a text. I get that you have to initiate it as the resident, but it's obvious you have some form of our data if we signed up for it that we would like to know about things. Why not use that same mechanism that I got a text for today for parks and rec? Why not use that for the survey? You'll at least get some of us to provide input. Thank you.

Ms. Constantino, it's because you must have registered for the planning department news. So that survey is embedded in the planning department's information. When I got hired here, I registered for every single one. So I get a million emails from all the different departments. So that would be the reason. So it would be because you check the box on community planning or some level of planning relationship. And that's why you would get those particular texts and emails and updates.

Thank you. But my phone number is sitting somewhere. And there may be others that signed up for it as well. And all I'm saying is that push it out to those of us that you have where we ask for stuff. Thank you.

And, Andy, that's what happened, right? Everybody who signed up got it, not just Donna. Everybody got it. That's correct. All right, great. Thank you.

And so, Andy, you have your moment here to plug the survey. Maybe you want to just mention why we have all these people here tonight? Yeah, happy to. Okay, so any other people for public comment? If not, we'll close public comment. I'm sorry.

Ashley Graham, 15 Crompton Road, East Greenwich, as well as 26 Wine Street, East Greenwich. So I have a couple of things. First thing is, is the co-founder of the Libra Foundation the Libra Consulting. Peter Fredericks is a municipal planner, youth attorney, wears multiple hats, including he is the planner of Block Island Town Planning. I'm not sure if it's a full-time position, but he is the planner in Block Island. He is also, sorry, I'm working on the public speaking portion. He is also, hold on one second, sorry. He is also a land use attorney titled land use attorney. Now he is a part of our comprehensive plan, but he has interest in land use and development. I just don't think that's a fair, consultant, I guess. Another thing is the deduct meters. You know, if we knew that we were going in this direction with the deduct meters, why were residents be able to purchase them two or three weeks before this decision was made to do these deduct meters? I just don't think that's right. I don't think that's fair of the residents.

Yeah, we will have an update on deduct meters during tonight's meeting. So if you can hold those comments for now.

Okay, and then one more thing, I know I spoke to you about it this evening and I talked to Zarrella about it for a second, is the air conditioning units in the new schools. I don't know if there's able to be revision or more public comment, but I don't, I mean, they're brand new schools. Why wouldn't we make them efficient?

There will be an update in the manager's report related to the HVAC in the school project. Okay. So that will also be updated this evening.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Other comments? Okay, if we are done with public comment, we're gonna move on to acknowledgements. So this is always one of the most enjoyable times at council meetings when we get to recognize the accomplishments of our town residents. And we have a bunch of them tonight. We have five different commendations. What I'd like to do is just read these commendations and have the council approve them as a group, and then one at a time we will have them come up and say a few words about their accomplishments, present them with a commendation, and honor their accomplishments. So tonight we have 5A, a commendation for Neal McNamara for serving over five years on the Historic District Commission. We have a commendation for Shana DeFelice, for serving three years on the Affordable Housing Commission. We also have accommodation for Robert Donald for serving two years on the Cove Management Commission. And we have some students who were recognized for first place in the Rhode Island Future Healthcare Professions Leadership Competition, and these were Savannah Heppel, Yusra Muhammad, Shivani Parikh, and Natalie Yang. We also have accommodation for the East Greenwich high school boys baseball team for winning the 2026 division two state championship. And finally accommodation for the East Greenwich high school boys tennis team for winning the 2006 division one state championship. So I'm going to have the council vote on this. I'll make a motion to approve all of the commendations in our acknowledgements. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Motion carries, 5-2-0. And now we'll have the council come down in front of the dais and start by calling up Neil McNamara to honor him for serving over five years on the Historic District Commission. Hello, Neil, welcome. So Mr. McNamara is no stranger to this town chamber. He spent a lot of time here over the years as a member of our various municipal boards. Tonight, we're honoring him for his service on the Historic District Commission. He's been there for over five years and is always well-prepared, active, engaged in the conversations on the commission. Neil has also served the town in the past on the planning board and on the land trust. So you've got a triple crown there. So we appreciate your service to the town and other counselors who would like to make any comments. This is your opportunity.

Thank you. Neil, we thought we appointed you for life. So I'm not really sure what you're doing here, but anyway, thank you so much. You know, all your years of service considered and rejected, but you know, having, you know, as a lawyer serving in those positions, you know, it's really helpful to us. I know when we get recommendations from the HTC, knowing you were involved knows that 90% of my questions that are procedural or I don't understand how federal law interacts or whatever state law, Like they're always answered. So I always get to rely on the decisions in part because I know they've already been through the Neil Gristmill to come out the other end as a well-reasoned, thoughtful, legally competent decision. So thank you.

I just want to say thank you and that Mr. McNamara has a wealth of information about this town. So I can't thank him enough for his service and maybe he'll reconsider it.

I just wanted to thank you because we really appreciate the time and energy you've put into this. Thank you.

Thank you very much and congratulations.

I'm going to ask for another round of applause when I read the commendation. So the town of East Greenwich presents his commendation on behalf of the town and the town council to Neil McNamara for serving five years on the Historic District Commission. The council thanks him for his time and service to the town. Now we have...

Thank you, Neil.

Thank you. Our next commendation is for Shana DeFelice. So I saw Shana around here. There she is. Welcome, welcome. Likewise, we appreciate your contribution to the town. Shayna has served for three years on the Affordable Housing Commission. As soon as she joined, she got very involved and is now the chair of the commission. So that's double the responsibility and work and time and effort. So we really appreciate you stepping into that role. We know you have a very busy life and hopefully if it ever comes down, I don't know if that will happen, but we would certainly welcome you back in the future. Any other comments from the council? So we have the commendation from the town of East Greenwich to Shana DeFelice for serving three years on the Affordable Housing Commission. The council and the community thanks you for your time and service to the town.

We also have a commendation for Robert Donald.

for serving two years on the Cove Management Commission. Mr. Donald is not here tonight, but we'll make sure that he gets his commendation delivered to him. That brings us to some of our East Greenwich High School students for their achievements. This is a commendation for Savannah Heppel, Yusra Mintmohamed, Shivani Parikh, and Natalie Yang. for earning first place in the Rhode Island Future Healthcare Professional Leadership Competition. Our East Greenwich team competed against seven other Rhode Island teams to design and implement a community healthcare improvement program. They developed and put in place a Substance Abuse Awareness Week at East Greenwich High School, which took place February 9th through the 13th. Each day of the week provided students with different educational materials and activities to raise awareness about substance abuse, reduce the stigma of substance use disorders, and support community prevention and recovery programs. Our East Greenwich team finished in first place. So I'd like to have one of their advisors, Caitlin Valieri, who is our prevention coordinator, say a few words about the team. We have Shivani Parikh here to receive, on behalf of the team, the commendations. And I think Shivani may have a few words for us as well. Caitlin?

Thank you, and good evening. The four ladies receiving the commendation were, and one still is, an East Greenwich High School student who is working towards a career in medicine and healthcare. Shivani Helpo, Yusam Mintz, Mohamed, Natalie Yang, and Shugani Parikh, who is here tonight, put in many long hours last winter while competing in the statewide future health professional leadership competition. Knowing that teens are much more likely to listen to their peers, their focus was youth substance abuse prevention. Among many successful projects, they created the Youth Against Substance Abuse Club, where They recruited students of all classes. They organized a informal theme week-long competition at the high school and was very well received and presented their group mission and goals in front of a diverse organization within the community. Tonight we acknowledge their first place win defeating seven schools in the statewide future health prevention competition last March. We congratulate them and they will work in their hard work and helping make East Greenwich youth strong and healthier.

Um, good evening. I would just like to give a special thanks to miss Gucci who couldn't be here today because she made this, um, she made this entire experience more genuine, rewarding and definitely impactful. And also I couldn't have done it without my peers. So thanks to them as well. And we're so excited to continue this group through my senior year of high school and to pass it on to the underclassmen.

Right.

Well, if you're wondering who all these smiling faces are here, we're about to see some of them come up with us now. We have accommodation for the East Greenwich High School boys baseball team for winning the 2026 Division II State Championship. The Avengers claimed their first baseball state title in 28 years, defeating Wes Warwick in game three of the best of three game series at Rhode Island College in quite a dramatic fashion, which you'll hear a little bit about from Coach Bill O'Connell. So I'd like to introduce Bill O'Connell to make some remarks about his remarkable team. Coach O'Connell has brought his team to the state finals each of the last four seasons. And this year, the East Greenwich Varsity baseball team got its championship. Coach O'Connell also told me he's coming back next year to try again. So please come forward, Coach. Yeah, we can ask him to come up.

We'd like to have the players all come up and coaches, if you could. I'm going to say the names quickly as we go along. We have a lot of guys here, but Tyler Gajkiewicz, Ayaan Modi, Jimmy Gallagher, Van Martin, Nolan Malafronte, Brady O'Brien, Nolan Colucci, Xavier Nelson, Miles Doman, Jackson Ayotte, Keon Zaidi, Clay Brumberger, Tyler Newdy, Ryda Oda, John Lasik, John Sonos, Henry McPherson, Quinn Daly, Walker Clicker, Caden Souza, Ace Schwarzbach, Alec Martin, almost there, Evan Pitney, Anders Nelson, Gavin Solis, Mark Bradshaw, and our coaches, Bruce Fox, Bill Clicker, Jared Hopkins, and Josh Land. I'd like to start by thanking the town council for recognizing us tonight. What a wonderful experience for us. We really appreciate it. And it wasn't something that we expected at all. I'd also like to congratulate the tennis team and the other high school students here. We're glad to, and very proud to share the spotlight with you tonight. I want to thank our athletic director, Casey Rhodes, and assistant athletic director and trainer Sal Palermo for all the work they do to keep us on the field and playing all year long. And I mentioned the coaches' names, but just raise your hands over there. Bill Klicka, Bruce Fox, Josh Land, and Jared Hopkins, who's not here. These guys put in an incredible amount of time, most of it volunteer, which a lot of people probably don't realize, They just give their free time to come and do this, and it's pretty much all year long. So I really appreciate what they do. I'd also like to thank our family, friends, and fans for their support. You can see a lot of it, a ton of it here tonight. It's unbelievable. East Greenwich is truly a wonderful community, and we know we can always count on them to be there for us. And that kind of leads in a little bit to what I want to say about the team. Well, we're taking the bus back home after a win. It's a tradition to sing the national anthem when we turn into Avenger Drive. And I always like to, we stand and stop and do it. And I always like to look at the bus driver when we're going. And you usually get a knowing smile. One bus driver says, Got emotional and said she wanted to cry. And another bus driver is a veteran who stopped the bus, got the trumpet out that he always keeps on the bus, and played along with us as we sang. And that's happened a few times. So that is more than a celebration. It's also kind of an insight into the team. When I look around at them, it shows the camaraderie. It shows the teamwork, the whole idea of all for one and one for all. And that is something that you really, really need to make it all the way to the top on a long season and a lot of games and everything. And we really needed that attitude when it came down to the wire in the final game. Final game of the series, in the top of the sixth, our 3-1 lead had turned a 3-3 tie in the exact moment that our ace pitcher, Anders Nelson, hit his pitch count and had to come out of the game. There was just one out, two runners on, tie run. A leading one for them was on third base. And Anders had led us all the way there. He had three wins in the playoffs, but that was somebody else's turn. So we looked out to the bullpen and here comes in walking in Jackson Ayotte. He was coming in for the bullpen, and as he made his way, I could feel the whole team behind him. I knew we had them, that he wasn't alone. Plus, he had our team, Ketchup, Brady, O'Brien, waiting on the mound to work with him. Jackson looked cool and calm, but I heard later that his legs were shaking a little bit out there. But he got through it, no problem. Now, it is a little bit important to point out a little context. Anders is one of the most powerful pitchers you're going to run into. He throws as hard as anybody that I've coached. It's not Jackson's game. Jackson is a guy that just gets the ball over. He's a crafty lefty and finesses his game. No problem. With our dugout proving that they are considered the Lowers' cheering section in the league, Jackson promptly struck out the first batter he faced. Then he had a minor hiccup. He walked a guy. I don't know if he was trying to make it more dramatic. I'm not sure. But we had the bases loaded, and then he got the next guy, one of their best hitters, to ground out, and that was the end of the inning. Big sigh of relief. So now all we had to do is try to score a run against one of the best pitchers in the entire league. After an out, Anders, who ended up winning the tournament MVP, I should point out, muscled a single into right field and it went over the shortstop's head by this much. And that was the difference. That's probably the difference between winning and losing for us this time. And after that, fearless Tyler Newdy laid down a two-strike bunt to move Anders over to second, which put pressure on the Wizards. And then we had exactly what we wanted. We had Van Martin come into the plate. Van's an excellent player, but he's got something that is a rare thing. It's that clutch gene. He wants to be there in the big moment. He must have got it from his mom, Nina, and maybe dad, Don. I don't know. Maybe it was a little bit too... And sure enough, bang, into the left center field, a rocket. He drove in a pinch runner first, freshman Clay Brumberger. He scampered, Van scampered around the bases for a triple, and we had the lead. So now one more thing to do. All Jackson had to do is to go through the middle of their order, 3-4-5, unscathed. He got up there, first batter, Fly ball to right field. Tough as nails, Tyler Getkiewicz caught that one. Next guy, fly ball, center field. Sophomore sensation here, Caden Sousa caught that one. Now, did I mention that we hadn't won a baseball title in 28 years? Two outs now we got, all right? Two and one, one and two count. Jackson's next pitch, the most glorious pop-up I've ever seen in my life. And I saw Nolan Colucci going over our great first baseman, got underneath it, ball fell safely into his glove, and we had done it. We had won. And everybody got excited, as we should. And I just have to tell you, that ride home and that last singing of the national anthem was the most beautiful one I've ever heard in my life. So I thank you for giving us the time to revisit this a little bit today. For all of you listening on, these guys are a bunch of great guys, and they really deserved all that they got. Thank you.

Bye.

I feel like I was at the game. I'm sweating here. Yep, and I think a two-out bunt, a two-strike bunt call, that's gutsy, Coach. That's gutsy. Anybody else want to make any comments?

Hi, I know you guys can't see this from where you are now. You know, you're in high school, right? You have all this school pressure. Yep. Million clubs you belong to what's the future hold that's he's greenwich right, but you guys also compete in sports and that's a very different kind of commitment, because your failures are very public. Right if the bunt doesn't go down and you're with. If the ball doesn't get over the shortstop's head, right? If you don't get through that inning, you're the guy, right? So those things are a different type of person who can do that and weather it, right? There are a lot of activities and passions that the world values. That's one of them. But I think that as you think only your parents notice this, right? That's not the case. That character trait will follow you as you move through the world. And those of us who look to employ people, we value athletes because they do something that lots of people do. But we know if you competed at this kind of level, you know how to work when nobody's looking. Because that's how you get good at things. Anybody can show up and play game day. But all of the winning happens before that. And you guys know that. You took coaching, which is not easy for young people always to do. You know, you played positions you didn't want to play. Everybody wants to be a pitcher. You guys all came together and took coaching and took the personal risk to go out there and do it. And I know when we hire people, if you were an athlete and played at any level where you had to commit to that, I know what we're getting when we hire you. right? We know you know how to work when no one's looking. We know you have a system of excellence that starts with building blocks. How does it work? You can take coaching, you can rely on people. All those things will follow you. So remember, it's not just your parents who are proud and know these things about you. The world will know those things too. Congratulations.

Thank you.

I just want to say congratulations. I love East French. I am so proud that you guys won. And I especially love that you beat West Warwick. So thank you so much.

Anybody want to get me anything for Christmas? I need lifts because these kids have all grown. Um, I coached a lot of you, not all of you, but I've seen all of you play, uh, coach. Congratulations again. Um, who was on the team all four years that they went to the championship? Is anybody, that's just tremendous. That does not happen four years in a row. Um, I remember you guys at Craig and feel coaching some of you, you guys coming up to the snack bar. You're all taller than me now. Uh, But congratulations again. And coach, four years in a row, that's an amazing accomplishment. Only second to dealing with my son for three years, which everybody on this team will contest him. But congratulations, guys.

So I'm gonna just read the commendation, give the certificates to the coach to distribute to the team, and maybe we'll snap a couple of pictures and then you'll be all done. So this is from the town of East Greenwich, it's town council. On behalf of your entire East Greenwich community, congratulates the East Greenwich High School boys baseball team for winning the 2026 Division II State Championship. The pictures people get their pictures already. Okay.

yeah. yeah. Hello.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Congrats, group. Congratulations.

We do have one other group of athletes that we want to recognize tonight. East Greenwich for a small town who's collecting a lot of championships. And this is a commendation for the East Greenwich high school boys tennis team for winning the 2026 division one state championship. This was a rematch of the 2025 division one boys tennis state finals. Top seed at East Greenwich defeated defending champion Barrington. capping a perfect season of 14 victories without defeat. It was the tennis team's first division one title in program history and the completion of their mission to take the title Head coach Marissa Salvador has coached this team for 15 seasons. So she is an experienced tennis coach. And it shows. The team has won a Division II championship title in 2024. They got promoted to Division I. And then Coach Salvador took them to the championship. And I have a secret word that she is coming back for the 2027 season. So I'm going to ask her to briefly introduce her players and then to say a few words about their season.

Thank you. And thank you for this recognition. It's a wonderful opportunity to get the boys to come in and see the workings of our local government. So I appreciate that. We've been here a couple of times, but not with you. This group, two years ago we were here, but we didn't have a commendation. So excited, and I want to echo the words of The baseball coach, yes, it does. It takes the AD, the principal, the trainer, the community to really allow us to have such a wonderful community of young men and women that play the sports here. And we do have a strong tennis playing community here. I'll say that I grew up in East Greenwich and used to take my bike down Avenger Drive, even my skateboard. to go play tennis at the courts with East Greenwich Recreation, which was great. And it was like high school boys that were teaching me. I remember Chip Greer. Old people might remember these names, but you know. He would be one of the high school boys kind of running the program for whoever was managing them. But that's where it all started. Then I had two boys that came up in the program and played on the team. So that's how I got looped in eventually. And it's hard to lead because you grow to love these kids and just keep on signing on for another year. But yes, we had four years in the finals. So my seniors here, if you raise your hands, they've been in four championships, which is incredible. And two of them we won. Yeah. But really, the truly incredible thing about that is the year prior to those seniors coming in, the year prior, we experienced a losing season. We were 0 and 13. It's my only time that happened. And so to be able to come back that next year and flip it and make it to the finals and then flip it again and win the finals, like it's just, it's testament to how talented you are, but also how much you, how hard you work and that you're not going to have what the history paint your future, right? Because you all knew what you were getting into, like, oh, we were losers last year. So that was a really exciting achievement to make. And then our season in general, you guys rocked it, undefeated. Undefeated the whole way through. My assistant has to say a few words.

Your son. It's been a lot of fun. So for those of you that don't know, we had to face Barrington two years in a row. And the year prior, we fell just short, 4-3. And we went 3-3 in Aristo, not to put you on the spot. He had a battle of a three-set match, and just at the very end, he couldn't pull it out. We came back the next season, though, and everyone started putting the work in, and everyone said, hey, we have another shot. Let's all come together. Let's work hard and practice. Everyone put the time in. Everyone had a good attitude. If they swore, they did 10 push-ups. Some people did more push-ups than others. We made it back and who do we have facing across the net? Barrington again. I was on the single side, my mom was on the double side. I watched our senior captain, Henry Seeley, go out there who he had a battle and he lost the first time. And then in the playoffs, he went out there and he got to work with Tate, our number one, who was a sophomore at the time. And all season long, he got to work with one of the best players in the state. And he went out there for his second singles and he swept the floor. 6-0, 6-0. And that gives everyone on the team, they looked over, wow, our senior captain just went out there, took care of business and got the job done. After that, it got a little bit dicey. Aristo, though, went down the first set, came back and battled, and again, he flipped the script. He had lost, he fell, and then he came back and he won to put us up, what was it, 3-2? 3-1. And then to finish it off, we've got two freshmen, Lloyd Kelly and Andrew Katz. Two freshmen coming in on the biggest stage for the first time is a tough thing to do, and they have all the eyes on them. They're feeling the pressure, and they got the job done to secure the win for our team. And it's so much fun to see this, to see the EG pride. And I have a blast coaching these guys. I can't wait to do it some more.

Yeah, a wonderful group to coach. A pleasure each and every day. Thank you so much. And so you want me to list them by name? So not everyone is here, but I'll start with our captains. Henry Seeley, he was a senior, and he's off to University of Arizona already. And Captain Ravi Vishnu, who's flying home right now from vacation. Tate Coker Dodman, who played our number one single spot. Aristo Liu, Liam Levy, and David Levy, the dynamic duo brother team, state champions of doubles. Andrew Katz, Floyd Kelly, Kevin Chen, Luke Mendez, Daniel Larson, Alvin Yang, Patrick Klesinski, Liam Chen, Coach Sack, myself.

Any other words?

And one more thing, though.

Yes.

We're not honoring the JV guys, but the JV guys worked with them all season. And it was great to have them. And a couple of them did come here to celebrate. So I'm happy to have you guys celebrate with us. And then the town rec, I love that. But also, East Ranch, what they did since when I grew up is they added enrichment programs. So those are like the before school or after school programs in the elementary schools. And I look at these teams, and they all came from those enrichment programs. Those first, when they're tiny and they go in the little gym with the little foam balls, it just gives them an opportunity to fall in love with a gentleman's game like tennis, which is wonderful. So good job, Town of East Greenwich.

And then they meet a great coach like you and your son, and they're off to the races. So I'm going to give these accommodations to Coach Salvatore. This is a commendation town council congratulating the East Greenwich high school boys tennis team as the 2026 division one state champions. Congratulations.

Okay.

All right. You're great teams.

Ready to continue back to work. That completes our acknowledgements. We're now on to the consent calendar. These are routine items which can be voted on as a group unless a council would like one of the items removed for individual discussion. On tonight's consent calendar, we have minutes from the June 22nd, 2026 regular town council meeting, minutes from the July 13th, 2026 regular town council meeting. We have an application for a class F alcoholic beverage license for the Academy Science Center. fundraiser being held August 29th at Academy Science Center 60 Church Street. We have an application for a class F alcoholic beverage license for the child abuse prevention fundraiser being held August 28th at Faith Hill Farm on Division Road. We also have an annual renewal of laundry license for David Moreau. He's the owner of Laundry in the Plaza at 561 Main Street. Item 6F is annual renewal of the laundry license for Deborah Nalbandian, and that's West Bay Laundry and Dry Cleaners at 5675 Post Road. Item 6G, we have to do the annual renewal of the holiday sales licenses for the period July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2027. And that will apply to Anderson's Ski and Dive Center, Civil, CVS Pharmacies, both on Main Street and South County Trail, Extra Space Storage on South County Trail, Blood Ford, and the Savory Grape on Division Street. We have an award of a bid to Microbac Laboratories of Dayville, Connecticut for wastewater laboratory analysis in the amount set forth in the attached tabulation sheet. Continuing with an award of bid to Gill Services of Warwick, Rhode Island in the amount of $33,550. with a contingency of $3,355 for a total of 36,855 for the removal and disposal of the underground storage tank at the highway garage. 6J is a transition of Daniel McKinney from an alternate member to a regular member of the historic district commission to fill a vacancy for the remainder of a three-year term to expire August 1st, 2029. We also have the reappointment of Ashley Carrig, who we interviewed tonight to the Historic District Commission for a three-year term to expire August 1st, 2029. That is the entire list of our consent calendar items. I'm gonna ask that item 6B, the minutes from July 13th, 2026 be withdrawn to be discussed separately. Are there any other items that any of the councilors would like removed? If not, I'll ask for a motion to approve the consent calendar for all the items except for 6B. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, aye. The motion carries five to zero. For item 6B, the minutes from July 13th, 2026, we have a member of the public who would like to comment on those minutes. So I'll invite him to the microphone to give us his comments.

Hi, good evening. Gregory Dubelle, 120 Nolwood Avenue. I'm here speaking tonight under agenda item 6B to place formal administrative notice on the record regarding the written demands that Amity, Dubelle, and I submitted to this town council, the town clerk, the town manager, and a town solicitor on August 13th and August 14th. Those submittals cited town charter section C-19A and state open meetings law detailing material omissions in the draft meeting minutes for the July 13th, 2026 meeting when it's audited against the town's official video archive. Specifically, the draft minutes posted to the Secretary of State portal completely removed public inquiries asking why the 10-year lease was placed on consent. Council debate, including the Town Manager Notta's admission that the lease was pre-executed prior to the Council ratification and Council leadership interrupting public comment. despite receiving these formal notices last week the draft minutes placed on tonight's consent agenda item under item 6b remain uncorrected under section c19a of our town charter the town clerk is mandated to maintain a true permanent record of council proceedings approving draft minutes as written on a routine consent vote after receiving explicit written notice of material omissions converts a clerical oversight into a deliberate decision to adopt an incomplete public record. We are providing procedural notice to this body We respectfully request that a member of this council exercise their right under council rules to either table for video review of these minutes or amends to accurately reflect what occurred. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dubelle. Your comments are entered into the record. I would comment that the minutes are not a detailed transcription of the Council meetings, but a general summary of the business conducted. Our town solicitor has reviewed the minutes and finds them in compliance with the Rhode Island Open Meeting Act. For details of the meeting, the public has access to the complete video recording of the meetings available on the town's website.

Can I say something too? Yes. I don't really want to comment too much, but you said that you used the word deliberate, implying that it was deliberate. And I think that's insulting. As somebody who's worked with Lee for seven plus years, I find that insulting. She's excellent at her job.

Any other comments from the council? Yes, sir.

Yeah, I just want to reiterate what you were saying, Mark, which is what the function is of the minutes. It's not a transcript. It's not a legal brief. It's a general summary by the clerk of the topics we discussed. And before they're ever adopted, every one of the council members gets them and has an opportunity to comment, to correct anything that they find they would like reflected in the record, which again, the minutes are merely sort of a direction for someone who wanted to, you could grab the minutes, and if you're interested in the topic, go look at the actual testimony and see what that is. So, you know, we've, you know, our legal counsel reviews all that, it's compliant, and I'm not even gonna get into the sort of insulting tone that is adopted in the letter. the character disparagement, but it's become commonplace with these statements. And so what I do want to say is I reviewed all of that, and Lee has accurately, in my view, captured what we talked about. And again, anybody who wants any specific details can go look at the video.

If there's no other comments, I'd ask for a motion to accept the minutes of the July 13th council meeting. No move. Motion and a second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Motion carries 5-0. This brings us to reports and presentations. Our first report tonight is from the town manager on town-wide projects and initiatives. Mr. Notta.

Thanks, Dr. Swager, members of the council. A number of important items. As the council knows, Periodically, we have a full report that's provided to the Council, and then many other meetings will pass on a report. It'll be much more summary in its structure. But tonight, there are a number of issues that I'd like to cover in some depth, the first being an update regarding the continuing developments of our highway garage project approved by the council with a bond authorization of up to $14 million. That project continues. Our Department of Public Works team, including engineering and others, is working with our consultants Weston and Samson on the highway design. The scope of that project includes a new fleet maintenance facility, renovation and improvements to portions of the existing building, site and yard improvements, a new salt barn storage facility, as well as alternatives for covered or enclosed vehicle and equipment storage. The project is completing the design phase. We have a number of upcoming milestones and target dates. All this information is included in the report, but I'll just hit it quickly. Design development and having the initial agreed upon scope of project sent to the estimator by the third week of September. Cost estimate returned by the beginning of October. Final design development set completed by October 9th. construction documents to the estimator as just before the end of December with final cost estimate received going into the second week of January. And then we're hoping to be in a position where we have project publication of the bid itself of the design as agreed to by that second week of January. In the initial estimates, very similar to the school construction project, some of our early estimates have come in over and above the amount that's been allocated. The initial gap is about 630,000, very preliminary estimates. So the team has already begun to look at ways to scrutinize estimates, to determine whether the identified gap can be reduced through clarification of assumptions, refinement of quantities, value engineering, or adjustments to non-essential components. That's being worked on. We feel very confident based on the initial estimates and designs that have been completed that there's ample room within that overall budget to be able to bring the project in on budget. and continue to advance it forward. Next steps include clarification on the cost assumptions, preparing a detailed project cost spreadsheet, identifying quantities, unity costs, and potential reductions, further analyzing paving, curbing, earthwork, and exterior site costs, looking at some project elements that might be able to be performed in-house by department personnel, thus saving additional dollars and closing that overall budgetary gap, confirming the treatment of local permitting costs, and continuing the refinement of design and cost estimates before the project advances. There's no action required by the council, but I do have Fred Gomes with me here this evening, should the council have any additional questions on that project.

Okay, I just ask, how old is the town garage? Is it almost 60 years old, is that?

Offhand, I don't know, Renu. In excess of 50, yeah. Yeah, it's a poor example of a facility. It's an old block building with three bays of fleet maintenance. There is no equipment storage at all on the entire property. And I will say that the conditions, and this isn't the champion of the project, the council already has authorized a phase of funding for us to be able to advance it, but the working conditions in the existing building are really dire. So it's a project that probably should have happened about 15 or 20 years ago, And the department has done a great job of just band-aiding the facility to get us to this point. So we feel good about the committee. I said it on a meeting the other day with Weston and Sampson. I think it's an excellent group. And I think our team has bonded well with them in trying to find ways to really address the essentials with foregoing on some of the other things that probably would have put the price tag at about 25 million is really what we were estimating. So with 14 million, I think we feel confident that the in-house work

and some of the design adjustments will get us to where we need to be in a in a much improved facility for the department yeah no i just looked it up it was it was built in 1967 so it's almost 59 years old and i just want to make sure people understand that dpw does a lot more in that space than they ever have before which is why the bond was approved so thank you yeah

A couple of I'm not going to move in order of my report, but I think in terms of those items that I think need to be noted tonight, we addressed a number of different things. And I've noted previously for the council and I included in the report again, a recent ACLU report that was released. So it's important in government today when I think ultimately we can really be criticized for almost anything that we do. Right. I think the council is aware of that and we talk about it often. Really? We can. Yes, Mike. I'll find something by the end of the meeting. And a lot of times that can be providing too much information. And I'll say this briefly. In my entire career, I have been criticized numerous times for providing too much. And I know that's very believable by the council. As they know, I usually hammer them with a significant amount of information, which sometimes is exhausting. It can be exhausting to labor through the information, to try to understand the context. But in the same token, there are issues that can also be criticized for, rightfully so, for not providing enough information by the perceived group of individuals that are affected. So we've seen that recently. We've seen that in terms of our deduct meter discussion. The council and administration were criticized during the fire pit discussion for providing too much information. were right we heard it from those that were directly affected the majority of people in the community that had fire pits on their property the council and i were hearing from them in a critical way that we were spending far too much time i've heard from media in different communities during my tenure so it is an important balance that we try to strike on every single issue. And I referenced that because this document by the ACLU, and I would say normally, you're usually not on the good side of a report when you get a report issued by the ACLU. Very critical group. We are one of few communities in Rhode Island that really trended in an incredibly positive way, according to the ACLU, after COVID. in terms of committing to maintain our existing public access process. Many communities forego the, you know, the various local platforms that you were able to host, various meetings, participation, some just streamed their meetings, but it was a period of time that we have committed to that, and I think this report, which I've linked to the agenda, and I wanted to note that for the council, that it's not just the town side, but also our school department was a leader amongst districts in the state for Whether you agree with everything the town does or the school does, putting that aside for a second, I think it was an extra commitment on behalf of the community to be noted by the ACLU that the efforts being put forward are for transparency, for pushing out information, was noteworthy, and that is included in that report that I included as part of tonight's manager's report.

Andy, just to follow on to that, so for... mean that's nice to to hear from those who would be critical right of a closed government and you know for those of us who are around eight years ago uh you know when the courts told us to turn the lights back on in east greenwich right there was no remote you couldn't view a town council meeting remotely public uh comment was taken after a vote We provided public comment before and after, put them all online. We created a website that was interactive, outreach. So it was all very different. And that is now the norm in our community. That's what people expect. So we even have comments about how to improve, like a bell or a whistle on the thing, because people are using our tools. And so anyway, so it's nice. And I know we spent the money and you guys did all the work, the staff to implement this and do it in more than one location. We have it here. We can do it at Swift, right? And we can even do it at the high school we need to. And so all of that is a real credit to the staff and the energy and commitment you guys put into doing it.

So thank you. And I wanted to note, I want you to misread my comments. It's not perfect. It's just I'm just noting the fact that it's a it's a good system. We're being recognized for it. And we continue to try to make it better because everything can always be made better. So working towards that.

Yeah, I just wanted to comment that I think it's a result of the commitment that the administration, and particularly the clerk's office, has made to best practices. Our town clerk, Lee Carney, is involved in state and national clerks' meetings and organizations, and her goal is to look around the state, around the country, and implement the best practices possible. And East Greenwich right now is a leader in open, transparent government online communication. And we appreciate that, Lee, and also appreciate your staff. So thank you.

Thanks. I have two more substantive items that I wanted to mention for tonight. There are some others that are in here. Karen, I included one of yours in about low-speed vehicles, that as well. I think you had raised that at a prior meeting. We're trying to bring those items back, try to give additional information, but I'm not going to cover that tonight unless you wanted to. Just say that no golf carts on public roads. That's correct, yeah. A true golf cart is illegal to be on public roads, but...

When you say, but now, so a public road, would that be like High Hawk?

Any public road, yeah. State or town public roads, that's correct, yeah. It would have to be on private property, yeah. Yeah. So the two items that I think are more substantive and are gonna take a few minutes to work through, but I think it's worth the conversation. I'm gonna start off with the ongoing discussion in the community regarding the proposed HVAC systems within our school construction project. So a couple of key points that I wanna mention. The narratives are fairly strong in the community. I'd like to confidently let everybody know that The decisions made as to the design of our proposed school structures were made by the School Construction Committee. School Construction Committee was made of 12 individuals when those decisions were made, not only for the HVAC, but for other elements of the project. That were five members of the school department, school committee, school department. That were five members of the municipality, town council, and town administration. And that were two members of the public interviewed and appointed by the council. So you had 12 members. This particular, and I mentioned that because there are some who are, of course, with every particular item are trying to blame a group, an individual for the fact that we're talking about this now. And really, the matter has organically been raised in the community. It hasn't come from the committee. The committee has basically put its head down and is pushing forward budget-wise to deliver. a not to exceed $160 million project with a $150 million authorization by 70% by local voters in the community. At the time we talked about the HVAC systems, it was February of 2025. I attached to the document, there's a 40, 50 page presentation that was put together by Consigli, our construction manager, AI3, our architects, and Left Field, our OPM. In that presentation, starting at about page 22 through the end of the document, It in an exhaustive way notes about eight different scenarios in terms of HVAC systems. It discounts several that were felt just not to be the right fit for this project and due to cost it relegated that down very quickly to about five, which quickly was reduced further to three. The three that were reviewed extensively by the School Construction Committee, and then ultimately approved by the committee to advance as part of the design, came at a time when the estimated budget costs were in the vicinity of about 180 million, clearly way above budget. So there was a series of items that were noted that were subject to additional review, this being one of them. So the committee, with its consultants, went through an incredible review process associated with the various models for HVAC systems. So in a nutshell, We have what we have at coal today, which is not really a comprehensive HVAC system. It's heat and really air filtration, air movement. That's it. Then you have hybrid systems, which is what has been proposed for our district, which is part of the buildings, both elementaries, Hannaford and Frenchtown, those are the only two we're talking about. About 60% of the first story of the building are fully air conditioned. Those include all the common areas, all the administrative areas, the gymnasiums, the cafeterias, the libraries, media, music, IT, and a few other classrooms or other areas deemed significant and in need of full AC. The rest of the first floor, which is two series of classrooms, and the second floor, which is three grades, has what they called cooled tempered air. It's a system nothing similar to what's at coal, which is for heat, cooling, and air filtration, air movement. So in looking at the hybrid system that was proposed and agreed to in terms of maintaining not only budget alignment, but also to deliver what was felt by the consultants by our local educators, by our school department, school committee members, and town council members was an appropriate system to provide a satisfactory educational environment for our students at both of those elementary schools. Clearly, if money was no object at all, we could have just air conditioned the whole building for those days in June and September that you might need some additional cooling. But it is a concern. I mean, we had exhaustive discussions at 150 million, nevermind 160. that there were concerns raised that we needed to be at 130 or 100. So we wouldn't have even been talking about that subject if not for the council's willingness to elevate the overall cost. The other thing that is lost a lot of times in these conversations is the fact that at the time these discussions are happening, there are trade-offs occurring with other major, major project elements. So in a vacuum, it's really impossible to revisit At this late stage when the buildings are under construction, concrete's in, floors are down, all the steel's erected, roofs are going on, everything's being buttoned up for the winter at this point to pivot and make a change. The other major difference with this HVAC system is that it can be modified and enhanced in the future. in select areas should that be a determination of the building that would be under the jurisdiction of the school department at that time by the school to be able to bring that forward, should that be necessary. So as part of that review, and I think where there's been tremendous confusion is associated with a page that highlights some costs. Now, these costs, what we're gonna have is our consultants come back before the council in about a month from now, late September, beginning of October, with a budget update. They're gonna talk about the tariff impact, steel tariffs that were not overturned by the Supreme Court that are still in place. We sustained some additional cost impacts because of the steel that we purchased in Canada for the project. And at that time, they're going to be able to dramatically update the numbers that we're looking at from February of 2025, which were estimated to be in that $8 million range for the system. Now, I was on the phone today with two of our consultants. I will say I responded to the council very quickly what I thought was very good news after I heard what the numbers were, because there's been questions in town regarding it's only a couple of hundred thousand dollars, why don't you just finish the buildings and put in the air conditioning? And I believe that every official in the room on the SEC voted, if it was a couple of hundred thousand dollars would have said, let's just air condition the whole building. So clearly that was not the case at that time. But they cautioned me, I passed the information of the council. That information was basically that there was about a half a million dollar savings at each building, working from a fully air conditioned building to a hybrid system, the system that I just referenced for the council, where partially air conditioned, partially tempered air with cooling. There's additional installation savings with that system, about $400,000 per building. And then there's additional life cycle savings with the electricity usage and maintenance of the systems of about another 600,000 per building. So this afternoon, I was told it was about a $3 million savings during the course of the full term of the 20 years. But another consultant cautioned me to wait for the numbers to come back. And so that is the information. I wanted to echo that this evening. But I think when we bring our consultants back in a month from now, they're going to be able to much more accurate. I think these numbers may have come down some. So I want to be able to have the consultant stand here before the council and the community and talk it through. But they will echo the fact that the merits of the discussion are worthy, but it is far too late to really contemplate that and that the community needs to be rest assured that these are going to be very satisfying educational environments, modern educational environments, much more easy to maintain, much easier – cooled at a considerably higher level than the Cole Middle School is today. So there are a number of other elements of that project that I would be happy to comment on in anticipation of our consultants coming back before the council. in the near future. We talked about this item specifically this morning within our working group, both Tom Kenworthy, our superintendent, Bob Wilmarth was on the call. They're both on the SEC as well and voted in favor of this project at that time, or they might have been the prior superintendent at that time, depending upon when Tom, the superintendent, our present superintendent first started. But I asked people to go on and take a look at that presentation. There is a significant amount of information in the presentation, which is not necessarily unless you're familiar with the systems this is going to answer all your questions but it's going to give you a good baseline to converse when you want to talk to people when you want to talk to consultants the council school committee members or other administrators on the subject dealing with really what it's going to take and our schools are different than other schools so we have reached out to several other districts that have similar systems So what we're trying to communicate now with as districts that have similar buildings, two-story, major first floor, limited second floor, but we're not looking to compare ourselves to one of the largest high schools in the state of Rhode Island like they have in East Providence, which also has this similar system. The consultants will tell you the systems function differently based on the construction of the building. So they are compiling information to hopefully calm people's nerves that this is not a repeat of what occurred in the coal. situation when that building was built about 15 years ago and that this is a much more modern facility with modern equipment that our school department maintenance team can handle that is reliable and will provide a very acceptable and satisfactory learning environment for our students. But happy to try to answer any questions the council may have.

Well, Andy, just to follow on that. So this is not a new issue. This was discussed. I'm on the school construction committee. This was discussed at length there and in front of this council for obvious reasons. And what not only the construction company, but the owner's project manager all said you will disregard any experience you have with coal. It's not like that. This will feel air conditioned to you. This is common in what we do everywhere. They pointed out that somewhere that's fully air conditioned, like East Providence, what did the state pay? 90% of their costs as opposed to 50%. So it's just a different issue. And so that was reassuring. And what they also said was, And the town council, as a council member on that committee, when you talk about bringing a project in on a budget, when there are alternatives you can consider, And when we consider those, at least from my perspective, I'm sort of letting the school committee members and the school department tell us how they wanna spend the money. Our job is to land the project that they decide what their educational priorities are. They know how they're gonna run the schools in the summer and the winter and all of that. And that's their decision. I know I look at our job as, The law has the schools go out and do the needs assessment. It's exclusively a school function. And then what happens is, eventually, after engaging with the community, the teachers, they decide on what their educational priorities are. And this one, a big one, was grade realignment. That drove a lot of this. And so eventually, they present an application to go to RIDE to us for approval. We got that. We flipped it in, I don't know, a week, two weeks or whatever, and sent it over to RIDE. then once ride signs the contract the mou that they'll pay their half we then start constitute the construction committee and we go forward i view the town piece as schools you tell us how you want to spend the money to deliver the educational services that's the office you ran for i didn't run for that office and so what i'm supposed to do is help you land it within the available money. But as we go forward, they would make decisions. OK, if we spend this money on not just that kind of air conditioning as opposed to this one, what do you get as opposed to eliminating square footage classrooms in a gym? Or how does that work? So they, I really personally just wanted them, they decide how they want to deliver the educational services. And once that's decided, you know, our job is to manage the contract, manage the financing, and deliver this on time and on budget, which we're doing. I will note that for those decisions we had two residents who are on the school construction committee who are both professionally what they do is build educational facilities only and they both passed on this and recommended to us that we go this way so just thought I'd give you some more context.

I'm just gonna add a couple of things to what you said, Andy. Please. Because my phone was blowing up today. And there is a lot of misinformation out there. So let's take key points. One, there is gonna be air conditioning. There's gonna be traditional air conditioning in the, correct me if I'm wrong here, the gym, the library, the cafe, and the offices on the main floor. Other parts, it's going to be...

It's beyond that, Karen. There's about 60%. You realize that Hannaford's a smaller building, so a larger percentage of the first level, which you lose a classroom on the second level, is air-conditioned. But, yeah, you've got 60%. So it's all media. It's a couple of dedicated classrooms. It's the IT area. It's the library, full cafeteria, full gymnasiums. It's a significant portion of the building is fully AC'd.

Okay. The rest of it is a hybrid system. Cool tempered air has nothing to do with coal. It is nothing like that. And we really can't compare it to other buildings because of the unique size of it. The cost was prohibitive. Two million plus to do fully air conditioned. and it can be modified in the future so people choose to do it in the money available.

Unlike the system at Cole, and I think that's part of the issue is that, I think the school has said this many times, is that they would love to be able to come back, but it's a whole new system for the whole building. That they would have to install this system is modified and we thought that the hybrid system with the ability to make changes. Should the needs change within the building and another area need to be air conditioned that that would be, of course, for a cost, but it would need the system is set up to be modified. Should not that you want to modify it and not as if someone's passing that down the road and it's going to be modified in the future. But at least you have the ability to modify and manage the building a little bit differently.

and how the town presently in the school can manage coal which you just can't modify the system and karen there was also a whole discussion with the schools like if you put a much larger energy load on the schools that cannibalizes the operating budget of the school community so they're making those kinds of trade-offs teachers or you know like how do you want to do this and they did i appreciate that too thank you

I just want to make one comment. I think Councilors Donegan and Corenthal covered a lot of good material, but one number that seems to be floating around in the community is this idea that it would cost $400,000 to flip from this hybrid system to an air conditioned system. And that's not the case. The $400,000 was the cost savings between the hybrid systems.

That's right.

There's not a comparison number to fully air conditioned. And I know you're working on that because that will require updated financial information. But you are talking about millions of dollars.

Yeah, correct. Yeah. Yeah, it's a significant investment. And I understand it's very easy when you're not involved in the project to say, so let's say it's a couple of million dollars out of a $160 million project. That's a drop in the bucket. Well, it's not a drop in the bucket when we are balancing, as the council's aware, we are trying to free up $3 million within the 160 to finish Meadowbrook. which does not, so basically your 160 was dedicated to Hannaford, Frenchtown, and the high school. So we felt confident with our contingency, the amount of millions in contingency and allowances, if we manage the project effectively, if we accelerate the project's timeline, that's why you see construction workers there on Saturdays. So we are looking to meet the next, not fall, the next fall 27 timeline of opening all of those buildings in a completed form. Other than the demolition of the old buildings and the restoration of the property, those buildings will be active and open. There's a savings that we achieved by holding to that. So we have really promoted a project that is valued much higher than 160, but there are certain things that we're doing to bring it on budget at 160. This modification was one of them. If it was irrelevant and it had no bearing on the other educational priorities, Mike, as you noted, what the school department has said, and the FF&E, the finishes, the configurations, the required elements that the school department felt that was needed, sure, we could have added that. We could have had very early in the project We didn't need to have brick. We were looking at beautiful architecture. The council probably remembers this. Beautiful architectural designs of the buildings because they're both embedded in neighborhoods. So we wanted to achieve that. Very quickly learned and realized totally unsustainable, can't do it. We then moved to brick. Now at that time, if we said, you know what, it's air conditioning or... We don't care what the exterior, we could have built a block school. Now, do I think a block school, cinder block school in East Greenwich could be acceptable? Absolutely not. So those are the kinds of trade-offs. Gymnasiums, so that's another key. You have cafetoriums today. We have full-size gymnasiums. That was a trade-off. Council, school committee talked about that extensively. Felt not only for the school, but for the community. Those two gyms you're losing, well, not fully, but you're gonna lose some access to the one at Eldridge. Hopefully that'll be sustained as a recreation area in the future. But there were a number of other trade-offs that were made relative to landing in a place that I think everybody on the SEC felt was a reasonable place to land based on all of the priority. And there were so many that everyone was balancing at that time. So we feel good about the system. We feel good about where it is, but I do want to know for the council, we will be back before you with our consultant team with a lot more information and more accurate estimating. late September, beginning of October.

I think that's important to emphasize, Andy, that there will be a lot of additional information. So where would you recommend for members of the public if they want to get additional information? There is the website, the school construction website, which we can post on, and then there will be the consultants coming to the meeting to update us again. When do you estimate that that may be happening?

I'm sorry, the posting information?

No, when the consultants may be coming.

Late September, the second meeting or the first meeting in October. Yeah, they need to provide the council with a budget update as well as the tariff impacts and other major budgetary impacts. Any other change orders, small or large that we've made, we'd like to also make the council aware of those. They have to be significant over a quarter of a million to come back before the council. But the tariff one, which is above that amount, We don't get the numbers until after the fact. So we had already purchased. The tariff number doesn't come till later. So this will be administratively approving that when we come back before the council.

I think what we're seeing is now these schools are becoming real. You can go up and touch them. For a long time, it was conceptual. People really were not digging into the details. Now we had an open house. People came. They walked on the properties. They saw the construction. So now they really want to get more information. So we have the opportunity to show off what we've been doing.

And you're also seeing what's real is the federal tariffs on steel are real, and they're impacting the project, and we have to manage around that.

Great. Well, no additional questions. There's one last topic, which is of some substance and it's good news that the council is probably, you've heard this word, your rural health transformation program. And really what that means is back in July 4th, 2025, the federal government approved a $50 billion rural health transformation program. I would say 99 out of a hundred such programs, East Greenwich is not eligible. This program, we are eligible. There was a redefinition of rural communities in the state of Rhode Island. East Greenwich, because of our population, was qualified as being eligible. We're one of 18 communities in the state. I'm going to ask Andy Wade to come up and make some specific program recommendations. provide some program details. But there are two programs that Andy's gonna talk about. The first one has to deal with the Community Learning Center program. We're finishing a $1.6 million improvement to Swift Community Center. That was federal money passed through the state. There are no tax dollars going into that improvement. We're one of eight communities in Rhode Island that qualify for between 200 and $300,000 per year for the next five years. for a specified number of health-related improvements, which Andy is going to talk about. The second element talks about an additional grant opportunity, first year being about $155,000. There are tranches of funds in this $50 billion program, all of which we are going to be eligible to submit applications because of that designation. The base grant's another 125 per year over five years. Andy's going to talk a little bit about that. Things that we have since learned, Andy was our representative at a number of state meetings on this subject just recently, is there are going to be other elements dealing with our fire department and EMS that are going to qualify in the future, separate tranche of funding that we're going to be able to apply for, as well as other departments that may be affected going forward. This is a significant amount of funding that is going to be made available to the town of East Greenwich for, I think, incredible programmatic expansion over the next five years. I wanted Andy, who is really spearheading this, to tell you a little bit about it.

Andy? Thanks, Andy. Yeah, it is really, it's an opportunity for all the rural communities, and especially East Greenwich, because many times funding that comes available like this doesn't, isn't available to communities like ours, but this set of funding is. And a lot of the funding that's laid out in the future is gonna be dependent on how well both we perform locally executing the dollars, as well as how well the state as a whole and all the 18 rural communities does performing against the standards. So there was $50 billion that were earmarked for the HR1 and the passing, like you said, in July of 25. 10 billion a year for five years. Rhode Island in this first fiscal year, which the Rhode Island's obligation to execute the funding expires October 30th of 2026. So we're at the end of that. So this is a fast moving situation that we're dealing with from the state, which is a kind of a brief turnaround on the current funding that's available. Andy had mentioned $155,000 grant opportunity. And that's what's first up for us to act on locally. So it's not for us to spend $125,000 by the end of October, but the state's obligation to the grant applicants, which we were planning to be one of the ones for the community of East Greenwich. the one for the community to execute the dollars. 125,000 of those of 155 is to study and gather data on how to spend the additional funding sources that will become available. And different state agencies will be administering the future dollars of this larger fund. Initially, you know, it's the Executive Office of Health and Human Services that is administering this funding. 125 we're looking to get into, and Andy and I are gonna discuss with some community partners that we could have in different health sectors about how we could properly engage the public to get that information so that we're well prepared and positioned down the road to best execute the larger funding sources that will become available And one of those largest funding sources has already been identified, which Andy had mentioned, because of our involvement with the community learning centers at the $1.6 million expansion of the community center, which is inching ever so close towards completion. We're looking to get floors down in the next week. And then we'll just start some punch list items to close out and hopefully open the doors to the public by October. But because we were involved in that program, that particular sector, what they want to be able to hit about adding access to health services to rural residents, which is because of the Community Learning Center, the three things that we needed to hit was health services, education, and workforce development. So with that one sector that qualifies for this funding, we now become eligible for a targeted portion of the fund from the state, at a minimum of a million dollars over five years. I have some belief that there's a chance, like Andy mentioned, it could grow up to $300,000 per year. I haven't had anything to sign on the dotted line yet to bring towards you, but that's an exciting initiative, and we will most definitely look to put that out there. Some of the areas we're looking to Take advantage of that funding was to increase our medical transport program that we have already existing through the senior center. A lot of residents take advantage of, but we can't. meet that population's need because we don't have multiple buses, multiple full-time drivers in the capacity to meet the need while meeting other transportation needs that we provide through that service. And so I think it's crucial we take advantage of this and I'm really excited to see how we can properly engage these funds. Awesome.

Yeah, Andy, do you also administer the Learn 365?

Yes. Josh Wolf, our youth services manager, recreation services manager for the recreation department has been the lead on that. And we are expecting some additional funds to come through this round. Historically per round, our funding has been between 40 and $50,000. And with that, we partner with the school department, to provide a homework club. We partner with East Grants Free Library, provide additional STEM programming to elementary school students. We've added additional summer programs, after school programs, and with the opening of this with community centers addition, there'll be additional after school programming that will also be complemented with some additional funding that came in at the tail end of this project of $90,000 to help get some programming off the ground relative to all three sectors of the CLC program.

Andy, the funding source, the first one, the community learning centers, that's the $1 million, $200,000 per year over five years.

Yeah, that is, the funding source is really the rural health transformation program.

The transformation. Now, are we partnering, is that distributed through the League of Cities and Towns?

The League of Cities and Towns is, they're partnered with the state to help administer those funds through the office, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

So it goes from the state to the League, then to East Greenwich. Is that kind of the flow of funds?

Yeah, our contracts will be with the state, but the league's knowledge and expertise and connection to the rural communities is kind of really working as there'd be a support system for those communities because many, In this scenario, we're one of the larger communities in this rural batch of communities, but many of the rural communities don't have the infrastructure to navigate this process because there are lots of layers to handling federal dollars and meeting the reporting requirements and checking all the boxes and having the staff on to be able to see the outcomes that are desired.

The second funding source. Do we are we considering partnering with another organization to help us manage that it could be done by the municipality or potentially with another outside organization.

I mean, there are some communities that are smaller. I heard of Foster and Gloucester, for example, looking to work together. I think East Greenwich, we're looking to serve our community directly ourselves, depending on, you know, because there's different goals, right? There's five goals outlined for the program. make rural America healthy again, sustainable access, workforce development, innovative care, and tech innovation. Those are the overarching goals that were in the bill provided from Congress. Rhode Island has identified 13 goals that our local rural communities will have to choose paths to administer the funds through. And a minimum of three of those initiatives are things that we would want to focus on. Things that I've identified in those 13 rural community integrated and mobile health services, expanding access to rural community resources, expanding behavioral health services in rural areas. There will be some funding down the road, like Andy had mentioned, rural EMS health access and integration. And then I think the last one that we may be able to find a path forward in would be rural health information technology monetization. So there's a lot of big words and I think we'll be able to, when we make a plan and when we see what the actual funding guidelines are, we'll be able to put pen to paper and come up with something that makes a lot more sense locally. But again, because these are such broad reaching goals, that's why this first batch of money, the 125 needs to be executed properly locally to identify the needs of the community. Where are the gaps that the rural health initiatives aren't being met to serve our residents? in these areas to get the access to the services they need, and then we'll be best informed on how to apply for the funds and properly execute those dollars to really make a transformative experience in terms of getting access to the health services.

All great timing.

Well, the first batch we have to apply by the end of this month for that first public engagement dollars. And then I think the state needs to turn that around quickly so that they have everything signed and executed to meet their obligation to expend those dollars by October 30. And then within the next period, the next year, we'd have to probably three to six months, we'd have to execute the deliverables on that. But I will say it's not an incredibly high bar that we have to meet to hit the minimum scope. But I think like most things that we do, we're gonna do it to the fullest extent to get the most information possible, the best position ourselves to get the most dollars to put into action to better our residents experience.

Andy, what do you need from us to support? I know some grants have resolution from the council or action from us. Is there anything that you need from us to support the applications?

In this case, no. And I think part of the design of this particular program, because it's for the rural communities and because the many rural communities' municipal governments aren't able to execute themselves, It's not specifically a municipality that will apply in every community. In some communities, they partner with a third-party health provider that provides all the services in that realm to them, and those third parties will be the partner for the community to apply on their behalf. So it's just amongst ourselves in the community we decide. And the municipality will have a heavy hand in coming to decide how that is. But I think here the best is we'll apply for the funds. Then we'll be able to make our choices about who our partners could be in the world, whether it be people in the prevention realm, people in the behavioral services realms, or if it's working through our fire department and EMS as to who will take the leads. for that particular sector and funding.

Other questions? Thank you, Andy.

Thanks, Andy. I have nothing in addition to those items to report out on. I know there's other items in the report itself, but happy to respond to the council on any issue in the report or outside of the report.

I was gonna ask if we could move the public hearing up before we get the planning board result. I think that should be a quick one for the transfer of license for the beverage, if we could do that. We have the gentleman waiting. And this should only take a few minutes. 8A instead of doing 7A.

Yeah, I understand. Yeah, we can do that. We do have a fair amount after the public hearing as well. So why don't we, at Councilor Engelhardt's suggestion, we can move to the public hearing. We have our transcriptionist, Carol Malaga, here ready to go. So I'll read the item on our agenda. This is an application for transfer of a Class A alcoholic beverage license from 609 Main Street Liquors doing business as Thorpe's Wine and Spirits to East Greenwich Wine and Spirits doing business as Thorpe's Wine and Spirits located at 609 Main Street. I'd like to swear in our applicant here tonight. Nicholas Feedy Jr. Can you speak into the microphone, sir?

Nicholas Feedy, Jr., that's F-E-D-E, Frank Edward David Edward.

Welcome, Mr. Feedy. I think what I'd like to do first is have our town clerk review the status of this application.

Thank you. Hi, Nicholas. Hi. Okay, so yes, this is a transfer of ownership for Thorpes. The new owner will be a new LLC that has three members. Of course, Nicholas Feedy Jr. here and James Feedy and Jenna Feedy. All three members did submit the required BCI, which showed no Rhode Island criminal convictions, and the application was subsequently approved by Chief Brown. I did receive the certificate of good standing from the division of taxation for the current owner. So that is one of the most important pieces that we need. So that is great. The application is in good shape. I'm just waiting for a couple of outstanding items that I've been discussing with Nick this whole time, such as the retail sales tax permit, proof of insurance, and a certificate of good standing for him, for his LLC as the new owner. We also received an objection from, which we do from time to time, from Attorney Pisano's office for an outstanding debt owed to one of the liquor distributors, MS Walker. That's all being taken care of throughout the day. So as we know, there's no seating requirements for Class A liquor stores, and they will continue to share the same parking lot. So I will continue to work with Nick to check off the outstanding items, but we should be able to do that within 30 days without a problem.

Thank you. Any questions for the clerk? Mr. Fede, I'm sorry, go ahead, Mike.

Nicholas, is this a new corporation asset purchase transfer? Is that the structure of it? Yep.

So we're purchasing all the assets of the business, yes.

Thanks, and then Lee, would you be looking for a motion to approve but not issue pending compliance with the?

Yeah, so it would be a motion to approve the transfer for a period of 30 days subject to full compliance as determined by the clerk. If everything comes into compliance, I will issue the license without having further action.

So Mr. Feeney, maybe you can just tell us a little bit about yourself. I know you were a business owner in other communities and now you're coming to East Greenwich and a little bit about your plans for expansion.

I do not own another business. I've worked in my family's liquor store my whole professional career in North Kingstown, and I'm really looking forward to doing a new project with my siblings here in East Greenwich. I advocate on behalf of the liquor industry. I do some government affairs work. I'm the national president of the national arm of the government affairs work for the retail liquor industry, and... I feel like I'm doing this backwards. I should have probably should have done this part first. So it's going to be a lot of fun and live in town here. With my mortgage rate, I can't leave. So you're stuck with me. So looking forward to just being a positive contributor to this community. Thank you.

And any plans for the store when you become the owner?

Yeah, I mean, I grew up in North Kingstown, and I've been, I was jealous for a long time seeing all that happened on Main Street, East Greenwich, and we just look forward to making Thorpe's another pillar of Main Street, and it's, the McGreens have done a great job setting that foundation for us, and we just want to improve upon it even more.

Are there any other questions for the applicant from the Council?

Welcome. I will just say that I have bumped into Nicholas in his other role up at the State House, where he is very well respected up there and does a great job for that industry. Thank you.

This is a public hearing, so I'd like to open the hearing at this point for comments from anybody who would like to express them at this time, either in person or remotely related to this application. Nobody online. Anybody in person? So if there is no public comment, Lee, you think this will be able to be approved within 30 days. So you did submit a motion for us to consider a motion to approve for a period of 30 days. That's until September 16th, subject to full compliance as determined by the town clerk.

So moved.

Motion is second. Is that motion adequately for your purposes?

Sure, thank you.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries five to zero.

Congratulations.

Thank you. All right.

You have to come to every council meeting until it's over.

Don't ask for what you don't want.

They didn't tell you that when you bought the business? Thanks, guys. Have a good night.

With some apologies to the planning department and planning board member who's here. as well, I think we'll continue forward. We do have a number of people here who are interested in item 9A. This is a discussion regarding implementation of elimination of deduct meters pursuant to recently revised sewerage ordinance, including without limitation schedule of implementation. So just a little background on this agenda item. On July 13th, the town council voted to approve an amendment to chapter 197 of the town code regarding sewer use billing, sewer rates, and elimination of the deduct meter program. I wasn't in attendance at that meeting, but I did review the video and later spoke with Vice President Donegan about the implementation process of the amended ordinance. we added this agenda item so that the council, our staff, and the public could discuss how to best roll out the new sewer ordinance. So Councilor Donegan did chair the meeting, and I know he's, the meeting on July 13th, and I know he's given this matter careful thought. So I'd like to ask him to open our discussion, and then we can bring in other council members, town staff, and members of the public. So Mr. Donegan. Thank you.

All right, thank you, President Schwager. So this recommendation to implement this ordinance came from staff. I think anyone who attended the meetings on this heard a whole lot about it. And there were some competing interests. For instance, the administrative, ease with which you can operate a system that has deduct meters. You know, we heard I forget there's like six communities that have them. Everybody else runs on the water usage without a deduct meter. And there's also the issue of consistency of the units and how you implement it. You know, I think what we're doing is if you have one, you take a photograph of the unit and send it in. Well, what happens when you don't for nine months? We're not gonna shut your sewer off, right? So we heard that. We also heard the very reasonable arguments with why should I have to pay for sewer use that I don't actually use, right? All that's common sense. All of this was common sense. The challenge administratively is common sense. The why should I pay for sewer use I don't use is common sense. So then we got, we had more public comment on this and it wasn't a ton, but what it was, it was so detailed. It was like a lot of very practical suggestions and implementations. That doesn't usually happen. A lot of smart people gave a lot of thought to this and submitted it. I think our staff received some of it very well. And what I think happened is The implementation of that was bundled with the going to quarterly billing. And so we approved the ordinance. I looked at it like we're approving getting to quarterly billing. It's bundled, and that's what we have to do that night. And so we did it. And then talking further with the staff and members of the public, I thought that what makes sense right now for us is to suspend indefinitely implementation of all aspects of the ordinance amendment, but for the quarterly billing. and so i asked that this be on the agenda uh and so at you know we can uh i'd like to open it up for discussion but at some point i'd like to make a motion uh to suspend this you know indefinitely until further action of the council uh and if and when we ever want to take this up further we will but for the quarterly billing so now i'd just like to open it up for the rest of the council to

First, I'd like to apologize to the community because I don't think this situation was handled correctly. we thought information was given out that wasn't. And all involved people should have been given information about what the town wanted to do, especially since this is a money issue. And generally speaking, the way things that we've done things in the past, if something comes up on the agenda, if it's a big issue, we have a lot of people here and we talk about it and then we decide what is done. And we did talk about this issue, but nobody really was here to really share their thoughts. But then subsequently, people did come. So I agree with Mr. Donegan that the public should have a chance to give their information and express their concerns. And if it means putting a pause on enforcement or reconsidering, I believe we should do that. Trust in us, trust in me, depends on being... honest and accountable. So when I make a mistake, I acknowledge it. I pledge to take responsibility for it. And I pledge to do better in the future. And I think, you know, if this is the only time I make a mistake, it'll be amazing. But I appreciate, we've received a lot of emails on this. I've responded to everyone. I know I'm speaking only for myself, but I know I speak for everybody. We take all the concerns of the people here and people online and people who couldn't make it here seriously, so we want to do what's right.

I would like to echo what both the previous councilors said. One of the things that was alarming to me was the fact that people were not notified. I was under the impression that people had been notified that the deduct meter program was going to be suspended and we subsequently found out that people were still putting in deduct meters right up to the time that the program was suspended. That to me is very concerning because that is about transparency. the government and how the government behaves. So I am fully behind Mr. Donegan and Ms. Corenthal behind saying this should be suspended until further notice. Whether we revisit this in a different form or whatever, this was truly, I think, a miscommunication on behalf of everybody within the town. So that is

I would just comment that there are a number of components to the ordinance and as Councilor Donaghan mentioned, we can implement some and not others. At our discretion, we can choose which provisions to enforce. I think it is important that we continue with the quarterly billing. That was one of the prime drivers of visiting this whole amendment. And I know that our finance department has put this as one of their top priorities. The current billing system is not able to support the annual billing that we typically do. annual readings that are based that are then split into two payments uh the munis system the uh the tyler system uh requires quarterly billing to operate effectively so i would support including that i would uh we will ask in a minute our manager to uh comment on the work his staff has done uh but i think that the public needs to be aware that they will be receiving uh a number of bills related to going to quarterly billing. There'll be a September quarterly bill would be the first one. Then in October, people will be paying the second half of 2025. And then in December, there will be another bill, which is the catch-up payment. That is to get us on track to bill quarterly. We need to make a catch-up payment. So I would support holding on, enforcing the elimination of the deduct meters, some of the rate changes we had contemplated, but going forward with the quarterly billing. So, Mr. Nada, I know you've spent a lot of time going over this yourself and with your staff, so I'd like to get your input on how we would proceed in this area.

Yeah, no problem. Thank you, Dr. Swager, members of the council. So, professional staff have spent a lot of time on this issue, and even since the ordinance was reviewed formally before the council, work has not ceased. The department... both Department of Public Works, their engineering team, our wastewater team, as well as our finance team has spent a considerable amount of time looking at and reviewing the various methodologies that are involved the most fair way, if there is such a thing in this case, to allocate the cost of providing wastewater services to our customers. It's more complicated than you think, and it really depends on what side of the fence you sit on. So we've got a system that has been in place for a long time. So with new people entering that deduct meter program even recently. So we've estimated you probably have between 100 to 200 people who would be substantively affected by the change, not 400, but a couple of hundred, 150 to 200. The part of the communication process I would really like to look at as we've looked at these different methodologies, and by that I mean, we all know you have no other way to measure sewer usage than water consumption. So you have to, they're tied together. So it's water consumption is the measurable proxy for wastewater generation. So that's what we're gonna use. It's gonna be that piece of it. But when you go past that and you accept the fact it's gonna be water usage that dictates that cost, then you've got a number of options, none of which are completely accurate or fair, it all depends on where you rest. You're a heavy user, you're a light user. There are many percentage systems that exist throughout the state of Rhode Island and elsewhere. So in our former system, 85-15, if I'm a super light user, that 15%, I was probably getting credits. But if I'm in the vicinity of that 15, I'm fairly neutral. If I'm a heavy user, it was costing me more. Then years ago, the town adds the deduct program. So we're assuming the deduct program is being measured accurately. It's being managed by our professional team accurately. Systems are updated. They're calibrated. And so that's another system. A lot of ifs. You have to work through that. Then there's this whole idea of seasonal averaging. So we've looked at that fairly extensively. There are many communities that look at seasonal averaging for water usage. Some look at it just for a particular population. That would be something in a future meeting, should the council ever so desire, we could bring that back and have a conversation about our, deduct users looking at a seasonal average that would would Streamline and would soften the impact from that heavy summer use to the fall through spring use which is more consistent So so there's a number of other things that we would be happy to look at But what I would say is there's a group that's not here tonight, right? So that group is the group that's been in town for the past 10 or 20 years who just pays the bill, like whatever the bill is, I'm gonna pay it. They take the 15%, even if they know they get 15 off, they're just gonna pay it because they feel it's on average, everybody else is doing it, that's fine. That group is not represented here. And I can tell you that as you drive around town within the district, there is a significant population of beautiful homes with beautiful yards that have pools. Not all of those individuals are in the deduct program. I will admit, It's their choice if they know about it. So we push that information out annually. Whether you read the bill, you know what you can do or not do, it's up to each of us whether we're engaged or not engaged. But I think we know in government most people are not engaged. So there are many that don't know. So those people that overpay, I'll say many of them are overpaying, are subsidizing the rate for everybody else. those that don't use much, or those that have deduct meters and are paying just the value of their water usage. So when I say it, and I'm not advocating for any given program, what I'm saying is it's complicated.

Andy, I'm going to stop. I want to stop you just because all that you're going through and the four or five people who sent us very detailed, right, this... This is why, this is a policy decision that should be informed by what the economic impacts are to the town and to those with deduct meters and the vast majority who don't have them, right? It's that how much, if there is, if it's a net loss to the town to have deduct meters for 150 people, then we decide whether we want to eat that, right? If that's so significant, then it might weigh one way. If it's not, then you might weigh it the other way. And so what you pointed out, I think, is what we experience, which is it's complicated, it's policy, it's math, and it's imperfect math. It's imperfect. Right? And it's further, the context is even telling Almost every other community has has said we're not doing this exercise. It's just we're going to give you take your water usage and apply some rate that's over inclusive for some and under inclusive for others, because it's administratively cost beneficial. Right. So that's we get it. It's just that this requires it. if and when we want to do this, it's going to require a lot of workshopping. Like you're flagging the issues, right? And I don't think we're ready to do any of that. And I don't think we realized when it was promoted to us just how interesting a Rubik's cube it was.

Absolutely, much more so than people think, I think. We're very comfortable with the recommendations that we've heard and been presented. We're happy to pause. We've got a tremendous amount of information. Happy to engage the public should they want to be engaged. Happy to take calls from people who say, you know what, here's my water usage, and I do use water outside. do you think I'm okay at the 15% or 20%? Should I be in a deduct? So we would, based on what I just heard, I think it's important that we talk about should we still be accepting deduct meter applications or not. For those people, I've received a significant number of calls of people who just installed last couple of years. So clearly, another piece of this is- You got to pay them back if they installed them, right? We've got a program developed. Should the council want to go there?

Well, there's policy on math, fairness, and when it's over-inclusive on one side and not on the other, right? Look, if it turns out that the net expense to the system outweighs the benefit to the deduct meter people, we can still decide to give it to them. It's just that all the rest of the rate payers, if they knew about it, would be like, I'm subsidizing that. And the response for those with deduct meters is then get your own deduct meter, right? So there's a whole thing.

And I don't think- I mean, to be fair, I do think we should discuss at some point date certain whether or not we should be accepting any applications on deduct meters i think what we're hearing is that there is a significant there's there's benefits and there's problems i i think we should agree yeah yeah and i think the issue to that renew is that you got to make that decision so if i'm a resident and i just learned i'm a heavy water user i haven't used it

but there's a group of people in town who get to use a deduct meter and they're paying, I'm overpaying. So I know there's no timeline for this discussion. So we need to deliberate on, do we want the department to continue to issue them or not?

You can't deny someone the ability to connect and use a deduct meter if others are using them.

That's right.

We just have to be fundamentally fair. We do. And look, there are a lot of policy decisions that aren't profitable that a community makes. The government does things that business won't do. Right. We're not trying to run this for profit. And so all those things can be considered. It's just not tonight. And I think that, uh, uh, I think everybody appreciates all that you're talking about. And, um, you know, is it, do you guys have more questions or you want me to.

I could just one more thing, Mike, if I could add, so motion goes forward, gets approved. What I would say to the public that's here and listening. So this is going to require we're into quarterly billing.

Yep.

July, August, September, bills go out November 1, right? So that's the timeline. They should anticipate that our Department of Public Works, because many people who have deduct meters are relying on the effective date of the elimination of them several weeks ago. So they are not been eliminated. We're going to get a comprehensive memorandum that outlines that, that we're switched to quarterly billing. And then there's a timeline. So after September, it's going to be October. We're going to provide them with a finite, tight period of when reporting has to happen.

Yes.

They need to report. Yes. If they don't report, there are repercussions for everybody if they don't report. So we're going to need the cooperation of those with the meters, and we're going to communicate with them in a comprehensive way all the pieces of information that they need to know and what they need to be prepared for, now not semi-annually, but quarterly.

And Andy, I think when we start the quarterly billing, that's the opportunity to say, we have a new billing system. You're going to be held to certain standards under this new billing system. Exactly.

That'll go out soon because it's almost September already.

Right. Those bills, the September is not due until November 1st.

It comes quick. Yeah, time goes quick.

Now, Andy, I think that's completely reasonable. And I think if I had a deduct meter, I get, look, going to quarterly billing, like we were in arrears a year or more, then people move out of town, like nobody would run a town or that's not, doesn't make any sense, right? And it's not because it's such a small population, it doesn't devastate the system, but it's just not how, it's not how we can improve it, right? And so I think those at D-Duck Meter should appreciate that. And yes, there's going to be a one-time, the catch-up of that, and then it'll go quarterly and go forward. And if it turns out that we have recalcitrants, just the people who you've had to chase already, You know, you're supposed to send me a photo of your deduct meter and you don't, it's eight months, nine months, like there are those people. And so, you know, we'll leave it to you to reach out and move them. And if it turns out you just can't get them to comply, then there could be some fine or service charge, right. Associated with that and assumptions made, but that's all, that's all kind of reasonable. And I think, uh, yeah, we'll leave that to you until you tell us it's a problem.

Sounds good.

I think that's what I would agree with, too. I think that there should be, for those people who are like scofflaws to this, I think there should be a repercussion to this. I don't think everybody should be held to the same standard, and obviously a few people are ruining it for everybody. I appreciate the work that goes into this. I just feel that this was something that we needed to discuss and take back, so.

And I think the staff professionally understands that all of this could have been avoided. It could have been avoided in the past several years. So I think it's a lesson learned for everybody involved that this could have been avoided. We did need to go to quarterly billing at some point. So that needed to happen. But whether or not we have deducts, we average percentage, whatever the methodology is, they all work in different places. I think the make that change appropriate notice needed to be provided. And we have all been engaged in tough issues. And so sometimes you provide the notice and it's still not good enough. But I think in this case, it was just too little information that went on initially. So I think that'll be corrected in the subsequent months as we communicate with the deduct holders. And so we're very comfortable that we can implement this effectively going forward.

I think another benefit of the quarterly billing is if the deduct is disproportionate to what looks like a reasonable rate. I think you had mentioned some people 50, 60% of their water use was from the deductible.

More than that, yeah.

Now that we're looking at a quarterly, those things should pop up.

They should.

And we can then see what's going on, see what's happening with those.

Absolutely, yeah.

So again, this has been an interesting discussion. I appreciate the council hanging in there, the staff also. We're gonna get it right. I think we are not going to be eliminating the deduct meters tonight. So many of the people who are here were concerned about that issue. I think a lot of you have stayed here a long time and heard this. So I would open for some public comment. We'd probably try to keep this fairly focused because we will be coming back to discuss this in the future. So if there's anyone who'd like to make a comment, now is your opportunity.

Thank you all for your leadership. I appreciate you listening to the community and taking those comments into account. Same with staff. Thank you.

Thank you, Greg.

Arthur DeFelice, 58 Sunset Drive. I just also wanted to, oh, Arthur DeFelice, 58 Sunset Drive.

Arthur, could you speak into the mic just a little bit?

Sorry about that. I also wanted to thank the town council and Mr. Nata and the DPW staff. I know it took and takes a lot to implement and run this program and provide the information and to make this pivot. So I appreciate the opportunity to have been heard and the decision that you've made. Thank you.

Amity Dupal, 120 Norwood Avenue. I echo what these guys just said. Thank you very much for thinking about what the residents have been saying. I did just have two questions or points to make. There's been a lot of talk about 200 residents are going to be the ones that would be negatively affected by this. I think it's important to note that 339 households or families are currently using at that active deduct meters so it's it's more than just like 200 people a lot of families depend on this and utilize the surface. So the other point I just wanted to say is I don't specifically know that about the technology of the deduct meter, but I do know that there's some sort of radio frequency reporting aspect to the model that. The one we were told we needed to get and I just am curious if you guys in your deliberating on how to make this more efficient, and you know save staff time if we can look into why that hasn't been utilized because that could help with the situation, so thank you very much, thank you many.

either. Rich Collette, 205 River Farm Drive. Thank you again for reconsidering, tabling at least. There were just a couple things I wanted to talk about. Calibration, I hear that word came up a few times. In 55 years, I've never seen somebody come in and calibrate the meter for the water coming into the house. So if you trust that meter coming into the house, why wouldn't you trust the one that's measuring it going out? That's kind of my main point. It felt a little bit weird to hear that a certain percentage of the population was going to get an extra rebate, I guess. I'm not sure if that's the right word. While for us, it was the people who had done what they were supposed to do and made an investment in the system were going to lose something. So I think that's an aspect, maybe something to consider. And maybe one way around all this complication is for the people that have the meters do some form of average usage or average deduct that you had in the last, I don't know, one, two, three, four, five years, whatever it is that you've come up with and grandfather them in some way. That's just my suggestion.

Thank you. And the good news is if we do vote this way tonight, you don't have to worry about any of that. And if it's ever revisited in some future, there would be workshops and all of those things would be evaluated by perhaps other people.

That's appreciated.

Sure. Thank you, though.

Ashley Graham, 26 Wine Street, and also 15 Crompton Road. So a question is, so you guys can clarify. I have one house that does have sewer and the water. I'm assuming it has a percentage to do with what the sewer bill will be. How will this water meter situation affect my sewer bill? And then the other thing is I've been in the resident for five years. I bought my first house in 2021. And I didn't know anything about these deduct meters until it came upon you guys with the controversial, the situation. So I was wondering when the last time like this was offered or noticed to the residents.

Offer what? I'm sorry.

Like when was the last time that this program was offered or like told about to other residents?

For a while, actually, it's an open enrollment program.

Yeah, right. Do we have any?

billing that goes out is there any correspondence with people is it on the website in terms of additional information yeah it's been an open enrollment program for for some forever yeah actually where i see it is that um people who tend to want to save on their water bills right they'd sink a well or something and then they go and and they do this as well at the same time that's kind of how you that's how it comes up um if you're in you know if you're in real estate Those people know that, right? You build a condo project, you do it. You own a lot, you do that, right? But yeah, you're eligible where you discharge into the sewer and have been the whole time. So your sewer bill is based on your water usage, right? So it doesn't affect your, we're not charging you for water that comes from Kent County Water Authority. We're only charging you for sewer. the water use that you take in from Kent County is the proxy for what goes in to the sewer. We know that not all of it goes in, so we have a percentage, 15%, Andy? So 15% is deducted from the water usage for your lawn or whatever, and then the rest of it goes forward. That's very consistent with the rest of the state. Only six communities, I think, have... deduct meters because of the administrative hassle, I guess, of it, and maybe some cost. And so what happens here is even with the 15%, I guess you can go and install a deduct meter. And then if 30% goes to the lawn and the rest goes in, you would have a more accurate depiction as compared to a 15% just global kind of assumption broad application.

Does that answer your question?

Okay, great.

Yeah, so I think most people are confused by that. Did I say it wrong? No, not by what you just said, but just in general, is that people should look at their annual water before having a meter. Look at your annual bill. And then you know if you use water outside or not. Not everybody does, depending on where you live and your property, right? You may have gardens, you may have lawns, you may have irrigation. You may have none of that. You may live in town in an apartment. So you may not have access to that. And then you're able to calculate out what that 15% is. And so if you use some water outside, you can pretty closely estimate, you know, we're not using that much out. I'm below the 15. I don't need to spend the money on deduct program. right so it's but people need to go through that exercise because there are many and to amity's question earlier it is a couple of hundred because when we were going to go to the 80 20 over a hundred people on the list were going to save money because they don't use that much water not everybody in the program is a heavy user some just got the meter because they thought they were going to save money but they haven't saved anything right 50 of them are inactive A lot of the 400, 50 are inactive. I got another 100. So you're down into that range where it's a couple of hundred people that would really be affected.

But Andy, I just wanted to answer Ashley's question. And all of those things are for some future world where that may happen. Understood.

Okay, so Mr. Donegan, based on your comments, would you like to craft a motion?

I would. So I'd like to make a motion to suspend all aspects of the recent deduct ordinance, but for implementation of the quarterly billing until such time as the council takes further action.

Second.

A motion and a second. I just want to check with our solicitor, Mr. Tice. Does that satisfy provisions of holding up on that? You're comfortable with that wording?

Yes.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries 5-0. So we'll finish up with our new business. We have one other item. We had Shana DeFelice, who we recognize tonight from the Affordable Housing Commission has stepped down, opening a vacancy on that board. And we had an applicant, Bob Plain, who was interviewed in April. So I'd like to make a motion to fill that vacancy for the remainder of the three-year term that Shana has left, and then that term will expire September 11th, and then a new term will begin September 12th. So I'd like a motion to put Bob Plain into that spot on the Affordable Housing Commission. Making the motion.

Okay, second.

Yeah, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries.

We need to go back actually to the planning board thing.

Yes, I'm doing that. So we'll just hold on for a minute. So we do need to return back to our reports and presentations. And this is a planning board annual report. As per the East Grandestown charter provisions, the town planning board shall report annually to the town council at the end of the fiscal year, summarizing the work of the preceding year and recommending plans for future development of the town. So we do have our planning director, Al Rinaldi, and I think we have a representative from the planning board. The chair Tara Wood is unavailable this evening, and we have the vice chair of the planning board, David Johnson, who has patiently sat through our entire meeting. And we appreciate both of you here tonight. So Al, I'll have you begin the report and David, feel free to chime in and then we'll have some questions and some discussion back and forth.

Thank you, Mr. President. For the fiscal year 26, the planning board had 14 meetings Two of those meetings were joint meetings with your body, discuss the comprehensive plan. In summary, we had five major land development projects, one minor subdivision, two comprehensive permits, and one unified development review. Out of those applications, we only produce one new housing unit for the entire year. I gave a summary of the applications.

Where? The new housing unit, where is that?

The new housing unit is the Pastures, which was a proposal that is at the intersection of owen and division there's seven proposed house lots only one of them is in east greenwich and the other six are in warwick but they access their development through our time so going on to recommendations um when we recommend that we continue with the comprehensive plan update and also continue with the zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations modernization. We have technical assistance that is helping us sort through all the new legislation that was enacted by the General Assembly and meshing it with our existing regulations to all work together within. I also I don't know if it's a gender item or if it's part of the planning board, but I do have an update on the comprehensive plan update if you'd like me to go into that i'll be condensed. So. Simply put, the update is well underway. I would estimate that we're about halfway through. We are close to finishing the public gathering information situation, and we're gearing up to start drafting the document. Within that time, since the town council has adopted the phase one edition of the comprehensive plan, we picked up on, the work has picked up on three fronts. The first was public engagement. Our consultants went to several pop-up events and we have a community survey, a town-wide community survey, and we have put some type of notice on our website when appropriate. The second one is our expert roundtables. This is really exciting to have. It's small groups of local experts on key topics. We have three of them, four of them actually, and one of them is going to be happening soon. I'm getting a little confused because I'm rushing. Actually, the one round table is scheduled for tomorrow night. Open space is the last one, open space and conservation. And these are a real benefit to us because it gets experts, local experts that are out on the streets dealing with these topic areas and they share their experience with us and their insight. And that will then ultimately be summarized and incorporated into the plan. The one thing that we do need help with is getting the word out on the town-wide comprehensive survey. We have tried every type of resource we can get hands-on. We are going to be, I reached out to the community service and parks director, and I've been purposely targeting specific time periods for our website, the community service. DPW website, community plant community service website. I didn't want to bombard the residents with a bunch of, you know, here's the survey, here's the survey, here's the survey. So we're sporadically putting them through there. The next one will be through community services. But as of Tuesday of last week, we had 178 responses so far. I'm a little disappointed with that number. I would expect more. I'm hoping, I'd be very happy with 300 responses, but we encourage your group to spread the word.

Can I make a suggestion? I'm at Swift all the time, and now that I'm playing Marjan even more. There's a ton of people that come through there on a daily basis for different activities. They're not all EG residents, but most of them are, I think. So some kind of coordination or have the website up somewhere or discuss it with Rachel. While people are waiting, they could fill it out. Do we have paper? We don't have any paper and pencil. It's only online.

It's only online, but let me think about that because that's another idea of how to reach people. That's a good idea.

What about direct mail? could i know that because i do it okay so you could get since you're going to hit every house you're not going to speciate left-handed people right-handed people you're just going to hit every house it's a nominal cost and we just do a direct mail blast every home

I'd have to look into the logistics of that, but that's another avenue, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And everybody up here has used direct mail. So if you want any thoughts on how to do it, we can direct you to inexpensive. I mean, this might be... I don't know, what do you think door-to-door-to-direct would be, three grand? $3,000. And you drop a card. Yeah, a card with a code. So go direct mail at every house. And if after being all over the website and after all the efforts and trying to put it out on EG News and trying to put it out everywhere else, I think we should go to that effort directly.

EG News has been a very good partner.

I know you've read it a couple of times. yeah but we've tried and thank you for those suggestions those great suggestions i i've been racking my head as yeah so it may not maybe you weren't that wasn't a tool you were thinking of you were thinking of what we have in-house but andy can you work and make that happen okay great because that can happen quickly all right thank you And before I say that, is that what everybody... I was like, yeah, let's do that. What do you guys think?

It's certainly something worth exploring. You could put a QR code on a card. You could write to the survey site.

I don't personally know the logistics about getting the...

addresses and so on but i'm sure um my colleagues yeah i mean you could work directly with the u.s postal service they have uh people who will help direct you it's called every door direct and there's other private mail services that will handle that as well right great thank you and if you're a you know advertising or a political candidate or anything that

They do that, right? They pull all of them and they just hit them. And Mark, they don't just do household, right? It's every individual in a household?

No, it's household.

Oh, it is household.

It's one card per household and it hits every household within a zip code. So you put in the O2A.

Because Pottawommet gets, yeah.

You can request certain streets to be left off.

Okay.

But it will go in. Yeah.

Well, hey, to take them out of it.

No, it doesn't. No, no, you can remove them. But it's just you have to, you know, look at individual streets to take them, take them off.

Yeah. And if you need. So is that enough? Just call the post office.

That's a start.

Yeah, absolutely.

They have a program that will walk you through that.

I appreciate that. The next is our public policy. engagement meetings we've had one so far the next one which i consider a very important one is on housing and that is september 15th and that is uh open to the public and we'll be happy to hear suggestions where we're developing some exercises right now to to elicit information from our residents when is that one september 15th so it would be very helpful right to have that blast out the direct mail you can tell them about the meeting and have them go online they can do both but just you know you can't we can't from going door to door and knocking and making them talk to us that's about what we can do um so after the september 15th meeting we have one uh the last one which would be on october 28th which is a transportation workshop Following the round tables and the public workshops, we have received summaries. The summaries are in process as we move forward with it. We received summaries and those summaries would then be compared to the actual data that we get. And then the drafting of the sections will commence. There's a few things that I'm excited about and I'd like to share with the council is we are having an extra chapter and it's administrative accomplishments. So what has the town done over the last 10 years is the question. So we are gonna highlight what the town has done and it's really to to show everyone that we're doing things and document it and also acknowledge that these things have been reviewed and that's where our decisions are.

Planning has occurred?

Planning has occurred, yes, yes. I can get into more detail if anyone has any. I know it's running late tonight, but.

Running late, but I have a couple of questions.

Absolutely. Sorry.

Other than the obvious size, what's the difference between a major land development and a minor subdivision?

That line is getting blurred by the General Assembly as we speak. A minor subdivision is nine, more than nine lots on being developed.

You said a minor? You mean major.

A major, I'm sorry. A major is more than nine lots. a minor is less than nine lots.

Is that the one where you now are the poobah? It's administrative, right? You do it.

Yeah.

Yeah. So if you have all come major and you would have a buy right, but then they elevated the number and they took the town out of it and he alone is responsible. Yeah.

Yeah. If someone comes in with a nine lot subdivision on an established public road, I can sign off with my pen.

And they just have to have the frontage and lot size and all that?

Yeah, meeting, given that they've made all the zoning, correct.

Okay.

It's pretty, in my position, it's pretty scary to just be able to, you know, with no public input.

That was the goal, right, of the General Assembly, was to eliminate public input, eliminate local control, and just get it done.

Okay, so so how is seasons corner market then that you designated as a major land development?

It's a land development as opposed to a subdivision. So it's developed, it's a commercial property being developed as a as an entity.

Is that alone the fact that it's commercial? Is that what puts it in that category?

No, there are some housing developments that are like, if they, for instance, an apartment building, there's multiple units, but maybe one or two units, that would be a major land development, not a subdivision. A subdivision is cutting off individual lots. Most of what you are seeing under the summary have been extensions of approvals. So seasons came in, they were reviewed, fully reviewed, and they received an approval for whatever reason, business reason that they have. They haven't gone triggered going into construction yet. What is it they want to do?

It's already existing and they're adding on to it.

No, they're actually going to take down the entire building and put up a new building. So it's pretty extensive. They're reconfiguring the parking lot for safer.

Where is that Seasons Market? Is that on Frenchtown?

Yes, Frenchtown. Frenchtown and Route 2? Route 2.

i have a question when building permits are issued this actually came up recently when building permits are issued is it for is it one building permit for the entire project or is it you know if there's like a bunch of condos like you know 30 units is that one building permit or is it individual building permits per we had been talking about this i i believe it's the structures that are given initially the permit So the overall project gets one permit.

There's a point, and I don't know the exact point, but there's a point where it goes from the project to individual units.

No, because I was curious. I mean, because like certificate of occupancy would go for individual units, but then the permit itself, like, you know, when they break ground, you give one permit. Right. I was just thinking that. And then it parses itself out eventually.

Eventually, yeah, it would be per unit. If you wanted to redo your bathroom, that would be, you'd come in and pull one permit for that.

And New England Tech, you approved their five-year plan?

Yes. They were coming in, I don't even know the original date, but they came in with a master plan Part of that approval was to size all of their future infrastructure to accommodate what was on that plan. That infrastructure, and when I say infrastructure, I mean detention basins, parking areas, that has all been installed. It's oversized right now, but it's meant to accommodate the future. So they are in the process of designing a new building, which fits the master plan. They can move forward with it. The parking is already existing and the sewer infrastructure, the stormwater infrastructure is already existing and able to enlarge enough to accept the new building.

That actually was something that happened when they originally built. They had prepared the way you can actually go onto the property. You can see where they had prepared themselves for the additional buildings. And then they just sort of stalled, I think, because they didn't have any money.

Yeah, they ran into COVID and that threw a wrench into the whole project. They also were thinking about selling their Warwick campus and how to handle that. I believe... they are gonna do something with their Warwick campus and move all of the students to East Greenwich. Right now, students go to their academics in East Greenwich and then go to practical in Warwick. So everyone will be on campus.

Were they looking to expand teaching space or residential dormitories?

No, teaching space in this particular case.

They did get approval for another, I mean, they had, when they originally presented for the buildings, they had actually two dorms. I think they never filled their first dorm up completely, but their intention is to build additional dorms further on down the line. That is something that I was aware of.

They're anticipating the growth. It hasn't happened at the pace that they initially anticipated mostly because of COVID and how learning has changed. It's a lot of it's online. So, um, I don't know if those will come into play. They are part of the plan or two, two extra dorms. Um, but that's not part of what's going to be developed.

One thing I see, if you look at the report, it really looks like there's nothing going on in East Greenwich. It looks like we built one unit, but I think that the information that's not on here is the potential units. Yes. And I think that might be helpful in the future to give people an idea of what's on the horizon, kind of alert people where we may have stresses on our system. How many units is Ridgeline?

Bridge line is 38.

38, then you've got the big development on Division Road, the 400 plus. Right. And then if you add on some of these other units, you may be looking at 500 potential units coming on. So how do you represent that in your reports?

Initially, it did have the existing units that was approved, but I focused in on the actual step that the planning board took at that meeting. And these are all extensions of those approvals. So your report, the previous year, had the unit count on it.

Already in there?

It's already in there.

Yeah. Yeah.

But I could tell you for the future, I have heard two developments that are pretty sizable. They're located on Route 2 or going to be located on Route 2. They have some investigation to do because of our sewer capacity. They have to get a sewer availability letter before they applied so that there's the steps that they have to take with the dpw department and then, once they fulfill those if it's favorable for the amount of units and then they come to planning.

I was actually just going to ask you about that, because we had a few years ago um. The Council was considering giving to a polymer Haley's development that was in North kingstown where brown and sharp is it's kind of behind that. Because of the railroad tracks and some geography way back there it's accessible through East greenwich and it was originally going to be like the South county commons reproduced. And when I was in the planning board, we were negotiating. I didn't want the parking lots in East Greenwich, no tax revenue, all the traffic, all the response and all that. So we negotiated all that to make it reasonable. But then years passed and it wasn't developed. It came on a council agenda, you know, in 2017 that they were going to award like some very large gallon, you know, amount of gallonage from our sewer capacity to what turned out to be now an affordable housing development in North Kingstown. And so at the time, the planner then and Joe Duarte came to the council meeting and talked about what capacity we had. And you also had New England Tech. And so there's a lot. And it would be helpful in all of this. It's one thing to plan. the community as if we have infinite sewer capacity. It's another thing to plan it where you can't put it in this, you just can't. And then what are the trade-offs, right? Homes on route two versus what pays the bills, right? Which is commercial development, the medical miracle mile, right? That's what really does it. I know even just forget the buildings. I know my wife's at Rhode Island Medical Imaging they have millions and millions of dollars of MRIs and x-rays and equipment. So the tangible tax is all big, and they don't burden the schools, right? They don't burden our services like that. And so I'm sure you will. I just wanted to flag that as we need current kind of understandings of capacity.

The original one that you mentioned about on Frenchtown Road, that project, The vision of South County Commons has gone away. They have spoken to me about a 500-unit project. I don't know.

The Hades project, the one near on the – Brown and Sharp. The old Brown and Sharp. But I thought they were changing that into a solar project. I thought that was the solar.

And so the units would be in East Greenwich or they would be in North Kingstown?

We talked very loosely on the unit count. It was 100 housing units in East Greenwich, 400 in North Kingstown.

And the egress would be in East Greenwich?

Yes, the entrance and egress would be in East Greenwich. Yes, that's...

I see that I yeah that kind of thing I can't stand, I mean that's what's work all over again, the thing that the so the only whatever we think of that that's our function will probably only come about. the only involvement we would have is if there's a zone change or they need sewer capacity, because we allocate that. So at that point, we will have every decision about whether we would do that or not.

And they're looking at septic systems. At what? They're looking at septic systems.

Right, yeah.

Group septic systems. So they wouldn't need that. They would not need a... They would need a... conceptual sewer plan showing us that the soils can accommodate 100 units. Yep. Um, but they wouldn't need a super need a zone change, though, right? The zone its own residential, it'd be a comprehensive permit.

Yeah, it's it's right.

But I'm just saying it doesn't right now. It doesn't mean his own.

It does not need zoning. No. Okay.

They don't need sewer. And it's really just zoning. It goes to the planning board and they can fight it out and then we can litigate it if that's the thing, but yeah.

I mean, I've expressed my opinions about traffic. Of course.

How about water, Al? Water, because I know in Route 2 there was concern that New England Tech would be taking Kent County. There's a high pressure water line that goes down Route 2. Is there any issue with access to Kent County water?

I have had absolutely no contact with Kent County water. I don't know if the town managers office has regular contact I I don't have any contact with them.

All right, well, I guess we'll see if any of this, I mean. I sat through a year and a half, two years of South county commons going there and then years afterwards of nothing happening and then all the redevelopment nothing's happened and.

According to the owner, 18, you know, according to the owner, it was all dependent on landing target. Right.

If target, it was kind of like that before it was kind of like, we have to get some anchors in there. There was going to be, you know, a drug store, there was going to be a restaurant, you know, all that.

I mean, the health sort of South County comments. Yeah. Getting back to your miracle miles, um, medicine mile. My philosophy on that is the real estate market dictates that, and it depends on the owner of the property if they want to go which route they go to. I mean, certainly they could make much more money, but also where it's situated on Route 2 and so on.

The project that you're talking about on Route 2, where is that located, the pretension?

Either side, both sides.

Like?

Further down on Route 2.

Like towards the North Kingston line?

Beyond Frenchtown? No, not beyond Frenchtown. Before Frenchtown. The farms. Yeah. No, not the farms. Okay. Before the farms.

All right.

Oh, okay. I think I know the problem.

Okay. Yeah. And Al, I wasn't saying that we could drive private development. What I was saying is we could take action to reserve for commercial development on Route 2 capacity. We could, but if that project doesn't require the one they're talking to you about, sewer, it won't affect it. And if they come in with a comp plan, it's going to blow, you know, whatever.

Actually, you brought up a very good point. And if we could talk about it at the housing, because, you know, the sewer drives the amount of housing you can get in. Right. And my... My vision of it, and this is purely me, is that Route 2 can accommodate higher densities because it has sewer. In here, you know, from east of Route 2, it's more or less infill properties. People, one lot, two lots, or an ADU. But Route 2 would be able to have higher densities. and that's because of sewer. However, if the council elects to say, we will allocate X amount for commercial developments and X amount for housing developments, that'd make my job a little easier.

Question, Andy, if we, Andy Tights, if we, no, fine, no, you weren't. If we passed an ordinance resolution Let's say there's 100,000 mythical capacity left in the sewage system if we pass an ordinance reserving 60,000 for commercial developments on route to. Is. And somebody comes in and decides to put in a COMP permit that has 100,000 gallons right. They can't make us build a new sewage plant to accommodate that, right? Where do we land on that? Is that a viable option, is to reserve for commercial use a percentage of the available sewer capacity?

I think it would be, provided you have the study to support it, as to what the land there, how much commercial use, and based on what that commercial use would then require in sewer usage, as long as you could document it with proper engineering and scientific studies, I think that might be a possibility, yes.

Would that need to be after everybody who has by right the ability to tie in? Are you talking about after everybody within the district today that has vacant property who by right can tie in?

They can by right tie in only for certain uses. you know, if they're not already, if they don't already have a vested property right with a permit to build, right, I think we might be able to, it might be advantageous to us. We talk about managing development. Maybe that's our squeeze. And could we, Andy, could you guys noodle that and just see if that's something that we could, if we think we could do it, what does the council think about that as a management tool?

I'm wondering whether that could be part of the comprehensive community plan. Is there a section that that would fit under?

September 15th.

But what is the section that would? Housing.

Oh, housing. It'd be housing and public service.

You could have something in the comp plan specifically addressing limits of housing development due to sewer availability.

But Mark, I don't think that since a comp, permit denial goes to the land court where they ignore all the bases for denial, it would just be yet another reason it's inconsistent with the comp plan and they'll still flip us. If we have an ordinance, when they come in and propose we wanna build and use all this, we say, you're not commercial, you don't get the sewer. And we think that's the place the court may not be able to order us. So that's why that would be different, but that's an ordinance.

What do you think, Andy? I think it makes sense to let us take a look at it.

Okay, great.

With council. I'm making a note.

We'll look at it and see.

Yeah, let's just, if you guys can look at it legally.

I don't know, but in general, no. In general, the comprehensive permit process does not deal with sewer capacity at all. That's just a separate thing that they have to have. So now, so if they can put it in under septic systems, that's also self-limiting.

You know, we had that discussion when.

And more to the point, and I think it's not, and that's the point here. It's not that you're trying to limit housing. It's trying, you're trying to preserve the area for the economic development. Exactly. Commercial use. Right. So that the people who live in the homes have jobs. Right. And have a mixed tax base to support it.

Actually, just to not correct Andy, but just to expand on what he had to say, part of our checklist for certifying a project as being complete is, do you have sewer? Right, of course. And if they don't have a letter, Or the amount of then I'm not going to certify as complete. So they do not even they don't even get off.

Right. Yeah, I think an interesting thing I'd like to get on and do it towards viability and get on it quickly.

That's actually how the 410 division got approval. They have allocated from.

But even so, all of a sudden, if we didn't have an ordinance limiting that to commercial use for economic development purposes that benefit the residents for some of the reasons Andy would talk about, We don't have a great way to deny your buy right. What if it's an ordinance already spelled out before any such application comes in? I think we have something. I think we do, too.

Yeah, I like that.

I would like to figure out how to do something like that as soon as possible, actually.

Yeah, if the council's good with that, I'm happy to take a crack at working with the Andys and Al to try to come back with.

I think that's fine. Put it on an agenda item for upcoming council meeting and get a progress report.

And then for the next one, if we can, Andy, this is going to, okay.

No, you were going to.

We're talking about affordable housing for comprehensive permits.

How do we sit here and, I'm sorry, how do we sit here as a planning board and put controls on a comprehensive permit when they come in and they hit all the criteria? It's like, okay. You feel kind of like a rubber stamp committee. What happened to us a couple of times was the experts would come in and say, your comp plan says you gotta be at 10%, you're not at 10%. We're giving you a half a point, take it or leave it. You can't look to the rest of the comp plan. So what I'd like to do is I don't want the comp plan to say we need to be at 10% right away I'd like it to say we're at whatever we're at seven, eight point something. We're at eight point one. So by 2030, let's be at eight point six. By 2033, let's be at nine and incrementally work our way up with using historical data to kind of where we're going to be naturally. So they can't come in and say your comp plan says you're going to be at 10 percent. You have to put an emphasis on affordable housing. You can't look to the rest of the comp plan. We can say, no, no, no. The comp plan says we need to work there. We need to be at eight point nine. We're at eight point nine. We're getting there. So we can have some grounds to put on the record to make it more challenging for them to come in and overturn us and make it, easier for us as members of the board, because I mean, the members of the board, we read the regs, we understand what we're looking at. And when they have experts, they come in and they lay it out in front of us and everybody hates it. It's like, I don't want to, I mean, I like Andy, but we can't.

Even if it says that, because the state law says 10%, it's still all we're doing is we're going to end up in court where we have one element. It's inconsistent with the comp plan. Under the state statute, if you don't meet 10%, the five factors, no particular order or importance. You don't meet the 10%. It's contrary to comp plan. And so if the first one is it promotes the goals of the statute, and then you're below 10%, there's no analysis beyond that unless it's gratuitous dicta thrown in there just to justify it. So the real key is what don't they have jurisdiction over? And it sounds like sewer capacity is the lever, or it could be.

Yeah, everything we've seen is septic and it's, it's, it's a shame it really is that that we just have so little control and especially when neighbors are looking for something, you know, from us and it's like we just you can't give it so that's where I wanted to be able to point because members of the board were rightfully pointing at the comp plan what about this what about this state law is very clear you have to look at it with a particular emphasis on affordable housing. Yep. which ours says you have to be at 10% now. I'm just thinking if I could justify no vote if it had something more of a sliding scale that we were already meeting.

And it'll be, again, it's some, you know, whether you'll get that approved at the state level or not, you know, and so there's a whole thing, but why not, right?

Right, and it also gives leverage, because the lawyer on the other side is going to be looking for the applicant.

Right, there's risk to them. It does, I think it does, yeah, good point.

Leverage to say, well, why don't we move this here or reduce the, whatever, whatever.

Andy Tites, is there a, is it legal to limit the number of building permits pulled a year for residential units?

No, we already have that.

What's it, 50? What's the number?

No, not for the comp permits. They've removed that. But we, I mean, the for-profit ones, it's in flux. Let me put it that way.

So can we look at that when we talk about?

You don't have the criteria to support that.

What we do have is the criteria to force litigation over whether we have the criteria.

Yeah.

Okay, all right, thanks.

Other questions for the Planning Board? Al, I think in the future, though, it might be helpful to have a column which just designates units that are in the pipeline. So kind of give a broader picture. And also the sewer usage, I think coming back with some additional information about our capacity would be helpful. Any other final comments, Mr. Vice Chair? Thank you for staying so late to hang in there. We appreciate it.

Thank you. Thanks for beginning the conversation about managing housing. because that, what we just spoke about is something that I want to explore with our residents at that September 15th meeting.

And those are, there are tools, you know, and yeah. And the thing is, is that I understand the state goal, but they're just disproportionately impact in the communities that people want to move to, developers want to build housing, which is where the highest prices are, like East Greenwich. the barrier in a free market is the cost of land and the zoning. If what you can do is you can build 30 units where by right you get one, the cost of land is irrelevant. And if it's zoned farm or it's zoned commercial or it's zoned historic, that doesn't count either. So what happens is you... you would naturally go build here, right? That's why we're growing is people want to be here and they've taken away any of the economic and other structural challenges. And so we get that. And look at the state. The state requires us to submit all of our projections, population growth, how we're going to staff fire departments. We're going to locate fire stations, right? Our police, teachers, all that. We have to do all that based upon looking at a land map saying okay here's a hundred acres of land you can divide it up into one acre lots and then do the math or it's commercial so you don't count it for students right none of that all that's out the window of what you do is everything ignores look why are we even submitting that you know the information so it's very hard to plan yes yeah okay thank you al i appreciate it thank you

Thank you, we'll be hearing from you in the future. So we finished our public hearing. Our new business is done. This brings us to public comment. Any additional public comment in person or online?

Wait, wait. We did it.

We did the appointment.

Yep. Bob .

We appointed Bob 5-0.

Public comment is item 10. Is there anyone here who would like to make public comment?

I just heard that Quonset is planning to put up a wind turbine, and we haven't reported on that, although I kind of heard about it on land owned by Land in EG that's owned by Kwanzaa. So I was just wondering what you guys know about that.

I don't know anything about that. They're putting up a thing here?

The North Kingstown town manager is mentioning it in his manager's report at their council meeting tonight. I have heard from a source that would know. Anyway, just wondering what, if anything, you guys can...

About two years ago we came before the council with, and actually we had Quonset representatives, Dave King and others, before this council here to go review the project. Council ultimately entered into a formal agreement with Quonset. There's been no action. Green Energy was the contractor who was to build it several years ago. It's on their property that's located in East Greenwich. You've got State of Rhode Island. It was the whole discussion regarding whether they have the right to do that. So, ultimately, we determined that they did have that right, and we negotiated an agreement with them, but there's been no action. So, yeah, it formally came before this council several years ago, and I think the council reported out on the agreement. So, yeah.

It was reviewed. Now, when was that, Andy? That goes back a number.

I'm trying to remember. It's a couple years ago now. The years are rolling by, but there's just been no action. We thought they would immediately build it, and then it got tabled, and nothing happened with it.

They seem to be pushing on it for a while and then it just. And then it just died, yeah.

I'm surprised it's actually making its way back at this point, but.

Other public comment? Anybody online, Lee? That brings us to council announcements and comments.

Oh wait, I think there's another public comment.

Yes.

I'm just Amity Dubell, 120 Knollwood Avenue. I'm gonna keep my comments brief because I've had an 11 hour workday and I have to be up early in the morning to bring my daughter to surgery. But I would like to just bring up, on July 15th, two days after the last time I was before you, during a U12 baseball game at Cregan Fields, two balls landed in the concession stand area, one in the parking lot, two directly behind the backstop, and three landed in the first beach bleacher's area. That was eight balls in total in one game. On July 17th, at another U-12 game, two balls landed in front of the concession stand area, one landed on the first base bleacher area again, one landed in a neighboring yard. On July 19th, during a U-10 game, three balls landed in the first base bleacher area, two landed in the concession stand area and parking lot, and one in the neighboring yard. That makes a total of 18 balls over the course of four days that left the playing field area and posed a direct physical safety risk to EG residents, spectators, volunteers, and children who are playing at the game on the field and off. Again, I ask the Town Council what steps you plan to take to address this problem and protect all East Greenwich residents. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

I would just like to respond to that we heard this last time as well this this kind of information and all of that, I just want to say, for the record that these are the very issues that are subject of litigation by the devils against the little league. And the town and that our Council has advised us, you know that'll go through the legal process, not to debate that in public so wanted to pass that along.

Yes, you can make a response.

I actually just brought those baseballs landing in property that was not my property. It was in the baseball field area and the concession stand, in the parking lot, in the backstop area where kids were playing, nothing having to do with my personal case before the town. So I just, again, I'm just bringing this as a safety concern. It's just a safety issue. Please do something to address it. Thank you.

Thank you. If there's no other public comment, we're going to move to council announcements and comments. Any council announcements?

The only thing I'd like to say is I'd like to commend the police department. They have been pulling over DUIs left and right in town, and one week it was six DUIs. I just think that is, first of all, a little depressing that there's that many DUIs, but also I am very thankful for our police department for their hard work on that. So thank you.

Other announcements or comments from the council? If not, I'll ask for a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn. Second.

Motion to second. All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries 5-0.