Town Council - Regular Meeting

Oh, even better.

Thank you. Thank you.

All righty.

Good evening, everybody. And welcome to the Portsmouth Town Council meeting for September 14th, 2026.

First thing I have to tell you, if there is an event of an emergency, we would ask you to please exit orderly either through the door you came. The one that is behind your left shoulder, or depending on where you're standing, your right shoulder. The exit behind Mr. Reese over here, we'll all head out into the parking lot towards the school department and wait for further instructions from our men and women from the fire department and the police department. If you would now please join me, if you are able, in a pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence for our men and women in harm's way.

my allegiance to the flag and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, everyone. Madam Clerk, roll call, please.

Mr. Gleason?

Here.

Ms. Blank? Here. Ms. McDowell? Here. Ms. Patton? Here. Mr. Piero?

Here.

Mr. Reese? Here. Mr. Hamilton?

I am here. All right, first up tonight, we have our public comment. We, executive, no, it's after, no, it is before that, okay. Sorry, we had a executive session tonight between 6 and 7. We had some updates on various litigations. There was one vote taken and that vote was 7-0. Next up, we have our public comment. First up is Mr. Michael DiPiola. Emil, if you would like to go first. You want to talk about data centers? Thank you, sir.

My name is Emil Cipolla.

Emil, can you just talk into the microphone for me, please, sir?

My name is Emil Cipolla. As some of you may be aware, I spent over 60 years in IT, and I thought it would be appropriate to kind of set the stage for why we're here tonight. Most of you know that AI has many aspects. And I've studied the infrastructure, the economics, the technology, the regulations, the impact on professions, and the benefits. And most of you know that we've had some exceedingly revolutionary improvements in medicine, drug discovery. High-speed data centers are one aspect of the AI infrastructure. And again, it consists of thousands of chips with cables and wiring that require a massive amount of electricity, water cooling, air conditioning, land, and network connectivity. In 2026 and 2027, AI is supply constrained. There aren't enough chips, there aren't enough electricity, and there's not enough water to satisfy the demand. There's a waiting list of two to three years before this supply constraint is resolved. Consequently, and even read my own handwriting, oh, there are about 4,000 data centers, high-speed data centers existence today in the United States. About 400 of them are dedicated to AI. The rest are doing Bitcoin or engineering research and whatever. Predictions are that in this year, the hypervisors and the model builders are going to spend about $750,000 billion on new data centers. They expect the total amount of electricity to reach, generated in the United States, to reach 2 trillion gigawatts. That's a lot of stuff. So it's coming. And the question is, what do we do about it? As you also know, many of the states have put on a moratorium on either new data centers or pausing existing ones. The feds have incentivized billions of dollars and the hypervisors and the model builders themselves have gone into a lot of debt to supply these constraints. So the issue is, should the town council allow an HP data center here in Portsmouth? I submit the question is unnecessary. There is very little, in my opinion, that would attract anybody to install a data center either in Portsmouth or Rhode Island due to the energy constraints, the time, better opportunities in other states. So I guess I would say we're better off discussing how to use the benefits of AI to improve our services and procedures and let others pay the cost. That's my bottom line.

Thank you, Mr. Cipolla. I appreciate that. Mr. DiPiola.

Good evening. My name is Mike DiPiola, a Portsmouth resident and property owner.

I have... I'm sorry, can you just give your address?

1074 East Main Road. I have two properties to put in front of you tonight and a question at the end. 76 Summit Road. First, 76 Summit Road, the house there burned down to the ground. Total loss. A builder bought the lot and went to the zoning board on February 16, 2023. The board granted one thing, a 20-foot rare setback variance to rebuild the same footprint and foundation. The board voted to impose two conditions, and I'm reading from the recorded decision. Book 2165, page 233. One, the basement level must be unfinished and have no bathroom and used only for storage and mechanical equipment. Two, the third floor must have a maximum of four foot walls in accordance with the definition of a half story under the ordinance. When the builder asked for more, the board denied it, four to one, over the number of stories. Now look at the house. The third floor is full height. The basement is a complete in-law apartment. Kitchen, full bath, bedroom. And that bedroom's window does not meet egress, which I believe is a fire hazard. Basement windows and a glass door face the street. They're not on no approved drawings. And after the final inspection, a rear deck went up. Again, no plans, no permit, and it violates the setbacks. The very setback that the zoning board or the planning board was asked about. The board allowed the old footprint. Nobody granted a foot move, a foot more. Who inspected it? One person, building official Matthew Kent. Framing, installation, final, three inspections, all passed, zero corrections. And understand, most importantly, that basement apartment wasn't added after the fact. It was built during the reconstruction of the entire house. While the permit was open, Mr. Kent was in that house multiple times for those inspections. He walked right past it, because you have to walk through the basement to get up to the second floor, third floor, etc. He didn't miss it. He chose to ignore it. Or should I say, he chose to selectively enforce it. I reported the basement work while it was happening. I reported the deck. Nothing. Property number two, 469 Wapping Road. 469 Wapping Road Building Permit 26-643 issued August 11, 2026. It's a homeowner's permit. The owner checked the box that says she will serve as general contractor as owner-occupant of this single-family home and signed the homeowner affidavit. Under state law, the town cannot issue a building permit to anyone who isn't a registered contractor, which obviously Portsmouth does whatever they want. We all know about that. With one exception, an owner-occupant doing the work on her own home at her own risk. That's... The whole exception. It covers one person. It doesn't cover the crew that's been at that property for months. At 469, there are four hired workers on site every day. Mr. Kent has been told. Mr. Kent does nothing. The pattern. These aren't isolated cases. There's a documented pattern with this official. Permit scopes rewritten. Work closed out with violations in plain view. Complaints have been on file for years. And the town's response was not disciplined. It was a promotion. A promotion. with those complaints sitting in his file. So there's my question. The zoning board imposed conditions. The zoning enforcement officer never enforced them. The building official inspected and passed the violations. Nobody verified a homeowner's affidavit. If a recorded zoning board decision can be ignored by two departments at once, what is the building department for? What is the zoning department for? And who are they working for? I'm asking you to direct the administrator to have an independent inspector review 76 Summit and 469 Wapping Road against the recorded decision and the permits as issued, and to have the zoning enforcement officer explain in writing why no violation has been issued at 76 Summit. And I'll be direct with you about why I'm here. This repeated ignoring of the rules is why I'm going to court against the town of Portsmouth. Every one of you have been uncopied on my emails. You have known, and every month this is allowed to continue. This council is part of it. And P.S., Kent is under investigation by the Court of Ethics Commission. Oh, yes, he is.

Mr. DiPiola, direct your comments to the council. I would love to tell you that, but I won't because I have more class than you. Mr. Grebe.

Good evening. Tom Grebe, 110 Thayer Drive. I'm a regular viewer of Portsmouth This Week. I've even been on it a few times. The show is a valuable Portsmouth resource. However, I believe having a candidate host Portsmouth This Week during their election campaign, as happened this week, creates a problem. It raises legitimate questions about the use of town resources and communications. The host introduces the program, establishes themselves in a power position as the interviewer, associates themselves with town government by hosting a town TV program, interviews the town administrator and demonstrates a close relationship, discusses several important political issues, gets to ask questions that imply a knowledge and competence that may or may not be true, and the program is then distributed through town channels. and the interview remains available on YouTube, where it can be referred to by the candidate while campaigning. All this is a potentially significant political benefit to a candidate, even if nobody on the program actually says, vote for the host. The administration should not influence votes like that. I believe the council should adopt a policy that candidates may not appear on or host Portsmouth this week during the election season. This recent episode should be removed immediately. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Grebe. Next up, we have some presentations for our Portsmouth Awards. Mr. Blount, if you could meet me at the podium, please, sir. So each year we look at citizens who have been nominated by other citizens here in town as to whether or not they're worthy for our Portsmouth Award, which is given to people who go above and beyond helping out our community. This year, the nomination committee had a tough time deciding between five different folks, so we chose two. Our first is Mr. Kevin Blount. Whereas Kevin J. Blount has dedicated nearly five decades to serving Portsmouth and Prudence Island through fire service, military, and civilian service, historic preservation, mentorship, community leadership, and whereas since joining Prudence Island Volunteer Fire Department in 1981. I just wanted to pause there for a second, Kevin. Kevin has served as firefighter, lieutenant captain, deputy chief, assistant chief, acting chief, demonstrating his exceptional leadership and commitment to his community. And whereas following the line of duty death of Chief Webster Warner in 1993, Kevin helped guide the department as deputy chief and later served as acting chief on multiple occasions from 2022 to 2024. And whereas a training captain and mentor, Kevin has devoted countless hours to training firefighters, strengthening department's readiness for future generations. And whereas Kevin has also contributed countless hours to preserving the Sandy Point Lighthouse, including restoration work, construction of a display stand for its original Fresnel lens. and sharing his knowledge of its history. And whereas Kevin has devoted approximately 42 years to the United States Coast Guard, first on active duty and later as a civilian employee, exemplifying a lifelong commitment to service. And whereas his service for his country, the fire department, historic preservation, and the Prudence Island community, Kevin represents the very best tradition of public service in Portsmouth. Now, therefore, be it acclaimed that Town Council of the Town of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, proudly presents the 2026 Portsmouth Award to Kevin Blount in recognition for his extraordinary service, leadership, and lasting contributions to Portsmouth and Prudence Island.

Thank you very much.

President Hamilton, members of the town council, Captain Renier, your staff. Thank you very much. This is indeed humbling. Thank you to Chief LaPierre, Chief DaCosta for the consideration and putting me in for this. You really caught me off guard. my parents and my grandparents instilled in me, if you love a place, give something back. And, you know, over 40 years ago, I met Stace, fell in love with prudence and was just trying to give something back. So thank you very much. Thank you.

Just to confirm, he also confirmed that he fell in love with Stacey, too.

So it wasn't just the island. All right.

Next up, we have Mr. Ferreira. How are you, my friend? Nice to see you. Whereas, Ed Deuce Ferrer is a lifelong Portsmouth resident whose devotion to family, faith, community, and service have enriched the lives of generations of residents. And whereas, more than 42 years, Deuce and his Ferrer family have carried on a beloved holiday tradition, bringing Santa Claus throughout Portsmouth on each Christmas season, spreading joy to children and families throughout Portsmouth. through a family-supported and community-funded effort, where Deuce's annual appearance as Portsmouth's own Santa Claus has become a treasured tradition, reflecting the warmth, generosity, and good humor for which he has served his community. And whereas Deuce and his wife, Mary, were charter members of St. Barnabas Parish, helping establish the parish, build its original chapel, and continuing to serve through the parish festivals and CYO activities. Whereas Deuce has further served Portsmouth youth and families through many years of Little League coaching, supportive charitable efforts, and providing scholarships and opportunities to young people. Whereas born and raised in Portsmouth, Deuce has worked his family farm and enjoyed a long career with Raytheon while remaining deeply rooted in the community where he and Mary raised their five children. And whereas decades of service, generosity, friendship, and dedication to his neighbors, Deuce represents the very best tradition of community spirit and service in Portsmouth. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the Town Council of the Town of Portsmouth proudly presents the 2026 Award to Edward Dues Ferrer in recognition for his lifetime of community service, generosity, civic spirit, and dedication to the traditions of Portsmouth.

Congratulations.

just would like to thank everybody and hopefully we can keep this tradition going and hopefully the fire department would help us out I would appreciate it and to my lovely wife 67 68 years thank you

I'm sure the rest of you don't want to hang out and see the rest of how the sausage is made here in Portsmouth, but you're welcome to stay and hang out for the next two hours or so.

Thank you. Good night, Seth. Love that shirt, buddy.

All right, next up we have our consent agenda. Do we have a motion to approve as presented? No move. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes seven to zero. We have our minutes from 8-24-2026 in the exec. Any corrections or adjustments? If none, do we have a motion to approve?

So moved. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 7-0. We have tax vouchers of 2026-0914-01 through 2026-0914-05. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 7-0. Mr. Rainer, your town administrator's report, sir.

Good evening, Mr. President, town council, ladies and gentlemen. With regard to the curbside and transfer station program at the close of business last Friday, 371 households were signed up on Prudence Island. 1,972 households were signed up for the Headlee Street Transfer Station, and 3,193 households have been signed up for the curbside program. Semi-weekly curbside collection of yard waste will end and weekly collection of yard waste will begin the last week of October and that will run through the second week of December. So just another polite reminder regarding the curbside yard waste collection. Please remember to keep at least one bin next year yard waste until it's collected. The drivers are looking for that bin and the current sticker to know that you're part of the program. This Saturday, September 19th, the fourth annual Sekonic Coastal Bike and Stroll will take place in Island Park from 9 a.m. to noon. For the event, two miles of Park Avenue, Point Road, and Hummock Point Road will be closed to motor vehicles, giving residents and visitors an opportunity to walk, ride, scoot, or just plain enjoy the waterfront without vehicle traffic. There will also be a Kids Chalk Art Zone, and the event is free and open to everyone. However, participants are asked to complete a waiver, which can be done online ahead of time or at a registration desk that morning at Flows on Park Avenue. The event this year is being organized by Island Park Coastal Community in conjunction with Bike Newport and our own Portsmouth Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. It should be a nice morning on Island Park and check the weather before I came in today, and I'd encourage anyone interested to come out and enjoy it. This Thursday is the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns Annual Dinner and Education Day. I'm excited to share that our town planner, Leah Hitchen, has been selected to receive the League's Award for Excellence in Local Government. This award recognizes municipal employees who exemplify excellence in public service through their dedication, leadership, and meaningful contributions to their community. Leah has certainly demonstrated all of these qualities during her time in Portsmouth. She's taken on a tremendous amount of work. She's tackled some very challenging issues and has consistently approached that work with professionalism and a real commitment to the town. This is a well-deserved recognition and I want to congratulate Leah and thank her for everything she does for this town. I'm looking forward to seeing you receive that award. And speaking of awards, the Police Department Annual Awards and Promotion Ceremony will be held next week on Wednesday, September 23rd at 6 p.m. at the Glenn Manor House. So please RSVP if you have not already done so. Lastly, I just want to take a moment tonight to recognize the passing of Carol Zeno. She served in the town of Portsmouth for many years as our town clerk. She first came to work in the town part-time in 1976, and she returned as a full-time employee in 1984 and continued serving Portsmouth until her retirement in 2003. So on behalf of the town, I want to extend our condolences to Carol's family, her friends, and note our appreciation for her many years of service to our town. That concludes my report, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. Rainer. Any questions? Actually, I asked that, not rhetorically, but I asked that, but I'm going to retract it for a quick second because I forgot to do something earlier. Tonight's the first night for our new finance director, Ms. Liz Draper. So I'd like to welcome you aboard and thank you for taking the position on. Now, Ms. McDowell, sorry about that.

Regarding the transfer station in curbside, when we do the figuring for, let's say, Prudence Island, and we use the 437, but that 437 includes both, includes people who have residents here and residents there. Do you know how many there are there? Because we really should be using That figure, right?

Yeah, I think that's a very good point. It's only been a couple.

Matt might be able to, is he here? Matt?

Under 10?

Yeah, there's only been a few.

Okay. So, I mean, probably we should be using the, like, 427.

Yeah, I'll update that figure and send it to the council. Probably, yeah.

And then one question, under the consent, I had a couple of questions, but is it too late? It's just, can I, okay, they'll be quick. The town, I read under the Prudence Island Planning Commission minutes, something that we have a person, Zachary Weinberger, who I think as of even today, he hasn't been sworn in. And this goes back to July 16th. And I understand, you know, with Jen being out, and can't we have somebody else swear in a person or a protocol that could be?

Under Rhode Island general law, only the town clerk and the council president can swear people.

Really?

Really. Crazy, isn't it?

That is insane.

So let you know, I have reached out to Mr. Spadaro today to find out who it was that needed to be sworn in so I could arrange a time to do that.

Oh, good. Oh, good. I know that though, in the past, there's been a couple other people that have mentioned that to me. Um, And then regarding the minutes with the Broadway project, just some clarity on that. I thought that project was going to take place, but now it seems to be that the funds are on hold or something or not available. So what is the status of the Broadway project?

Yeah. The project, the engineering and design and permitting phase, well, the engineering and design work are almost done. From that one or the permitting phase, And once that study is complete, we'll get a cost estimate for that job. We didn't have an estimate for how much that was going to be to pave that road. To put it in perspective, the only other road that was paved on Prudence Island cost $1.8 million. We anticipate that this is going to cost well over $2 million. So in the meantime, while we're waiting for the result of that study, I have approached Congressman Amo's staff to see what we could do. Is there money available, grant money or assistance for a rural community where we could leverage town money against federal money so that we can get that paid? They're working on that for us. I'll also reach out to Senator Reid and White House's staff and see if they can't work on it for us as well. But in the past, for a project of that magnitude, we bonded the money. This is going to be an extremely expensive project if the council chooses to go forward with it.

Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Rainer? All right. Thank you, Mr. Rainer. Resignations and appointments. We have two appointments. First up, we have Mr. Tweak.

Motion to appoint Mr. Damara Tui to the Design Review Board. Second. All those in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 7-0. And a reappointment for Mr. Spadaro to the Prudence Island Planning Commission.

Motion to reappoint Mr. Spadaro.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 7-0. Next up, old business number one. We had a letter pulled from a correspondent's Last meeting from a concerned middle school student.

Thank you, Mr. President. Yes, I asked for this item to be placed onto old business at this meeting. Us as members of this council do receive many correspondence from citizens in this community, but very few stick out, especially when you have a young person that reaches out to the council with a concern. That's happening to them day in and day out at their school. My child is also a student at PMS. So it struck a particular nerve. So I wanted to ensure that we took this out of correspondence and actually gave Haley the opportunity to address a concern in front of the council. I want to just note, I've had the opportunity to speak to her on a couple of occasions and I could tell, I would say I'm thoroughly impressed by her ability to come in front of a council. Like I tell my kids all the time, whenever they meet an elected official, we still all put on our pants one leg at a time. So we're no different than you. But I want to acknowledge her courage to come forward and tell us that she doesn't feel safe walking to and from school. And it's a responsibility that we take very seriously. And I wanted to invite also, and I've had previous discussions with our public work director and our chief of police, and just being able to address some short-term steps and evaluate long-term options to make not only our middle school, but all of our schools, the safest place possible for students, pedestrians, and motorists alike. So Mr. President, if I could, I would like to yield the floor to Haley to speak and address to the scale. Of course.

Come on up, Haley.

Hi, my name's Haley and as mentioned, we are here to talk about the conditions in front of Portsmouth Middle School. As a student of the Portsmouth Middle School and someone who has lived on Jefferson for 10 years, we have spent many years walking, playing, and biking around the middle school. And even though the roads aren't great, I want to talk about the road during school hours. Unfortunately, a lot of little problems that are now causing big problems. The biggest concern is the main entrance and the school's only crosswalk. Currently, the main entrance is trying to do many things. There are too many people driving with no directions at all and all at the same place where the buses have to go around the parents line to drop off the kids on time. The middle school that the crosswalk and the only cross it drops off the kids to the front of the school. And on bad weather, it's either snowy or muddy on each side of the road. And the kids either have to walk through it or walk in the driveways of other people with the parents and cars and all the buses. in the roads with them mostly because the school is old enough that there was never designed for all the parent pickup and drop-offs so there are too many people in one spot with no crossing guards or officers and they're too hard to see drivers coming from the other direction who are speeding and when they get to the front of the school there are too many stop signs lights or sidewalks and no space on either side of the road for kids to walk on. They cannot see people waiting to cross the street and are always speeding. The safest place to cross and to see the road in both directions isn't near the crosswalk and puts us on either side of the street, which is near... nowhere to get off the road since the speed cameras were installed at the end of the summer most people i see while walking to school are going in the 40s inside of a school zone and approaching the hidden main school entrance more than once my friends and i have had to run back to the street because the cars are swerving to get around to the parents line There are too many cars that are not there for school to speed around all the parents waiting so they can keep driving down the street. So we have to be careful of them as well. We understand that the school being at the edge of town, that means that there are not many walkers, but we have friends and family who could walk to the school and ask for them to, but because the bus is safer, they take the bus. if there can be changes made there should be and more kids that could walk and play at the school even though it's at the end of the town it still should be where kids at the age where they cannot drive and want to be outside with their friends great job haley

Haley, thank you very much for bringing this forward. Mr. Perio, thank you very much for pulling it out of correspondence. I would ask Chief Peters if you want to come up and say a few words. And Paul, if you've looked at it and you have any ideas of how we can potentially work with the schools to move the sidewalk, the crosswalk, excuse me.

Mr. President, members of the council, I applaud Haley for bringing this forward. I know it's not easy to do this, but not only did she identify a concern, she brought it forward and she brought forward some of her solutions for it. So I do applaud her for identifying that and bringing that forward. If I can just speak on what we've done, what we're doing and what we're planning. So what we've done, so we had responded to a concern for speeding back in 2023. At that time, we had reports of a vehicle speeding in the area. We purchased two speed feedback signs that are now in position over there. Once we put those up in positions, we noticed from the residents And from our feedback from our officers that the speeding decreased dramatically in that area, and we had positive feedback from the residents saying that they were happy with those results. Based now on the input that we have from Haley, what we're currently doing is we've reached out. Our school resource officer has spoken with the family. We've gotten more in-depth concern about what's going on. We've assigned officers in the morning, in the afternoon to be there during the drop-off. So we currently have our school resource officer who is assigned to the school. That school resource officer has dedicated his time and his attention to right at the doorway. So he is at that location. So we actually have our officers on patrol that we've put in dedicated resources to that location to monitor the area for any traffic violations in a force accordingly. What we're planning on doing is we're going to have a discussion with the middle school. We're going to see what can be done regarding alleviating the congestion. We're going to see what we can do as well to have a discussion to see what other areas we can address with the school to make it a more simple process and a more efficient process that's safe for the students to get in and out. We've also had conversations with the DPW director. We're going to look at enhancing our signage as a location. The current Pedestrian crosswalk signs are older signs, so they don't have the high-vis resolution, so we're going to look at replacing those. So hopeful with that, with those improvements, with the conversation, that we can address some of Haley's concerns and make it a safer area for our students.

Thank you, Chief. Any questions for Chief on that? Director, how are you?

Town Council, Haley, thank you for bringing up your concerns. In the spring after this winter that we had, we had to fill numerous potholes, like always, and we repainted all the crosswalks and cleared the existing sidewalks that are there now. We will, along with the signs the chief explained that we were gonna replace, we'll also repaint the crosswalks once again. The other thing is we do only have sidewalks from Union Street to the school. So our planning department is looking for funding to get some more sidewalks installed past the school.

Do you have any idea what the cost is for one of the pedestrian activated like we have at the high school? I do look that up for us and let us know at the next meeting. Maybe flashing lights will help slow people down a little bit.

Thank you so much.

Plenty of options for lighting.

Thank you for saying that you would paint the crosswalk in front of the building. That's super important. It is pretty worn out. But I also want to make a recommendation to our bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee that this is maybe something you can collaborate with them on and either make it and work with you on really trying to use that as a going project although i read your thing looking at the the committee members that are in the back i know that you have a couple of other projects i don't want to add more to it uh but it may be something that you can definitely take the committee off the ground with and really impact the community thank you thanks again thank you paul appreciate that haley thank you again you did a great job uh

We will look into it and make some changes. There's already some changes happening. And we will make the front of Portsmouth Middle School safer than it is now. Thank you.

Okay.

On to old business number two. Update on the biking stroll in Island Park on 19-20-26. Just for the record, Haley, we did yours early so you can go home and do your homework.

Thank you. I'd like to do that, but something that I was not aware of, and of course I talked to Leah, I was not aware that Emily Skeen is here, Hannah is here, Kidder is here, and Camille is here. Come on, up here. Come on, let's go. This is the Bike Pedestrian Advisory Committee, and I want the town to know that Emily came up with this idea and We have one. And guess who's going to do this next year? Okay. So, by the way, they've been very helpful in helping me organize this Saturday's event. We are still looking for volunteers. 683-7700. Leave your name and your number. I'll call you back. 683-7700. I'll call you back. But Ray Perry. Who's Ray? Ray Perry. I mean, he's done a remarkable job the last three years with the EMA guys. And we are trying to plan that we're going to do that photograph on the escape bridge, 1045, I believe. We're going to try to get everybody there. So, and by the way, you do know that this weekend is also the bike to beach, so that they're going to be coming over the Sakonit. And do you know their route? They're coming down.

They're coming over Mount Hope.

Say again?

I think they're coming over the Mount Hope. Right.

But then they're going, initially I heard they were going, they're going down Boys Lane all the way to Park Avenue. We'll be on the left. They're taking a right. And then they're going to go through Aquidneck Avenue and meander their way up Church Lane and then get back on East Main Road. And then, okay. And Chief of Police and Lieutenant Coutu have been great. We got, by the way, I don't know if I sent it. Yeah, I sent it to you. We have the permit. DOT gave me the permit. They approved that permit in three days. Okay. So, and DOT at the Portsmouth garage, they're very good to us also because they let me go in there and get some of the signs that we need that a DOT type signs for shutting down the exit ramp. So the weather looks like it's going to be very good. And I hope to see everybody that's looking at me on their bicycles. You know, come on down. It's a lot of fun, okay? Graziano's 501 is going to be the center of the world that day in Island Park. And Tracy Clements and I are going to get together. She wants to get some stuff down there for people. And the art zone is moved to 501. It's going to be right there. The kids are going to be doing the truck right there. I'm excited. And I can't thank these four women right here and the rest of their committee for having the sense to put our own bike pedestrian advisory committee together.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Vitt. Thank you, ladies, for coming out. All right. Next up, we have old business number three. update on the progress of bylaw discussions for the Parks and Recreation Committee. Mr. Gleason, you asked for this. Mr. Fiorello, you are here. Fantastic.

Yes, I put this on the agenda because there was a request for them to come back with an update on the bylaws, I believe, in August. So,

um here we are it's september can you give us an update on where you are if you would sir yeah uh david fiorello 45 hamilton drive i'm actually a little sad that channel 12 isn't videotaping this i guess this is not a newsworthy topic um in may we did discuss about bylaw changes one of our committee members wanted to update our bylaws we did have a scheduled meeting in june but the secretary forgot to put it on the agenda and submit it to secretary of state so we were not able to meet in june we changed our date in july so we could all meet in july and that's when we first got a glimpse at the changes that were proposed by Debra, we did discuss some of the changes in July, but. We all got the changes in mid-June-ish, and we needed to process it. And as I was submitting the backup, it is not a one-word change. It is an absolute rewrite of our entire bylaws. So I had submitted in the backup track changes and a comparison. from the original bylaws to all the changes that Deborah was looking to make to our bylaws. We did meet again in August and discussed, because there were so many changes, we had to take it step by step, section by section. And in our August meeting, we did discuss Article 1. We finished discussing Article 1. We started Article 2, but only ended, I believe, we ended at Article 3. three so we only were able to just discuss all of article one in article two this meeting this uh actually this thursday it'll be going up on the secretary of state's website uh tomorrow morning we will be voting on the changes that were proposed uh it has taken a lot longer um this is We're being very diligent in looking at what Deborah has proposed for changes and having to weigh out what she's asking to remove, why it's being removed. We have to ask her her reasoning for why certain words were removed. And we did have a great discussion in August. We did agree on a lot of the changes. There were some changes we did agree on, some changes we didn't. But we'll be voting on that discussion this Thursday. So I would also say that after our meeting this Thursday, once we vote on the changes that were proposed, we will continue with Article 3. Uh, you know, I would like to wrap it up by next month, but as you can see, this is a extensive change she's proposing. So it is taking time. We're all trying to do our diligence and look at what she's proposed. And it's just, it takes time.

You're good.

It's your agenda item.

No, I just have one question. You said you've reviewed everything up to the beginning of Article 3. Yes. Have you voted on that?

We are doing it this Thursday.

Oh, so you haven't voted up to that. So nothing's been voted on?

Nothing has been voted on. We had to sit our last meeting... When we got this, we were trying to compare what the original bylaws to what Debra was requesting. And this is before I did the track changes. And we were looking at what she originally did versus the current bylaws. And we were just kind of spinning the wheels because I'm trying to read what was in the original bylaws and what were proposed changes were. And we couldn't see what words were taken out there was actually quite a bit as you can see why all the strike marks it's quite a bit of words taken out and there's quite a bit of words added in so after the july meeting i did a comparison through microsoft word and uh compared the original bylaw to what she was asking and added the track changes and as we know there's a lot of red lines there's a lot to look at and we have to just compare why certain words were taken out why some are added in So we did discuss, as I said, all of Article 1 and Article 2 up to Article 3. Yeah, I think it was up to 3. So that's what we will be voting on this Thursday, Article 1 and Article 2.

So is this what we got in June? This exact thing here? This is... With no changes?

Right. The first one in June, you got...

In other words, this is what we got in June.

Was it June or July? I think I submitted it in July.

We haven't got anything.

Yeah.

We only had the original back in May.

I think it was May. May was the original.

We got something. All right.

I think last month... Our direction...

The request in May was to disband the committee. Then we sent them back and said, let's see about changing the bylaws and see if we can all work together. And then now they're in the process of changing the bylaws. So. Ms. Batten?

Yes. Thanks, Dave, for bringing this forward, both of you. I've been at the meetings, as you know. My only concern is the past two agendas. I know you're working on the bylaws, but the past two agendas you have put on there, no votes would be taken. So I think that also is taking a little bit of time because, you know, you're going through them and trying to do your due diligence. But at the same time, there's no votes being taken on them as you're moving forward. And I'm sure, you know, like you said, this Thursday, you're going to go ahead and vote on the changes that you put forward. Do you think that you'll be able to vote on other changes in the upcoming meetings? Are you going to put no votes taken again?

There will be votes on just what we discussed because per the bylaws, we have to discuss before we can vote. So we need to all see what is being proposed, discuss it at a meeting, and then at the following meeting, which is one month, every month, that's when we vote on what we discussed. So the initial meeting in July... We were all trying to look at the comparison from what Deborah was asking and what the original was before I did track changes. And we made no headway. I don't even think we got past Article 1 because we were sitting there trying to read what she added in, what was taken out. So then in the August meeting, I did what you guys currently see with all the changes. and submitted it to our committee so they can see the difference between what's being proposed and what we have. And that's why, and you were there and Mary was there as well, we were able to get through Article I and Article II because we can see the extensive amount of changes she's asking to do to the bylaws. So we will vote on Article 1 and 2, and then we will continue to discuss this meeting this Thursday. However far we get, then we can make a motion or vote on them at the following month.

Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Figueroa? Ms. Gleason?

Thank you. It didn't make it to the agenda per se, and it looks like this was put on the agenda by Mr. Fierro, but it was, in fact, me that asked for this agenda item. And basically, I just repeated what Ms. Faber had put on in May, which was she put on to request to pause, review, and restructure the Parks and Recs Committee. And I actually went back to the May tape and watched that, and We get kind of off on a tangent on the bylaws. I mean, I imagine they need to be changed. There were some clauses in there that were questioned. Deborah, when she presented this, she talked about requests was due to, she wanted to suspend the PNR committee until stability can be returned. Those were her words. There was a bad environment and there was a need for respect. The bylaws need to be improved, and the meetings were dysfunctional. She had a problem with not being told what the budget was. These are all things you talked about, I assume, right? She's not making this up.

No, she's asked repeatedly for the budget over the past year that she's been there. What's that?

I think she has it now. Okay. But that's part of your mission is to be able to work on the budget.

It's not our budget, just so you know. It's Wendy's budget for the department. So when she was asking for the budget, she was under the assumption that we look at the budget to Wendy. And we had said before, first of all, the budget is online on the town website. But if you would like to see Wendy's specific budget, line items for what she's budgeting year over year, you can request that from Wendy. And whether she did or didn't, that's beyond me. She never asked to put that on the agenda since the time she's been there. So there was a lot of confusion of, I think, what she thinks our role is. And we're trying to work with her. And I know one of the big items she wanted to work on was revising the bylaws. And that's what we've been working on since then.

but just for clarity for me, the existing purpose of your committee, the first line is a committee's purpose is to advise on the budget and operations of the towns, parks, and recreation department. So she's not wrong in going in that direction. You know, I thought he just felt like my inner twilight zone here for things and we're not doing them. Well, and let me just, let me just finish. So, so basically we, we got into the whole conversation that we were going to fix the bylaws, um, Uh, council president, myself disagreed on a, on how we should approach this thing. Um, I said, the chair shouldn't say, we don't know. We don't need to know the budget. We don't need to know our goals. We don't need to follow the bylaws. Just doing the bylaws. Isn't going to change that. And I said, the committee felt broken to me. Um, I propose an ad hoc committee, which Mary had also brought up. and putting a pause on the committee. Council President said, I think the committee can move forward by themselves. And I said, this is like a three-month probation period. That was our conversation. So three months have gone by. We're into our fourth month. And I'm still wondering what we should do. Are you going to be able to complete this? My personal thoughts are... Are you the right person to do this? Is Scott Gallo, could he take the lead on this and push this thing through? Because it seems like there's some friction between you and at least one of the members. Well, we can vote on that next June. I mean, we can all say to you, all right, come back in a month, but is it going to get done in a month? And honestly, to me, I think that the town, and I've said this before, should go up to a new committee, and obviously you're not new, but fairly new since 2019, and said, here's a template for bylaws. And you shouldn't have to waste three meetings trying to figure out your own bylaws, because they're pretty generic. You can modify them for your own use. But I think the point I'm trying to make is getting past the bylaws, I think it's important to have a truly functioning parks and recs committee that feeds information to Wendy and Ms. Toner, I can't think of her first name, sorry.

Alan.

Alan. And keeps it the type of department that's doing their thing for Portsmouth. Correct. We get this behind us. So just a couple thoughts.

Can I make a comment? You're all council members. If any one of you want to put something on the agenda, you can, correct? If she had an issue with wanting to put something, our budget on the agenda, she could bring it up. We do talk to Wendy. Every month she was coming to our meetings. She's not coming to our meetings now until we finish our bylaws because we're trying to work on this. But I have said repeatedly to every one of our committee members, if you want something on the agenda, request it. I've never said no. They can do that. And it just seems like it's after the fact. I'm held responsible for that. It is a part of our bylaws, right? We work on as much stuff as we can. There are other pressing issues. If anybody wants to look at the budget with Wendy and sit down and talk to her, they can request it. So I understand it's in our bylaws, but again, any committee member can request it if they'd like to, and we can talk about it and discuss it. And as far as if I'm the right person or not, that's an opinion, you know, I mean, everyone seems to think on our committee, maybe not one person, but, you know, I got voted in again in June. So I think some people think I'm the right person for the job, I guess.

Mr. Payo?

No, no, I'm sorry. Okay. Ms. Patton.

I appreciate everything that the committee's done. I was on the committee before. I'm the liaison now. I know that the bylaws are moving forward and there were a lot of changes that were submitted. I was there. I understand that. I think that, and I like, if we could, they're going to vote on them this upcoming meeting. Possibly if we could have them hopefully get done by October, you know, put this on our October agenda. If you think that that would be able to give you some time so that they can at least get finished, bring them forward when they're finished. I think your meetings are Like the second week?

It's this Thursday, the third.

So maybe at the last October meeting.

I mean, we can, you know, we will be voting on what we discussed last month. But as you see from Article 3 through Article 4 through Article 5, how much red there is in here. This is not something that I think you can speed through. And, you know, you're at all the meetings. I think they're going very well. You know, there's no hostility. It's just this is a big change to our bylaws. And it takes diligence and careful thinking about what is being added and what's being asked to take out.

No, I agree with you. I think late the couple meetings that you've just had, the hostility has kind of gotten better. I would say there is no more of what it used to be or whatever.

I don't know where the hostility is personally.

Whatever was going on. So I mean, that's my opinion. I like to see if we can bring them back in October and see where we are then.

So If my math is right, your next meeting would be the 15th of October. After the meeting, you're going to have this Thursday. Correct. We'd put it in time. If you did get them done on the 15th and everything was voted on, we could put it on the agenda for the 26th. Because you'd have enough time to get them into us by the 20th. So if they're done, bring them in.

We're working on it.

Do you want to make the motion?

Sure. I'll make a motion. I'm sorry, what was it?

October 15th is when their next meeting would be. Our meeting would be the 26th.

Okay. So I'll make a motion to have the Park and Rec Committee bring their finished bylaws back to us for our October 26th meeting.

Second.

Second. I would add a caveat that if they are able to get through all of the sections, I mean, as a committee, I wouldn't hold a committee there for five hours to do it unless you're going to have multiple meetings. That was going to be my concern.

I don't think it's that. I think it's just this meeting, they're going to vote on what they've already done. The next meeting, hopefully they can get through the rest of them. Okay.

If they can't, they'll bring back an update on the 26th.

I'd be happy to do it.

Okay. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor?

With the caveat or without?

Well, I mean, if they're not done, they're not done. They'll bring back what's done. Same thing we have tonight. They'll bring back what's done. And it'll be a work in progress. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes 7-0. David, thank you, sir. Thank you. Appreciate it. Next up, we have old business number four, discussion on what steps we should take to move forward on the investments while we wait for the pension advisory subcommittee, I think technically, to meet. All right.

Yeah, I wanted this on simply because we haven't had any updates and I'm assuming I would have heard, but I don't think the pension advisory committee has met to discuss a way going forward. And if in fact they don't want that task, they have that right to say that, but I think we're in limbo right now. And I think it's important that we, find out are they going to move forward relatively soon or not and if not then we as a council take this on ourselves i i guess that's where i'm at um so my question would be specifically you're looking for the pension advisory investment advisory subcommittee not the pension advisory committee that did the pension investment sorry sorry

You're finished? You're good?

Have we asked the pension subcommittee to meet and report back to the council?

Yes, the pension committee.

I know, but have we set a deadline for them to report back to the council?

We haven't set a deadline for them to report back to us. In the pension committee, they were set up to have a meeting. It's incumbent on Mr. Harris, Mr. Santino, Mr. Pope to get together.

And to also clarify, if they are unwilling, to use that word, to fulfill this task, it will not come back to the council. It will revert back to the staff to do as they should be doing before this subcommittee was created.

Well, if they come back and say they don't want to do it, then we can make a decision after that for the council and have... have suggestions. I mean, in the long run, it's probably an RFP to figure out what to do with the money. But hopefully the three of them will be able to meet shortly. We can ask our finance director who's maybe the fire hose is slowing down a little bit that you're drinking from, but to reach out to the three of them and see when they can meet.

So should I should certainly Should we be talking, though, about some sort of timeline? I mean, we've given Park and Rec a timeline. And we made this decision, it seems, long ago.

We'll get an update at our next meeting, if that's okay. And hopefully they'll have a meeting by then.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. McDowell. Appreciate that. Next up, we have an update and a vote to change the LMI resolution from January 26, 27, 2026, excuse me. Mr. Gleason.

Thank you, Mr. President. Just a little background here. The council voted unanimously in January of this year to support resolution number 2026-01-27-A briefly in support of municipalities collaborating in reviewing, analyzing, and responding to the 2025 affordable housing laws. A joint municipal statement included with the resolution was sent to all Rhode Island cities and towns. It was signed and returned by the towns of Tiridon, Boroughville, Hopkinton, West Greenwich, Bristol, Smithfield, Lincoln, Middletown, Westerly, Charlestown, and East Greenwich. Recently, the town of Exeter voted to join us and we will now have total of 13 towns in support of the resolution. All the towns have patiently waited together with the council here for our legal staff to draft a complaint for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief. This is complete, will now be sent to the other towns and filed. While Portsmouth has committed spending up to $20,000 towards this effort, the original goal of reaching $35,000 has not been achieved to date. While only One other town has offered financial assistance to move forward with the complaint, and others have outright said they could not help financially, but they supported our resolution. We, Portsmouth, by amending the motion passed on April 13th of 2026, can move forward with completing and filing the complaint. My hope is that the towns currently signed on to the municipal joint, excuse me, the joint municipal statement will now sign on to the complaint. as plaintiffs, although the two currently signed on, Portsmouth and Hopkinton, can move forward alone. Hopefully we will have received additional commitments by the next council meeting with commitments of financial support and or to participate as a plaintiff in the complaint. That being said, the amended motion I'm recommending to the council is Subject to the council, I forgot my variable X in here. The motion is to proceed with the next step in the resolution with approval attorney fees not to exceed $20,000 from the contingency fund, which was an original motion, and to complete and file the complaint immediately and to allow participation in the complaint by other concerned entities. This would allow towns, it would allow us to file the complaint, move forward with this resolution, and encourage other towns, most of the cities aren't affected by this, to join on to the complaint. It would also allow citizens that have issues in their own towns that might have committees that are fighting or representing citizens privately to donate to our cause and to be plaintiffs as well.

So I think you captured that well.

I think I did. That would be my motion. I hope this council agrees and moves forward with it. Fantastic. Is there a second?

I'll second your motion.

Thank you, Ms. Patton. Mr. Fitzmaurice, unless there's any questions in the council, but I don't think there would be. Mr. Fitzmaurice.

Thank you, Mr. President. Larry Fitzmaurice, Kristen Court. I'm speaking, of course, in support of this motion. We've been working on this a long time. If it had been a baby, it would be due at the end of the month. This needs to get done, and it needs to get done quickly. We are losing some of our leverage on this matter the closer we get to the election. And one of the things we want to do is to use the press to the extent that they're willing to join us in this effort and put the pressure on. So my question is, when are we going to send this proposed complaint to the other 12 communities in the state that have joined us? When are we sending this thing out?

The email is waiting to go out, pending the votes taken tonight.

Excellent.

I also reached out to the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns in anticipation of this to ask for a meeting. And then they, as they did a few months ago, hosting a session, you know, a phone-in session for all the towns that might want to participate to give them an update. And so I'm waiting on a response to do that.

Okay, good. Mr. Gleason referred to Friends of the Court briefs to be encouraged. You know, some of you went with us over to Narragansett, for instance, and regrettably, the Narragansett Council had no intention of backing this, but there are groups in the town of Narragansett that do, and they had two public forums on this thing. They had two of them because they didn't have a big enough space to put one. They couldn't put them all together in one. So I spoke at those things and others did as well. And I've heard this from other communities around the state as well. This is something once it is explained to people is going to catch fire. And, but we have to move forward with it and get it into court and get started on it. And we need to push forward in my judgment until, um, we're at least on the docket and, you know, there's, there's a lot to be done here. And, um, And we need to talk to some people and we need to do some PR with the press. Otherwise, they're not going to say a word. So we need to think about the process in which we are going to do this. And I would encourage the council to encourage the other elements, the other 12 communities that are backing us in this matter, to do their own press releases when this thing is filed in court. And we'll see what we can get done. This is terribly important to all of us. I think that we get wrapped up in the day-to-day business of council and the business of the town. We have a tendency to lose sight of the fact that we're betting the farm on this thing, literally. And the cities don't care. And so the majority of the vote is in the cities, in the assembly. That's how this thing got passed. Actually, 60 bills turned into laws got passed. That's how it got done, because they kept it quiet. The cities knew about it, more or less, and it didn't have that much of an effect on them. None of us knew about it. At least I don't think any of us did. And that is the case in every one of these communities that I've been to. The rural communities were surprised by this. And they have deep objections. And it doesn't make any difference in my experience with these people what party you're on or in or anything else. This is going to destroy some of these communities. And we don't want to give it a chance to destroy us. And we have two choices here. We can accept the edicts coming out of this rather tyrannical approach to zoning management by the assembly, or we can fight them on it. And I want to thank you. And let's move together on this thing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Fitzmaurice. Any other questions? There is a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Nay.

Motion passes five to two with Ms. Blank and Mr. Pero in the negative. Next up, we have new business number one, a summary and recommendations from our 2025 experience study for employees pension plan. We have Jen and Jennifer.

Hi, thanks for having us. So we're from NYHRD. We're the new actuaries for the pension plan. And I'm going to have Jennifer share her screen. So we just had a quick summary for you guys. We had met with the advisory committee maybe last month sometime. So they had kind of, we'd talked through all the assumption changes that we're recommending and they were on board. We just wanted to get your kind of rubber stamp seal of approval. And the reason why we're doing the experience study, for one, it hadn't been done in quite a while. So we wanted to kind of kick the tires. And then also the state wants pension plans to do an experience study actually every three years. And so we're getting you caught up on that schedule. And then going forward, this will be more of a routine. Each time we'll have a really small adjustment we expect in the future. So the first slide here just gives us kind of a rough estimate of what the impact on the results are going to be. You can see we list out six, five different changes. So each one individually is fairly small. And then that last line at the bottom there, the all changes, that's if we accept all of the assumption changes, that's what we would be looking at. And the half a million dollars looks like, you know, a chunk of change. But the total liability for the pension plan is about 116 million. So really, it's relative to the overall liability of the plan. It's less than a half a percent difference there. So overall, it's real small tweaks that we feel would be appropriate. So I'll go to the next slide. This just gives, and you guys have this in your book, I'm sure. This just kind of talks through some of the adjustments that we're recommending. For the most part, like I said, they're pretty small. Withdrawal rates was probably the larger one. So currently the plan was assuming that, you know, police and fire would, you know, leave you know, a certain percentage each year would leave. And looking back at the history, we're really not seeing that play out. There's only been two, I believe, people who left before retirement age who, you know, had a vested benefit in the pension plan. So we would recommend just not having any withdrawal termination assumption for the public safety officers. And that would just mean we assume that they're going to stay with the town until they retire, basically. So that was probably the more impactful change. So retirement rates, just tweaking that for the school employees. We're not seeing quite as many people work until age 70 as we were seeing before. The mortality rates, real small update. The Society of Actuaries had published a new mortality table. So just making that little tweak to update that. Marital status, real small changes on that as well. And then a couple of kind of more method type changes. So those first four, five are small tweaks to the assumptions. And then kind of looking forward for when we go to determine this contribution for each year that the town puts in. A couple of things to kind of smooth out what we're seeing some volatility with. And I keep making hand gestures, and I just realize you can't see my hands. But we have a lot of volatility from year over year right now. We're just using market value, which is basically whatever is in the bank on June 30th, that's what we're using to calculate the contribution. But since it's kind of a long-term forward looking plan, we would recommend just going to a smooth asset value. And basically that just means if you have a really huge, either, you know, way more investment return than you were expecting or way less, instead of having that all be recognized just in a single plan year and just hit the contribution all at once, you kind of phase that in. So instead of recognizing, you know, a million dollar of investment gains for the pension plan, you'd recognize that gradually over a five-year period. So it's, you get to the same place in the long run. We assume that they would, you know, be equal. It would just kind of smooth out some of that gains and losses every year since, you know, if we look at it on June 30th versus, you know, July 7th, you could get a lot different answer. So you're kind of at the whim of the market, how it is right now. And that's very common. Probably three-fourths of the plans in Rhode Island use a smoothing mechanism like that for their asset valuation. So very common. And then the other kind of more method related to how we determine that contribution. Right now, it's assuming that the the piece that gets amortized, so the unfunded liability, so how much the plan needs to put in in the future. Right now, we're assuming that that amortization piece, instead of being flat like a mortgage, where it's $10,000 a year every year, it's being ratioed up by that 3.5% payroll growth in the future, which since this is a closed plan now, the payroll isn't really Growing anymore, it's actually shrinking as people leave the plan because there's no new new entrance coming into the plan anymore to kind of replace them. So we feel that we should probably right size that to what the payroll has actually been doing. I think the goal would probably be to get it down from that 3.5% down to zero. But we know that that would be a fairly big budget hit if we do that all at once. And so the advisory committee looked at a few different options, but we had kind of settled on at least stepping down to a 2% payroll growth assumption for now. And we'll see on the next slide, it flattens out the contribution a lot compared to how it looks now, where it's going to keep growing a lot faster in the future because of that 3.5% kind of assumed contribution growth, basically. So that was kind of the tweaks. I'll show you the projections. It's hard to... So you can see that this is the contributions that the town pays each year for the pension plan. So you can see that red line is using the current assumptions. And then that blue line is if we make all those assumptions for retirement, termination, mortality. And so you can see it's real incremental differences, a little higher in the near term, a little lower in the future. But then that gray line is kind of what we are hoping to get to. So that gray line is if we also implement that lowering from 3.5% payroll growth down to the 2% payroll growth. And we got there because the committee felt that it was better to have more of a flat contribution, a little easier to budget for in the future. So that's what that gray line represents is all the assumption changes that we're recommending plus that payroll growth flattening. So I'll pause. That was the main things we wanted to cover. I know it's an interesting topic. I'm sure we have lots of people that want to comment about it.

Any questions? Yeah, Jennifer, if we're looking at those three lines, and currently, as you stated, every year you come out, well, you now, previous, have come out with our ARC number.

Mm-hmm.

Would you be in favor, I'm just guessing at a number here because we're somewhere between 4 and 4.4. If we just did a level dollar of 4.2, would that smooth everything out and get close to that gray line faster?

I think so. That would be reasonable to me. It's, you know... Gains and losses are going to happen in the future. So if you make a little bit higher contribution now, you'll expect to pay a little bit lower contribution in the future. But yeah, kind of flattening it out was kind of what we thought should be the goal.

And we're also making... If we have surpluses, we're also making secondary contributions off of the surplus of 50% of what the surplus is. Well, technically into the pension, 40% of what the surplus is. Last year was about $167,000. This year could be upwards of $450,000. And all those extra dollars will hopefully get us closer to that 2040 and not the 2041. Yeah. And 2038.

Yeah, that's true. And we, you know, it's always kind of a pay now or pay later. So, you know, the more money you can put in up front, you get all the years of compounding, you know, interest and investment returns. So overall, the cash requirement, if you can put in more up front, kind of the total contribution in dollars would likely be less.

So are you going to come forth in December with your ARC contribution? Termination? Or are you going to do it tonight and say, yeah, 4.2 is good? Are you going to come back and say, do our study and then come back in December and say, you know what, 4.2 would be great, but you really only need 4.1?

Yeah. So we're working on that right now. We got all the assets information and that's being worked on currently. So yeah, definitely by December, well in advance of December, I expect it'll be done. So then we'd have the final kind of ARC payment that you guys would be making for the following fiscal year.

Okay. So for this council and Rich and Liz, I'm looking at you, you would need us to make a motion to make the changes to the assumptions or do you need that Jennifer or Jen? I don't know which one's talking.

Sorry, Jen and Jennifer, it's very confusing. Yeah, I think the advisory committee felt like we should get a vote just because there's a number of changes. So for our purposes, you could just send us an email, but I think the town is probably a more formal decision.

Okay.

So we need a vote to make the assumption changes.

Right. And then that'll be factored into the GASB report, which will list out the ARC payment for the department.

So do we have a motion to accept the assumption changes as presented tonight and also presented and approved by the pension committee?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second for discussion. Sure. Not the 4.2 you've recommended. You're saying... No, no, this is just the assumption changes that came forward, not the dollar amount. Right, right. Nothing there. Dollar amount comes in December. That's all. Just wanted clarity on that. Yeah, no, no, no. And this has to go before the new committee as well?

No.

Not at all.

No, the pension committee has already seen this. They have seen it. And they agree with the assumption changes. All right. The new committee, which is a subcommittee, has nothing to do with this piece. Got it. Too many pension words tonight. Any other questions? Do we have a motion and a second? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes seven to zero. All of this is in the hopes of closing the gap faster and costing, it may be, helping to stabilize and not having a 3.7 one year and a 4.5 the next year and a 3.6 the following year.

Yep, exactly. Well, we'll use these new assumptions and get the Gatsby report and the ARC calculated for you guys.

Thank you, Jennifer. Any other questions for them? Although I'm the only one that asked any questions. All right. Thank you both for tonight. Thanks for hanging in there for the beginning of the meeting. We appreciate it.

No, no, it was interesting. All right. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Have a great night. Thank you so much.

Bye. Bye. And rolling on to more discussion of money and budget surpluses. New business number two, preliminary discussion regarding the anticipated budget surplus. Ms. McDowell.

I put this on because I don't know whether we have any formal way of weighing in on how we use the surplus. I know that we received some monies regarding last year's budget. And we're looking probably at a surplus this year of, I think you mentioned a million. I'm coming up to 900 and something, but it's not been confirmed yet. And 50% will be going to pension 40 plus 10. So we're looking at probably a surplus of about $460,000. So how do we get to weigh in on this on on what we do with that surplus?

Well, you're the councilor. You can do what you want regarding the surplus. The surplus goes into the fund balance. So then anytime you touch the fund balance, that's a council decision. So you're not... It's easy to talk about, oh, how are we going to spend the surplus? But what you're really talking about is how you're going to expend funds from the fund balance.

From the fund balance.

The rainy day fund. There's two fund balances. Rainy day makes it easier.

Okay. So, you know, we've been talking or I've heard people talk about the putting the trash into our tax base. Is this something that we should be looking at in regard to that using a surplus?

No, because if you use a surplus, it's one-time money, and then you have to fill that hole for the next year with tax money.

Yeah.

It has to be recurring.

If you had a plan, though, isn't that a possibility? I mean, how are we going to get? I think you've said it in the past. I think I heard you say it at a prudent, silent planning commission that we're working on putting this into the we're working on putting trash into our tax base. What are we doing to that? I mean, I've people have asked me what is when they say that, what are they doing? So are we making, do we have steps that we're taking right now to work on this? Because I don't see any other way to do it except incrementally to work on a plan for this, unless you enlighten me and tell me that we're doing something else.

I wish I could. There's a lot of issues that the council will have to decide. So right now, in essence, we'll boil it down. I mean, you've got Prudence Island, you've got Hog Island, you've got Headley Street, you've got curbside. So you've got four different trash operations that the town is essentially managing or contributing to. These are enterprise funds for the most part. Now, what you've done in Prudence is you're subsidizing uh the prudence operation but yet you're charging prudence residents via their tax bill uh money to help defray that cost and plus it up so that the whole operation is paid for that's one way to tackle it if you do that on the mainland per se If Mrs. Smith down the street who has curbside and part of her taxes are paying help putting trash operations into the tax base, and let's say she has a couch she wants to get rid of, Uh, this person is going to want to come to the town and say, I should be able to take that to the transfer station because my tax dollars are helping to fund that. Transfer station, so I think before we go there, we need to decide. On how we're going to absolutely tackle trash moving forward. Are we going to. We need to tackle that. How would we make it fair? And then this has been discussed by the council in previous meetings over the last few years. Perhaps if we can get past those policy type questions, then how much money do we put in each budget that would help defray the cost of that sticker until it's eventually all taken care of by the tax base? At the same time we're doing that, we haven't done a whole lot of work on it right now because we're waiting to see what the vote is gonna be in November regarding the school bond issue. That has a potential over the five years of adding $1.7 million max, although I don't think that's the anticipation we'll go there, but let's just say it's $1.2 million added to debt service. Our budget can only go up about $1 million to $1.5 million, depending on the year, before the council gets real nervous about getting too close to the levy. One thing that we did ask the Auditor General two years ago is, could this potentially be? Could we just rip off the Band-Aid and put this all in a tax base right now? And the answer is no. This does not meet any of the metrics required to go over the cap. So we would have to do it incrementally, which absolutely we can do, but we need to settle the policy questions first. I guess that's a long way to saying that, yeah, we need to tackle

So by settling the policy question, does it make sense to have an ad hoc committee begin to work on this? To gather information, to gather data, to see what direction or directions we should be going? I mean, I think it would be important to start the process via an ad hoc committee.

I would say that we already have a committee. We have a solid waste and recycling committee. I don't know that we need another committee to do this.

So would you say that this solid waste committee would be charged with something like that? Is that what you're saying?

I can't test them. They're advisory to the council, so you would have to ask them to do that for you.

Okay. The biggest thing is trying to get, as you mentioned, the if there was $500,000. But if we put that $500,000 in and we don't realize the surplus of that next year, then we have a hole. It would be a lot easier if we just had one way of removing trash, but we have four. Obviously, curbside here and whatever. I can't even imagine what curbside would cost to send a truck over to Prudence once a week. But... In order for us to do this, we need to start stepping in recurring monies. But as Mr. Rainer mentioned, we don't know until the vote is done and what projects are going to get done for the school budget to really know how much money we do have to play with. And is that $50,000 next year and $50,000 a year before? Or is it $100,000? Or potentially is it nothing? That's one of the reasons I continually fight to try and get general revenue sharing in, because if we did that, maybe we could put that in and that's recurring. That gets a big chunk of that roughly 1.8 million to $2 million that it will cost us to remove trash as a town. We're not going to answer it tonight, unfortunately. But to answer your question as to the rest of the surplus, it just gets, it gets swept up into the rainy day fund and helps us maintain because every year our budget goes up. So that eight to 16% number goes up with it as well. So it helps keep us in that range.

So you'd need something like a one-time charge, like you put it into the paving fund or you'd put it into something along those lines so that if you didn't get that, you get it next year.

Right. If you wanted to use surplus money for something else, it'd be some, it wouldn't, you wouldn't want to put it into operational stuff.

Right.

So yes, you could say, you know, let's paint town hall. Yeah. It's a one-time capital thing that doesn't reoccur. You can't say, We can't be the governor and say, let's give everybody $3,000 and do that every year because it's not there anymore while we're in trouble.

No, it would be snow plowing. It would be road paving.

Right. Or, you know, he's not paying attention. If the chief needed a new fire truck, you know, and we had the extra money and he had a fire truck for $500,000 that was within it. I thought he wasn't paying attention. But yes, something like that that's not reoccurring. Yes. But yes, something like that. Or if there was another set of roads that we said, hey, you know what? We do have this surplus. Paul's already got a contract. Let's go in and do a couple extra roads. Yes. but not something recurring, like salaries or things like that, or trash pickup, unfortunately. I hope that answers your question.

Well, it does, but I think we probably should consider some sort of either us looking at solid waste or a separate ad hoc or whatever. But I think that continually saying that we're going to do it, it has to really start now. And the ideas have to come forward. How we're gonna do this has to come forward. And I think we should be actively talking about it all the time. if we're really serious about doing that.

But your, I think, point number seven or eight or 11, I don't know, it's one of the last ones on the ad hoc committee that just finished, I believe, was to get everybody to curbside and have a single use in town. That would be a faster step to being able to put money into a budget if we have one way of doing it. Because if you're curbside, And he's transfer station, and we give curbside $100,000. We're penalizing the transfer station people.

Well, there are communities that have both.

Yeah.

So it is possible. They're not inclusive or exclusive, I should say. Anyways, I think I'll do some more thinking about it. You might see something coming down the line.

Okay. No action needed tonight for you.

Okay. You want me to put a motion in to spend the money?

Not unless you have something specific and some backup so that we know what you're talking about. All right. New business number three, request approval of the safe streets for all subsequent, sub recipient. I tried to say agreement. Sorry, Ms. Hitchin. I'm sorry. It's getting late. We've been here since 6.

I've been here since 8.30.

No, no, no. I saw you. You went home and came back. Or you went to school probably to pick up the kid and bring her home.

I have kids I have to take care of, feed, run back. Sorry about that. What I have before you this evening is what I thought was a simple request, and that is to approve the subrecipient agreement that Portsmouth has with Newport. If you took the time to read it, you will notice that it is not fully complete, and that is because we are still working on hard costs, soft costs, permitting costs. But as I explained to somebody who reached out to me, that Exhibit A and all the details will be coming forth in the next couple months. It was Attorney Behan in Newport that drafted the agreement, and our attorney has reviewed it and essentially blessed it as well.

So essentially this keeps the ball rolling for the potential for us to get some federal funds if we're able to come up with matching funds in order to get those federal funds.

Absolutely.

Is there a motion to approve?

I have a question. Sure. Are we going to know the cost to Portsmouth for the pass-through cost? Because Newport's handling this, right? So there must be costs incurred by Newport that's going to be passed on to us. Do we have any control?

In the agreement, I believe it says a 2% cost.

And are we going to get in the final? This is just preliminary.

Before we get into the final, are we going to get all the... Like I said two minutes ago, you will get all the details, which will be explained in Exhibit A, which is referenced several times in the subrecipient agreement.

All right. And I would add that I don't think the cost that goes to Newport will change because that's a percentage, as Leah pointed out, a percentage of the top line amount. So they're just taking their VIG essentially for managing the grant. And however it gets distributed amongst that is not going to change. That's their administrative fee.

All right. We've been down this road before. We didn't get to look at it afterwards. So I just want to make sure. All right. Thank you.

I was told I might be putting the cart before the horse in this process, and I feel like I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. I'm trying to be transparent and give you little bits and pieces of this instead of throwing it all at you months from now.

Any further questions? Is there a motion to approve the subrecipient agreement as it is now? So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 7-0. And we have our correspondence. Is there anything we would like to pull off of these 10 items? If not, do we have a motion to receive and place on file? So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 7-0. We have future meetings coming up on the 28th of September, the 13th of October, which will be a Tuesday. and 26th of october uh we will be returning to executive session uh because we did not finish everything that we set out to do at six o'clock so i would bid you all a do and a motion to enter back into executive session under rhode island general law 42 45 a five a five one five a one five two and one so moved Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion passes 7-0.