Town Council - Regular Meeting

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

I have one sort of a breaking news just about an hour and a half ago. The um the home bid tax exemption was unanimously approved by the Senate Municipal Committee. It will be scheduled for a vote next week on the Senate floor. It had previously already been approved in the House. So next after that step will come uh reconciliation and then we'll go to the governor's desk signing. So yes great approval of minutes motion to approve the minutes as written unless anybody wants to discuss them.

I am going to second them and I'm going to have one edit. They are not numbered the pages but I'm going to number them myself. So one, two, three, five. Page five, there's a uh big um paragraph there. Yep. At the end of it says will be discussed as possible agreement at a later date with the council. Do you see that one? Yes. All right. Could you just add to the end of that sentence to be clear? Council McHugh states there were no discussions between counselors about this subject. No role in quorum occurred.

Could you just repeat that one more time? To be clear, councelor McHugh states there were no discussions between counselors about this subject. No roll in quorum occurred. That's my motion. Do I have a second? Second to amend the minutes. Amen. The minutes. All in favor? I. Thank you. Department head reports. Motion to place the department head reports on file unless anybody would like to discuss any of them. Second. All in favor? Hi I thank you. Old business one accept proposals professional audit services and agreed upon procedure services

three-year period proposal 2026-01. Heather, do we have um something to open? We have two. Thank you.

No, you can open them if you don't mind. First I have uh hey and company. I have a price proposal. Do you want all five years or you just want Bottom line

is there a bottom line for is total 7,000 profit 90 goes on to speak to the following years 579 thank you for five years I think she said no it goes on give pricing going on we'll pass it around if you want did you say 57590 57590 property yep that's just so we're clear That's per year. Yeah. Per year. 579 per year. Got it. That was Sahi. Yeah.

Next one I have is CBiz. So yeah, Nothing in that.

No, I don't see any numbers there. The sample audit report. All right, it's three to this one.

Like it's like Christmas again. Okay. Okay. Financial year. Let's see. um annual fees for well the way they've got this broken down is says fiscal year ending 2025 675 then it goes on up from that each year. Great. Thank you. Pass those other copies. Thank you. I only have Oh,

I'm going to make a motion to appoint a working group to review the auditor candidates and report back to the council with a recommendation. Going to appoint myself, Councilman Mushin, Finance Director Mame, and Todd Administrator Wall. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? I going to meet March 9th at noon. Bob, can you meet March 9th at noon? I am able. He's able. town administrator March 9th at noon. I'll make it work.

Thank you. I also like to make a motion. I'm going to make a motion to set a special town council meeting third uh Tuesday, March 10th at 3 p.m. We'll put the order selection on that agenda among other things if we need to. Do I have a motion for that? I'll make that motion. Any other discussion? Tuesday, I won't be able to be at that meeting. I have March 10th at 3 p.m. I won't be able to meet at that meeting. I could try but I don't the next day. Next day. Well, I'm going to have a meeting. Okay. You want to check your calendar?

I don't I don't know. I I'll make it. I have an eye appointment. I can't miss. Do I have I have a second? I have a motion to second. All in favor? I thank you. Excuse me. Who second? I don't think there was a second. There was no second. Did you second it? But you second. I'll Yeah, I think I did second it. They did second it and then I said I can't make it. Okay, Heather. Yeah. Thank you. Business to receive request from Tom fill the office in her office. Motion to approve. Do I have a second? I'll second it. And then I have a question for Heather after. We are in discussion. In discussion,

Heather, um, can you tell me where it will be posted? As I noted in my letter, it will be posted on the municipal union bulletin board as always as well as as I put concurrently in the newspaper for one week as I learned the last time.

So, right. So, I see this is to be advertised concurrently and yeah. So, we have that in our ordinance about putting in the newspaper. I guess I just wanted to raise for council consideration um that ordinance that we have that's uh for under personnel administration position vacancy uh announcement. The town council should advertise every position vacancy at least once in a newspaper with general circulation within the town um was dated 1987 and hasn't been updated since then. So, I think I'll flag this for the um charter review commission, but I just wondered if you could please post this also on the League of Cities and Towns has a job board on their website on their homepage or their website that other towns post uh municipal positions. I just think maybe that might be a place where people would go who maybe don't read the Sonic Times or maybe not the union posting. I just think maybe it's time for us to have some more um current locations for for posting positions.

Um we have tried other outlets before and it's turned up a lot of nothing. I know the uh one in the past with the what was it in uh Indeed or something and you got like 10,000 things, but I think the municipal the one for the Rhode Island uh municipal league of cities and towns is a is a nice kind of narrow focus for people looking in the state for uh municipal jobs in my opinion. I don't know if you guys agree with that. Yeah, it's a worthwhile place to post. Do I need to get a motion for that or just a directive to the clerk? I think it needs I do I do the motion. Okay. So, I'll make I'll make a

We have a motion in a second on the table. Do you want to I think Gary made the motion. Do you want to amend your motion to include inclusion for advertising with less and cities and towns? Yeah, I'll amend my motion to include what Victoria said. And Victoria, you second it. Any further discussion? All in favor? I. Thank you.

Thank you, Heather. New business request from Lawrence Anderson Town Moderate to appoint Chris Kellenberg. Did I skip something? Sorry. Sorry. Old business three. Request Commons Review Committee to review architectural drawings of 32 commons regarding fire safety compliance to report to their to report their recommendation to the town council by 7:26. Motion to approve that. U was that a was that in the form of a motion and packet? Yeah, that's Yeah, I'm going to make that motion. Yes. Second. Any discussion on it? Have discussion.

Uh thank you very much for reinviting common review committee to do that. I look forward working on that. Uh you envisioning the that would be the second committee. Well, it says common review committee. Maybe that was a an omission that we dissolved that first one. Yes, I'm aware of that. Yeah. So, this was the second one. So, you meant to say common needs committee then? Yeah. Yep, I do. There's a lot of committees I make. I got excited for no good reason. Well, I tell you something. If someone doesn't uh want to uh be on it, uh I'd be happy to recommend that you go on it.

I may suggest to myself to the council. Um it involves the art fellows. I'm an art. It involves a historic building and I'm the chair of the historic advisory committee and obviously as you all know I'm quite interested in the town. So I leave it at that and yeah. So, we'll we'll we'll you know, we're we're firing this one back up. Let's see if everyone wants to be on it again. And if there's a vacancy, I think you make a strong point to be on it. Okay. Thank you for your consideration. You're welcome. Well, any further discussion? Would there be a real problem for us to for on that right now? I think only the only thing I can think of is it's a uh would be a even number of people on it.

But let's see, you know, let's see who's on it. All right. Perhaps a motion that appoints him contingent upon there being a vacancy. I'll make a motion that if anybody uh drops off the communist needs committee that our um standing as uh gets put on it without having to come back to the council. I have a um motion in a second already for the uh agenda item, but we can make that motion after make that motion after. Y. So, all in favor? I I And do you have another motion to make?

I'd like to make a motion uh that Aris uh if anybody drops off the common needs committee that u Ara be put on put on it without having to come back to the council. I'll second the motion. Any other discussion? All in favor? I. Thank you. New business. Request from Larry Anderson, town moderator to appoint Chris Kllinberg to the vacant seat of assistant town moderator. Place Chris Kellenberg on as the assistant moderator. Second. He comes with wellqualified. So I think we don't want to put somebody on there that Larry's not going to work.

I have a motion and a second. and we'd have the moderator to say a few words.

Uh, actually I' I'd like to say words, but I don't mind mind if you go ahead and uh in the first place he he couldn't I I will say that he would have been here tonight, but he had a prior uh commitment, so he could not be here. I do think um I will say he he's uh both qualified and he I think he has the demeanor and the experience and maturity to serve and and he's willing before the vote and I talked to quite a few people and I think part of my job is to stay on my feet through the town meeting because uh a lot of people willing to do it but they they were a little concerned that if I couldn't do it that they would have to preside over the meeting. So uh Chris was willing in case anything happened to me. So but I will try to show up myself but uh so and then uh well if you will go ahead and vote there's one other comment I want

further discussion of the council. All in favor? I uh the other point I make and I did I it was in the packet. It's not listed on the agenda. I did provide you a um a uh document in which I had uh tried to estimate the attendance of well was it's I don't see it listed in the agenda. I it's in the pack. I'm sorry I put it with your with your letter.

Well, so I did want to uh uh speak to the to the substance of that if I could a little bit. Um better concern to me as I took this position uh that had a situation at last year's town meeting where there was some confusion and delay about the uh registration of people and of what needed in the door or could make it in the door. And I I will say that as a that it's worth that actually two events that are going on. there's actually an actual election and and the town meeting financial town meeting itself both of which are open to all of eligible voters and I am very concerned about the um prospect of turning any voter away. I understand there were uh sound and important and necessary public safety considerations about the capacity of the space we use but u so I did this compilation I have it uh it got converted in a format that is a little all the information is there but going back not so much recently but you know you'll see the document documented uh meetings of 700 people in the early 2000s some of you will remember meetings of of uh 468, 697, 586, 760, 597. So, it's not uh some of us were at those meetings. So, we we we know that um people will turn up. So, um I know this has been on talked about it and Heather has a first step ining a meeting between both her and the police and fire chiefs to take a first look at uh some kind of uh look at the physical

space and start thinking about some contingency plans or plan B's so that we can avoid um avoid a situation where we'd have to turn people away. Frankly, as time moderator, if I I can't see myself calling a meeting to order if any single voter gets turned away. I mean, it's just uh it's just not that's a kind of uh that we're using these days. You know, it's kind of

it seems to me with advanced planning, right, there's certainly room to school other rooms to be there are technological things that we can do that weren't available previously. So that's that's on my mind and depending upon what we uh discuss at that meeting we may you know there may be things we come back answer for about and perhaps school about alternative plans. Thank you very much. Larry business to request sand lodge number 39 independent order of auto permission to repaint the front first floor street level door at 32 common autofellow hall. Do I have a motion?

I'll move that we approve that. Second. Only discussion I had was make sure there's no lead paint on there. A little lead test on there. and and I would add um a thank you to Ara and uh whomever is the anonymous donor for uh materials and willingness to um help do that for the town. So, thank you.

Thank you. If I may follow up with your lead concern, it's possible for us to remove the door and take care of it in an area where it will not contaminate. I believe I need permission to do so, which will be done within few hours. The door will be missing just few hours during light time. Sorry. Um sorry to interrupt but um Mr. President could I interject here.

Hi. Um, I think it would be wise for me to meet with the folks who are organizing this effort to paint and just make sure that we have all bases covered. Yeah, thank you. I should have mentioned that. Great. Any further discussion? I couldn't hear her. She's going to meet you there. Okay. Well, I I think I should call a meeting before before they uh start, you know, embark on the work, right? email. I can get it. Yeah, Heather will give that to you and you guys can connect. Just to make sure we've done things in the proper order. Thanks. Thank you, Anya. Yep.

All in favor? I Any opposed? Not. Great. Thank you. Request for Buds Bay Coalition for the Buds Bay Coalition Watershed Ride, an annual fundraising cycle event on Sunday, October 4th, 2026. Want to move this contingent upon all town and state local ordinances adhere to and approval from both the bike and the police chief. Do I have a second? Second discussion. All in favor? I. Is Kate here? Any opposed? Anybody here representing this fuzzy?

Thank you. This is four requests for the United Congregational church use town landing for their Easter sunrise service on Sunday, April 5th, 2026. Motion to approve. Second. All in favor? I

I opposed. Communications. Letter received from Alexander Greenwood. Concerns to the short-term rental STR ordinance. Is there an Alexander Greenwood here tonight? There's one right there. Nice hand. Right. Would you like to speak on this? Yeah, state your name and um your address uh and talk into the mic, please.

Okay. Hello. Um my name is Alexander Greenwood. I live at 25 Block House Lane. Um and I have a short-term rental Airbnb at 361 West Main Road. Um, and I share that with my landlord, Edward Duffield, who is here today. Um, he is the owner of the property and I manage it for him and we share the income. Um, and my concerns with this new ordinance was first my concern was um the registration fee and I wanted some clarification as to why it is 10 times higher than that of the state. Um, and I've looked at other towns as well who have additional town um, ordinances like Newport for example and theirs matches the state. So, I just would like some clarification about that and also more details um, when this is starting as well. Um, because I saw on the East Bay newspaper about how there's a $500 fine attached to the late registration. Um, and frankly, we just can't afford that. Um, we rely on this income even though it's very small. Um, we only charge between 69 to upwards of a 100 a night. Um, yeah, it does impact our family greatly.

Thank you, Alexandra. May I ask a question and then make it comfortable? The short-term rental is contained in the dwelling unit. Yes. And while the short-term rental is being used, are the people living there? Um, yes. So, it's kind of like an apartment style. So, Ted lives downstairs. He's the he's the owner of the property. And upstairs we have the short-term rental. It's not a full apartment. Um, so like somebody else couldn't really live there because there is no kitchen. I don't believe that this ordinance covers that. Why not?

Because this is for short-term rentals for a dwelling unit. It seems to me you fall under the applicability section subsection one. It's almost like a rooming house. Okay. I just I I guess I was maybe a little confused then from the article that was um written about it all. Um because I'm listed as a short-term rental through Airbnb. Um I have to because that's just like the state thing I asked to do. So you're registered with the state? I am. So, she's registered as a short-term rental. I I I' I'd actually um before we get into the meat of the thing. Sure.

Uh I'd like this to be referred to me. I I'm looking at the ordinance and I'm wondering if it if it covers this instance. You might might be accepted. Um okay. The other question is is like have we as a town discussed like um owners occupied um short-term rentals and uh how that might differ in this ordinance.

I tried to refer to that Victoria or sorry I'm reading this and I have what was the question? the the question um is has has the town council discussed about um owner occupied versus um I don't know really the term for it but somebody who buys a property doesn't live here and visit like is there a difference in this ordinance between those two things or is it all kind of lumped together as one thing there's a difference in the registration fee

there is $150 is if you don't live here and you just bought a property and you're renting it out as an Airbnb, um we have a 50% discount if you live here and rent it out. So, it's 125, okay, if you live here. Um and as far as when the um registration is going into effect. Um, so I'm I was chair of that committee and Jonathan um, our IT director was also on the committee and Jonathan's been uh, working on that and I think we're hoping for a spring roll out for the registration, but the registration won't actually be due until December 31st to give everybody a lot of time to understand what's going so we can do a an education campaign. We can get the information out there. Um, I would recommend that in addition to just trying to pay attention, you can sign up on the um in the town clerk's office for the townwide list serve that's going to be launched soon, which will be like a weekly email with any kind of news and information. If you don't want to sign up on the website, you can also, like I said, go into the clerk's office to do that. But, um, so the registration once we roll it out in the spring won't be due until December 31st. The registrations will take effect next calendar year. And there's also built into the ordinance a six-month grace period from the time the registration starts to give people time so that there aren't stuff associated. There's also a first time if there's any kind of um violation that you get a warning and opportunity to correct it. So really attempted to make it uh you know as user friendly and as easy to kind of roll out and for people to get on board with as possible.

Okay, I understand that. Thank you. Thank you. Um, just one other question though. I'm just curious as to why the registration fee is so much higher that of the state.

Sure. So, the state registration is really just a very basic you plug in your name and your address and the fact that you have a short rental and you give them $25. Um, the state uh registration doesn't really do anything other than that. It doesn't give more information than that. And one of the reasons that we wanted to have this registration was to understand what we're actually dealing with because we get a lot of anecdotal um feedback from people who think it's a big problem, who think it's not a problem, who thinks it's driving prices up or that it's running down our long-term uh year- round rentals, but it's really pretty anecdotal. So part of our hope here is that we're able to get information and really know what we're dealing with and look at it over time to help us make good decisions going forward that are like database decisions. So the $125 is meant to at least break even with the administrative costs of doing it. Um if you can imagine at the state level, I I'm guessing there's tens of thousands of of Airbnbs that they do. So their their cost to to do the registration is much lower per unit than it is here where we're going to have maybe a couple hundred, right? So that's part of the thinking. Um and it's also pretty uh in line with other neighboring towns. Um we looked at lots of other communities. So yeah, that's where we that's where we landed on that.

Thank you for the clarification. Yeah, no problem. Of course. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Thank you, Alexandra. So ju just so everybody knows that I talked to solicitor about talking to this and it's okay for me to talk on this subject. Yes, you're making a comment.

Okay. So I'm not really going to make a comment of it, but I think everybody knows how I feel. Um, there are people that have a similar problem as Alexandra. And I didn't realize that if you uh had a house that you lived in and you rented a room out of it that it didn't qualify as a short-term rental. But then it has to be listed on the Airbnb site and that may be a quandry that may have to be looked at. And so and and I can understand asking people to register. I can understand trying to get a little bit of a handle on it. But everything that's being asked I think is an overreach and everybody says well it's to see what's happening in town to see what's going to be gained. You know what is going to be gained by this? what how is this going to be utilized once we get all these facts that the state already has that we can look at the state site say okay this how many u STRs we have in little cton how much more we're going to gain except finding out what septic systems and all this other stuff that I think's a burden on people so that's just my two cents if you want to comment on that but maybe you could help me out Victoria I think the states registration um is a mess. Hasn't been going since November. There's nearly no information on there and we have Am I right?

Yeah, it it basically uh it's been down since November and it does not really offer much information besides name and address. Um so, and what more do we need? Name and address and

trying to understand is this a growing thing? Is this is this displacing people out of year- round rentals? Um, I don't know if you recall, but that, you know, when we were looking for a town administrator, we found a a great candidate who wanted to relocate here and there was not a single year round rental for that person to be able to use. And so, a lot of people are concerned that it's put downward pressure on that and also upward pressure on the cost of just buying here. So, one thing is to monitor it and see if it's if it's growing. And what we do know is the state registration's been around for three years. And in those three years, the number of uh short-term rentals registered in Little Compton doubled in three years. So, what we're curious to know is is it going to double three years from now and three years from there? Is it leveling off? You know, there's a lot that we don't know. Um this, as everybody knows, kind of exploded with the pandemic, which changed a lot of housing patterns, and so we're trying to kind of get to the bottom of it.

So, I think what's going to control short-term rentals is the financial aspect. Okay. somebody's not going to rent fulltime when they can make three times as much money on short-term rental. And I I hate to do it again, but I think the egg trust has something to do with making it so that it's not affordable to live in town. So, so that's all I'll say. Thank you, Victoria. Any further comment? No. Jonathan, I think that covers it. Thank you. We don't need a vote on that one. Consent, please. I'm sorry. Do you need a motion to

No, no motion. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Did you make a motion to Yeah, I actually have just in reading the ordinance, listening to the comments is just a couple things I want to check. I'll get back to everybody on it. Do you need a motion for it? Yeah, I'm going to make a motion that we uh refer the letter to refer the letter to the solicitor come with for his comments and to decipher whether a house comments. How's that? Chris comment. That's fine. I'll second that. Any other discussion? All in favor? I consent most place consent calendar on file unless anybody wants to pull anything for discussion.

Okay. discussion. No. All in favor? I. Uh, payment of bills. Motion to pay bills is written and it's a big one. I'll second that motion. Any discussion? I have one item that I just wanted to check with Gary on. Um, fourth from the top. It's it's tagged for Harbor Commission. Uh, legal legal fees for Harbor Commission. Gary, did you get a chance to take a look at that one? I did, but I asked the solicitor to talk to the the attorney for Savage Law Partners to see if he could come down with a better deal than that. So,

is that Do you know is that the last um bill we're going to get from them on on Harbor? I'm not sure. Ben uh Ben Gothy is the one that was in charge of that. We can uh Did you talk to him? I I I I did and and uh because the matter is post I was successful in chiseling the um uh bill down to the figure that you see it actually s ex exceeded that. Uh for now uh the firm will do nothing else unless authorized by this town council.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, I wouldn't be in favor of of uh anything over the 15,000 that we've already paid uh for what they've done. I can't speak for any other town council is here, but uh I think that's where the the money runs out here with one of five. Any other discussion on this one? All in favor? I. And I will obtain a motion to adjurnn. Second. Mr. President, can I just uh uh bring you guys up to date on um storm related funding?

I should have filed a report, but I it would have been inaccurate if I had filed it earlier today. So, just want to let you all know that we are eligible potentially for 75% reimbursement from the state uh from the feds through the state for uh unusual expenses related to the storm. And Chief Petran, who remains on my list of um my favorite people, um is compiling our uh claim, which has to go in in draft form tomorrow. So, we have expenses from police, fire, DPW, the tree war, warden, and uh it chief Petran will um file that tomorrow and uh hopefully we can get reimbursed. I don't know the total amount, but just just to keep you informed.

Thank you for your Hold on, Anya. What about people's mailboxes that got knocked over? What that are we gonna are they

people if it's on a town road? So, I've had people I've had one person complain on West Main Road about their temp their mailbox getting uh obliterated. Uh that's a state road. So, we have to differentiate between state and private and uh town roads. If it's on a town road, people should let us know. Um and I'll work with uh TED to make sure that that goes into any revisions that we have to the uh claim. Could I just say something about mailboxes? Um, any storm, we get the calls in the clerk's office. Uh, if it's we determine if it's a state road or a local road. Um, if it's the state road, we have an actual uh direct mailbox line that we provide right to the state garage in Portsouth for state road mailboxes. And any town road mailboxes are deferred to TED. I will say we've had numerous on state roads, mostly West Main Road this year from the two storms, significant storms. We've only had a couple from the town road. So,

okay. And Heather, if you have records of the town road um instances, please send them to me. Thanks. Thank you. I have a motion with a second to adjurnn. Excuse me. Who seconded that? Cuz I did. I did. Okay. Thank you. All in favor? I