Town Council - Regular Meeting

It is seven o'clock. We will begin the regularly scheduled meeting of September. I shouldn't, I'm sorry. It's not the regularly scheduled meeting. It's a different night. Tonight is Monday the 14th. It's the September meeting of the council. I'll ask everyone to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We'll begin with a public comment period which allows anyone in the public to bring an issue or a situation to the council's attention that isn't on the agenda. Agenda items will be dealt with on the order they are in the agenda. Is there anyone who would like to speak on the public comment period? Okay. Next we have the unveiling of the Massasoit of the Poconoke. It's an Osamequin portrait. And Jenny Flanagan is here. This was brought to us by her and a group of like-minded citizens. Good evening, Ms. Flanagan.

Good evening. Jenny Flanagan, 46 Washington Street. I wish to thank you for accepting the donation to the town of this portrait of the Massasoit Ossomequin. I am grateful for the opportunity to bring Ossomequin's image, literally, to the public eye. His place in our history and to the success of the early European settlers to this land are important for us to recognize and understand to this day and every day. The portrait shows we honor and respect this history. I'd also like to share a statement from David Weed, SOM's Heritage Project historian, who also wrote a wonderful editorial this week in the Warren Times Gazette on the topic of our history and Osama Iqbal's place in it. David is unable to be here tonight, but he wrote, as a 46-year resident of Warren, I want to express my appreciation for the town's recognition of the Massasoit Opus Sumiquin by the placement of his portrait at the front of the town council chambers. While Sir Peter Warren... certainly deserves recognition as the town was named after him, Ossomequin also deserves to be recognized as he presided over the initial settlement known as Soames before Warren was incorporated in 1747. In fact, we can see a frieze of his likeness placed over the front door of the building with the word Soames, the original name for this town, written above him. Working with a dedicated team of representatives from Warren and eight surrounding communities, as well as our congressional delegations in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, the Sohams Heritage Project is working to make it a national heritage area to recognize its original inhabitants, the Poconoke people, and the rich history of this area. I know that Ruth Majors, the artists who created this wonderful painting, the J. Barrie Arts Council who funded its purchase, and the Warren Preservation Society are all proud to have Osemeekwin's likeness serve as a reminder of that history to all who came to this chamber. This portrait, by the way, this is a reproduction of the original painting, which hangs in the George Hale Library.

Okay. Would you like me to do the honors? Please.

Sagamore with the Poconoquit tribe is here tonight.

And if he could come up and say a few words, perhaps.

Please. And I think it was around maybe 10 years ago when we, uh, started the, uh, the land recognition of the, of the, uh, Thank you.

I wanted to be here tonight. Thank you for the invitation to the unveiling of the, uh, my 10th generation, great grandfather. And, uh, I want to thank the town of Warren for your friendship and your help through the years. And this friendship started back in 1998 with the town council at that time, adopting a resolution recognizing the Pocono-Kazuti indigenous tribes and so on. I'm pleased to see that the town of Warren knows their history. A lot of people think that the Massasoit come from down the Cape, but they live right here. The first governor of Plymouth Plantation, Governor Carter, sent his emissaries, Winslow and Hopkins, right over here to Water Street to meet with the Massasoit and basically hammer out some of the details of the first peace treaty with the Pilgrims, which is Lasted 54 years. So, and Warren through the years, not only have they adopted that, but they were the first town in Warren to adopt the land statement. And also having us return to Birds Hill, the remains of my great grandfather. And I just want to thank you and look forward to collaborating with the town of Warren and the council. uh in the future i'll keep it short because they tell me i tend to be long with it but i want to thank you again i need to get back to my wife of 63 years because i've been out all day with attorneys and whatnot thank you once again for the uh we appreciate it thank you

Okay, we're gonna dive right into it. Next, we have a resolution, discussion and action to the Honorable General Assembly, requesting an amendment Title 16, Chapter seven of the Rhode Island general laws for foundation level school support. And I will read the full resolution. Whereas, since cities and towns are required to maintain funding for school departments in an amount not less than the amount appropriated for the prior fiscal year, the state of Rhode Island should also be required to maintain state aid to regional school districts and school departments in an amount not less than the amount allocated for the prior fiscal. And whereas regional school districts are unique and therefore state funding should be based on a formula specific to regional school districts. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Town Council of the Town of Warren, Rhode Island, as follows. Section one, that the Town Council of the Town of Warren hereby requests that the Honorable General Assembly enact legislation to address these two issues as follows. require state funding for all school districts, including regional school districts, be in an amount not less than that received by the school district for the previous fiscal year. And two, require that a separate funding formula for regional school districts for purposes of determining the state aid to education be based upon a comparison of regional school districts only. Section 2, that this resolution shall become effective immediately upon its passage by the Warren Town Council. Is there discussion, please?

Yeah, I would just like to make a comment.

Please.

It is my understanding that a copy of this resolution was sent along to the superintendent of the school department. And I believe she stands in support of this, which I think is important to know that this is coming in a collaborative spirit from both the school district and this council. And I hope that the town of Bristol will stand up and support it as well.

Good point. Anyone else?

I just got a question. I support this. Please. But the way it's worded, it says you got to give more than last year. Suppose the district shrinks. Suppose your student population goes down by 20%. You don't need as many teachers. We can't fund them less. So we can, our school department can never shrink if the student population shrinks. It's a little confusing to me. It's just,

Well, I think the discussion would be at the Rhode Island Department of Education. What this is saying that our state aid wouldn't. Right.

No, I know. And I agree with you.

It wouldn't be our funding through the school system.

Back my mind at the school department ever shrinks and you get less personnel because there's less students. This law kind of says you can't roll back. You got to keep giving them the same amount of money, which just doesn't make sense to me.

It's a good point, but in all the years I've sat here, we've never seen the school system come in at a less cost.

So if I can just briefly address this. This is a resolution that would require legislation to have it fleshed out. I think the intent behind this was to have this law mimic the law that requires cities and school districts to have the maintenance of effort. There is language in that statute that specifies that if there's a reduction in students by a certain amount, then the school district can petition to have a lesser amount. But this is just a resolution and it didn't get into the details. Okay.

And Representative Speakman is here. If she would like to address the council, please feel free.

Thank you, Council President. Yeah, I spoke with a member of the school committee, Nikki Piper, who spoke with the superintendent, who believes that this is an appropriate resolution at this time. As you probably know, the school funding formula is undergoing review, and I assume there will be legislation this year. So I will make certain, along with the other members of the delegation, that this consideration is folded into that discussion.

Are there any questions of the representative? Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

What's the position of the council?

Make a motion to support.

Yes. No further discussion. I second it. Sorry. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Next, Ms. Cronin, please.

So I have a resolution here. It is one that we brought forward last year. And I'm pleased to read it out again this year. It's National Women-Owned Business Month. Whereas October is National Women's Small Business Month, a designated time to recognize and celebrate the vital contributions of women entrepreneurs to the US economy. Established to acknowledge the challenges women face in the business world and to promote their economic empowerment, the month serves as a call to action to support women-owned businesses through initiatives like Buy Women Own campaign. Whereas the month also highlights the unique challenges women entrepreneurs face, such as work life balance and access to capital, making it an opportunity to foster supportive networks and resources. Whereas women owned businesses are a significant and growing force in the U.S. economy, driving innovation, creating jobs and generating substantial revenue. whereas the establishment of this month acknowledges the hard-fought progress women have made toward economic equality and recognition, building on key legislative achievements like the Women's Business Ownership Act of 1988, whereas small businesses are the backbone of our economy and warrant The restaurants, food-based businesses, galleries, retail, and services attract visitors from all over the region, country, and beyond, making Warren an exciting tourism destination. Warren has many women-owned businesses, more than men, and the 93-plus Discover Warren members, no less than 64% or about 68% are small businesses owned by or majority owned by women. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Council of the Town of Warren strongly supports the month of October as National Women-Owned Business Month, introduced and passed, adopted by the Town Council of Warren, Rhode Island on this 14th day of September 2026. We hope.

We hope. Is there a motion to support this resolution? Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Next, we have a resolution. to the Rhode Island General Assembly requesting an amendment to RGL 4553-4. This is low and moderate income housing requirements. be resolved by the town council of Warren as follows. Whereas RIGL 45534 allows for developments that contain 25% of the proposed housing as low or moderate income housing to qualify for the advantages set forth in the statute to develop affordable housing. And whereas RIGL 4553-4 also requires cities and towns with less than 10% of affordable housing to adhere to the streamlined and limited local oversight of affordable housing developments. And whereas developments that only have one fourth of the housing units in this project as low and moderate income housing makes it impossible for cities and towns to achieve the 10% affordable housing goal. And whereas these types of developments, particularly larger projects, are creating infrastructure and congestion problems in cities and towns throughout the state. and whereas cities and towns need greater oversight of developments in their neighborhoods but are prevented from properly regulating orderly growth by the above-referenced provisions of r i g l forty five fifty three four Now therefore be it resolved by the Town Council of the Town of Warren, Rhode Island as follows. Section one, that the Town Council of the Town of Warren hereby request that the Honorable General Assembly amend RIGL 4553-4 to eliminate the 10% requirement for relief from the provisions of the statute. Delete the 25% minimum unit count for projects to be considered affordable. And further, insert language into RIGL 452453 that makes the provisions contained therein optional at the sole discretion of the municipality. Section 2, that this resolution shall become effective immediately upon its passage by the Warren Town Council. Discussion, please.

The only question I have is where it's deleting the 25% requirement. Shouldn't we be increasing that instead of decreasing? And if they want to get all of these perks of the comprehensive permit, I think it should be more like 50% of the units that they're going to propose have to be affordable if they want all of these breaks from zoning and all of this. But if we delete the 25, then we don't have any minimum. That's my concern. You may have identified a possible typo.

No, so the removal would then open the door for further discussion?

If the 25% would be eliminated, then to be affordable, it would have to be 100%. Okay, all right. If that's the legal way it means it, okay, that's good. Again, this is a resolution. It's something that has to be fleshed out.

Right, okay. I thought we were just getting rid of the 25%, but yeah, as long as it's going up or it makes it 100%. Increase. Yeah, okay, good.

Any further discussion from the council? No. I got some questions. Mr. Charmley.

So I'm curious, is the person that drafted this in the room tonight? Yes. You drafted this, Tony? Yes, I did, yes. I got to tell you, I find this to be a very poorly drafted document. Okay. I don't mean that to be insulting. I just mean... It is, but go ahead. Where did this idea come from? Who asked you to draft this? The council president. Oh, I see. Okay, thank you.

The beginning of the legislative session coming up. Yeah, that's true, that's true. This is not the first time either.

No, it's not. I just have a lot of problems with this. So I wanted to make sure I was asking the most knowledgeable person about it. So my question, well, I have a lot of concerns with this. So just to save time on this, basically, What this would do is you're trying to basically prevent affordable housing from being built in the state of Rhode Island. Is that fair to say?

I don't believe so, no.

What is your goal with this?

Local control and increasing the percentage of the development from 25% to 100%.

That's where I'm at because that gets us back to the 1940s. That gets us back to the era where you segregated all of your affordable housing in one area of the community and it led to blight. It led to many, many undesirable outcomes. It's of failed policies, what gave public housing its bad name in the first place. We have mixed income housing for a reason so that people of different income brackets can live side by side. That's what's part of what makes Warren such a great place to live. So I'm against that. And then secondly, in this, it says and I hope this is not a typo, but and further in Section one of the resolution after the therefore, it says on the fourth line down and further insert language into RIGL 45-24-53 that makes the provisions contained therein optional at the school discretion of the municipality. Is that the correct citation?

I believe so. If the solicitor agrees to the language that's printed,

So that section is entitled zoning ordinances, adoption, notice and hearing requirements. So what that would do is it would make the notice and hearing requirement for changing your zoning code optional, which means that no one would get notice of any potential zoning change if that's made optional.

That's actually not correct. What would happen there is if the town elected to have the low to moderate statute applied to a development, then the provisions would be in there. But if they said no, the default would go to 45-23-42. So the notice hearing would, the notice requirements for a normal regular subdivision would come into effect.

What was that one? 45-23-42? 45-23-42. Hold on, let me just get it. I see. So you're saying because it wouldn't be covered by that section, it would be covered by this other section. Well, still, in my opinion, basically, what this would do is it... For projects to be considered affordable is the key distinction here. What it's saying is that it's up to the town to decide what's affordable and what's not. Is that correct? Yes. Currently, how it's done is you have to have an income restriction in a covenant. That's a deed restriction. It's a contractual obligation. Secondly, it has to be monitored by an approved monitoring agent, which is like Rhode Island Housing or some sort of entity that exists to make sure that people are actually being charged an affordable rate. And lastly, that it has to be for 30 years. So it's going to be continuous. And then it's it runs with the property. So it's continuous throughout that entire process. What this I feel would do would open up, you know, basically, if a developer was unscrupulous and came into a community and said, I want to build this development. And then went to an unscrupulous town council person, bribed them, let's say, and then the council says that's affordable, then that would count. And that's not that it just opens the door for rampant corruption in our communities. So I am completely that this is just a very poorly thought out idea. And I'm totally opposed to it.

Interesting how you could find bribery in this language.

Well, what you're saying is affordable housings at the discretion of the municipality, which means it's elected officials, which means any developer worth his salt is going to then try to come in and bribe somebody to get housing. We saw that all the time in the 40s and the 50s. It's opening the door for corruption.

I wasn't alive in the 40s and 50s. I find, you know, you could do the same thing with a liquor license. You could use the same wording and the same thought process to it. I mean, anything that we approve, I guess, is subject to bribery, right?

Yeah, you have to follow the law. Correct.

We have a limited number of liquor licenses we can grant as a community. Right. We don't get unlimited amounts of opportunities to do this stuff. There's reasons that we have these things in place. And it's so strict for a reason, because it's meant to make sure that the people that are actually in that housing are actually people that need affordable housing. And taking that away just under the guise of trying to, I have no idea what this is, you know, local control is, I don't see any local control in here. I don't see anything in there about local control. It's just about stopping housing.

Thank you. We'll refer to the chair and speak to the chair.

Mr. Hanley. Well, the biggest problem I have is the 10% where the state comes up with their 10%.

If it doesn't meet those exact guidelines that you quoted with the 30-day lock-in, it doesn't count.

That's not true. Uh, yeah, speak to the chair, speak to Mr. Trump houses in this town. With some of the rents meet that affordable. Guideline where the rents are in line with what you're allowed to consider affordable, but because they are not locked in for a 30 year period. They don't count towards our 10% of affordable housing, even though they meet the income guidelines or they meet the amount of rent that is charged for those units. We don't get credit for that to the 10%. So by not giving us credit for that, the state is forcing us to actually bail out some of the bigger cities where their workforce doesn't have that many of the affordable units like we have. They're not locked in for 30 years, and they're not government controlled, so they don't count towards our 10%. They should. If they adjusted the numbers on the 10%, then maybe this wouldn't be as hard to swallow on the other end of it.

I mean, that's a fair... Mr. Trombley, please repeat when I call on you. You can have the floor. Anyone else have something they want to say on the issue before we go back to people for seconds?

I just think that we need to... I'm not ready to support this. I think we need to have further discussion on how we can better count those units in town that are affordable or create more that are affordable outside of the comprehensive permit and work towards Yeah, I think that there are housing units in the town right now that are not being counted as affordable that could be. And I think that this to me sounds a little, sounds a little elitist. It sounds a little exclusionary and a little bit like a little unwelcoming or a way to prevent the housing being created that we actually need. So I'm, yeah, I feel like this is not at a place where it needs to be. And as far as By doing this, it would mean that development would have to be 100% to get the leeway and the benefits. that exist in a comprehensive permit right now, I don't see that in there. I don't read that in here. That would need to be explained clearly and said in exact words. I don't have the legal mind to read between the lines here, but it seems a little, that's not explained to me clearly here.

To the system, would you like to answer that?

So here's the thing. Title 45, Chapter 53 is an extensive statute. This addresses two of the main points to it, and I understand where you're coming from on this. The 25% was actually put into the statute after it was initially passed. So to proceed under the provisions of the statute, you have to have 100% for it if you read the entire statute. By the way, this is a resolution. It's not the legislation. The legislation would be more detailed. I think when you see resolutions of this nature, what you have to do is take a look at the idea behind it and say whether or not you're either for or against it. This is something That would take a lot, and I wasn't asked, by the way, to draft the legislation. If I was, that would take more time, and you would have a more detailed document. The real issue here is whether or not you feel that Title 45, Chapter 53, which is the Low to Moderate Income Housing Act, is something that you want to see altered or stay the same. I think that's what the main import for this is.

Thank you. Joe? Mr. Rigo. I see things a little differently. I think that some of this stuff has been shoved down our throats and I think we need some safeguards. The only was put in place was not to hurt people, was to protect people. And I think this legislation hasn't done a good job. And we're going to hear tonight some people complaining about affordable housing and what's done to their neighborhood. So I'm supportive of this resolution.

When I have sat here over the years and listened to the aches and pains of the community, what I keep hearing is not the lack of need, but how the state is penalizing us instead of incentivizing us. Ms. Speakman is here, Representative Speakman. She can feel free to come down and address the council questions. Mr. President, point of order. I've been waiting to- I know you have. I haven't called on you yet. Well, shouldn't we do this? Derek, I was actually going to call on you, but since you have a need this evening to jump the gun, go ahead. This is an important issue to me. So you don't have to break the rules here. I'm not breaking any rules. Go ahead, Mr. Trombley.

Thank you, Mr. President. To respond to Mr. Hanley's comments, what I was going to say is that we do count Section 8 vouchers as affordable housing. That is a recent addition, I will say, but that is an update. So it's not just the deed restricted. But the problem with counting the non-deed restricted ones that are within that parameter is that the next day, if they get counted as affordable housing, the rent can go up tomorrow. It can. And that's why it's important to have those safeguards in place to make sure that affordable housing is actually affordable and not just some in-name only thing, which is what I think this is attempting to do. So that is my point I was only trying to make. I apologize for offending you, Mr. President. Please continue.

Not offended. I've called on everybody, every meeting, given them ample opportunity to speak. I was calling on Representative Speakman, since we've all had the opportunity to speak once, I thought it would be nice to hear from the representative. Ms. Speakman, please come down. Good evening.

Good evening, council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I understand the discomfort that communities have with this piece of legislation. I would not refer to it as shoving things down the throat of municipalities, although I've heard it referred to many times that way. Just in Warren, the median home price is $522,500. The median rent is $2,692. In Warren, 4,962 households are cost burdened. That means they pay more than 30% of their income on housing. 20% of homeowners, 48% of renters pay more than 40% of their income on their homes. So clearly, in this town, for people living here, there aren't enough units to give people the relief they need. So we do need, in this community, to do something to try to bring rents down. There are many different strategies for doing that. The 10 percent requirement was set In 1991, the comprehensive permit was invented, I think, in 2004. I think Mr. DeSisto said that the 10% was not applied to, it was only applied to nonprofits at the beginning. It didn't generate the housing that was expected. And so for-profit developers were added and the comprehensive permit with the 25% and so forth. I should point out that if you have 100% affordable in the legislation as it now stands, you get nine units per acre, which is, much more dense than if you have 25% but that those are in the details of the law. So, I would like to, I would like to see more detailed recommendations, I, it is my duty as the representative for this community to bring your, your request to the legislature, and I take that very seriously. I would like though to have a little more guidance about the specifics of it. I do think that We need more legislative language so that I can present this proposal to my colleagues in the House more clearly. I do know that there are eight communities that have met the 10% and they will not react well to this proposal that the 10% be eliminated because many of them, Boroughville, for example, East Greenwich is this far away. they will not react well to saying we did all this work to get to the 10% and we want, now we're proposing to eliminate the requirement. So I would, and I would ask you also, is it the 10% that you object to, or is it how units are counted towards the 10% as you said, Councilman Hammond?

I think it's the way they're counted because if they were counted the way I believe they should be counted, we would be at the 10%.

So we can work on that. That would require landlords registering with the state and having their rent monitored, right? So that when they're offering an affordable rent today, we need to make sure they're not, as Councilman Trombley said, raising that rent the next day. So that requires a layer of bureaucracy and registration and oversight of landlord's behavior, which might not work well. I'm not sure. But I agree with you. We should look at how units are counted. As Councilman Trombley said, we now count Section 8 vouchers. We count manufactured homes that used to be called mobile homes. And there are other kinds of units that are what we call naturally occurring affordable housing. So I agree with you that the state legislature should look more carefully at how we count these units. And there may be ways to get to the 10%. As you say, maybe there's a lot of naturally occurring housing in Warren that deserves to be counted. I spoke with a member of the community the other day. She's an 80-year-old woman who owns a two-family home. She has a 65-year-old tenant. She needs to get the lead out of her apartment, according to state law. She charges her tenants $600 a month. That's the kind of thing you're talking about. She doesn't want to raise the rent to have to get the lead out. And I appreciate that. So I'm looking for ways to help her as well. But speaking of constituents, I will say I received two calls last week, one from someone who was evicted from her apartment in Warren because she missed two months rent and she couldn't pay. Another from someone who lives in Tourister, whose rent is going up $130 a month, and she will have to move out of that community. She would like to stay in town, but there's no place to live with a median rent of $2,692. So this is a problem that we share. And I don't believe that this resolution gets us to solving that problem. So I would hope that we could take a step back, perhaps table it, and get some more precise guidance on this.

Mr. Rigo? Yeah, so you just mentioned it twice, the median rent at $2,610. How did you come up with that figure?

It's from Housing Works Rhode Island's fact book.

So if, you know, you just mentioned you had someone at 650. Do you think they take those numbers in consideration? I mean, where do they come up with their figures? They do surveys. They do surveys. I'm only in London where he's ever called me. So how can we do a proper survey if you're not calling everybody? Like you said, there's no way of monitoring it. So how do they come up with these figures? And again, I'm all for affordable housing. Let her answer this.

I would have to look at the methodology section of the fact book, which is the most frequently quoted and well-regarded source of data on housing. But how they precisely get to the median rent, I will have to get back to you on that. I appreciate the question.

You can see how it's concerning to me, right?

Pardon me?

You can see how it would be concerning for them to come up with that figure.

I know the Tourister pushes the average up, right? That's a lot of units at the high end. And I know that the Tourister rents, which are a lot of units at high end, push that average up.

Mr. John Lee, do you have any... Most of the units in my neighborhood are in the $1,800 to $2,100 range. They're not in that $2,600 range at all. They're not regulated. They're not locked in by that 30 years. They're just landlords that own houses. you know, either duplexes or three families. So the $2,600 is not a realistic number for what the rents are in actual or real Warren, not the Tourista Project, you know?

The Tourista Project is real Warren.

Well, I mean, like- I consider them real Warren. Real was wrong. I meant more like rural, not like a big development, like the triple-decker side-by-side-by-side. Yes. That's not really rural, but that's what I meant, not real. More rural areas. where it's not a big conglomerate housing project. The rents in those areas are not at that $2,600 per month.

I will get you the methodology and how they come up with that number.

But with that, they still don't count. And we're still at this point where we are expected to meet the 10%, which isn't an unreasonable goal to shoot for. but I don't think we have the tools to get there or the, and I don't think that this is gonna help us get there in its current state. I think we need to, look at other ways of getting there.

Yes. And when I sent this resolution to Rhode Island Housing for their comment, I got an email back from one of the staff members who suggested that the town look into the municipal fellows program and the technical assistance program that can help towns like Warren find parcels that might be developable, including parcels owned by the state and the local government, and then provide them with development assistance. to bring us closer to the 10, more and closer to the 10%.

But that's their business.

Pardon me?

That's how they generate revenues by developing and using Rhode Island housing. And that's their argument. And it's okay. And they can use that argument. May I ask a question? Please.

Who's they?

Rhode Island housing.

They, okay. That's how they provide units for people to live in.

And that's how they generate income by providing these units.

Well, no one does this for free. No one builds housing for free.

I realize that.

Rhode Island Housing is primarily a financing agency, not a builder.

I can't see Ms. Paula Castro, and I think she had her hand up.

Am I?

No, you're not.

I'm not done?

No.

Okay.

Because if you remember, it was a few years ago, you and I had a business lunch at your house. And that's when this discussion started. And it was at that time that I waited for the legislation and we never connected. And then I had an accident and then life got busy. And here we are. So to cool the air, so to speak, in regards to feeling that this may be an inappropriate time or inappropriate language in the bill, you clearly can state for the record that this has been an issue that we have been discussing for several years.

Absolutely.

There's no untimeliness to this introduction of the of this evenings.

No, my concern is with the language. I understand. I understand the goal.

That's fine. I just needed a little clarity, clarity for myself.

We've been talking about this for years. Yes. I have with other several other members.

Thank you. Ms. Paula Castro.

So my department works very closely with the executive officer of housing, as well as around housing. Just a little bit of clarification. Rhode Island Housing serves as a quasi-bank and CDC, Community Development Corporation for the state of Rhode Island, that offers economic incentives as well as development incentives for development primarily around affordable. However, affordable is kind of A pendulum. It goes over from extreme to low to moderate income to 120% AMI. So for instance, I always use myself as an example. My salary is public knowledge. It's $89,000 per year on my gross, my, um, housing in order to be considered housing burden is primarily $30,000 a year. However, when you look at my net and that same percentage at 30%, I'm considered housing burden in the state of Rhode Island. I think that it takes personal housing policy is incredibly convoluted. Um, it took the federal government an incredibly long time to pay attention to policy change. Um, you know, HUD was enacted in 1954. There was changes in 1964 with the economic opportunity act, and it became kind of quasi stable until. The 1980s, 1990s, when they realized that the significant amount of public housing they built in the 1940s and 50s had become significant slum and blight. I'm just giving that a little background. The pendulum is swinging the other way. It takes about 10 years to change policy. We are about five years into that 10-year mark. We have had a significant amount of housing reform in the state of Rhode Island in a very short amount of time. I believe we passed, and Rep, you can correct me, approximately 54 laws in the state as it relates to land use and housing since 2022. So I would say that Warren is kind of in the middle of that pendulum swing right now. I agree that there should be a landlord registration to look at unit counts. I primarily have worked in urban cores where, believe it or not, the rents are most of the time significantly higher than they are in some of the rental units I have seen in Warren in my short time here. That being said, I think that we need to, as a community, understand exactly what does affordable housing mean. Understand that you're right, the formula, and the rep and I have spoken about this, the formula does not necessarily work in our faith. Because the density issue. So if you have 100 units going in and only 25% of them are meant to be affordable, that does not get us close to our 10%. It moves the needle a little bit, but we also don't want to see 100% affordable either. It creates long-term slum and blight. And what you want to see is mixed incomes and mixed market rate housing. Now, the issue that I have seen that impacts Warren primarily is access to certain resources that we don't have that issue in urban core communities, primarily as it relates to public safety, traffic safety, and to infrastructure. And so I think that that is something that we are working on as a team with the directors, with the town manager, with town council to set these parameters in place. We've done a major overhaul of the planning commission. And as you know, we are updating our ordinances, which we have a special meeting with on September 29th. Some of the concerns that I have seen is the fact that we are, because of certain laws, seeing development in areas that we know flood. And so part of our policy, our comprehensive plan, not the permit, two very different things, is talking about moving residents from certain long-term, not immediately, but in the future, from certain parts of the town to other parts of the town, understand that we might lose land mass in the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years. But development will continue to happen in those areas because of certain laws laws like the comprehensive permit or the adaptive reuse. So one of the things that we have to look at is how do we build and how do we build differently? And how does that change the character of a community without completely dismantling the community as well? I'm sorry, this is kind of a convoluted answer. I apologize. It's a convoluted topic. And it hasn't really had any attention in the last several years. at the local level.

It's not that convoluted. Ms. Cronin?

I have a question. So in the resolution now, it says requires cities and towns with less than 10% of affordable housing to adhere to the streamlined and limited local oversight of affordable housing developments. I assume that is referring to the comprehensive permit application.

Correct.

But our planning board does in fact have the obligation and the latitude to hold the developers responsible for adequate infrastructure and traffic studies and whatnot. They are not just sitting there with their hands tied behind their back as they have been advised by previous planners and previous comprehensive permit applications to just take it all. We actually do have a board that has that is empowered to look at what's best for the community and make decisions based on what the development proposal is. And those developers do have to come to the table and be willing to make it right by the town. So we're not so vulnerable and so preyed upon. We do have some power to help mold these developments.

And the way we've been addressing this is relatively new. I've been like that for seven months. And this is something that we've been looking at. We have been looking at ways to make these developments more responsive, more accountable. It's not a straight no. It's more like we have certain things that we need as a community that need to be met in order to move this forward, especially with the larger scale development.

Mr. Trombley?

I think we're getting away from this resolution just because the resolution is more narrow than the entire field of housing, which is a broad field. And I don't want to belabor the point. The two things that this does is it removes the option for 25% affordable, making everything 100%, and then removes the objective distinctions for affordability to a more amorphous, to give the benefit of the doubt, a more amorphous idea of what that represents. And I think we've heard from our planner, our expert on housing, that 100% developments lead to slums, they lead to blight, they lead to negative externalities. And I'm just still concerned about the wishy-washiness of the sort of definition of affordability. I know that's more of a structural thing that would have to be worked out in any legislation that came from the resolution, but I just don't think that we can get the language right on this, if that makes sense.

Thank you. Senator Felag was successful in helping us with his legislation by including the Housing Authority, and that brought us to, I think, 7.5% or 7.35%. That's 6.95% right now. Everyone other than Mr. Tromley has had a conversation with me up here regarding this. So none of this language that I've introduced this evening is from me alone. It's from conversations with Ms. Cronin, Mr. Hanley, Mr. Rago. This may not be exact, but everyone up here has had a discussion at some point or another on a project that has been in one section of the town or another, and I'm trying to do the best I can do, as well as this exact conversation with you. So this topic has been around, and if anyone else would like to get up and tell us their pros and cons, we'll listen, and then the council will take a vote, and we'll send our request off to the Statehouse, and we'll hope that it's tweaked by you with lead research and comes back to us, and we continue doing the work that we do for the people of Warren.

May I make one more point, please? Feel free. President, thank you. So Warren needs 164 more units to get to the 10%. There are a number of ways to get those units other than through a comprehensive permit. Some of the units that Councilman Hanley, Councilman Rigo referred to that are low rent, those could be deed restricted. That's hard on the landlord. You say, if you put this deed restriction on this, we can count that towards the 10%. So there are other ways to get affordable units into the mix than using... the comprehensive permit and we all share the same goal of meeting the housing needs of the residents of warren at something that's approximately 30 percent of their income so i i appreciate your willingness to continue the conversation and thank you for bringing this to our attention thank you all right thank you if anyone would like to get up here and speak and not really repeat over and over again feel free i know mr messenger you sent us a letter it's on the record

There's no one else that would like to speak. Are there any other questions from the council? Feel free.

Good evening. I am a Warren resident. My name is Colleen Donovan. I've lived here.

Could you state your name and address?

Oh, yeah. I live on 91 Main Street in Warren. I lived here since about 2022. Originally from Bristol, but I got priced out of Bristol. So I came to Warren and I Since I've been in Warren since 2022, my rent's gone up about $470 a month. So when I sign my new lease this year, it'll be about $5,600 more a year. which is pretty upsetting for me. And when I see resolutions like this, I just want to know what the council and everyone is doing to help people like me, who I'm like a single professional. like to stay in Warren. I like it here, but every year my rent is going up and there doesn't seem to be any relief at all. And I just hope people keep that in mind when they're talking about the affordable housing legislation and all that, that it really impacts people that are in this community. And I'm not even someone that's in low income housing. I just can't keep up with the rate that all the housing is going up into and it's getting really hard and I'm not sure what's going to happen for me in the next couple of years if I'll be able to stay in Warren. I think one of the harder things too is a lot of the one and two bedrooms are all Airbnbs now in this area if you all noticed that they all kind of flipped over. So for me, there's I've been looking and there's a lot of three bedrooms, but I can't afford a three bedroom. So I have like a lot of decisions to make in the next couple of years. But I would just like people to keep in mind that, you know, 5000 more a year is a lot for someone, you know, on a single income. And there's a lot of us here in the town. And that's what I like to say tonight. So thank you for listening.

you. You're welcome. We did put a control measure on Airbnbs, because we were aware that they would be directly competing with year round housing. So we tried to I think we limited it to 10%.

So what it was, we did put a number on it.

And I, there was a percentage number that we we put it out, because we were aware of exactly what you're talking about. And that is a true reality. We were early on on that, so we tried to do the right thing by that. Any further discussion?

Stan Lee. The term 30% of your income, you're housing challenged. Tell you what, when I bought my house in 1990, I was extremely housing challenged because I wanted a house. I was paying a lot more than 30% of my income at the time for my house. That may be the ideal number that floats around in in people's heads, but in the real world, you know, that 30% income, you know, you're housing challenged. I was housing challenged when I bought my house. I know a lot of people that are probably out there. When you bought your first house, you exceeded your 30% of your income. Okay, that's life. But, you know, it's not, I don't know where they come up with that number, the 30% number, because that was part of my life, getting my house. Was it part of your life when you got your first house?

It was, but we're respectful and we care about all the people.

I'm not saying I don't. I'm just saying that 30% number.

Please feel free to come down. I'm not going to be accused of not letting people share their opinion this evening. Never. I think I let everybody speak.

Hi. Uriah Donnelly. I live on Child Street. I didn't want to like come up because I don't want to just repeat a lot what's been said, but I agree with, with Councilman probably about if you're building 100%. low income housing, then you're creating projects. And that's not what we desire. But I also sort of reject your pull up your bootstraps and suck it up for your 30% rhetoric. I think we're living in a different time now. And it's hard here. I don't know if anybody read the paper last week, but I did write a little piece about this, that you're losing good people. They can't afford to live here anymore. So it's not really just about the new buildings that are being put up, whatever you want to say about those, but you're pricing out the 80-year-old woman that Ms. Speakman mentioned and the person who just spoke. So where do they go? And I bought my house, I got lucky. I bought it for, I got it for a low number. But if I wanted to sell it, where can I go? I can't afford another house in town because of the prices. So, you know, I don't have an answer, but something's got to be done.

Thank you. We're trying to tweak legislation that's currently on the books. We're trying to present a position from Warren that opens access to the dialogue that we have not been heard in Warren. We have been talking for years about this issue. If anyone else would like to speak on this, I'm going to move the question. What's the pleasure of the council? Is there a motion to approve?

I want to make a motion to approve.

Is there a second?

I'm going to second, and there are some tweaks that need to go to this, but this is at least going to get the conversation started, and it will put the assembly on notice that we're not happy with what's going on.

Okay. There's a motion and a second. Is there a further discussion?

I'll just say one last thing, if that's all right. Of course it is.

Discussion on the motion.

We have credibility issues. As a council, when we ask for the General Assembly to consider things, when we send resolutions up there and we ask them to consider things like how much our education funding formula changes from year to year, and it's important that we maintain this credibility. I don't think this speaks well of our credibility. So I encourage my colleagues to vote against this. Appreciate it.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. No.

Nay.

Okay. Next, we have an appointment. The Warren Housing Authority resident commissioner, Lorraine Damaso. Is Mr. Damaso here? Good evening, Lorraine. Good evening. If you could please tell us a little bit about yourself and why you would like to serve on the commission.

Well, I was elected to serve on the commission. I've been living at the Housing Authority for five years. What else do you like?

Those are good reasons. Are there any questions of the applicant? Anybody have any questions?

You got elected? You're Tony's wife?

Yes, I am Tony's wife.

I serve with Tony for the full year, so I'll make a motion to approve. I will second.

And this is the resident commissioner. This is the resident commissioner. I just had a quick question.

Good evening. Do you have a good relationship with your neighbors and everything? Do they know how to get in touch with you if they need something, if they need to raise an issue? Yes, they do. All right, fantastic. Thank you.

Is there there's a motion and is there a second second all in favor aye good luck, thank you, thank you, we have openings on the arts and. Culture Commission. If openings on the juvenile hearing board of openings on the planning board the tax board of assessment review zoning board of review is there a motion to advertise.

I don't believe you included the affordable housing advisory committee.

Oh, no, I didn't. Thank you. I skipped it by accident. I thought that was the housing.

Motion to continue advertising for all of these boards and commissions.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Next, we have acceptance of the minutes. These are the minutes from the August 11th, 2026 regularly scheduled meeting. I DIDN'T SEE ANY CORRECTIONS. IS THERE A MOTION TO APPROVE? SO MOVED.

SECOND.

ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. NEXT WE HAVE EXECUTIVE SESSION MINUTES OF THAT MEETING.

I DON'T REMEMBER RECEIVING MINUTES.

I WAS WAITING ON THEM AND WE DIDN'T RECEIVE THEM, I DON'T THINK.

I DID NOT SEE THEM.

THE SOLICITOR WILL GET THOSE TO US BY THE NEXT MEETING?

Will I ask about that at the department meeting? I'll get that out.

Thank you. Okay.

Next. Make a motion. Sorry. Go ahead. Pass the consent agenda. Sorry, George. Got a little bit ahead of you.

It's okay. Sometimes I miss it. There's a motion to accept and pass the consent agenda. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Next, we have petitions. P3. This is a request for a mobile food establishment permit from Frisky Fries. Are the Frisky Fries here? Randy D'Antuano, is he here or she? No. Okay.

Is this for a mobile food truck?

Yes. And they are supposed to be here. We can, they're not here.

We can make a motion to continue this. We can continue it. Make a motion to continue P3.

We'll have the clerk call the applicant. So here's the motion for continuance. Is there a second? Second. Next, we have a request for an MFE permit. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Next, we have a request for a mobile food establishment permit from IAB LLC Israel Chiron. And is Israel here? No. Does say at the bottom of the application that they must appear you think they might have thought it was on Tuesday. Yes, they may have that's a good read they called and they were told is there a motion to continue to continue snack or is all in favor. Next we request for a mobile food establishment permit checked out nugs is Tiffany that was here. We're striking out.

No chicken for you, Jim.

Motion to continue P5. Second.

Let's see. All in favor? Aye. Next, we have a request for a Class F beverage license from Kenneth Monroe. Is Mr. Monroe here? Good evening, Mr. Monroe. Good evening. And you plan on having a Tenants Association Halloween party, yes. And that's from 5 to 9 on October 25th Sunday. That is correct. There any questions the applicant.

And just just when you are you tip certified. No, Betty is OK, good make a motion to approve second all in favor.

And you go that's thank you you're welcome. Next, we have a request for a Class F1 beverage license from Reynolda Stenberg, doing business as the Masons, 420 Main Street. Is Ms. Stenberg here? Hi. Come on down. And you are not affiliated with the Fraternal Order of Masons.

No.

That really confused me when I was looking at this.

But I do big, pretty things, and I have a son named Mason.

Okay, so you are looking for a license, a beverage license for a soft launch for your business. Would you like to tell us what your business is?

Okay, so we're doing a soft launch, which is a private event on October 1st, but we will be open for the public on the 4th, which is your Sunday, celebrating the walkabout. So that's on the 18th and 25th of October. I was told it was every Sunday. No.

No. Can you come a little closer to the microphone?

Okay. I'm getting a little bit. Tell me the Walkabout is on the 18th. Yes.

The Walkabout is an annual event put on by Discover Warren. It's a townwide open house, but the event takes place on the 18th and the 25th, the two middle Sundays this year.

Good to know. Yeah. Okay. And We can speak after. Yes, thank you. I got a little bit of myself.

Ms. Cronin, are you the chair of Discover Warren? Yes. So Discover Warren is a business group, business community here, and she has been very successful. So I'm sure you could, that's a discussion for the two of you to have.

For another time, but what is your business?

And what is your business? And why do you want this beverage license?

During COVID, I was doing pre-law classes and I was very stressed. And I ended up going downstairs just to take a breather. And I had a bag of cement down there. And I decided I'm going to make something beautiful out of this ugly cement. Because cement's not really attractive. So I ended up making a high-end planter. And so my business is really exquisite high-end home decor. So we bring the outdoors inside. So it's not, I had heard rumor that it was like a come and make things kind of crap. Yes, we will have classes. So we have pillows, luxury pillows. We import fabrics from international countries and we make pillows, we make handles. So anything that is within the store can be run in a class. I do have a classroom set up for learning how to make candles, learning how to, we can do a sewing lesson. how to replant succulents. So yes, people do have the opportunity to create what is within the store. But you also have a retail setup whereby, say, people come in and there's a showroom and there's live plants, there's the We have accent jars, we have trays, we have planters. They're all, no two things are, I don't mass produce. Okay. Yes.

All right. And now we're going to talk about the beverage license. So you want a class F beer and wine?

Yes. So I am using a local supermarket down here. I ended up going for lunch at Tom's market. So I asked him if he would like to cater paid for of course the event and they were so grateful they said yes and so they're going to be catering our event and they'll have a tip certified bartender or will you no so i probably will have to get a tip certified bartender my goal is just to serve no heavy liquor just beer and wine that's it i believe the license is the license is limited to beer and wine yes so my question to council is if something is complimentary and i'm not selling it do you still need to obtain yes okay i didn't know and is the time here correct no it's not no so the time and i didn't even tell um jessica um the time has been changed from five to eight okay because most people cannot um um out of work on time it's just five to six i'm

agenda. So your application is correct. That does fall under just a typo. So you're still covered by the open meetings. Are there any other questions? We know the business. We know how it started and feel we know a bit about you as well.

I'll make a motion to approve the liquor license and not have the clerk issue it until she clears with fire, police and other required state laws.

spoke with, I think it's the lieutenant.

Then it won't be a problem. The clerk's office will communicate with our department heads and communicate with you. And remember the TIP certified is a requirement for the license. Who is TIP certified. Yes, but it's a condition of the license.

Okay.

In other words, if you don't have it, you won't be doing business. I mean, with the alcohol.

Yeah.

Is there a motion to approve? I've made the motion. Is there a second? Second. The TIP certification is what a bartender holds.

Yes, it's on the Department of Health. I went to culinary school.

Okay, so that's up to you.

Yeah, so where do I... Are you guys going to look it up on the... No, you are.

You're going to get yourself a TIP certified, and then you're going to see the clerk.

Okay, all right. Well, usually you can look it up. Okay.

So there's a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay.

All right. All set? Good luck. Thank you, guys. And I hope you stop by and visit the store. We will be open on the 4th. I will stop by.

I was going to bring a bag of cement, but that's not going to work. I bring my wife.

Next, we have a request for a Class F beverage license from Elwood Donnelly. He's at 20 Campbell Street. The date, Sunday, September 27th. The event, the location is Ferris Farm, 43 Kinnickadab. The event is Folk on the Farm.

I'll make a motion.

Mr. Donnelly, please. give you an opportunity to plug your event. If not, we can just make a motion pass and move along.

Folk on the Farm was created about six years ago by my son when he was the director of the collaborative. The collaborative decided not to do that this year. So I asked our committee, the Warren Holiday Festival, if they would take it over and they agreed. So that's where we stand.

So all the proceeds will be for the holiday festival?

Yes.

Great. Make a motion to approve? I'll second that.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thanks. Next, we have a request for a Class F beverage license from Ms. Julie Blount. She's at 11 Wheaton Street. The date is October 17th. It's a Saturday. The time is 5 to 8. Location, Parker Mills. And the event is the Warren Heritage Foundation 12th Annual Gala Harvest and Heritage.

Julie Blount, 11 Wheaton Street. Yes, I'm here to request a class path license for our event. Beer and wine.

Are there any questions of the applicant? Five to eight.

Five to eight. Parker Mill. I'll make a motion.

Where exactly in the mill is it?

You have to go approach it by Elm Street.

Okay.

It's the back of the mill.

The back of the mill.

And it's on the first floor.

Okay.

Good to know.

Excuse me?

Good to know. Good information.

It's a big building. We'll be including that on our invitation.

But yeah, yeah. Class F ever the license.

And there's a second all in favor. Thank you.

Thank you. We also have what we have the entertainment licenses.

Yes. And we have the entertainment license as well. So we're

I have entertainment too. Right, we're going to do that.

We're going to do, no, well, you can do what you want. We're going to ask for, is there a motion to approve my entertainment license?

I'll make a motion to approve the entertainment license.

I wanted to hear her sing first, but I'll let it go. I'll do that. I'll second that motion.

All in favor? Aye. There you go. You're all taken care of. Next, we have a request to serve alcohol outside. This is in the Market Street Pub parking lot. This is on October 3rd. It's the Boktoberfest, and it's from 2 to 5. Miss Daybok is here, and Boktober requires dogs or no dogs? Dogs. Okay, what are you doing? Block party. Okay. Why not? And you've done this before?

Yes. First year of COVID, we did it. It was a great success. And in some of our proceeds, we will be donating to Almost Home Rescue. Okay. It's a Rottweiler Rescue Foundation that my friend always helps.

Are there any other questions of the applicant? Even though it's a dog party, I heard it was the cat's meow.

Only if there's a Hanley in the house.

I'm going to make a motion. I'm going to make a motion. We approve the Class F beverage license.

Second. All in favor? Aye.

Thank you guys very much. Have a great night.

Okay. Now the entertainment license.

We're not really sure. We might just have music playing, but... Well, we'll give it to you just in case you change your mind.

Is there a motion to give us Dave? Second. All in favor? Aye. There you have it. Yes.

Have a good night, everybody.

Next is McKay. because she is my lovely girlfriend. I'll take over from there.

Good evening, Ms. Scanlon. I see that you are requesting a one-day entertainment license for Saturday, September 19th from 2 to 7 p.m. at the Winswept Farm for the summer concert and fundraiser, and you will have live music. Tell us, what is this event?

This is the third time that I've hosted this event and we have raised money for various causes. This year we are going to be donating proceeds to the St. Mary's Food Bank.

That's wonderful.

Very good.

Make a motion to approve? I will second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you.

Thank you everyone. Next we're going to have a public hearing. Dave Kuntz, Actually, you know what um is it Okay, I think we should move. Dave Kuntz, The issue of the of the bridge forward instead of making so i'm going to do that so we're going to hold off on this one, right now and we're going to move ahead and we're going to go to age. yeah. and this is a discussion in action regarding the grand opening and dedication of the Broken Bridge in honor of Anne Morrow. This is scheduled for October 18th, 2026 at 12 p.m. We have Ms. Thibodeau has been working on this as well as Ms. Kristen Reed and the Morrow family is here this evening. And I know that Anne probably would be refusing this compliment, but I look at her as not the only person who cared about the Kikimuit River, but a figurehead, especially her involvement in the Kikimuit River Association, her constant vigilance of the grants, the water quality, and bringing attention to the river, I think deserves praise. proper recognition and I have proposed that the bridge be dedicated in the memory of Ms. Anne Morrill and her husband Ken is here this evening. Mr. Morrill, how are you? Doing okay? okay i i hope you have all uh explained to him i'm sure what uh we're about to do and if any of you would like to come down and have the opportunity to speak to the council please feel free You don't have to. You don't have to. We're simply allowing you the opportunity. The event is going to be held, and Mr. Bitto isn't here. I think it may still be a little up in the air. It's proposed for the near future, October 18th. So they've narrowed it down. Good to know. Mr. Morley, would you like to say anything?

Thanks for coming, George. recognizes Anne's hard work to save the river. And typically, you make friends, but you also make a few enemies.

Oh, yeah, she has.

And it's all part of the process.

I know that. I live that.

But thank you very much for recognizing her. And she certainly does look to the direction.

Well, we're glad that you're here. And Mr. Rago would like to speak.

I just want to say I've been noticing you back there. And I know that guy. I know that guy. I served for 12 years on the council 16 years ago. And I remember seeing your face alongside your wife many times in this room. So nice seeing you again.

Mr. Charlie. Thank you so much. No, I don't. Okay. Is there a motion to recognize Ms. Anne Morrill and dedicate the broken bridge in her honor? I make a motion that we dedicate the broken bridge to Anne Morrill.

I'll second that motion.

All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you. Congratulations. So you no longer have to stay here.

But you're welcome.

But you're welcome to. But that was the reason why I wanted to move the issue up on the agenda. So feel free to vacate. Next, we are going to go back to now page six, PH1. It's a public hearing. And it is regarding chapter 32, zoning. And it's Article 8, Zoning District Use Regulations, Section 3255, Wholesale Business and Storage Uses. Self-storage facilities allowed by special use permit in certain zones. This is the second reading, and it's been continued from August 11th. Nice kitchen. Now we've got the graffiti gross out.

Are we getting a map?

Hoping we're getting a map.

Go right ahead, Mr. Hanley, please.

We discussed this last month. We passed the provision in another section. And this basically is just where we're inserting it in the tables of what zones it's going to be allowed as a special use permit. The zones that it's not allowed in are a use variance, but it would just allow it as special use permit in these three zones, which are business, manufacturing and commercial industrial. And earlier I had a conversation with Mr. Rago and then with you a little bit. And there was some questions about whether we wanted it in the business as well as the manufacturing and commercial industrial. So Matt is pulling up.

I remember last month, I thought we had had discussion regarding which zones we wanted it in. As Paula casted.

If I could just add, Mr. President, if anyone in the audience wants to get a better look at this, they're welcome to come up to the closer seats. It's optional.

Either we can refer to the minutes or memory, but I thought we had discussed not doing it in every zone.

That's correct. There's an additional issue that I want to bring to your attention. Please. What the proposal is, as you can see from the table, it inserts an S into three zones. And Matt has the map of where that would be located. In addition to that, under the laws that have been recently enacted by the General Assembly, You need to have specific and objective criteria for each special use permit use. And that's not an easy task because it's not one size fits all. It has to be specific to this particular use. And Bianca has put a lot of work into it and she's come up with them. which is no easy task, but she's asked that I comment on them for her and Matt too. And we're not quite done with that inquiry yet. So no matter what you do tonight, I'm going to ask you to continue the matter so that you can see what the objective and specific criteria are and so that they can be passed along with the change in the youth table. If you don't do that under the state law, it would not be an S, it'd be a P, permitted use. So you have to be careful on that. And I think that when you make the determination as to whether or not this type of use would be permitted by a special use permit, you also need to sign off on the specific and objective criteria so you know what the zoning board will be looking at when it's approved. I will say that the original petitioner had two parts to this, as Councilman Hanley pointed out, and the second part of it, which accommodated their specific project, was passed, and they're going in front of the zoning board very shortly.

I think the discussion we had last month, Joe, I'm not sure. I think it was the rural business we were concerned about having it in where we've got those big open stretches of land, like near the bus company and the new pickleball place. I think that's where we were concerned about not putting it in. I don't remember the business district being a major issue.

Well, I would actually... I wouldn't really like to see our business district occupied by, uh, self storage or storage in general. I think that there should be a, um, a more, uh, robust employment opportunities in a business district than, than just having, uh, And I think that the profit margin is high enough where we're not necessarily looking at open areas, but potential demolition. If somebody wanted to purchase and demolish, I think that could be probably still profitable for storage because it's such low overhead. I think we should rethink it. I think we should be very careful where we put it.

We're going to continue it anyway per the solicitor's request. Maybe we could ask the planner and the building official to comment on the manufacturing and the commercial industrial. I don't really have an issue with. I don't really know if we have any parcels that would be subject in the business district, but we could ask them for their input when we bring this back up.

Mr. DeSisto, is it also possible to get the opinion from the planning board? They're an advisory board to us.

Not the planning board. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. Yes, the planning board. Yeah. I'm going to beg your pardon. That's what I thought. Do you want to take a look at it? They have a system. And perhaps when you continue, you should have it...

have the planning board revisit this so you can take a look at the specific objective criteria which i'd have to say it'd be undergoing practice okay so they have information to review and we can get that so is there a motion to continue so miss cronin showed me uh there is a member of the public who wants to ask a question please yes i didn't i'm sorry i didn't see you the the translucent um of wobble.

Thank you for letting me speak today Jim for 82 Market Street. Normally I talk about other things with members of the council but here we are. I'm happy to hear that this is being continued. I have a specific concern about including it in the business district. I was surprised to learn, probably should have known this, that the area that the blocks I live on is considered part of the business district. I thought it was part of the village business district because where we're located on Market Street. And for the record, roughly on market from basically Asselin up to Federal, And from Child, basically just before Redmond up to Turner are considered part of the business district. So I read this proposal with a bit of alarm when I saw the zoning. So I'm going to just I don't know what the method would be to suggest something to the council or to the staff is to maybe revisit the zoning process. for that area down around Market and Child because it seems to be more of a village business district type frame or experience when you look at the definition of the two zones. That area along Child that I just described, the area along Market that I just described, is really different than Medicom AB, which when you look at the zoning map is the other really large parcel that zoned or area that's zoned is business. So that's forgive me for taking your time today, but I just wanted to suggest that as we were looking at this, we've also discovered something else that we might want to look at, which is reviewing the zoning on that area along Market and Child, because I think we can all agree that when we look at those areas that are near the downtown, particularly when we're having conversations regarding jobs and housing, that we can do much better than a storage facility in that area, approximate to our downtown core. Thank you.

You're welcome. And the process to do what you just did is what you just did.

Cool. Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

I'll make a motion. We continue this to next month till we can hear back from the planning board. The planner and the building official and for the special conditions in the actual application in the business zone as well as the other 2. Is there a second second. All in favor.

And that was purchased it so ordinance one chapter 10 harbors and vessels article 3 morning regulations morning permit fees, the 2nd reading.

I think we made all the changes we wanted to make last month. We'll just check with the Harvard math to make sure this is.

We did on that. But I'm trying one more attempt. I spoke with Mr. Silva. And I still think there should be an accrued value in being on the waiting list. And you were going to call our software company. Were you successful?

I spoke to him. He has to check with his staff. He didn't give me a definite answer. Thinks he can pull it off, but I think it's going to require me going in individually and the system's going to want to take a payment. for $15 plus the 540. Correct. And I'm going to have to go in, instead of just hitting approve, I'm going to have to go in and change the payment.

Well, you would be just... I can't do that. You would just be multiplying the years that they're on the waiting list, and then their first year of getting the mooring, those, let's say it was five years, that $75 would get applied towards their first payment of the mooring.

You typically just pay with a debit card on the computer. Correct. So the computer can't do all of that on its own. If I have to be involved, we'll have to be refunding instead of... I don't have a solid answer because he needed some time to figure it out. Mr. Rago.

Joe, I think you have good intentions, but I think when you make things more complicated, there's no benefit to that. I think you're better off just leaving it alone.

It could be something they could do seamlessly. I would just need a little bit of time because they have to drill down on it. They haven't been asked to do that. Ms. Cronin.

Just from a small business perspective, and I work with... payment platforms, a few different ones, that is not an unusually complicated thing to do. So if you are able to accurately convey what it is we're looking for and they're able to do it, then let's just put a hold on that one piece. And if they come back and say, yeah, no problem.

We could approve it and revisit it if it becomes more of an issue. I could just bring it back up in another meeting.

I think if you just applied basic math, five years on the list, $75, and then they pay their payment online.

It's not a question of the math. It's a question of the system that we have invested in. If it's able to do this, it's almost like a layaway.

Just for that one section.

It's like a layaway component.

When you pay with your debit card, will it know to...

What I was referring to was the math. So if it was, let's say, $275 for the mooring, they've already paid $75. The fee would be $200.

Yeah, the math is easy. It's just the system could be, the process could be a problem.

It could, unless you just went on the person's name on the waiting list and punched in the... That would require me getting into the system and telling it. As they're making the payment. Because they're paying with a debit card. I was trying to make this simpler. It might be.

It might be. They haven't gotten back to me.

I mean, you know, ultimately, if the people who are paying to be on the waiting list don't care, then I guess, why should I care?

I'm just trying to give people value towards the one... I think we can approve it. Okay. And if it becomes a problem, I can bring it back.

There you go. I don't think that would be a good idea because then those people would claim that they're kind of grandfathered in. That would be my conclusion.

Well, nobody's made a payment yet.

Right, but...

I'm talking, if we can't resolve this in a matter of a couple weeks...

we would have a year to resolve it because anybody who comes on, once the system goes live and you enter in, unless you have people who have been sitting on this for a long time.

People who shot going on the wait list right away.

Yeah.

I don't, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I'll remove my request. It's fine. No, I mean, it's, again, I'm just trying to give value to the people.

So are we taking the whole renewal fee out? It's just a $25 one-time fee and that's it?

No, no, we're taking out the accrued fee shall be applied to the first assigned mooring fee.

All right, so it's 30 bucks and then $15 a year to keep it. Correct.

Okay. I'll make a motion to amend to remove the sentence. The accrued fee shall be applied to the first. Oh, sorry. No, that's the wrong one, which is the.

No, you're correct. The accrued fee shall be applied to the first assigned mooring fee. The waiting list renewal fee is, is. No. Yeah. Just that one sentence.

The next one we need. Yes. Okay.

Make sure everybody understands.

Excuse me. This whole green thing is going on.

All right. What Joey had recommended. Correct. Okay.

Is that a motion? One last thing. Yes. I'll second.

Discussion on that motion or... Just make sure everybody understands that all of these are.

We're not there yet. So motion to remove that sentence has been seconded. All in favor? Aye. Okay.

Now we're going to back to the modality. I'll make a motion we approve the fee changes under Chapter 10, Harbors and Vessels.

I'll second it. I don't know if there's more that I think this could do.

I just want everybody to be sure that this is exclusive of the service charge. This is the amount we're charging. There is a $5.40 service charge on all of these. Correct.

And that's everything that gets. That's an addition. That's an addition to these. So that's service charges for using the on. Which will not be refunded.

We don't need to put the service charge in the price.

No. Okay. So all of the green, there's a motion to approve.

Is there a second? Second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Chapter 3, Animals and Fowl, Article 2, Dogs, Section 331, Impoundment Fees, Second Reading. Everything in green, so $25 per day. and the additional sum of $2. Unlicensed dog is 50, vicious dogs 20, vicious dog harm to another domestic animal 15, vicious dog bites human $30 each year, dog waste non-removal $50. All the green changes. Is there any discussion on the changes?

I'm going to make a motion. It's what we discussed and agreed upon last month. I'll second that motion.

All in favor? Aye. Okay. Next, we have old business discussing an action regarding the clearing of site.

Correspondence.

Oh, no, we did that. What was the other one? I'm sorry. Yes. So, correspondence. We have two items. Department head report and the Bristol County Water Authority report. Is there a motion to accept them?

So moved.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you, Ms. Cronin. Next, we have old business discussion and action regarding the clearing of sidewalks after snow events. This is from Councilman Trombley. This was brought up last month. Research has been done as we requested. Mr. Sullivan, Ms. Hunt, give us your input. And what did you find from the good city of New Britain?

Thanks, Mr. President. As you can see from your packet, we reached out to the city of New Britain, the mayor's office, and they had his staff send us some information on what they do as far as the sidewalks, the clearing of sidewalks. The first thing that they do is they have a... flyer on their website, which indicates the necessity to remove the snow from sidewalks after a snow event. And that if you don't, there was a procedure that takes place that the city will come out and notify you need to move it. If they don't, if it's not moved, then the city will remove it and charge the homeowner for the removal of that snow uh they use department of public works employees to do this the removal of the snow um and their uh councilman tromba had asked me for several questions to look into which i did um it's performed by public works employees it's citywide it's enforced citywide typically they issue about 60 tickets annually and of those 25 to 30 properties are cleaned up after the first notice that you need to clean up your property and the invoices are paid by the owners they're 10 to 15 of the properties end up with a lien on them if the person does not pay for the service of removal of the sum.

Ms. Hunt, when you looked at the, when you and Mr. Sullivan looked at and discussed this, basically they have the person power to handle the load and the money to run the program.

Correct. For perspective purposes, the Department of Public Works in New Britain has over 100 employees. That is more employees than the town of Warren total. So that is the biggest hurdle for us. They have resources, frankly, that we don't have. I'm certainly not opposed to citing property owners that do not follow the ordinance. It seems in our ordinance, we don't have a defined Citation costs. So that may be something we want to look at. They charge $50 and then subsequent fees every day that passes. Ours is based on the ordinance, but the ordinance can't exceed 500. I don't believe we have a specific price. So that may be something we want to look into as far as the DPW going out to shovel people's sidewalks. I wish we had the resources to do it.

My question is in your conversation with them. New Britain's a pretty good-sized city. They only issued, on average, 60 citations per year. Do they have, I can't think of enough, selective enforcement? In other words, they don't drive up and down every street. I'm sure they're targeting the schools in the downtown areas. They're not going down dead ends. They're not going down streets that nobody walks on. I think that's what we've got to focus on because There's just some neighborhoods that really, you know what? You don't really need to shovel the sidewalks. Nobody ever walks on the sidewalks. And there are sidewalks that you have to shovel because they're going up to the middle school or they're going to Quirk, the daycare there, or they're downtown where the patrons are. I mean, the enforcement is the part of it. New Britain, only 60 a year. They're not going to every neighborhood. They're citing the high traffic areas, the safety concern areas. Can we come up with a policy or something to do that? Because it's otherwise you're going to get, and I deal with this at my job. You're going to get neighbor calling on neighbor on a dead end street. One person lives on a busy street. We cite them. They call about somebody that they don't like on a dead end street. Now we go out and cite them. And the person is looking like, if I shovel my sidewalk, you're not going to be able to get to it because the next three houses towards the main road aren't shoveled. It's not, to me, it's an enforcement problem. It's either all or nothing unless we come up with some type of a policy or an ordinance to say, hey, these are what we deem essential areas, for lack of a better term, so we can concentrate our enforcement on the areas where we need the safety and where we need the concentration of the work being done. Like you said, we can't go out and shovel all of these sidewalks. And how are we going to cite somebody on Seymour Street but not cite somebody on Cherry Street, charge them to shovel their sidewalk but not charge the guy on Cherry Street for shoveling his sidewalk? Okay. Mr. Rigo.

I own a couple properties in the north end, and I've been doing it for 40 years, and I like to go for walks at 7 o'clock in the morning. If I go clean that snow, I want the snow on Market Street clean, so it opens the can of worms.

Your house where you live, do you shovel your sidewalk? I don't have a sidewalk. Okay, gentlemen. It doesn't matter.

A sidewalk is not defined by concrete. A sidewalk is just a four to six foot area. Gentlemen. Okay. To my points. Mr. Ringo, to the point. So I think what we have to address, I believe we have six hours right now. Our audience or this one had it. I think we have to bring it to 24 hours. I think six hours is unreasonable. I think we have to determine what a safe passage means. When is it... At what amount does it have to be clean? Is it an inch? Is it two inches, three inches? We also have to understand there are some times that we have extraordinary conditions that you just can't clean the snow. So we got to address that. There are people that have hardships. We have to address that. And then we got to figure out what the town can do. And... I think that all has to be taken into consideration. I think that we should probably refer this to the highway director to see what she can come up with in a reasonable moment.

Question from Mr. Riegel.

Okay, and then if Mr. Trombley has...

So we want to cite the people in Toisset, too. if they don't shovel the sidewalks. I didn't say that. Well, you did. You said you want everybody to have to do it. Okay, gentlemen.

We'll deal with that down the road because Seymour doesn't have sidewalks.

Mr. President, just to let you know, this is only for certain areas of town. It's compact areas of town. And the compact area is described in the different ordinance. But it does say compact areas of town. Okay. So that may be our way out.

John, would you have anything? I would let Kerry go first if she has anything.

I mean, my personal experience just between where I live and where I work, there's a lot of effort put into clearing sidewalks. And then oftentimes they would come by with the plow and all of this stuff. Everything from the street is now on the sidewalk. And so just figuring out where that reasonable place is for enforcement is going to be the tricky part.

I think generally when a plow goes by and snow is redeposited on the sidewalk, there is pretty clear evidence whether or not that effort had been put in to clear it prior to the street having to be widened for emergency vehicles and other vehicles. But it's generally pretty clear that an effort had been made prior to the snow landing back in that area.

I think extending the period of time after the snowfall will help with that as well. Yeah, absolutely. Mr. Trombley.

Yeah, so I think basically the heart of this proposal is not to make the DPW do more work. It's to empower us as a town to hire an outside vendor to plow sidewalks or clear sidewalks, whether that's kids with shovels, whether that's an actual formal snow shoveling or snow plowing business. it would empower us to clear roads or sidewalks that need to be cleared for safety purposes. We had a lot of snow this last year. We had a lot of people that communicated how unsafe they felt walking in downtown, unsafe they felt sending their kids to the bus stop. I know that there were particular sidewalks that were not cleared for weeks. And it wasn't minor ones. It's not dead end streets. It was like, it was Vernon. Vernon Street specifically was the one I went and shoveled out two weeks after the first snowstorm by myself.

Thank you for your help.

You're welcome. But what I'm trying to say is that for the safety of our community, we should have the ability as a town to not only find the homeowners that break that, that don't shovel their sidewalks, but also to say, we're going to hire someone to shovel it, to actually do the work. And then we're going to charge you for that. And I think that's better. I don't want to add more workload to our DPW department. I agree with you. New Britain's a much bigger city. And they said in their responses that they felt they had the capacity. But what I also saw from their responses was this. I asked if it was mostly elderly homeowners, because that was a concern that we had. Who is the population that would be most impacted by these tickets? They said it wasn't. They said it was absentee landlords, not like the good landlords like Lou, but absentee landlords. I am good, Jim. that there was no age-related demographic pattern. The properties that created the most problems were foreclosed properties, bank-owned properties, or properties with absentee landowners. So I don't think it's going to come up a lot. I don't think we're going to be issuing 60 tickets per winter. I think it's probably going to be less. But what I hope we can do as a council is pass something that would allow us to to plow those areas and then put the bill on the homeowner. That's where it appropriately belongs. We need to clear it for safety reasons. And I understand we can tinker around with some of the other, like how long it takes, but it's six hours currently. I'm open to doing it in a day, but I think we should move this along and then try to incorporate those details rather than, you know, kind of spitball in here, if that makes sense.

Mr. Ray, though.

Let me just say this. Like what he's bringing up, if we can find people to do this. Well, if we can give that to the landlords, they may call these people direct and they won't do it. So the problem is finding people to work. That's the big issue.

My hesitation and I understand. What you're getting at my hesitation is once we provide the option, especially for absentee landlords to have us take care of it. My hunch is that they would be more inclined to just pay the money and have the town take care of it. If they do that, they could very easily also hire their own private contractor and fulfill their obligation under the ordinance.

Now, Ms. Scott, didn't you indeed hire private contractors to work alongside the DPW?

They helped us with plowing on a very limited basis.

On the sidewalk clearing, though?

On the sidewalk clearing, yes.

No, I thought we utilized the Bobcat.

Yes, I apologize. They assisted our crew overnight.

With the sidewalk clearing in the congested areas of downtown. So we are trying.

With a combination of town and that one piece of equipment.

Okay. What's the pleasure of the council moving this? I'm going to make a motion to recommend this to the traffic commission. to set the parameters and guidelines. I do agree that we should have a mechanism to be able to do it if we have to. But part of what I want to see come out of this is a defined area of where it's going to be. Because you cannot just go sighting people and removing snow on somebody's property and not do it to the guy three streets down without something to guideline it. They said it was the compact areas of town. Maybe if we can put that in there and actually get the traffic commission to draw what they think is the compact area or to show us which is the compact area. Because I don't see the whole safety concern entirely townwide. There is certain areas that have safety issues. That's where I think the ordinance should have its teeth. Can I just say something?

Let Ms. Cronin, who has a letter, and then you can have it. Go right ahead, Ms. Cronin.

I would also say I agree with Councilman Hanley that we need to identify where we're focused. I think that for commercial property owners, absentee property owners, and absentee homeowners, there needs to be an escalating fee because your comment is correct. They may say, yeah, it's just easier. You know, I'll just pay the town to pay the person, whoever does that. But if that fee escalates over, you know, if there are multiple snow events and they're leaving it undone every time, it can't just be 50 bucks each time. It needs to grow. So they're like, maybe I will, in fact, hire a service myself, get somebody out there to plow it for me. We need to make it make, you know, give it some teeth, which, yeah.

Mr. President, I guess maybe I wasn't clear. We already have in our ordinance that the sidewalks have to be clear of snow in the compact area, and then it's defined in another ordinance. Uh, what the compact area is in Warren.

I understood that.

Yeah, I wasn't sure if I was section 1. I'm seeing that. What is it actually most of the town? Runs from the easterly line of the highway at the Warren bridge. thence running in a general southerly direction bounding westerly by the Warren River to the boundary line between the town of Warren and the town of Bristol, thence turning and running easterly along said boundary line to the Kickamew River, thence turning and running northerly bounding easterly by the Kickamew River, this is where you run into trouble, to the southerly boundary of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad companies right away.

then it's turning and running easily bounding northerly then it heads back along the bike path to the point so it's pretty much everything between water street and past medic water street and the kiki from this from the barrington line to the warren i think it's fair to say if they're sidewalks they need to be clean that's the kind of part of that i i i would like to refer this to mary and i'd like to work with mary on it and come up with some suggestions if that's okay with you we still have time

I'm glad we brought it up when we did.

Is there a definition of sidewalk in there? Because in Pawtucket, it doesn't have to be a curve. It doesn't have to be Pawtucket. It's defined as a six, four to six foot right away that the city owns falls under the definition of a sidewalk. So you've got a sidewalk. It just doesn't have concrete on it.

All right. Could I ask that we make a motion to move this to a second hearing and in the interregnum, then send it to Mary and to the traffic commission for advisory opinion?

If that's your motion, let's see if we have a second. I'll make a motion. second all in favor all right all right go right ahead keep looking thank you miss hunt mr sullivan next we have discussion in action regarding a request from medina pet salili probably butchered it sorry uh of norbert street concerning no parking restrictions on either side of the roadway the entire length of norbert street Could you just pronounce your last name for me?

Yes. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Medina Perishvili, a resident of 15 Norberg.

You can pull the mic down if you'd like. Okay. There you go. So please go right ahead and explain what you want. Council regarding the issue that you wrote us on.

Thank you for this opportunity, Council, this evening. I don't know if you had a chance to review the document that I submitted. I have some other members of our street also here present who may want to speak if we give them a chance as well. So the main thing here is as many roads are narrow around this town, I know. And in case of no birds, majority of the town has no parking signs, the actual street. And there are certain parts that don't. And recently, about four years ago, a builder built a new condominium complex there. And I know some people know more about this than I do because they've lived there longer. But part of this project was that there was supposed to be no parking signs on the entire street. And Many problems later, none of that happened. What happens now, our main concern as the residents is on a normal average day, there's about three cars parked on that street. There's one far lane, before you get water for fire trucks. If an emergency service vehicle would have to get that direction, they probably wouldn't be able to go. And most of the cars around people drive are sedan size. There aren't as many compact cars. So you cannot have, on average, a normal sedan or SUV side by side on that street to begin with without inches of it. And so when people park on the street on top of that, it's really difficult and unsafe. So that's kind of where this comes from. One of the main reasons of safety that we're concerned about. And then there are a lot of outsider visitors who park on the street and they're not actual residents of the streets or visitors. And there's multiple things going on, so I'm going to just rattle them off. And I'm not trying to pick on anybody, but there is a multifamily building that has, I'm going to explain, a parking lot with three tandem spots, which is six parking spots. There's a bunch of people who live there, and apparently part of it is also an Airbnb. So what happens is part of that entrance to that driveway, there's a curb, like half of it is a curb. And so people cannot even get through it. And it's very difficult because the street is narrow as it is. And so I'm not really sure who's responsible to open that curb for the entire parking lot. But as it stands, there are six parking spots and a bunch of people can't park there. Maybe they don't feel as excited about driving over the curb just to park there if the other side is taken. So that's one of my concerns here. I just don't know who would be taking motion or action on that. So anyways, um so that's why we're here and uh appreciate your time again and i wanted to open the the floor to some of our other residents of the street uh for other things they want to mention that's what i was going to do so thank you for that advice uh this is the opportunity for anyone else in the neighborhood to come on up

voice your concerns to us. Then we will be hearing from our department heads who have had the opportunity to look at these issues. And then I have also some questions for our solicitor regarding the lawsuit that we're in regards to the property at the top of the street. Good evening.

Hi, John Souza, 29 Nova Street, the last house on the end. A couple of years ago, this was right before the board here, the board, the department has come down, a couple of people in the council, they agreed here was a problem. Well, here we are two years later, it's only multipliers, they're a lot worse. I can't get in and out of my driveway. I can't get down the street half the time. I've got a new truck at 5,000 miles. It costs me $800 to replace two tires because I'm jumping curbs plus the sidewalls. A week ago, sadly, a girl was parked right in the middle of the street, SUV. I says, you leaving? She says, well, I'm ready. I said, I can't get in my yard. She says, your problem, isn't it? I mean, these people are parking all over. This is why your sidewalks are all busted. National Grid is going to drive over the sidewalks. Leave me garbage trucks. I mean, something's got to be done because they're parking. I've got cars that have been parked out in front of my house, blocking the road for two, three days at a time. So, I mean, it initially needs to be addressed. The only way I see it is there's going to be no parking on both sides.

Thank you. Anyone else want to share their opinion with it? I mean, we understand now, we've heard narrow street, parking on the street is difficult, as well as all of the driveways that you can't park on.

Good evening, sir. Good evening, John 80. I live at 19 Norbert Street. Thank you for letting me speak. So in addition to thanks, I'm a little taller than you.

Feel free.

In addition to the to the parking issues that both John and Medina have brought forward to the council here. I should also point out that the street is not properly identified with it being a dead end street. Now, there is a sign at the end of this at the end of the street or top of the street that says dead end. But it's somewhat obscured by the fact that we have those vacant townhouses at the front. That sign is on that side. And I guess the point I'm trying to make is there are a lot of people that just come down the street when they come down the street. and there's cars parked in the street and you're trying to get out, it creates an impassable situation for all of us. And I just want to call out that if we're going to be looking at this to deem this no parking on the street, we also need to consider proper signage for it to be identified as a dead end street.

thank you you're welcome and the signage uh actually may not be ordained so there may be some no parking signs on that street that are actually not codified by the town they're not towns signs so there's a i've walked the area i've met with you about the drainage problems as well as the parking I'm aware of the properties. Is there anything any more information anyone would like to bring forward? A speed limit, whether posted or not, is 25 or under. So we can I mean, depends on how many signs you want all over the place.

Mr. President, one more thing I do want to mention. There are a couple of businesses on that street. And one of them is this. I wrote the name down. So give me a second, please. And it's not the matter of picking on the business once again. It's the Rhode Island Independent Living Council Home. And they own like a couple of buildings. It's at the dead end right before John's property. And they have a bunch of people who work at the home come in and back and forth out there oftentimes. And they don't even have parking to park. And the owner of the business building won't even let them to park in their parking lot. And the second building that is owned by the same people has a driveway that doesn't have a curb that hasn't been a driveway in a long time. And it's green grass now where I personally think the people should be parking. But the people who work there, who come there to work, don't even have a place to park. And then they end up also parking on the street.

I will ask the solicitor about our capability of forcing people to park on their own property. That's kind of a new one to me. So we have several questions. I'm going to start off with a few of my questions. Then we can get back to my memory. Mr. DeSisto. Is there not some form of funds that are available from your litigation?

Actually, I think you got to look at this as two issues. The lawsuit is due to the fact that the developers of this project Our in receivership.

Okay.

So when you reference the litigation, that's a receivership action. That is currently pending in the Rhode Island Superior Court. That's 1 issue. In my opinion, based on my involvement in that case. What the neighbors are bringing up now in regard to no bridge street. I'm not part of that litigation. So I do think that the town has the ability to take a look at some of the issues that have been brought up by the neighbors regarding parking. And I'll get to the business parking in a second, as well as the signage. That's something that you can do without being concerned with it being captured in the receivership case. That's the first thing. The second thing is to the extent that there's a business there that doesn't have sufficient parking is something that the building official can take a look at. I think that's something that Matt can go out for. The final thing is in terms of the condition of Novart Street, that has been a topic in the receivership that is still pending. There were two parts to this case. Apparently they had a larger development in Massachusetts that's been disposed of. Now the focus will come here to Rhode Island to this particular one too.

When you talk about the litigation, wasn't one of the aspects the flooding issue? Correct, yeah. And now isn't the development... itself restricting street capacity based on their inability to get in and out of their driveways. Now those people are parking in the street. Is it not attached? I mean, it seems that the people who are parking in the street are people who are visiting the new developments.

Okay. It's a receivership, so it's mainly focused on infrastructure and unit count, as well as the fact that there's creditors that need to be paid.

That's not one of the issues. So you can't look at the lack of access to the on-site parking as a problem of the development? No.

because what i've heard is the people that are parking in the street are parking in the street because they can't even get into the assigned parking that's supposed to be with their units uh mr president that specific point um is not for the lookout on main units that are part of the litigation so the the that curb is just another multi-family that's been there for a long time oh okay yes and you started to further that um

Yeah, the people that are coming to visit the people that live on Lookout on Main have parking available to them. And all of the people that live at the Lookout on Main have parking available to them. It's the people that are not part of the Lookout on Main Association that are causing the issue with the parking on the street.

I had it backwards.

Yes, sir. Interesting.

And then you don't want to pick on people, like you're saying.

It's been looked at as I'm either picking on people or not. I'm looking at the issues.

Thank you.

I just want to bring up the point that most of the cars are coming from what? The Airbnb, the apartment houses. They're not parking down the road. It's not people in the condos. They're fine. They're not parking on the streets. The other issue I want to bring up, you're coming out of Norwood Street. You've got Main Street. Interesting. You come into town, you're coming into town, that whole side of Main Street is no parking. Cars are lined up there all the time. What that's causing, you're pulling out of Nova Street. It's forcing the cars coming into town to go in the lane of the cars trying to get out of town. I've almost got hit head on there numerous times. I'm sure everybody else has.

Are you referring to the southbound lane?

In North Main Street.

So if you're coming out of Norbridge Street, there's no parking on the northbound lane, and then you're referring to the southbound lane, which you would take a left on. I just need the police to understand.

Well, I say this. The only time they get tagged is if I call up, because as numerous times as I was going to hit. But it's all low parking, and they get away with it. If there was no parking, say, 50 feet or 75 feet either way in over the street, it might help out because they're pushing it into the south.

So I'm still confused. You're saying that there's parking on the north side of Main Street, northbound lane. There's no parking. Correct. And I've never seen anyone parked on the northbound side. It's just the sounds. Realize the northbound lane is the lane going towards Barrington. Oh. Yes, that's the northbound lane. All right, so it's the southbound lane. Just trying to understand what we're talking about.

It's okay. I'm bad with my words and sounds, but I would say thank you.

Is where people are parking and there's no parking there and it's pushing the traffic further over so it's congestion and turning out. Okay. I think we've heard enough for this part. Mr. Rigo has a question.

I just want to say that I did go down there one time with my truck. And I sweated to get out of there. I was nervous. I didn't know where I was going to turn. So I understand the issue that you have. I think what we have to do is turn this over to the traffic commission for them to review and get back to us. But it does seem like the answer is to have no parking. And it doesn't seem like this. I think this issue has been here for a long time, even before the condos were there. The difference is they used to have parking at the church, which they don't now. Right.

Mr. Trombley.

Yes, I had two questions. One's a little bit more, a bit of levity. What is the name of the dog in the photos that you sent us?

I think that's my dog. So it's Mr. Bentley. Mr. Bentley is a Cavalier Charles Daniel, and he's the sweetest baby ever. He's very cute. Yeah.

I think you should rename it Derek.

Yeah.

My second question. So of the cars that are parking on the street.

Yeah.

Are any of them, it doesn't sound like they are, but are any of them from any of the residences on the street? It doesn't sound like the condos, but any of the residences?

No residences at all. I've had cars, New York, Blitz, Connecticut. They're all at the Airbnb. Right. There's a red apartment house. No problem. There's no one who wants to get blocked. Hey, let's go block the people down the road.

And so does that include the business parking? Just to expand on that, is there anyone parking there for the business, the life? What was it?

I'll give you an instance of business. They had contractors doing work there. They will park. I could get my yacht. I told them, I said, hey, I can't get in. It's world number five. I said, you've got to hold dry. You've got to drive away the septic. Oh, they won't let us use it.

So it sounds like, from what I'm hearing, it's not an issue for the community to have this limitation because they'll be able to continue to park normally.

Well, to fix that curb, that's one of my concerns because I want to be fair. Half of their parking lot is a curb, and that's why they can't get over it. That was why I brought that up.

The curb cut to the entrance.

And then there's sometimes every once in a while when the tenants change, the landlord may allow somebody with five cars in a two parking available spot as a tenant. And then next thing you know, they only have two tenants parking spots, but they have five cars. I'm exaggerating, but that's one of the problems.

So what I would like you to do is stop interacting with these people and please call the police because we need to have it documented we need to have the uh correct people interacting uh we don't want you to find yourself in a situation where somebody becomes awesome and That's all I can say because that's what you do. So please don't do that because you become a target and we don't want you to be a target. You don't have to be a vigilante in regards to this. If you can't get down the road, I understand it's an issue. Call the police. Please, because this isn't going to happen overnight. We're going to try. And again, the recommendation is to go to the traffic commission, which is made up of DPW, police, and fire. And sometimes we bring in Mr. Cabral, the building official. We hope to maybe get some response back from them by next month. And then if applicable, whatever they find necessary will do the town does have a sign machine. So hopefully we can make the appropriate signage. Look at the better locations for the signs. We hear your concerns. One of my ideas was to reduce the sidewalk on the. east side i mean the east travel lanes that would be if you're going down to your house the left side because by requirement and law you only need a sidewalk on one side that's what i was hoping if this could have been attached to the development uh we have a similar problem on uh company street where there were two sidewalks put in and it's almost we made it a one-way uh but it was able to be a one-way because there's a loop Your street can't be a one-way or else you're never getting out or you're never going in. So we hear your concerns and now I think the town has to come up with the appropriate remedies to these problems. Are there any other questions or input? Do you feel like we've heard you?

Yes, Mr. President. Thank you. There was one more thing, because my document included one more concern, which was, I think... It's part of the bike path and the Belcher Cove area. And I think it's reduced recently. There's sometimes unauthorized tents in the evenings. I have a hard time walking my dog because I feel uncomfortable going in that direction. And there's some possible unauthorized activity that some of us have witnessed and we've even called the police for it. But I think recently that... I can help you with this. Yeah.

I've been in touch personally with the manager, the solicitor. We have been in touch with National Grid. National Grid is going to clear up the property and they're going to erect a fence and take responsibility. It's their property. The areas that you're talking about should not be a habitat for any illegal activity. operations. I understand there's a homeless issue in the town and that's not what we're trying to combat. We've gone in, myself, Mr. Cabral, I actually went through with a member of the Conservation Commission. And at a certain point, she asked me, like, do we really want to continue? So I understand what you're saying about feeling spooked. So we're on that. Now, unfortunately, we're waiting for the schedule of National Grid. What you're referring to in the cleanup was them. I have to admit, they did respond within the the second week of us calling, we threatened them with litigation. The solicitor allowed me to convey to them if they didn't deal with this issue, we were gonna sue them. We possibly may, I'm not gonna say we're not because we're waiting on their action. So we have heard that issue for years. And personally, I've been trying to deal with that issue as well as the council. We've taken council actions over the past 20 years. But hopefully this time, it seems due to the construction that they're going to be doing on the aerial poles and the bottom of your street, that the opportunity has finally arisen where they're going to take us seriously. And that area should be cleaned up and fenced off.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, everyone. For clarification, will I be hearing from someone for an update on the matter in the future?

I'll look to our town manager, and he's nodding. And yes, we have your information, and you'll be updated by Mr. Sullivan.

Thank you, everyone.

I just want to say, you did a great job. You're going to make a good leader.

Thank you.

I think you are the leader now, so...

Thank you for your time.

So there's a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Next, we have discussion and action requesting the town planner to work with all board chairs to format a member reference packet. This is from Councilman Rago. We all, I think, have in front of us a couple of planning boards member reference packet.

So a couple of months ago, this was sent to me from Blake, he put this all together and I was so impressed with it. I was impressed with it for a couple of reasons. One of it, it explains everything. I think that a lot of times people get on boards. I know I'm always asking people, do you want to get on board? a board and they were they always turn them and say well what is involved by giving this this this reference guide it explains pretty much everything so that would take the intimidation out of it um and there are a lot of things here that um that relate to a bunch of the boards. So I think that this is something, and I spoke to Bianca about putting this together and she agreed. So I'm making a motion to send this to the request of Bianca to put these reference, member reference packets together only for the boards that are applicable. So if you're able to do that, it'd be great.

I'll second that motion. Okay. All in favor? Yes.

Discussion. Sorry. Is this for all boards? Because based on what you said, is this just the boards that Bianca is zoning and planning?

I think it's just the ones that are applicable. On the budget committee, it wouldn't be applicable to. In other boards, it may not be applicable to. Which boards are you envisioning?

Zoning, Historic District Committee. Okay.

I think any committee or commission that falls under open meetings needs to have some type of reference packet.

So I think that's pretty much, yeah, so I think at least, at the very least, the pieces around the Ethics Commission, what APRA is, training, if applicable, and code of conduct.

I think looking in the charter is helpful as well. There are definitions and uh responsibility so if you could just put all of that together uh on your off time um councilman rio did tell me i had to like january february to get this done yeah this is not this is not a rush so we can amend the motion so it's uh all boards okay and commissions yeah uh okay so there was a motion in a second all in favor all right thank you next we have and before discussion and possible action regarding a request for the town managers develop standard operating procedures for all town departments establishing a consistent monthly income and expense reporting process. The monthly report shall follow the same format as the adopted town budget. The budget committee shall review the proposed reporting format and provide recommendations regarding any additional data or information that should be included. Mr. Rego.

That seems like a handful, doesn't it? So this is something that came up at the Budget Committee, and it was more for the Finance Director, but in looking at it, it's something that should apply to all departments. And it's not about creating more bureaucracy. It's about making the town more operation efficiency, consistent, and safe. So basically what I'm looking for, and it's not something crazy, And it's not something just for Ryan to work on. It's something that has to be worked on. Sorry, go ahead.

Are you guys laughing at me? No, I'm sorry. So Ms. Cronin had to point out that for me, SOP has always been referred to as sausage on you and peppers. So she's making them. So no, we're not laughing at you. Please carry on the serious business.

So this is going to be a group effort with Brian, with Pauline, with the department heads and with the budget committee and with the finance department is basically is to put something together where if you lose one department, they have a mechanism to look at what their standard operation procedures are and to go forward. And that's basically it. Mr. Sullivan. Do you want to add to this?

I was going to refer to Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Marshall first, since they are the department heads that will be responsible, and then we can hear from the committee. Mr. Marshall, if you want to come to the mic, or not, if you don't have anything to say, but this is something being put directly on your lap.

Yeah, so we can definitely, I can definitely put something together. I think what we're looking for is more of a standard report.

Correct.

For certain metrics from each department.

Right. And basically, with those metrics, I want to refer to the Budget Committee, and they may point out other things that we need or may not need. And that's basically the goal here.

Okay. So now we can hear from the budget committee. As long as you guys are good with that.

I just want to let that councilman Rigo has had conversation with us and, and he didn't include having the department heads involved in this because obviously they're going to be the ones that are going to be doing or putting the data together. So we want them to be able to. Because this is my idea of a guide.

This is why I'm not putting on anything on it.

Right. The good thing about Mr. Rago's proposals is he always does meet with everybody in advance. So thank you for that. Budget Committee, hello.

Hello. Well, I think outside of the consistent monthly income and expense reporting, We're really talking about standard operating procedures to make sure that each department is complying with audit or compliance, you know, to make sure that there's a Bible, if you will, if you have a change within the department. that you've got a guide that's going to tell you what you do daily, monthly, annually, and what the points are that you should cover to be sure that if you do have a change in personnel that you can, they have a reference guide

rather than just winging it if you will we brought this up years ago there's a lack of a transition process yeah so um i'm seeing um agreed and agreed seeing with uh mr uh council member rego's uh proposal uh on this is to take a a dive a deeper dive if you will WITH THE FINANCE DIRECTOR AND THE DEPARTMENT HEADS BECAUSE I THINK IT'S REALLY GREAT FOR THE CULTURE OF THE TOWN TO ENSURE THAT EVERY DEPARTMENT HEAD AND EVERY STAFF PERSON RECOGNIZES THAT THEY'RE ALSO A RESOURCE MANAGER AND TO HAVE FACILITY WITH THE BUDGET PROCESS AND THE BUDGET LANGUAGE. AND I APPRECIATE COUNCILMEMBER RIGO'S SUPPORT FOR OUR SHARED INTEREST IN ENSURING ON THE TRANSITION PIECE, BRINGING IT BACK TO YOUR COMMENT, MR. PRESIDENT, The manager and the finance director are going to work on really tightening up the game plan, the playbook, if you will, for all of our financial operations with a deeper, more detailed set of SOPs specific for the finance department. And then this will be really great in terms of maturity of our operations going forward.

one of the inherent problems we've had over the years is turnover and when we've identified this as a problem we then unfortunately had a vacated position that would have been occupied by the person creating our transition or procedural manual so uh there was a point where we we stopped that because we were um desperately in need of good uh long-term employment employers employees Excuse me. You understand what I'm saying? So it's good to have it brought back up. I believe we have a stable enough workforce now that's caught up on all of their operations where this shouldn't be such a monumental task. Is there a motion to approve Mr. Rago's request? I'll make a motion. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Thank you. And you'll be involved in the creation. Next, we have discussion in action requesting the finance director to send the budget committee a provisional budget to review potential financial options for the 2728 budget.

So basically, what I'm looking for is just pretty much a mock discussion. budget for the upcoming year. And the reason for that is we all know that we have about $1.4 million in addition for the schools. And if it's anything like last year, it was almost 6% on the operational side. So it's a way for the budget committee to start looking at the budget prior to budget time, just to give some ideas. I think the area that we'll have to look at is the debt service. I don't know that there's much we can do on the operation But basically, I'm asking the finance director to put something together. But prior to doing that, you may want to talk to the department heads if they see something that's way off and then send it to the budget committee.

What time frame are you up? Like how far in advance of the previous budget, of the next budget do you want this?

So basically he's going to take what we took last year and if everything, whatever went up 3%, 4%, we're just going to copy it. Okay. And then go from there. Again, I think the area that we're going to be looking at to try to save is on the debt service. But there might be other areas that we can look at. But I think it's knowing that we're going to be looking at that much extra debt. We should be looking at it right now.

Right. So you would probably be including the school bond, which is going to be one point five million that we know of.

Right. And that's actually the reason that's the elephant in the room.

Then as we go down. So you already know what you're going to be dealing with. And then in five years, you have your debt service relief on the. bridge loan, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, another good proposal that I think we have built into our operations, but now it'll be a policy. That's correct, right? You're looking to make this a policy? There you go.

I'm just all I'm asking for and just the director is just directed to share just for this year.

Okay, yeah, so is there a motion for this and be 5 get to the pre the pre budget for this fiscal year 2nd all in favor.

I and be 6 discussion in action requesting the finance director to work with the budget committee to establish a project approval form.

So this is something that was discussed again at the budget committee. But I think Jim Corr beat us to the punch and he put something together. And if you want to talk about it for a second, it's up to you if not.

Thank you, Lou. I didn't mean to take any wind out of sales or beat anyone to punches. So our budget committee, Michael, myself and Sheila have been looking at a number of things, proposals that have been coming forward and felt that we could serve the town manager and the council well. by developing a project approval form. And we have the first draft of that. It's not quite ready to be circulated to the council yet. But the point here is that we captured a really concise one-page document, the history, three crisp sentences about what the council is being asked to approve, it identifies all of the funding sources that are being tapped or proposed to be tapped, identifies any matching funds and the sources of those funds, would identify contingencies that are built in, in terms of contingency amounts as well as any potential gaps that could create a liability. if fundraising, for example, donations don't come in. So it's the type of decision making document really papering the process that creates a record, really concise, answers a lot of questions up front because the project approval form is designed to answer a lot of questions that we hear coming up from council members as things come forward. And that also establishes a policy that this document becomes part of the official record scanned into the financial system so that we can help avoid i'm sorry so that we can help maintain our accounts in balance and have that historical record going forward we have a bit of a pain point with some of the special revenue funds that are out of balance because we've lost some of that info you'll be removing from

Shorter version. You're going to be removing the parentheses that still are around some numbers from previous projects. For example, $290,000 on the Water Street revitalization, which we know we don't owe the state, but it's still on our balance. So this process will eliminate that from down the road. We'll be able to know where the money's coming from.

Exactly.

When we're spending it.

Yes. And builds in, you know, some real analysis before something comes to the council and creates a historical record.

Thank you. And I think that's key because in past years, things have been approved and a part of that approval is subject to getting grant money back. And I think it's the Commerce Department we're waiting for. And that was something that was done in 2017. Yeah. And there was no follow up. And again, no one's fault, but there was no paper trail. We approve something, but we're not looking at this every day. So by having this, it puts an accountability into place.

It'll clear up the paperwork.

Yes.

So no, no, that is an action. So is there a motion to approve the finance director to work on a project approval form? There's a motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye. Oh, so this last one, NB7, I'm going to pull for now, and I'll work on it again next month.

Okay. Is there a motion to pull it? Motion. All in favor? I need a second. All in favor? Aye. Next, we have discussion and action regarding a letter. Let me get caught up here. A letter from... Where's my letter?

Letter of support from...

David Weed for the Soames Heritage area with our national senatorial and congressional representatives. What happened to my letter? Is there a letter? He sent us a letter.

He did.

How did I miss it?

Is it here? No.

I don't have one in my packet.

Do we have the letter from Mr. Weed? And he emailed it to me and I read it with him. So, Dr. Weed has brought to the council years ago a request for the creation of the Sohams Heritage Area. What Mr. Weed is looking for now is a support letter from the town council asking for our national, senatorial, and congressional representatives to move this issue forward. He's been unable to get a face-to-face meeting with his committee and our federal delegation. It bothers me that I don't have the letter I thought I did. And unfortunately, I can't read it. But I can convey to you that he is looking for a letter of support. for the Sohams Heritage Foundation and that includes the nine East Bay towns, not just Warren, and each town he's asked to give a letter of support as well. So, I'm going to make a motion that we support the Sohams Heritage Foundation area with a letter to our national and state, I mean national and congressional representatives. Mr. Sullivan, please, do you have anything to add?

Sorry about that. I would just recommend that I work with Mr. Weed to develop this letter for the town, for the council, and send that in to the delegation.

Absolutely. I'll put that in the following motion. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Mr. Trombley.

I'm going to abstain. I'm just always hesitant about, I wasn't in my packet. I don't think anyone has it right now. I'm sure it's fine. It doesn't sound, it sounds right in line with my thinking, but I am going to abstain just because I haven't seen text of this letter. So.

Okay, so there's a motion and a second. All in favor to allow the manager to work with Mr. Weed. And actually, we could ask for that letter to be brought back to the council. I don't think it's absolutely time sensitive. And there is an error that I don't have a copy.

Yeah, I did not see the letter myself, Mr. President. I just thought it was looking for a letter of support from the council for this process. That was my interpretation.

So maybe I just had all of the information up from the Sohams Heritage Foundation. I saw it. so did i i'm i apologize it was a thick uh packet and if that's the case mr president i could support that motion then if it's to develop it that's what i assumed i thought that's what the motion was to have your manager work with him to come to develop it and bring it and then bring it back to us uh that would be fine uh it's the best we can offer so uh that's what he gets uh so motion in a second all in favor all right there you go thank you Next, we have discussion and action regarding the non-utilization tax ordinance. And I'm going to let Ms. Cronin speak on this issue. It's very near and dear to her.