Town Council - Regular Meeting

So good Good evening everybody. Good evening and welcome to the March 23rd, 2026 Portsouth Town Council meeting. If you would all please Oops, I'm sorry. I almost skipped the evacuation emergency evacuation pledge, which you know, we got plenty of first responders here, so I think we'd be okay either way. Um, in the event of emergency, we would please ask you to exit through the door you came through. the exit that is behind our wonderful police force or the one that is behind Mr. Reese. We all go across the street to the school department building and then wait for further instruction from our first responders. Now, if you would all please join me in a pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence for our men and women in harm's way. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Madame clerk, roll call, please.

Mr. Gleason, here. Miss Blank here. Miss McDow here. Miss um Patton here. Mr. Pierro, here. Mr. Reese here. Mr. Hamilton, I am here. Thank you. Uh I have no executive summary, but Mr. Gleason wanted to say a couple words. Yes. Uh thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to uh thank the uh Newport City Council for inviting us to the St. Patrick's Day parade, and hopefully we'll be invited again in the future. and Mr. Rainer, if you would just reach out and and thank uh Colin Kennedy for inviting us. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Gleason. Uh this evening, uh we're going to start off tonight with a presentation uh in recognition of the water of patrol, officer Noah Payon from the police department for officer of the year. Normally, these are given out in September at a ceremony in at the Glenn House that the police department puts on, but Noah is going to be uh activated to active duty and be heading off to Africa. So, we're doing it now. And uh as you uh I didn't tell you this beforehand, but as you go home tonight, if you have your thoughts and your prayers, if you could please say one for Noah as he's heads off to serve our country. Chief Peters.

Thank you, Mr. President, members of the council. Again, we greatly appreciate you allowing us to have this here tonight. Like you said, we're usually down in September at the Glen Mayor House. Uh but we didn't want the uh year to go by us in the new year without recognizing Officer Payon for this uh distinguished award that we have in our agency. So, if I have Officer Pon come up to the front here, please. Members of the council, members of the public, uh tonight is my privilege to recognize one of our officers for their exceptional service to the town of Portsouth. Portsouth Police Department continues a new tradition of selecting an officer of the year, highlighting a member of our agency whose performance consistently reflects the highest standards of our profession in our department. For 2025, the Portsouth Police Department Officer of the year is patrol officer Noah Pon. Officer Pon has distributed has demonstrated an outstanding work ethic, a strong commitment to duty, and a clear dedication to the mission of the Portsouth Police Department. Throughout this past year, he distinguished himself through professionalism, initiative, and and serviceoriented approach to policing. His reliability and performance did not go unnoticed by his supervisors. In fact, officer Pon was repeatedly selected as officer of the quarter by supervisors on both the overnight and evening shifts, a testament to the consistency of his work and the respect he has earned within this department. Officer Pon's productivity in the field also reflects his dedication to keeping our community safe. In 2025, he handled 74 incidents, made 61 arrests with 29 of those arrests being for individuals driving while impaired, and enforced 959 traffic violations. This demonstrates a proactive approach to the public safety uh throughout the town. In addition to his patrol responsibilities, Officer Pon has exhibited a strong commitment to community engagement. In 2025, he

assisted with the Portsouth Police Department, excuse me, with the Portsmith High School criminal justice pathway program, participated in our department's holiday toy drive, and helped support community events such as our Halloween trunk or treat, coffee with a cop, and national night out. He also represented the department during several statewide national highway traffic safety campaigns aimed at promoting roadside and roadway safety. Officer Pon's positive attitude, his willingness to serve, and his commitment to the residents of Portsouth make him a truly deserving recipient of this recognition. Officers such as Officer Pon represent the values we strive to uphold every day in this profession. On behalf of the Portsouth Police Department, I am proud to present Officer Noah Payon with this award for his outstanding performance and achievements. Recognizing him as the Portsouth Police Department's officer of the year for 2025. Congratulations. What is Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Congratulations, Officer Pon. I will give you all two minutes to scadaddle. You don't have to stay for the rest of the meeting if you don't want. Congratulations and please be safe on your deployment. Okay, next up we have our consent agenda. Do we have a motion to approve as presented? So moved. Second.

All those approve. All those in favor? I opposed for the motion passes seven to zero. Sorry. Next, we'll be sitting at a as the board of licensed commissioners. First up, we have a entertainment license for Raget Island doing business at 54 Bristol Fairy Road for their annual Ragged Island music festival be held this year at June 13th and 14th from 12:00 to 8:30. Mr. President, prior to approving this, do we would it be fair to hear from uh Mr. Gray andor the police chief. Any comments on this matter? Mr. Gray is here for the public hearing, I'm assuming. Yep, there he is. Thought I saw you walk in.

Good evening, counselors. Thank you. Yes, we are here once again to ask for permission to host our uh Racket Island music festival. It's been well attended. A lot of locals really enjoy it. So, we'd like to be able to host it again this year, June 13th and 14th. You have letters on file from the police and fire department. We do. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Yeah. We try to get all the proper approvals and hopefully the town appreciates what we're trying to do there. Absolutely. Motion to approve the entertainment license to Ragged Island Brewing Company. Second. All those in favor?

I oppose. Motion passes seven to zero. Next up, we have Pedaller's license mobile food establishments for Triple Deuce LLC doing business as Sebs Woodfire Oven 222 Wood Street in Bristol. Marina Luchia Lopez Yuron dealing business as La Luria food truck. Bear with me on that one. Thank you, Carlos. And the much next one is much easier. Middle Suite LLC 23 Alder Street in Cranston. Motion to approve the three pedal sites. So moved. Second. All those in favor?

I opposed. Motion passes seven to zero. Next up, we have a new annual evictive license for Iron and Oak Kitchen LLC at 500 Anthony Road. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? I oppose. Motion passes seven to zero. We have a new class F1 daily liquor license for Travel Tavern LLC 190 Summit Road Drive Cranston for a welcome reception at Newport Polo Grounds on June 2nd, 2026 from 5 to 9 p.m. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor?

I opposed. Motion passes 7 to zero. Uh next up, we have two licenses for the Portuguese American Citizens Club's annual St. Anony's feast. Uh, one is for their entertainment license and one is for the victual's license. Both are requesting a fee waiver. Um, what is the council's pleasure? And I will tell you, we've had a couple of uh requests not to grant the fee waiver. I don't know if any everybody got that, but it was sent into town hall this morning. Mr. To approve the license, but not the fee waver.

I I have matter of question. What was the reason behind the request for the fee waiver? Uh, one was because they don't believe they're a true nonprofit and two uh just because of um insurance reasons. Mr. President, for me in in view of the situations they've been through, I think the least we could do is approve it with the fee uh waiver and I would make a motion to do so for for the entertainment individual license. I'll second your motion. Okay. Before, Mr. President, if I could ask, what's their reason that they're not a true nonprofit?

Uh, and maybe the solicitor, I don't know if you've had you. Okay. I I wasn't privy to the letter, so I'm not sure. I didn't either. The concern was that the majority of the revenue for their nonprofit comes from liquor sales was the person's concern. If you want to table this, I could send out the letter to everybody. You can read it and research it and we can do it at the next meeting. It's not a timesensitive since it's not till July. If there's any as long as there's no objection to it, if we could just I'd like I didn't receive. So, we just next meeting. I didn't know if she had sent it to everybody. Okay.

Whether it was blind seed. So, if you would take back your second and your if you guys want to hold it off to the next meeting, we do that. I don't have a problem with that. I'll not till July. So it's not like they need it next week anyways. Sure. That's okay with that. We could ask them to come in and you know make their as well. Okay. So do you have a motion to table it till the next meeting? So move. Take your pick. And that you choose. All those in favor? I oppose. Motion passes seven to zero. Have a motion to adjurnn from the board of licensed commissioners. So moved. Second. All those in favor?

I oppose. Motion passes seven to zero. We have our minutes from the 3926 meeting. Any corrections or adjustments? Motion to approve as presented. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes 70 to zero. Next up, town administrator report. Mr. Rener. Good evening, Mr. President, town council. Ladies and gentlemen,

um with respect to the uh next fiscal year budget, we will finish a reassessment of the proposed uh budget early this week. Uh this is due to the unanticipated and significant increase in the health and dental premiums for the next year. The school committee is planning to conclude their review of the school department budget at their meeting tomorrow. Uh and they will also rework their proposed budget incorporating the higher rates. The proposed FY27 town budget is still on track to be submitted to the council at the end of this week. With respect to the cities for cities that I had mentioned a couple meetings ago, I've continued a discussion with the uh program uh regarding a potential municipal partnership with a community in Ukraine. We've been provided with a a few potential partner communities that are similar to Portsouth and we'll be reviewing those as a next step. Again, this is a voluntary non-binding exchange focused on sharing ideas and best practices. There are no financial commitments or formal obligations being proposed. uh cities for cities as a reminder as a work is working to schedule an initial introductory meeting with a potential partner community and I'll keep the council updated uh as this moves forward. Uh just a quick update on the abandoned and derelict vessels issue we raised during our legislative priority sessions uh earlier in the year. As you know, we've been advocating for DEM to fulfill its responsibility for removal uh and reimbursement uh of abandoned vessels as municipal municipalities have been carrying this cost. Earlier this month, we received our first reimbursement check from DEM for a 2023 case. That's an encouraging step and reflects the recent dialogue between our legislative delegation and DEM. We do have additional cases in progress and we are working to finalize documentation so those can be submitted as well. I'm pleased to report the Portsouth Fire Department has been awarded a $1,000 safety enhancement grant through the Rhode Island Interlocal Trust. Uh the

funding will support the purchase of ladder safety belts uh for use uh during aerial operations which will greatly enhance firefighter safety. This is a reimbursementbased grant and staff will be co coordinating the required documentation for submission by a May 1 deadline. The department will also be recognized at the trust's annual loss prevention awards lunchon later this month. That concludes my report. Mr. President,

Mr. Gleas, just uh one quick question. Mr. Rainer, um the amount received for the 2023, did that cover our expenses or is it just partial? I'm see I see Chief shaking his head there. Yeah, because we had I think on this set of bills, we had two more bills for $2,500 a piece. So, it's not a cheap uh ordeal to get rid of these boats. Yeah. No, it's pretty expensive and it's if you remember from the brief, uh the frequency that people are abandoning boats is increasing. Yeah. Thank you.

Any other questions for Mr. Thank you, sir. Next up, we have resignations and appointments. We have two resignations. One for Mr. Dwire from the Bristol Ferry Town Common Committee and one for Mr. Parks from the Harbor Commission. Motion to receive with regret the resignations of Mr. Dwire and Mr. Parks here. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes 7 to zero. And next we have a reappointment for the conservation commission for Mr. Rit. Motion to reappoint Brandon Rit to the conservation commission. Second. All those in favor?

I oppose. Motion passes 7 to zero. On to old business monthly finance report. Miss Marsen. Good evening. Good evening, Mr. President and honorable council. As of the end of February, the town was 8 months or 66% through fiscal year 26. Year to date year-to- date general fund revenues were at 68.03 of the budget, primarily driven by tax receipts, real estate transfer fees, state aid, and interest income. Year-to- date general fund expenditures are at 64.94% of the budget. Significant cost drivers there include the debt service payments, and snow removal. In light of the last month's snowstorm, expenditures are being closely monitored on a weekly basis. As of the most recent check run, the general fund snow removal appropriation and its associated reserve have been fully expended and additional funding will be required to cover the remaining cost. We anticipate receiving some remaining invoices related to this event and will provide an update uh in the next monthly report. As reported last month, discretionary spending remains frozen. That's it. Thank you, Miss Barson. Um, this is I guess for either one of you. Uh, Mr. Rener, have you heard anything new on the potential for reimbursement due to the state of emergency and from FEMA?

No, the uh paperwork has been collected and submitted by the emergency management director. Uh, it could take months to hear back from FEMA. Great. Mr. Fitz Mars, you have a question? Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, Larry Fitz Morris, 50 Christristen Court. Do we have a estimate on the end of year status balance whe it'll be in the red or in the black? How much of a surplus? I assume in the black, but surplus

uh I cannot say that as of right now. I do have the snow fund um I'm looking at with taking the general fund um appropriation and the snow reserve. I'm still needing 127,000 which is why um spending has been frozen. So I cannot give a surplus or a deficit at this time. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Have a motion to receive and place on file. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes seven to zero.

Next up, we have new business. We have a request for approval to renew the pro Potter League contract. The very happy Potter League. They just got a very nice uh endowment. Chief,

uh Mr. President, members of the council, I'm here this evening to request your approval of a partique contract agreement with the town of Portsouth for the years 2026 through 2029. Uh we're looking to continue our partnership that we've had for extended several years with this agency. Uh the new agreement, as you see, uh would raise our current rate is 42,000, go up to $45,000 uh dollars per year. However, that rate will be locked in for all three years at $45,000 for the contract. So, I'm seeking your approval uh to approve the partly contract 2026 through 2029. Any questions from the council, Miss McDow?

Um so, I I saw that under um section three recordeping and reports, do we receive quarterly reports as stated in the contract? Does it do we the town the council or in regards to the animals that they uh if you want if you refer to which section they're referring to but in regards to the animals that we keep that they keep for us down there they do work with the uh animal control officer. Which section are you referring to? M

I I'm looking at under section four. The lead shall submit an annual summary report to the town manager. Do we do they do that? Uh I am not aware of that. Um the director sharer is here. I don't know if he has would like to comment on that at all.

We're we're happy to submit the report annually. We um share records with the animal control officer. So every record that we produce is given to them as the animals come in and out. If you'd like a summary report, we can certainly easily generate those. Sure, that that would be great. And the summary report A to E included the reports in those areas. So, um you'll respond to the contract and do that and we'll maybe uh Mr. Raino will give us a copy or even in correspondence it's that that'd be fine. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you,

Miss McDonald. Well, I can't tell if you're looking for actual statistics of what we had. So, last year in 2025, there were 71 animals rotata league. Uh included 27 cats, 32 dogs, one duck, two rabbits, one tortoise, as well as eight deceased dogs and cats. A tortoise. I'm sorry. A tortoise. A tortoise. All right. So, I I hope she was That was easier to catch than the dogs. That was is it as much as a fight? Okay. Have a motion to approve the contract with Potter League. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I I oppose. Motion passes seven to zero. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, director.

Next up, we have a public hearing for Ragged Island for a noise variance that they've uh been approved for for the past couple years. Specifically, we're looking at the dates of June 13th and 14th and also their Wednesday night series which will be June 24th through uh Sep which will be August 26th and then Sundays for July 28th, July 12th, 26th, August 9th, 23rd, September 6, 13th from 1 to 7. That was June 28th, not July 28th. My bad. June 28th and July 12th. Sorry. I have a motion to open the public hearing. So moved. Second. All those in favor?

I I opposed. Motion passes 7 to zero. Um we have a affirmative decision from the zoning board of of reu with an approval. Any questions for Mr. Gray? Any questions from the audience or online? Going once, twice. Motion to close the public hearing. Motion to close the public hearing. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes 7 to zero. We have a motion to approve the sound variance. The same uh situation we set up last year.

Yes, sir. Mr. President, I make a motion to approve the variance with a maximum level of 75 dBA per ordinance chapter 257 as we did last year. And Mr. President, I'm going to You could sec I'm sorry. Sorry. No, no. I I should have let you second first. Second. Sorry. Second your motion. We'll get it right. Mr. President, I will continuously give my objection to giving a sound uh a variance to a sound the sound ordinance that has a cap because it's no longer a variance. So, Matt, just so you know, it's a no vote for me, but it's because it's not a variance.

Sure. My concern, the reason I do it is if if somebody has a complaint, they can they can lodge it and uh you know, people have lodged complaints, but they have been found to be less than the 75 dBA and it kind of protects the neighbors at the at the property line. If they monitor the sound, there shouldn't be any problems and that's what that happened last year, I believe. Yeah, it's professionally monitored. Yeah, that's all. Okay, there is a motion and a second. All those in favor? I oppose. Motion passes six to one. Thank you, Mr. Great. Have a good evening and happy birthday again. Next up, we have a public hearing for our community development block grants. Uh we will take these in order. So our first one will be uh for a motion to open a public hearing.

Second. All those in favor? I I

opposed. Motion passes 7 to zero. So these are for community development block grants. The first is A which will be provide 40 affordable housing condominiums on the corner of Sprag and Bristol Ferry Road and B will be affordable housing provide funding for recovery housing to be located at 79 East Main Road and to be owned by Community Blessings Foundation doing business as healthy living recovery. So we will start with $680,000 for Bristol Ferry Town Road for church community housing. Mr. Plane, good evening sir. Good evening, Council President Hamilton, town counselors, staff, and well-wishers, residents. Um, you did a great job of encapsulating the two applications before you. I'm here to answer any questions about CDBG or the CDBG program. Um, there the applicant from Community Blessings is here if you have any questions for them, if there's anything. Um, as you'll all remember, um, um, part of the CDBG application is the council has to pass a resolution endorsing the activity. There are two activities before you, unlike in the competitive round. These are both for the affordable housing round. We don't have to prioritize them. You can if you like, but we don't need to do that tonight. So, if anyone has any questions about CDBG or the CDBG program, I'm happy to do my best try and answer them.

Thank you, Mr. Plane. So, we're going to start with item A, which is the uh affordable housing on Spring Street. I just don't want to get them confused. If everybody wants to come up and make a comment on that one, we'll start with that in this portion of the public hearing. Mr. Carcella, welcome back, sir. Thank you. rested from your nice vacation. I am good. Thanks. South Car seller, 63 Leaps Road. I'm not sure which one's I'm address like out of order or but we're going to start with just the one at Sprag Street. And will you do the We're going to do the other one separately. What's the other address? 79 East Main Road. Oh, yeah.

There are two different types of projects. One is uh for recovery housing and one is for uh What about the one at 13 Bristol Ferry Road with Spray Street? That is it. That's that's a that's the one I'm up here for right now, sir. That's the one I want to talk about. All right. All right. So, indulge me for a minute and just allowing me a few just a couple minutes. I'm going to get I'm not really off topic. Has to do with Sunny Acres Mobile Park. It's deeply me just get a little bit closer to that, Mike. Will you please? Oh, sorry. Just want to make sure everybody in the back

I want to bring to the to the attention of mainly the general public, but it's deep deeply concerning to me Sunny, what's going on at Sunnyacres Mo Park? Why are 126 units not counted as affordable housing? I'm not looking for answers. I just want to put forward I can answer that some thoughts, but hold on.

It's a $600 a month HOA roughly. recent sale prices from $100 to $200,000. Many owners own owe nothing on these properties. They basically lived in these homes for 600 a month. I mean, I'm not going to get into the nuances of what's affordable, what's not, and how HUD defines it. But as a township, this is a real slap in the face. That to me sounds very affordable. If this park closes, we will effectively lose 126 affordable units in Portsouth. Yet Portsmith, the state of Rhode Island, nor HUD care about helping these residents. What can Portsmith do to assist in retaining these affordable housing units? Keep in mind that you do not need to qualify for any state or federal program to gain access to these units. They are affordable and available on the open market. No subsidy required and no approval process needed. Where will these homeowners go? Just this displacement alone would consume all the new HUD affordable inventory in Portsouth. And it is far more expensive housing than the Sunny Acres housing. Portsmith support Portsmith support for the church community housing project and abandoning the longtime residents that currently live in Sunny Acres. I ask the town council to take time, slow down, and answer these questions. All right. Now, I'm going to move on to the actual items I have for the Bristol Ferry. And the item on the agenda, I decided to do a little research because I just wanted to get educated. The property at 13 Bristol Ferry Road was purchased for 500,000. 125,000 came from taxpayer program RARI housing era 2 site acquisition program. The remainder of the 375,000 of the acquisition is being financed with a note held by the seller, meaning the seller agreed to defer payment rather than accept the cash.

Church community housing has zero out-of- pocket costs in this property at the time of the sale. Town of Portsmith contributed no taxpayer funds at this time. That's good. A quick glance at affordability and what it means in Portsouth. So, a two-bedroom I did some homework statistics from real estate. A two-bedroom condo in Portsouth, average cost for a two-bedroom condo today is $600,000. That's a lot of money. We all We all agree. If you're a new um young resident like my son, and many of us have children, grandkids, this is pretty unaffordable. I understand. But I want to point something out. How exactly is Church Community Housing Corporation going to help solve this problem? I contend it's not. See, the 40 units projected ha has does have some two-bedroom condo options at various price points depending on your income level. They defined the base mean income as 80,000 a year. These are the options for purchasing a two-bedroom unit based on the AMI adjusted mean income. At 50% of adjusted mean income, you would pay 200,000 for the unit. At 80% of adjusted income, you'd pay 260. At 100% of adjusted income, meaning that young person's making 80,000, they're going to pay 300. And at 120, they're going to pay 380. So based on your income, you get an adjusted purchase price. But this is where it gets interesting. For example, if you make 80,000 as a young out of college or maybe a few years in the industry working here, maybe down at the Navy base, wherever you work, you would qualify and purchase a unit for 300,000. But the same unit fair market value is 600,000. Who covers the additional 300? How is the shortfall typically covered? I did some homework on that as well. $120,000 of the 300,000 shortfall is covered in tax credits. Comes from HUD and federal taxes. The other 80k is

covered in government subsidies like CDBG grants. 50,000 is an allowance that the state allows a developer to do zoning density change allowance. Helps a developer pack more units on a lot. So yes, that that's part of the the recipe. The other 50,000 is the developer agreeing to reduce its profit slightly in exchange for fast approvals and zoning exceptions. That's why we have the rush. The majority of the shortfall, 200,000, is wealth distribution through t taxation. These 40 units are built under LMID deed restrictions. I have a couple questions I couldn't find the answers to. If you don't have the answers to these as a council, I I don't expect you provide them to me, but if you don't have them tonight, you should slow down. So, does the restriction offer a buyout option that would remove the affordable housing restriction or are these units forever affordable or some experable? I couldn't find the answers. No, everywhere I looked, I have believe I do believe that I've confirmed that all 40 units are deemed affordable housing. It is not mixed use. Okay. In a maj Now, here's a scenario coming back to our young people who were trying to solve problems for. If the majority of HUD applicants are at 50% average mean income, they will get priority over all other applicants. This is very different than a normal home purchase and sale. It's very possible that this type of affordable housing will not help our younger population. For example, a single young worker would like to be would likely would not likely be selected because they're making $80,000 a year and they're at 100% AMI. While on paper they would qualify, they would never be selected because too many other applicants are at 50% or 80% AMI and

they get priority. HUD government rules decide who gets the unit and how wealth gets distributed? Do potential buyers have to work in the local community? Do they even need to be employed? What about property taxes? This is one I thought of and I don't know the answer. Maybe you know. Are the taxes paid on the full $600,000 evaluation or does ports provide some sort of property tax relief for these units by lowering the values of the units? If no relief is made for affordable for affordable property taxes, the new units will no longer be affordable. And if relief is made, it's not fair to the rest of the taxpayers. It's just another example of why these programs fail for the communities and people they they should be helping. Here we will add another 40 units. And I'm not quite sure, I don't mean to bring this up, but it's at the end of the program. How's waste disposal going to be done for these? Why are we allowing two more large housing projects to begin prior to finishing the senior housing project that is currently being built across the street? Should we not wait till that pro that housing project is finished so we can see the impact and benefit of the current project? Keep in mind both these projects will affect the same roadways intersections as the senior housing project we currently have in flight. Again, I encourage the council to slow down, put the brakes on, and don't approve too many of these projects at once. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Garcel. I'm going to ask Mr. Plane to answer some of the questions that you had. Um, if you don't have the answers to all of them, I will ask our planner to potentially opine on a couple of the questions. And S, correct me if I'm wrong if I want to make sure I get to all of your questions. So if you if we miss one, let me know.

I'll I'll do my best. So you asked about affordability. State law mandates that they must be affordable for at least 30 years. The way CCHC does its affordability is we do it through a ground lease rather than through a a a deed restriction. And that ensures that these properties will be affordable in perpetuity. Um um you know so that's how we do it how we've built a better mousetrap if you will. So the other question you asked was about property taxes. So CCHC does pay property taxes on it on on the housing that that we own. It's worth noting that nonprofits don't have to, but we always do because we have the same exact concerns that you do. We want to be productive members of the community and help with, you know, the tax base,

right? Nonprofits are tax exempt in the United States, right? So, you know how Brown University doesn't pay taxes in Providence, so you know, nonprofits don't have to, but we choose to because we want to be, you know, trusted and valued members of your community. by law, but we do and we always have. Mr. Plane, hang on a sec. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Time out. We're not going to shout from the audience. If you have a question, you have to come up to this that way so everybody can hear you from home as well.

Mr. Ree has a quick question. We're going to let Mr. Clint finish answering the questions that Mr. Carcella had and then we'll move on to somebody else's questions. Are the taxes paid based on the full market rate if they weren't LMI or are the taxes on the reduced rate? Like if it's a 600,000, somebody pays 200 for it. They're paying they pay taxes on 200 and not six. We pay taxes on whatever you assess the property at. So now I'm going to ask our tax assessor to come on. I know somebody can answer that question. Well, we're answering the public's questions. Yes, we can ask questions in between if we want.

Good evening, everyone. Um what typically what typically happens is if there's a covenant or some type of deed restriction that impacts its value that is considered. So typically it will reflect the ability would be able to sell to another LMI type uh person a qualifying person. So typically the assessed value is reduced from the true market value if it was available to anyone. Do you have a percentage? Is it a 50% reduction? 80% just a ballpark. It doesn't have to be exact. I

I want to say generally it comes in about 85% of the market. Appreciate that. And I'll just note because the gentleman that spoke talked about approving this project. It's it it's my understanding this project has preliminary approval and we're not here to approve the project tonight. Right. We're only discussing whether this community wants to apply for CDBG funds to help finance this project. Correct. So it won't determine whether this project happens or not. What happens tonight? It'll only determine how it's financed. That is a question you just answered.

Okay. Whether or not the town council approves the resolution to allow us to go for community development block community development block grant. Y this project will still go forward. The town council does not have the approval authority of this. This that belongs to the zoning and the planning board which has already been through. We are not here to approve or deny this application of building the building. We're here just to approve or deny an application for block grant funding to help get the project started. Correct. Question on trash. It is a greater than five unit building. So they were able to use a dumpster if they needed to.

Did I get all of your questions though or did we get all your questions? Thank you. Sunny acre. Sunny Acres is Miss Patton's fight right now. Um, state law gives us 0.5% towards LMI housing, LMI requirement. And that's is where I'm going to ask our planner to come up and discuss that.

Good evening everyone. Um per per law um municipalities can count mobile units as 0.5 but the caveat is that the mobile homes have to be in a homeowners association like the the owners of the park have to be it has to be owned by the park. Unfortunately, Sunny Acres and Melville, the two larger mobile parks in town, are owned by a conglomerate company. So, they currently do not count.

So, until if and until hopefully the residents are able to get together and purchase the land that their homes sit on, they won't count. Correct. Can you be Can you I'm sorry. Go ahead. Can you help me understand what you mean by 0.5% is counted? Well, instead of one one home being one unit, a mobile unit would be 0.5. So, uh, Miss Patton, there's 180 140.

There's 126. Um, so each one would count as a half point. So, two homes would equal one. So, we you would get 60. So, SE 75. So, right 63 63 63 would count towards our ratio of LMI housing that we have to be at 10% of of all of our houses. Okay, that makes more sense. So, 50% not quite

well, let's be honest. It doesn't make any sense at all because Mr. Carceller is right and we've been fighting, we meaning planners and uh various state advocates have been fighting for years that a mobile home is really affordable. Agreed, Mr. Gleason. So my question was um techn technically is it a federal ruling about the 0.5 in the mobile homes as opposed to a state I' I've heard that before as far as I know this is the classification is a federal rule no I'm just following state law right now I

I don't know thank you do we get all your questions though thank you sir yes sir start. And of course, that that's part of the problem. First, the f the first start is I know how to speak into a microphone and I have a very loud voice. I don't really need it, but I just need your name.

Henry Bronstein. I live at five Karen Street in Portsmouth. I've lived there about five or six years now. Um, so part of the problem is that we don't in the town even find out about this until a week or two before it's coming before the town council. And then tonight I hear that we really don't have any say as to whether it happens or not. I don't know how it got approved, but we don't get any say about that. It's already approved. We can't stop it if we want to. We're going to pay the town is going to pay for all the public services. When you say 85% of the value, is that 85% of the 200,000 it sold for or 85% of the 600,000 which might be market value?

He it was answered as 85% of the market value. So the taxes that the people pay are actually higher than what they paid for. Yes. What they paid for that. So they'll have a town rate that's 85% of the $600,000 value. do that. Is that correct? I think that's what the tax assessor answered. Yes. Okay. So then how did I ask you a question about approval process? Yes, please.

When any developer if you were a land owner and wanted to build four or five houses on a piece of property, your first step would be go to uh the planning department and then to zoning and then to but first to planning for our master approval. The town council only sets up the general zoning areas by state law. We are not involved with approving or denying any projects in terms of housing or development. But the planning board is underneath the town. The planning board is a self-governed body by the state of Rhode Island. We appoint the members of the the planning and the zoning committee

and and and the number of units was that was approved is greater than the number of units normally allowed on that much property. Is that correct? I think you said that right? It is. It is. There were new state laws that have been passed over the past three years that have taken away some of the zoning rights of cities and towns. So the town itself by that I mean residents don't get any input into the planning board. Yes, you do. You you have this the very same right that you're exercising right now in front of the planning. I don't not I didn't notice any notices from the planning board about this happening or to discuss how many units would be approved or anything. Did that happen?

That entire process happened throughout the uh fall and early public meetings. Did it go into January? It was definitely in the fall. I can't remember. It might have been in January as well. There was there was a number of public meetings both at the planning and and zoning as well. And were those planning meetings as well attended as this one is? No. Right. Because it would must have been very quiet because I didn't hear it. Um it it was advertised as it legally is needed to be. There was plenty of discussion on I'll just say the street about it.

All right. And so the question that the gentleman raised, this gentleman about slowing down in order to see the impact of the current project that's already being done with the senior housing. That's off the table, right? Is that correct? We not You're not going to slow it down. We can't slow it down as a town council. Who can a person could and I'll ask our lawyer, but a person or entity could I I assume file a complaint with superior court and slow it down, but I think that's about it, right? Um, somebody would have have to have a a standing and a right to file a complaint. So, does the town have standing? Uh, yes. But

so the town has say

uh the the town potentially could, but the way the laws were amended in 2025 by the general assembly, the state general assembly, um they they anticipated a number of these questions that you have. And so they uh prohibited towns from putting a moratorium, essentially slowing down all projects. Um they limited the grounds on which you can you can uh successfully uh sue and and fight uh these developments. and they they limited the um and we're not even sure quite how because it's never been fought out in court, but they limited uh the the the authority of a planning board to say no to uh variations from the local code. So, it was a very dramatic shift in the state laws. Um if you're asking who could solve this uh between now and the end of June, it's your state representatives uh at at the general assembly because they could modify those changes that they made. And in fact, this council has asked them to do so. You you said a person could go to some kind of court. Can the town go to that court?

Yes. And so we could we could voice our opinions that we feel the town should slow it down and that would be something that the town could do if they wanted to. Actually, the town's already decided to to to have the solicitor's office investigate that approach and and propose um court action. Uh, and so we're we're in the process of of doing that research and drafting as we speak. All right. But the question, you know, I I I I don't want to promise that it will be effective, right? No, but it's good to know that it's being scale, too. That's on an overall specifically for this project. It's already been approved

and that it's very likely not not going to affect the current approved projects because again, the way the the law treats them, they're they're uh sort of grandfathered in once they get that preliminary plan approval from the planning board. So, it's it's very difficult legally to stop somebody who has already gotten that preliminary approval uh as as Church Community has on the project we're talking about. Are there members of the planning board here? No, I staff the planning. The Sorry, I staff the planning board. I'm the town planner. I staff planning. Right. I'd also like to

It would seem that a meeting like this would be pertinent to the planning board to attend so that we could pose questions to them since you're telling me the town really in this instance is uh if you wanted to pose questions to the planning board, you would have to go to the planning board meeting to pose questions to them. Pat, I would like also address you, sir. I'm sorry. Uh I'd like to also address you, sir. Um that you can sign up for alerts for any meeting. um from the website. So if you are interested um it is a way if

I'm sure I I understand what you're saying. I I'm sure you've heard many complaints before about the way information is transmitted in this town. And it's not the first time that people I'm I'm not the first person to tell you that people don't hear about it until it's too late. So I would ask, it's not particular to this particular item, but I would ask that the town instead of however you said there were notices, make efforts through, you know, the Portsmith Times, we all read it. That's how we usually find out about things. make efforts to address these issues early enough so that the public can actually make uh viable and realistic u efforts to affect outcomes that they believe would actually be in the town's best interest. I I I feel that it never happens. I can't be the only one that feels that because I hear it all the time. I'm sure you do, too.

I I will tell you that the meetings are all posted in these times. it's under legal notices. It's usually, you know, that big of a corner of a page. So, they're in there, but you just rather than see any articles, you'd have to look at the actual notices. And and Mr. President, I I would also add that that the state has also limited the amount of lead time we can give for these hearings. So, the developers uh have the right to demand an answer within a certain number of days. And so, to to say, we're going to give you four months to figure this out, the state doesn't let us do that anymore. It's it's not it's not even permitted by law.

I'm not a developer, but I'm sure if you told a developer no, he would not stop applying again and again and again. So again, we should if the town has standing, I would say that not just people, but the town at those planning board meetings should ask to delay based just on the fact that we don't know what the impact's going to be on the town. And I'm all for affordable housing. I would like that affordable housing went preferentially to people as the gentleman said who have children and you know whose kids can't afford to actually live in the town they grew up in anymore. That would be great. I think that's a great thing. I just think the whole the whole plan it sounds like you know the developers have not just have great influence I guess in the state capital and have carved this out to their liking and that the as a as a as a council that represents the town since you would have standing and you would know about it would behoove us to have you try to slow it down rather than we come here and be told we can't. Thank you. I add to to respond that that even a delay could put you in a position where it's deemed an approval. So that's how how tied the hands of the town are given

I'm sorry, say that again. If you delay and don't give an answer within the time frames under the state statute, that could be deemed an approval of the project. So you lose your right to say no at that point. That's how bad that's how difficult it is to slow down a project at this stage.

Sir, I want to comment as well if you don't mind. Um I I was at both of the planning meetings for the uh Headley Street project, excuse me, Headley Street Sprag Street project and u they were well well attended. I would say there were probably more people in the audience because most people were against the project and um but the planning board's hands have been tied by the general assembly's rules that they've enacted in the last three years. Okay. Uh the speaker of the house is a land use lawyer and he has wrote written this thing very tightly. Uh I I came before this council to start with a moratorum figuring we could slow this down with a four-month process. They only allow you two months. We couldn't get anywhere in two months. So we are looking at uh a possible injunction. We have asking other um through a resolution we've sent to all the other towns and cities and to the delegation to ask other towns to join us to say we don't want a one-sizefits all policy among things uh we have seven towns that have there are seven towns together at this point whether we get somewhere it's it's a start

well if you want to if you're at that meeting I can just finish if if you were at that meeting you would have seen the gentleman here go through a dissertation that says we understand all your comments We agree with you on a lot of things, but the rules have been changed and we have to do this, this, and that. And the rules right now are written for developers that want to do LMI housing, whether we want them or not.

I I appreciate that, and I appreciate that you're making that effort. And I would ask that the town solicitor or someone the council prepare a petition that members of the town could sign because I think if we got you know there's 17,000 people in the town if we got a petition signed by 10,000 people that kind of thing has influence on politicians and you know I would like to see that happen and I'm not qualified to write the petition but I think the solicitor probably could because he would understand the laws and understand what's unfair. air to the town and to to residents of the town in those laws and it could be pointed out in a petition and uh I'd be happy to take it around to the dog park, you know, to my fishing buddies, you know, to the people I know. Uh, sure.

Not that many sadly, but you know, I'm going to get you said you're new. This is very enlightening and actually very encouraging to see that you've you actually have approached this. But, um, I think then then it's up to somebody like us to say, okay, you know, like get a petition and let's go to the speaker of the house, you know, because he's a politician and he needs votes. And if he, you know, unfortunately the speaker of the house only needs about 2500 votes the way Rhode Island is set up. No, I but he needs votes to get his elected to his district. He only needs 2500 getting them.

But I appreciate it. I'm going to ask one thing though and thank you for for your comments and this is not necessarily directed at you. I'm going to ask that we try and reel this back into specifically about the approval for a resolution to the block grant and not an indictment or investigation into the approval process of the land. We're not here to do that. It's not on the agenda and if we go too far a field, I don't want us to get into trouble in terms of open meetings violations. So, if you can keep your comments to whether or not you approve or disapprove of us applying for a community development block grant specifically for 600 thou $680,000 for this project. Please keep your comments to that so that we stay on the agenda.

Yes, sir. How you doing? My name is David Souza of 25 Lower Drive. Thank you. Um, I don't think we should approve this and I'll give you my reason why. That property on the corner of Sprag Street and Bristol Ferry Road used to be an old gas station. I don't know if anybody remembers that. Yes.

When it went out for sale, I looked into buying it. The property was contaminated because of the tanks and everything that was in the ground to my knowledge that has never been cleaned up. So that contamination is still there. So that's why I'm saying we shouldn't approve it because contamination there because this could cost us a lot of money to get that cleaned up. That also the building reason why the building was knocked down because it had ingground lifts. They were leaking oil and stuff into the ground. And the back of the building had a waste oil tank in the ground that was stored there. And to this day, I'm not even positive if they took all the tanks out cuz that had two pumping stations, two two setups that at that time when I was looking into it, I think there was four tanks in the ground that was rotted and leeching. So that's my reason saying we should not approve this because we don't know how bad this land is. I still have and I'm pretty sure and I'll try to find it documentation from the state because when I was looking into buying it, they told me I could only make it into a commercial property because of the contaminations because you're only allowed to have at that time then we're going back 60% of contaminated soil. Now, the state has new regulations. It only allows you to have 10% contaminated soil. So, if we approve this and they start and they start digging and they find out it's all contaminated, which it is because it was a gas station and we know back then gas stations didn't care. They dump their waste oil anywhere. They dump their antifreeze. Nobody cared back then. Now it's a big environmental which

I appreciate because that also saves our properties and our land from getting leaking into people surrounding people's properties and their wells because we used to have wells back then but that property is contaminated and it's been what they call like I said I'll try to find my documentation when I was in the process of buying that property and I found out what it was going to cost me just to make it commercial property it wasn't worth it and And that property at that time was going for $300 and some thousand. And that included that house too, the big house. And I'm trying to think of the realtor that had it. And when I call and that that's why I never purchased that property because the land has contamination. So that's why I'm suggesting that we do not approve this to at least find out how bad his store is there because if if we allowed this gentleman to build and I'm for affordable housing but this was a contaminated piece of property. That's why it sat there so long. That's why nobody could do nothing with it because it was so contaminated from the gas station because when they decided to close that gas station, they just left it. Everything, oil, batteries, that place was a mess. And like I said, I went through it and that's why the building had to be because they would have to jackhammer that floor to get those pistons out of the ground that was leaking all that oil and stuff. So that why I'm suggesting that we uh what they call not approve this because this could be a a a real problem for the town of Portsouth.

Thank you, Mr. S. And um I'm hoping they did remove the tanks, but I remember seeing them dig back then and I don't remember ever seeing I've been in this town all my life. I grew up here. Multiple iterations. Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you for the multiple iterations. We appreciate it. Thank you for your No, I mean the state would have records when they did pull those tanks and stuff and what the state will be responsible for making sure that the the units and the land is cleaned up to a level at which that Yeah. And if they can't clean it up, that's that's on them. Well, that's what I'm saying. If we approve this bond uh not bond, excuse me, block grant.

If we approve this, what go what happens to that money? Do we get that money back? It's that the money is not coming from us. The money is coming from the federal government from a 24 block grant application. Oh, okay. I I thought taxpayer money other than the fact that we all pay federal income tax and Okay. I thought it was coming the town of Port was okay. My my mistake. That's okay. Okay. That that's a I thought I thought it was I thought it was coming to us as taxpayers. we're going to pay this say okay now we're going to end up when they it's not coming directly out of your pocket that you pay property taxes for. Yeah. But it comes out it's coming out of your federal taxes that you pay Well, okay. That they keep borrowing money for.

But I still we should uh not approve this until we what they call I mean I will be in contact with the state to find out what's going on with that because you cannot put housing on contaminated land. Agreed. Thank you, Mr. Grae.

Tom Greb, 110 Sarah Drive. I request that you do not endorse the CDBG grant request for this development. It is one of five developments that are dramatically increasing the density in that turnpike Bristol Ferry neighborhood. There has been no study that shows this increase in density can be safely supported by the existing infrastructure. The studies done look only at one individual development at a time, not the impact collectively. All the infrastructure for traffic, water, electricity, and septic was planned or installed in the 70s and 80s under a one lot, one house planning assumption. This particular development tonight puts 40 units on two lots. That is a,900% increase in the density versus what would have been planned for. Combine that with the fact that the area traffic infrastructure leads to one of the only three exits from the island, the Mount Hope Bridge, which is having severe maintenance issues and the potential for a massive problem is there. Our town comprehensive plan addresses LMI housing's need. Some of the key tenants in that plan are that LMI housing should be distributed throughout the town and not impact the rural character our residents cherish. Instead, this development continues the concentration of highdensity developments in this one neighborhood and the variance requested for height, setback, etc. clearly are not characteristic of a rural community. I also have concerns about the

developer. The town's memorandum of understanding with church community is for the Anne Hutchinson and Cogshell school properties. After the public vote, which provided those two properties to Church Community Housing essentially for free, we were informed that Church Community needed to focus on these projects sequentially. Now, instead of moving on to the Cogshell property, which would have spread their LMI development across town in accordance with the comprehensive plan, this developer is pursuing another property less than a block from the other one in the same neighborhood and then asking the council to help fund it with the CDBG proposal before you tonight. That switch raises questions about their willingness to honor their commitments to make that they make to this town. Unfortunately, there is a pattern which reinforces that concern. Church the church community bthoon residents was changed to senior housing from elderly housing. If you research it, that is a substantial change and it was made after Portsmith residents voted. The ball field has not been preserved as originally planned. Again, that came to light only after the public vote. No decision on restoring or tearing down the Anne Hutchinson building has been made to date. preserving that building was originally a key part of the rationale for the community church community project. If that building is torn down, do we get yet another large LMI complex in this neighborhood? Church community has that property for 99 years. Patterns like this cannot be ignored.

Given this history, it is difficult for me to place confidence in any asurances that are being offered about this project tonight. Please consider all the factors. Traffic strain on the infrastructure, the substantial variances requested, the deviation from our comprehensive plan, and the concerns raised by the developers history of not following through on their commitments to town residents. The responsible course of action should be clear. The state may have mandated the planning board's approval of this project, but the council's endorsing the use of taxpayer money to support the developer is not mandated and it is counter to the interests of the Portsouth residents. Thank you,

Mr. FY. Kevin Fennessy, 2774 East Main Road. It always seems to be the case when there's a larger development going on, whether it's for low-income housing, whether it's a sports complex or whatever, that someone is trying to make a deal to say, "Yeah, maybe the state can give us some money. Maybe the town can give us maybe the city can give us some money to help support this project because it's going to bring this that or the other into the town. Now, I know that we are mandated by law um to to allow these projects or to help these projects proceed along. But if I were going to build u or uh fund a project and the first thing that I would want to do number one is to have a plan. Number two is to go to some funding source and say you know this is what I want to do. Can you support me in doing it? and they either say yes, no, or maybe. Or they look at the plan and say, "Yeah, we can do this, but we can't do, you know, we we can't do that. You're going to have to get the rest of the funding from somewhere else." Well, my question is, why is there $680,000 now needed that the taxpayers have to come up with? And I don't care whether it's the town or the state or the city or federal government. Why should we be on the hook for that money as a as a taxpayer? And again,

yes, I know this is not coming out of the town of Portsouth taxes tax base, but it's coming out of federal funds. How many other federal projects are there out there that might be deserving of some or all of that amount of money that would benefit the residents of this town more so than this project? And I doubt very much that if church does not get the $680,000 that they're all going to say, "Well, sorry. We're going to go home. We're not going to do this." The money is going to come from somewhere. And I don't think it needs to come from taxpayers. Just for everyone's edification, it's a $20 million project overall and all affordable housing is all paid for by through federal taxes one way or another. This is one small part of the financing of this project and the way the CDBG program works. And I'm probably remissed that I didn't mention this right away, right? But the way the CDBG program works as part of the application is the c the local town council just has to pass a resolution. But actually, you know, like this is a $20 million project that the people of the United States are all going to pay for together. You, me, the people of Arkansas and Alabama and Alaska, all of us together.

And and Bob, just specifically, the pool of money you're pulling from is specifically designed for LMI projects. we couldn't apply for this particular pool to build a community center. I don't maybe that's a bad exclusive.

Well, so in this round of funding, we could not. Right. Right. You know, but we do we do at the beginning of every funding round have a public hearing that's just to say there's x amount of dollars available. Portsmith intends on applying. If anyone has a good idea, please bring it forward. And at the beginning of this funding cycle, we did run an ad in the newspaper saying exactly that, you know, so if any if there are other good projects, you know, they can come forward in this this funding cycle or the next. Mr. Per,

thank you, Mr. President. Since I have you up here, uh question I asked when we went through this back many Decembers ago. Yeah. Uh, how many CDBG grants does church community housing currently manage or do you manage for church community housing? I uh how many total grants? Let's see. Um, probably I'm going to guess 20. How many of them have failed? Zero. Welcome, Mr. Feny. Well, just one additional question. Why why is it at this juncture that you're looking for the $680,000

and looking for an approval of getting getting an addition that addition? This is when the funds became available through the program. I'm not following on that. The $680,000 became available through the CBG block grant program through Rhode Island Housing at this point in time. So that's why they're applying for it now. All right. Well, when what do you mean by this point in time? Today. Within this past six months. When when did the when did the funding open? Bob, it's been about a year now. So, we've been putting together the financing. Bob, come on up, please. Thank you.

So, this round of funding's been open for about a year now. Um, if Portsmith wants to delay, I know that they're planning on opening another round of funding soon. So, we're really coming down to the wire for what we call the program year 2324. Um, um, so I'm sorry, what was your other question?

Well, it's Oh, so we just after we got how we do it is we don't finance projects before we get approval. So after we got approval, we started putting together what we call our capital stack, right? How we're going to finance it. And we do it through a myriad of different government programs, one of which is CDBG. And when we noticed that we had a $680,000 gap, we said, "Let's see if Portmith wants to pass the resolution. If you do, we'll use CDBG to cover that 680,000. If you don't, I promise you this project's still going to get built with taxpayer money. One way or one way or another, you and I are paying for.

But how is it $680,000 may not seem like a lot of money in the total money of uh putting this project together? But why is it that all of a sudden you say, "Gee, we have a shortfall. We've got to apply for we've got to apply more money. As soon as we got approval, we started putting together our finances.

Well, this is not the first project that church has done. I mean, uh you just said yourself there's like 20 different uh how many projects do you have that are going on in does church have going on uh on Aquidnik Island right now or have or have done? Quite a few. I just don't quite understand why suddenly all of a sudden, you know, it said, you know, it's like going to a mechanic to have your car repaired and he said, "Gee, we were just going to change the oil, but we found out you need breaks, you need, you know, no, it doesn't it doesn't work like that.

If you want afterwards, you and I can talk about housing financing, but really we're just here tonight to talk about CDBG." So,

Sally, you got one more question. Yeah, this one's related. So, I've been sitting there contemplating something. I didn't It's not sitting well with me. So, the gentleman mentioned that they're a nonprofit and they owe no taxes, that they're doing tax payments out of goodness of their heart. Can I get some elaboration on that? I want to understand what the actual obligation is. Does that mean they don't have to pay property taxes legally? What are we talking about here? I don't want to understand what they're doing out of the goodness of their heart. I want to understand what they're legally bound to. Is is is if you could clarify that. Are you actually saying that you don't have to pay property taxes?

Tax attorney. Does anybody know the answer to that? Joe, would you like to appine on it or I I'm not sure. I follow myself. I I don't um I don't know. They're a nonprofit and they own the property simply. I'm not sure what whether you know I'm not sure whether they're agreeing in some agreement with the town to pay uh like a like a pilot agreement essentially. I I just don't know. I've never had that question come up on this project. So I don't I don't know the answer. I assume Mr. Plane could So okay. So let So I'm very confused about this because what we're about to do is add 40 units with no tax base legally possibly. That's what I just heard tonight.

We're not about to do that. It's already been approved. Well, how does that h how did that get approved? Because they're a nonprofit. So, so how do we cover our expenses for fire departments, police departments, schools, everything we have to pay for? Who's going to cover that?

The same way we'd have to cover it if Roger Williams still owned, you know, if a university owns a a building and they're a nonprofit, we can we could enter into a pilot. They don't have to. The same way we cover Navy housing that doesn't pay property taxes. The same way we take care of St. Barnabas Church if it starts on fire, they don't pay property taxes. There are plenty of properties that don't pay property taxes that out of the goodness of all of our hearts, we cover it. But these are homeowners that aren't paying property taxes. We aren't paying the taxes in our years. It's okay. I'm not. the thought process that day.

Can I just Can I just interrupt for a sec? Can I just ask that that folks try not to debate with each other in the audience? People at home can't hear. So, if there's a question, it should be addressed to the president and please wait until you're at the microphone to answer. We here's my concern, Mr. Hamilton. Tomorrow they get in trouble and they can't afford it anymore. First thing they're going to give up is making that property tax payment because there's no agreement. That's my concern. That's all. Thank you. Matt, do you want to try an opine on it or is it even not worth it at this point?

In in general, a nonprofit does not make you exempt from property taxes. Um there are some organizations that have gone through the general assembly. It's title 44 where they are granted exemption in their charter or from the state. Um I'm not sure if church has one of those with the state. Um, but typically in these type of projects, if there's some kind of rehabilitation, they typically pay 8% of their gross rent is what the tax bill typically comes out to.

Okay. Thank you.

Good evening. Hey, I'm Tara Woods from 39 Wind Rock Circle. I uh just want to say thank you. It sounds like this body has recognized that there are some potential pitfalls uh with the changing of the state laws around building these properties. You had mentioned earlier that you had contacted surrounding towns and cities to see if they were interested in joining an injunction that you're possibly considering. And my question is, the first question is, what's the temperature that you're hearing from these other communities about whether or not they'd be interested?

I'm going to be wrong, but I think we've gotten affirmative responses from five at this point. Is it seven? Seven. Seven. Thank you. Seven out of 39. Okay. Thank you. And second, um, as a relative newbie unaware of what that property previously was sitting in the audience and listening to that there's a potential for contamination on the property and being someone who is hypervigilant about the safety of children in this community. I would like some answers as to whether or not that has been explored and whether or not this developer is aware of that. So it it's been explored. It will be explored at the Department of Environmental Management is in charge of contamination and cleanup is that for the south I say south property.

Okay. Is that part of the reason why you're considering an injunction? No, that's got nothing to do with this project. The injunction is to slow down the way that the state is jamming projects, not projects, jamming changes down our throats. It's got nothing to do with this project specifically. the injunction or fight is against the 20 the 30 roughly laws that have been put forth in the past 5 years. And is there information online available about the safety of this property? I don't know. I believe the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management has um copies of files for properties that are available for review and it would have some some of that prior investigation as a public record.

And when you say some, is that because there's missing information? I I don't No, I don't I just don't want to. It would it would be up to the DEM. We don't do environmental testing. The best department of environmental management. Okay. And um I I I am curious. Are you aware of the rumors of potential hazards?

Anecdotally, I am. I'm actually just here to talk about CDBG and not to represent the project. It's this confusing situation where CCHC is hired by the town of Portsouth to manage its CDBG program and that's what I do and in the other part of the office there's a development team and that's what they do. So I'm I'm not one of the developers actually. So I'll I'll ask again that we stick to specifically comments on the community development block grant application. Mr. Souza,

how you doing? Um, I just have a question because on on what we're discussing, he says this project's going to get built whether if we approve this or not. Correct. So why would we approve it? It doesn't He doesn't need it. We can use it for some other project. We can't use it for anything. If we don't if we don't, but if something else comes up, we can apply again, right, for this. If something else comes up, it would be somebody who's looking to build LMI someplace else in town. So if he doesn't need it, it'll probably go to some place in France or Providence. Honestly, that's if if it doesn't come here, it's going to go to another town.

I maybe the other town may need it more than us. I mean, I don't I don't know. But if he's telling telling us that it doesn't make a difference whether if he gets the money or not, so why give him something? He's just like telling us I don't care if you you giving me money or not. I'm still going to do what I'm going to do. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Gleason. Hang on a sec. You're gonna have to unmute yourself. There you go. Are you there? Thank you. Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead.

Um, so Sandy, you're not always speaking into the mic, but most of you are, so I'm just going to remind you of that. Um, yeah. So, I learned about the percent difference uh going back about three years ago. Typically, they do only pay 8% and I'll just remind everybody that our homeowners such as myself, I pay 100% of my taxes. So that means with these types of projects in our our town, we have to make up the rest for increase resources as you know, police, fire, water, and possibly schools and deal with the traffic and everything else that we have to pay for. Um, I'm not against affordable housing. I am for housing that is affordable. And there's a difference. Um, I'll just remind you that we are paying more by allowing these projects to come into our town. Um, and as you say that they'll likely get the money somewhere else or um, eventually get the money. um if they do go to another community such as the cities or another rural community um we as taxpayers in Portsouth are not on the hook for those increased resources in our own town. So this something for you folks to think about. Um, you don't have to approve the grant as you know. Um, and they will move on. I believe they will elsewhere. Thank

you. Thank you, Miss Gleason. Yes, sir. All right. Thomas Lair's 182 West Main Road.

Thank you. Um, I was in on those zoning board meetings and the planning board meetings and I saw the frustration that the committees had to put up with and the rules that the state came up with that they had to follow. They really had no choice. Their hands were tied behind their back. But you folks have a choice now. You folks can deny this. And I know it's approved. I know it's going to go through, but we don't have, like she said, we don't have to give this money. And maybe that's a way to give a statement to the state that we're upset because if we just keep laying back, give the state whatever they want, they're just going to continue. Let's just say no.

And thank you. And thank you for staying on the grant. I appreciate that. Yes, ma'am. Mary Lou Lions, uh, 46 Prospect Farm Road. I am just pull that microphone. They're they're directional. Thank you. I'm just trying to clarify because the discussion's been all over the place. This project's been approved. Yes,

the state has approved it. What we're what is before the town now is whether the town will apply for a block grant for outside money. So, this is not the town paying for money and the disapproval of this block grant is not necessarily going to stop the development. It might cause more expense or different expense of the development, but it is simply a way of applying for funds that are available to cover the cost of the development.

That is correct. And if they don't get it through this avenue, they will try and find another avenue to get it from. Okay. Thank you. Last questions now, then we're going to move.

Got a question. A point of clarification and it's to the lady's point she just made. This is South Car seller 63 Leaps Road. So yes, the town applies for the community development block grant. I'm very well aware of them. Those grants and then we have the council here come with strings attached when you apply. So yes, it's not it's not money from the town, but you are in agreement and basically giving a green thumbs up that you are in agreement with the process HUD has put before you. And I believe I've read some of the community development block grants. I haven't read this one. Part of that agreement is that you agree 100% to do your very best to achieve the 10% or the 15% or whatever the agreement says and you will not hinder in any way the affordable housing initiatives set forward by HUD that's in those agreements. So when we say that there's no skin off our back to approve we're just a trans a conduit for money. Yes we're a conduit for money but we're not a conduit for agreement. We will be held on the hook for making sure and I will tell you HUD watches these agreements very very closely. Study up back in 2012 in Westchester County the administrator Asterino Mr. Asterino got himself in deep deep trouble with HUD. If you think for one moment that HUD doesn't have teeth into communities, you should go take a look and study up on the Westchester County Australino lawsuits that came up in Westchester and how bad they were for Westchester.

We don't have to go too far to study up on how bad HUD could be to a town. Okay, good. Go right down the hill to Quaker Hill. You already figured that one out. So, I just want to clarify that the these you approving this does have ramification on the town. Maybe not financial if if if the developer does not follow through properly. Yes. Just a point of clarification. There is no relationship between a CDBG award and which is a there is no relationship between a CDBG award which is a federal thing and the state's 10% mandate for affordable housing.

Thank you. Any other questions on part A of the public hearing for community development block grants? I just do it up one. Miss McDow, one question. Yep. In the in the past when um these grants have come before us, we have gotten a copy of the uh grant request, the application, and we didn't for these. Is there a reason there?

The applicants have not applied yet. This is the very fir this is one of the first parts of the application. So if that's happened before, I'm not quite sure how that would have been effectuated. But I actually counseledled both applicants not to get too far into the actual application process because quite frankly I wasn't sure if this body was going to approve either of the requests. But this is one of the first parts of the application. So if you've gotten the applications at this part before, you and I will have to talk offline about how that's happened.

Well, um, if we approve this, we really don't see it any anymore. So I know at one point we did receive applications in the past that accompanied the uh request. The application once it's filed with the state will be available at the planning department. Okay. If there are no other questions on the Sprag Street project, I would like to move on to 79 East Main Road. Does anybody have any questions about the 79 East Main Road project, which is Community Blessings Foundation doing business as Healthy Living Recovery?

Are we going to vote individually or are we go Okay, we're going to we're going to we're having a discussion on the public hearing. Yep. Then the next item is to to approve or disapprove the resolutions. So once the public hearing is over, we will move on to item number four, which will be approval of the resolutions up or down each one. Thank you. You're welcome.

None for 79 East Main Road. Last call for either project on the public hearing. I have um I have a question. You can do that. You can do it after I close the public hearing. Like we're not doing 79. We are doing 79. Now do you want to ask a question of it now? I do. I do. To whom? Uh the developer or the grant applicator? To the uh developer, please. Mr. Spanelli.

And if you could both just uh state your name and address for the record, please. Thank you. My name is Christine Nolan. I'm at 155 Harrisab. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Frank Spanella, FJS Associates, um 95 Indian Point Road in Tibetan. I'm the consultant for this development and um an affordable housing consultant for a lot of the communities within the state and a lot of the nonprofits throughout the state. So, I can certainly address questions regarding this application and the CDBG program overall. Um if you have any.

Yeah. I just um because because we didn't get the application um what will be in this 1.1 million what will be the scope of work and uh with some sort of you know usually we get associated prices with it. Um and and you won't be doing any um expanding of that house.

That is correct. but we're going to be renovating it sub substantially. Um the total project cost is 2.2 million and we've received already the difference between what we're requesting from the state currently and is already set aside for this development um from for your resolution. uh and it's only because the state didn't have enough recovery money to fund the three projects that they've funded in this current round. So they have set aside these funds for this development um pending your resolution. Thank you. You're welcome.

Mr. Ree. Okay. All right. Yeah. I just have a question. Um, how does this fit into the neighborhood? And have residents been informed as relation to traffic and parking and and and go along with it? It's it's an allowed use within the neighborhood. It's been the property has been used as a bed and breakfast, a transient um population coming and going and so it is it's an allowed use. This refurbished the house only, right? Um it it doesn't run any of the programs that you're planning on having in the house. the it just residential. Just residents. Okay.

Thank you, M. Black. Has this effort um and team worked in Portsouth before? Um yes, we have down the street at 2538 East Main Road. And that was relatively across from Clemens. as yes, we operated for approximately two years um until COVID some health restrictions required us to close down. So, we'd like to reopen.

Um when that was in place, I was a still living as a uh in my current residence. I was a relative neighbor. Um I had a young child and had my own concerns and I had looked into and really done my education and through what I had learned and also as a proven organization um they really had shown exemplary uh efforts and the women who were there were often seen walking to Clemens or working um catching the bus. it really had been a proven um example and and a great addition to this town. Um and I I feel that this is a very positive um way to use this property.

Thank you, Councilwoman. Appreciate it. Thank you. Kind words. Any questions from the audience? None online. Uh Miss Batton. Yes. I just have a question. Um when you were in Portmith, did you end up moving to uh Middletown as well or did you have a place in Middletown? Uh um no, we we were considering the St. Lucy's convent and converting that into a recovery house, but um that didn't work out. We had uh some situations show up. So Okay. Thank you, Miss Gleason. Hold on.

Just make sure name and address even Got it, Kathy. There you go. Miss Gleason, name and address for the record, please. 63 Massoya Karen Gleason. Um, just curious as to how many residents you'll be housing at any given time or what's the max capacity? It's a good question. It'll be between 6 to 10 depending on the adult child ratio. Wait a minute. I'm sorry. Did you Could you say that again? 6 to 10

uh 6 to 10 o um household members and it would be um predicated on adult child. So if there was a mother or a woman with a child that that would be uh reduce the number of people in the house. So that's how the the um the room and the attendance of that room would go by whether it's a woman um or male single or if they it was a woman and a child for a double. Now how many bedrooms may I ask? There's six bedrooms. How many um professionals and or staff will be in the building as well or work there?

We will have supervision 247. Can you tell me how many how many staff that requires? Um it'll either be a livedin house manager or we'll have three staff me members uh fulfilling shift shifts for 24 hours. Okay. And parking is that an issue or No. Plenty of parking on the property. Um, is there a specific age group for children up to six? Up to the age of six. Thank you. Thank you,

M. Leon. Any other questions? Hearing none. Do I have a motion to close the public hearing? So moved. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed.

Motion passes 7 to zero. Now we're going to move on to new business number four, which is approval of the resolutions. We'll start with resolution number one, which would be a resolution approving for affordable housing provide funding for 40 affordable housing home ownership condos at the corner of Bristol Ferry and Sprag Street and Turnpike and Church Community Housing. Sorry, I read that poorly, but it's two corners. One corner is Bristol and Sprag, and the other corner is Sprag and Turnpike. So, we're all aware it's two corners there. What is the council's pleasure?

So moved. Is there a second for the resolution A? Hearing none, we will move on to resolution B, approving affordable housing provide funding for recovery housing to be located at 79 East Main Road to be owned by Community Blessings Foundation doing business as living, excuse me, healthy living in recovery. Some moved. Second. Any further discussion on this one? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes 6 to1. So we have a one approval.

Five to who said nay? Dave said nay. I'm sorry. David five to two with the two Daves. Thank you. That is all for resolutions and community development block grants, folks. Next up, we have uh a couple of bills brought down by counselors for support or to vote against one or the other. I can't remember which of all are, but we'll start with you, Mr. Mr. Gleason. We'll start with you with House Bill 6, excuse me, House Bill 7971 and House Bill 7678. What

you got there?

Thank you. Okay. So, thank you, Mr. President. These uh were brought to my attention by the city of leagues and cities uh l cities and towns, I should say, in their publication. Um 7971 uh affects any DPW potentially affects who knows how far these bills are going to get. uh any potential DPW related jobs that um currently anything over $1,000 we have to use prevailing wage uh to do this work. This would raise the limit to a h 100,000. So that means that any jobs our DPW would do or for any other state or town or uh city in Rhode Island, the potential is they could do a cheaper job with local labor, non-UN labor up to $100,000. Um I think that would be a ease the burden on the town for some of our smaller jobs and I would support this bill.

I would be in agreement. Would you you making a request to create a resolution in support? Yes. The motion is to create a resolution to support uh House Bill 7971. Second. Gio, can you write that up for us, sir? Yes, sir. Can we have it by Are we almost done by with all the other ones from the beginning of the year? We We did all those, right? Yeah. They're all I believe. So, so you have this for the next meeting. We're We're pros now. We'll get it done quickly. Yeah. Thank you. You need a vote on that, Mr. President? Nope. Uh well, that's part of the motion. He'll write it up and we'll bring it back and do the rest. Unless you unless unless the council is okay with solicitor writing it up and me just signing it and not bringing it back, I'm okay with that, too. But if you want to see it first, that's up to you.

If if if the resolution is to have us um simply document that you support this particular piece of legislation without commentary about why, then that's easy enough to do. We can just get it done tonight. And yeah, that's that's my intent. Yeah. Unless somebody wants to get more into the details. Dave, have you talked to our reps? Make sure they can they're going to support this. No, that's important. But I would ask that they see the the resolution as well. Okay. Just it would go to all that would happen. Yeah. Yeah. And across town and across the cities and towns. So So the the that's the intent is to to uh just have the solicitor write it up and me sign it. Bring it back. If this

council vote for favor of that, that's fine. That's if that's your party resolution. That's good. Okay. Miss Gleason, you have a question. Not her again. Yes. You can hear me? Yes, we can. Oh, okay. Name and address. I didn't see the button that said unmute. Is um is this limited to the 100,000 you said? It it raises the limit from $1,000 up to $100,000. So, if we were to paint the outside of the town hall and it costs $50,000, we could potentially use a non-union expensive.

I guess my question is I'm wondering if it should be a lot higher than that just in case because if you come up with 125,000 then would the bill is already written as $100,000. It's it's not up to us. We're just showing support for said bill. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you. Any further questions, Mr. Mayor? I was just going to make a We have a motion and a second, so I think we still need to take a vote on it. Yes. All those in favor? I oppose. Nay.

Motion passes six to one. And then we have next up, Mr. Gleason as well. Sure. So, uh, 7678 is, uh, I'll just give you this off the top of my head. This would create a special joint legislative commission. Uh, various positions appointed by um, you know, people in already in high places in Rhode Island here. Um what it does is represent the towns and cities or gives a a forum for representation by cities and towns at the general assembly level. Correct.

Yeah. Other questions on that? I know that's fine. Yeah. Um the way I read it, specific people already in position, different positions of power would be selecting the seven individuals. Yes.

Um for the 39 towns and cities. Yes, cities and towns is the right way to say it. But um I have concerns on this supporting this bill. Um it seems to reiterate power and create another um just more Oh, it's been a long day.

Well, I mean it I'll maybe try and help. Um, I don't think it creates another level of bureaucracy. I think it gives a level of direct contact that we currently as cities and towns only have through the League of Cities and Towns or towards our leg state legislature. And it may create an atmosphere where we can actually bring forth concerns like these housing bills are killing us. You got to stop. you know, physicians creed. First, do no harm. I I wish that the general assembly would think of that before they pass bills.

It does seem like just a a second layer and another level of bure bureaucracy. Thank you for finding the word I was looking for. Um, and I just I don't see it helping the people that we're representing. It just seems like more roles. Are are these paid roles? No.

Mr. President, if you come on uh council, as someone had run a special joint legislative commission, yes, all these the uh enabling legislation that that allows for this commission to happen needs to have prescriptive membership. Uh and that's why you have people that are automatically and then some people that are assigned. I will say that it does not create another level of bureaucracy. What it does the first couple of meetings of these commissions create a purpose and a direction and at the end of it there is a report that is always done by these uh commissions that will hopefully turn into legislation that will come out in either the next legislative session or the subsequent one after that if more information is needed. Uh obviously we're talking about municipal issues so it could be a little bit more burdensome in terms of the staff that is on these commissions so they may need more time but I will say that a lot of these commissions are very fruitful uh and being able to find solutions to issues.

Can you help me understand how this is different than what we have our legislators there to do for us? It allows for it allows for work outside of the committee system that the committee system only is meeting x amount of days per week per the legislative session. So really it's talking about June I would go January to June and really committees are pretty much done with their work by the beginning of May. Um, this allows for during the off session especially for these commissions to come together to really hone in on these issues and bring in experts from within and without and without the the state to really hone in on the issues that are pertaining. We get to see how um other states are doing things uh where do we find efficiencies where are gaps um so that they are actually really good and worthwhile.

Thank you for the clarification. I think it's better than any system we have now. I think it's subject to the people that get picked out to be on the committee, whether they're going to be movers and shakers, etc. But, um, it's I think it's worth a try. So, you want similar motion that you have the our solicitor craft a resolution and I will sign it when it is finished. Yes, that would be the motion. Second. Second. All those in favor?

I opposed. Motion passes seven to zero. Uh we are going to skip at the request of the sponsor and we're going to move on to House Bill 80013 relating to motor vehic motor and other vehicles, mobile and manufactured homes. Miss Patton.

Um yeah. Um so I um asked that this bill be put on um to um be supported by the council. Um it is going to be um heard in the spring session is what I've been told. It does include the right of force refusal provision um which is a critical step and protecting our communities um housing stability and empowering our residents. It gives both residents and the town a meaning meaningful opportunity to have a voice when properties change hands helping prever um preserve affordability and prevent displacement. Um, so I'm just asking if the council would support this bill

and make a resolution similar to Mr. Gleason's and I will sign it as soon as Gio's done with it. Just for you personally, do you know that you can go on to the state's website, click that bill and ask to be followed on that bill so you know when any hearings are coming up? Yes. Okay, good. Um, one other thing, it also um changes hands as far as it takes it out of the um business resol um business department and puts it into the housing. Is there a second for any further discussion? All those in favor?

I oppose. Motion passes 7 to zero. Thank you very much both of you. Next up, uh we have a request to revise the protocol for management salaries. Uh, Mr. Gleason, I believe you brought this up, but Mr. Rainer, you want to kick us off?

Sure. At uh, Councelor Gleason's request, we've reviewed the management salary protocol that was adopted by the council in November of 1999. Uh, the protocol suggested that the town council meet annually with non-UN department heads and deputies to discuss salary, benefit, and working conditions. In looking through the records, however, uh, I've not been able to determine that those meetings were ever consistently held. Instead, compensation for non-union employees has historically been addressed through the annual budget process. Under the town charter, the town administrator is responsible for the administration of town government and for the management and evaluation of the department heads. The council in turn exercises oversight primarily through its policymaking role and through the adoption of the annual town budget. That budget process is where salary and benefit adjustments have traditionally been reviewed and approved by the council. So given that the 1999 protocol is now more than 25 years old and not has been consistently and has not been consistently implemented, it seems appropriate to provide a revised protocol that reflects current practices and the framework established by the town charter. So the proposed revision essentially does three things. First, it recognizes the town administrator responsibility for administering uh personnel matters. Second, it uses negotiated union contracts, particularly the PMEA contract, as a general guideline when considering non-UN salary adjustments. And third, it maintains the council's oversight through the annual budget process where those adjustments are presented for review and approval.

Mr. Gleason.

Thank you, Mr. President. I I hope the uh council agrees with me that we should approve this. Um, it's a a case of an another policy that's been around, excuse me, excuse me, for a long time. Um, and several meetings ago, I brought this uh forward. At the same time, I brought the proposal about updating our soccer relationship with the uh soccer program where they thought they had um exclus exclusive use of the fields, which they may have had for 10 years, but it went back to 99 as well. Uh that one um we have voted on. This one honestly it didn't go over very well. I mean there's a lot of people in this room right here that are affected by this policy that are management folks that you know have union people working for them especially here in in town hall. Um and at that at that time I brought that forward and I was told it ran right through the building and I should never do it that way. and I heard of people that wanted to work less hours or they're thinking about changing their future. So, you know, I dropped it. I was I was kind of shocked that happened, but I guess that's what happens in a small town like this. I suggested that we go to a merit type uh program and I was told that that really wouldn't work here. So, I basically handed over to our HR department and Mr. Rainer and this was a policy that they had come up with. It's not much different from what I had in mind. Um, you know, and and basically I would agree with with Mr. Rener. Um, it it took me by surprise because I asked how we had determined the 4% raises last year and I was shown this document and it was the first time in my eight years of being on a town council that that had ever seen it in that time period. So, we should have a uniform policy. the town council is not uh as opposed to where we were in the

past where we were involved in hirings and firings. It's all Mr. Rener's purview at this point. So that has changed. There's no no need for us to meet in February to discuss it. We be you know we will see it when the budget comes out and if we you know if we see raises that are too high or too low we'll have an ultimate say in that. So, I think it's a win-win for for both of us uh to move forward with this type of um protocol. You like to make a motion to approve? Absolutely. Uh motion to approve the new uh protocol as presented by Mr. Rainer and Lisa Bula. Second.

Any further question? Any further questions from the council? Any questions from audience? Mr. Feny, come on up, sir. Absolutely, sir. Kevin Fennessy, um 2774 East Main Road. Uh having been a human resources manager for over 20 years, my question is are the employees of the town both uh union and non-union employees subject to quarterly semianual annual performance reviews?

Mr. Correct. They're subject to annual reviews to annual reviews. That's correct. All right. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Any further questions? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes 720. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. On to do business. Number seven, request addition of a citizens forum section to the town council agendas. Miss Patton.

Yeah. Um so I placed this um item on the agenda just to discuss um formally including a public forum um other you know surrounding towns um Bristol Turan they all have this on their agendas and I just think it gives um residents the opportunity to come to um the town council meetings and address a situation or you know any item that is not on the agenda um topic and you know without we don't have the you know answer um as far as um the time I you know I put on here for five minutes but we can you know discuss and see if that's the right time that you want to choose um and then the form I just put a backup form as Middletown uses. So um just wanted to see and open it up for discussion.

Sure. So my only concern with the five minutes is well if you go with the five minutes in the middle town form you would only have three speakers. So I would say maybe if we shorten that a little bit um but that's up to the council.

Thank you Mr. President. Uh I would even go closer to home. Uh the school committee has been doing it for quite some time. So I would suggest that we look at what the policy is with the school committee and it is part of every agenda and it is limited to to two minutes. Uh I would just also like to remind people that you have to sit on your hands during those two minutes while people are talking which is always the hardest part of that experience. So um I don't I would be in favor for it but uh I think that we have an example close to home that has already been doing it for so if we did it for 2 minutes and 10 minutes maximum something like that. I mean, it's

I've been to a couple forums and and they were both at three minutes and I I think that's a reasonable amount and it and it gives you the you know, you could still let somebody go over if there if it gets out of hand, you also have that control. I'm going to pull out the Andrew Kelly egg timer.

You can do that. Um, as far as the specific backup, um, we've never gone the people haven't signed as you've noticed tonight. So, I would just stick just to the public forum section as opposed to we're very open to folks getting up and especially if you have a different question or you sit back down and go, "Oh, I forgot something." It does that. That second section kind of hamstrings you a little bit.

It does. And I would say the school committee normally puts a sign-in sheet and then the uh the chair will take this signin sheet and call up people as they come up. If also depending on when this form form needs to be submitted may subject it to open meetings and so it kind of becomes like a a really gray murky area. Yeah, I I I think just I think that's fine. a signin sheet signin sheet for the public forum section and need to be here by I'll ask the clerk 650 6:45 I think a lot of towns will collect that sheet at the start of the meeting so the clerk will just take it off the podium at 7 on the dot and if you haven't signed up by then you're not getting into the public forum which keeps people

but if we do that right at 7 o'clock I don't get it no thanks and hands to you all right that's all right with everybody that's fine with Yeah, I just would like to say that I'm in support of this as well. I think it's a great opportunity for citizens to um have a voice. So, thanks for bringing that forward.

And just to clarify the process, somebody comes in and says, "I want to talk about potholes on East Main Road." You get up, you got two minute, three minutes to talk about potholes on East Main Road. The council cannot ask you questions, cannot offer any solutions. we just hear your concerns or thank yous. That would be nice, too. If you wanted to give those at some point, um, we will just hear those and we'll move on to the next person and then if there is followup that is needed, uh, we can follow up at the next meeting, but it has to be properly advertised for the next meeting. So, Mr. Bits,

I only thing I would just say, um, I would think that we should be able to ask questions of somebody. we wouldn't be able to vote. But other people, I don't think you're allowed to underneath the I think most towns out of an abundance of caution do not do that. I'm not convinced that that's actually the law, but but I understand why towns do that. Okay.

It was very So as someone that was there for when the policy was created in the school committee, it was very murky water where there was a school committee who did say something and opined and it became a violation of the open meetings law. Um just so I'll read it. This is exactly what the public comment section says for the school committee. During the public comment portion of the agenda, members of the public may comment on any topic related to to the schools. For any public comment, individuals must first be recognized by the chair, must state their name and and an address for the record, and make comment for up to two minutes. If public comment pertains to an item not on the agenda, the committee will listen, but will not comment, and any follow-up needed will come from the superintendent or their designate. Okay, that's fine. No, works for me.

Good. We'll just give more work to the superintendent. I'm I'm good with that policy. Sorry, Liz. I say we take the same verbiage as school committee and and um mimic that so that it's pretty consistent and it gives direction and it gives protocol and um I I still would love to see three minutes instead of two, but that's just me. But you can put that as your mo if you say that. I'd like to make a motion to mimic the school committees, but add make it three minutes.

I would like to make a motion to mimic the um verbiage with the school committee's policy on open forum and um limit it to 3 minutes. Second. Okay. Now, Mr. Fsor, thank you for your patience. Can I just ask for a clarification? Is there is there a we we're talking about an overall time limit for the period of public comment? It's three minutes per individual, but there's not a I I I think school committee does not provide for a and the town council does not want to put a cap on. I would like to add a cap of 15 minutes total if possible.

Otherwise, we could have 100 people here sign up for three minutes and we're here all night. We're going to be here all night tonight, but that's a different story. Sir, you want to do 15 minutes? Sure. um amended to 15 minute max on the open forum time limits. Good news is you can change this meeting to meeting. I mean this is not a set in stone. This is a policy that that the clerk will adopt when she drafts the agenda and it can be modified. Sorry, Mr. Morris.

Actually, I could answer most of those questions. Um the school committee has a different set of laws in the open meetings act and so their restrictions may be valid. Council doesn't have that restriction. I refer back and I don't remember his name to a attorney general that we had a while back that made a ruling on this business of three minute rules. He said it's not required for the council to be silent during comment. So presumably we can do the research on that. Now whether that's that's considered sufficient in the law is another story I guess but it was an opinion of the attorney general at the time. Um as some of the council knows I've been talking to a lot of councils in recent uh weeks and three minutes is is probably the best time. I would be reluctant to adopt a twominut rule. It's tough enough to get it in on three minutes. So, I would recommend three minutes. And that's certainly the standard I've seen everywhere I've been, it's been three minutes. So, I'd recommend very strongly that it be three minutes. Um, but it's my understanding that if someone speaks at the three minute uh public comment section that is proposed here that they would be speaking to matters that are not on the agenda. Is that correct?

Correct. Okay. And the normal procedures that we follow here in Portsouth would remain for the agenda items. Correct. Thank you. Yeah, that's the discussion I had about removing the bottom part of Middletown's form then. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. There is a motion in a second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes 720. Next up, we have new business number eight. discussion to determine whether to join Bristol in acquiring Rhode Island requiring excuse me Rhode Island Bridge and Turnpike to most recent inspection report be made available to us I believe is what we're looking at there not acquiring but requiring them to release the report.

Yeah, but I guess we would we would acquire it anyways either way. Yeah. So I um reached out to Mr. trainer and um actually I uh attended the Bristol Town Council meeting and they had um this discussion on their agenda and just brought light to it. Um, and I would just like to um see if this was something that we could, you know, support and um join with them or have, you know, do a resolution or I'm not sure to move forward and see if we can require as far as the uh report on the uh bridge.

Okay. I mean, I I know the attorney general and the Rhode Island bridge turn bike authority havely denied that they're going to release it for any reason and the AG has said they don't have to and the Homeland Security has also said don't release it. I don't know how far the the lawsuit's going to go. Yeah, I was going to say and the town is sued over that decision. So I I I my question when I saw this item was what are you asking us to join the lawsuit as a as a party or or as an amicus or to simply send a letter of support to Bristol? Just I think more of a letter of support um to Bristol and you know to stay in contact and you know right

question um it just wasn't clear in the verbiage. Are you looking for the town council to get the be included in the report or to make it public? Letter just a letter of support from the council to the Bristol town council. I don't know if the Bristol I don't know if the Bristol lawsuit is to make it public or is it just to release it to them. I can't remember how they wrote it. I

I believe it was an access to public records request that it was based upon. So I think it would be if if they're successful, it will become a public document assumably um you know redacting any security issues that the feds or the state don't want released. But I think the core question is um you know a blanket claim of this is a security risk. Uh does that satisfy an appa exemption or do they have to just redact? I mean there's it's a it's a bridge status safety report. I assume there's a whole bunch of information in there that is not related to national security issues and they refuse to hand out any of it and I think that's really what it comes down to. So I think if if Bristol's successful that will become a public document you you'll all have the opportunity to see it in a tradacted form.

So can we make it a motion to ask the solicitor to write a letter of support to bring back at our next meeting so that we can all review it before it goes out? Sure. Does that sound comfortable with everybody? Or you can have him write it and I'll sign it and send it to Bristol. It's up to you folks. I think that everybody might want to see it to see exactly what it says.

Yeah, I I'm a little concerned just because even a letter of support one, this is now a legal matter. It's not just a resolution to the state or something like that. Um whether or not we want to dip our toes into the situation and just kind of or just kind of sit back and see how the legal process plays out. Uh because just like the solicitor says, if they are successful in it, we will most likely obtain the information and and whether or not we want to have our solicitor or any other town resources involved in this, whatever they may be, I I just don't know if this is the right pool for us to swim in.

Um I have concerns just uh both with the documentation and just um the alignment. I understand where where it's coming from and kind of what the intent is, but um I have concerns with supporting this. Mr. Gleason,

I I just think it's it's uh shows our support for our sister town uh with this main artery between us. It's just um if there's something in there, I I think we should just support their concerns basically. I I'll leave it at that. But what whatever you know, if you want to write something up and then have it everybody review the final language, that's fair to everybody and gives you the chance to approve or or turn it down. You want to make that motion.

Um so I'll make a motion to um have the solicitor our solicitor write up a um a letter of support um the town of uh Bristol on the Mount Hope Bridge report. Second. All those in favor? I oppose. Motion passes 5 to2. Uh, no. I I I'm okay with a draft. Okay. Not 6 to1. 6 to1. I'm sorry. And And that is to come back for review. To come back for review, right? At our next meeting, which is April, 13th, 14th. 13th. 13th.

All right. On to new business number nine, approval for sticker prices for curbside and the Portsouth transfer station. Mr. Rener or Kathy, if we can start with uh the transfer station year end. So, Mr. President, I'll start with year-end results for the Headley Street Transfer Station Enterprise Fund. Uh based on current projections, we are anticipating ending the fiscal year with a modest surplus of approximately 37 uh I'm sorry, $13,700. I do want to note that this is an unuded uh projection and as such it would not be applied until the fiscal year 28 budget cycle. What this tells us is that operationally the program is performing generally in line with expectations for the current year. It reflects a relatively stable year from an operational standpoint. There is a separate issue related to the prior year audit that impacts next year's budget cycle and uh Kayla will walk us our finance director will walk us through that when we present the fiscal year 27 numbers. But in terms of the current year uh which will end June 30th, the takeaway is the program is operating as expected and is projected to close with a small surplus. We go to the Headley Street uh budget

or curb side. Uh yeah, we want the Headley Street transfer stations. You just did that. Curry. Okay. Yeah. All right. I did I did the end current year with Headley. Yeah. You want next year's Okay. Yeah. The next year. But thank So we'll do we'll do transfer station then we'll do curbside. Thank you sir.

Okay. So here we have the fiscal year 27 proposed budget for the Headley Street transfer station. Uh I'm calling this the status quo scenario and this will become apparent why here in just a minute. Um so when I say status quo I mean no structural program changes. It's the same service model that we've been using for years and it's the same operational approach. Uh so this reflects the cost of continuing the program as it exists today. Uh you received in your backup and Kayla will uh expound on it here in just a moment. Um she provided you a letter. The fund does reflect an $86,000 deficit coming out of fiscal year 25. The enterprise fund model is designed so that the users of the program support the full cost of the program including prior year variances. The deficit is not a new cost, but its incorporation into the fiscical year 27 budget is a reconciliation of prior year operations that is now being properly accounted for. So when you look at the proposed sticker price, it reflects one, the cost to operate the program next year and then two, the adjustment needed to address the prior year deficit. The important change going forward is that we are now operating fully on a fiscal year basis. We're using audited financial data and we are no longer carrying forward projections that cross fiscal years. So this will allow us to set a more accurate and stable pricing in future years. So this is the fiscal year 27 status quo budget. It reflects the cost pardon I just said bless.

It reflects I could use it. It ref it reflects the cost of operating the program under the current structure. So, assuming the same general rate of participation as the last couple years, we recommend a sticker price. It came out as uh $321. Uh I would recommend that we round that off to $320. So, at this time, I'd just like the finance director to explain more fully the $86,000 deficit.

Right. Good evening. I did prepare a brief explanation of the deficit which was included in the agenda. To summarize though, the 86,000 deficit is not solely related to the 18-month program, but rather reflects variances that have accumulated over prior years, including higher than expected expenses and lower than projected revenues. For example, as I put in the letter, pay as you throw bag expenses exceeded budget in calendar year 2023, while revenues for those same items came below projections in the 18month sticker. In prior years, sticker rates were developed using projected surpluses or deficits. When a surplus was projected but a deficit was ultimately realized, it resulted in undercollection of revenue causing the deficit to grow or compound over time. Additionally, while the enterprise fund was audited annually, the reporting did not align with our fiscal year causing the uh which limited vis visibility into true operating performance. Now that we are fully aligned with the fiscy year basis, we will be using using audited results instead of projections which will improve accuracy, transparency and prevent these types of cumulative impacts going forward.

So if we can move on to the next and this would be uh just a discussion regarding the Headley Street transfer station operation. uh with the potential impact of how uh the ad hoc committee work or ad hoc working group uh work could impact that enterprise fund. So this would re this would represent a change from the current structure where the prudence island transfer station is supported through the general fund. This is what we do currently and the Headley Street operates as a separate enterprise fund. As I understand it, uh, in, uh, the work that they've been doing, there would be a direct fee applied to Prudence Island households and a corresponding adjustment in how certain revenues and costs are allotted between the two operations. What this does is change how costs are distributed, not the overall cost of the system. So I do want to note that there has not yet been a formal council direction on this approach and that the prudence island planning commission is scheduled to review uh this work uh in midappril. So this scenario is presented for discussion purposes to show potential impacts not as a finalized recommendation. So my responsibility at this point as I see it is to present a balanced budget based on known information while also illustrating how potential policy changes could uh alter that budget. So this provides a comparison to the status quo scenario should the council wish to move in that direction and overall it's about a $10 difference uh in the sticker price.

Kathy, can you just put the uh with Prudence Island one up on the board please? So one is related Headley Street station proposal sticker calculation with approval of PI proposal. Just go down to the bottom. Thank you. Council have any questions on this? Anyone online real quick? Mr. Sparo is online. John, are you there?

Yep. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. Okay. So, there were there were two things that I that um about which John, if you just name and address, please. Oh, sorry. John Sparrow uh 0260 Albro Farm Road Island.

Sorry. Um there are two elements in the budget that I think are are problematic regardless of the final outcome of the approval of of of a different way of funding um Prudence Island transfer station. The first is that um revenues from Prudence Island uh annual stickers get applied not to the Prudence Island transfer station budget but rather to the Headley Street Enterprise Fund. Um the second item is that there's no credit for pay as you throw revenue to reflect uh bags that are disposed of through the prudence island transfer station. As a result, there's a significant amount of money um on the order of $40,000 um per year that is applied to Headley Street Enterprise Fund. then in fact should be applied to the prudence island transfer station. Um which would effectively reduce the subsidy that the town is providing for prudence island transfer station operations. Yes, but that was the decision of the council eight years ago was to put that money into the Headley Street and subsidize Prudence Island. So until the decision was to either perform this ad hoc committee and or just start charging uh Prudence Island for a to reduce that subsidy, that wasn't an issue. And until we have a formal um recommendation from the ad hoc committee, these are just the scenarios that are potentially out there. So, you don't need a decision from us

tonight on the Headley Street until we get the I mean, there's no sense making one to the

No, as I discussed with uh councelor um McDall. Uh this is to let people know what the range of the pricing is probably going to be. I do have to present a budget at the end of this week. So, the budget is just a proposal. We'll see what comes out of the I believe it's April 16th, John uh prudence planning commission meeting. Um I'm assuming that we'll probably get something from the ad hoc group. Uh the council will discuss this again. Uh and then we can refine it. But this will allow me to present to you a balanced budget that incorporates as it stands now the prudence island planning station or prudence island transfer station uh which has to be incorporated into the general fund because that's those are the rules right now. So, as of right now, the the Prudence Island transfer station will remade as is, which would put us at the 320 until the ad hoc committee comes back with a recommendation. And if that is adopted, that'll change the general fund and also potentially create a new enterprise fund of the Prudence Island transfer station.

Yeah, depending on how the council wants to set it up, but that's obviously one of the scenarios I believe that's being looked at.

Okay, any questions, Mr. So I when I saw the um agenda item, I did I did think that um you know approval of sticker prices for curbside and Portsmith transfer station. So I'm glad to hear that we're not looking to uh approve anything right now and hopefully we're waiting for uh the Prudence Island as was stated and the uh committee report from the ad hoc um committee. So now I just I I do want to um ask this question. It'll be a valuable if we get um the answer to it, it'll be valuable for our committee to continue the work. We're now getting into the um Headley. We've we've spent a great deal of time on Prudence Island, done a done a quite thorough um t taken a quite thorough look at Prudence Island and come up with several um several things we would like to bring to the council in terms of operational efficiencies, fiscal efficiencies. Um but now we're getting into the the Headley and the the curb side. And I guess my question is um regarding the Headley transfer station, does the projected sticker calculation material presented tonight include all expenses and all revenues associated with the uh operation? Is it safe to say that?

Yes. Okay. And then regarding the curbside program, again, does the projected sticker calculation show all expenses and all revenues associated with this operation? Um, yes, it's fair to say that. Okay. Um, this this has to do with the the deficit. So, can I speak to that right now or do does other do other people want to um the the 86,000?

Yep. Yeah. So, I I do have um some very big concerns about the memorandum that was included in this agenda and an audit was revised, reissued, and a disclosure note was attached. I have a concern that the council was never officially informed of such a significant finding and and I I'd like to know why. I think uh this issue well Caleb will correct me if I'm wrong, but this issue came up during the RP process. Um, so there was a question asked the stickers that were sold uh at this time last year for the curbside program were being credited as income for that year. So, uh, it was just it it was it should have been referred to as deferred revenue, but it it was showing up as revenue, which is the way we always kind of did it in years past because of the timing of the uh the way we did the program and a calendar year by a fiscal year. Um, it was an enterprise fund. Uh, we knew that we were going to discuss it with you tonight. So, uh, we were just made aware of this about a week and a half ago. So I think this is uh why we brought it up and why we had Kayla write a memo.

So the discovery came a week and a half ago and

I want to say it was uh it was right before we uh did the we analyzed the bid results there was a question raised by one of the biders about the deferred revenue. So when we discussed this with the auditor, the auditor did concur with the conclusion of this questionnaire that uh those ticket sales should have been referred should have been recorded as deferred revenue not revenue that applied to the previous fiscal year which would have uh made that it either would resulted in a small surplus or evened out. Uh and this is what Kayla has been referring to. This is what's been happening for as long as this program has been in existence. We always had data that was at least 2 years old. So every year we were trying to project what those what that revenue was going to be and then adjust the ticket price to make sure that they you know the revenues and expenditures zeroed out. Uh never really knowing until two years later uh what that impact was. So we had continual fluctuations in the actual state of the of that enterprise fund that will be erased now because the enterprise fund is on the exact same calendar as our fiscal year. So we'll always henceforth look at the audited result. We don't have to worry about deferred revenue anymore. uh we'll look at the audited result and that will be the result that will go into the computation of the following uh sticker price.

I would just like to add um there will be deferred revenue going forward because this is on a fiscal year um approach. So because we start collecting uh revenue in May and June that will now be allocated as deferred um that is now known going forward. Uh this was past practices of the calendar year, the 18month. This should have, I will say, um been caught by myself. Um unfortunately, it was caught in the RFP process, but now it it will be caught during um our year-end basis. So once we true up with tax on what the collectibles were for the upcoming fiscal year, all monies will be moved to deferred revenue going forward and that will better project where we stand for the end of the year to come audit.

Thank you. Um so really the the um the error was brought forth by the a bidder for the RFP not our auditors. That is correct. And I will say that our auditors may not have known or they should not have known that we transferred over to a fiscal year approach. They were doing past practice of our calendar year sticker. All set. Yep. Thank you.

Any further questions on the transfer station specifically? Mr. Gre. Hi, Tom Greet the Drive. Um, I I'm curious because I I've looked at the two I had the original audit, a copy of it, and I've looked at the new one, and the revenue in the transfer station went from $662,000, which sort of made sense to me. We've got about 2,000 people, and the stickers about $300, 600 plus the bag revenues made sense. That went to $285,000, which doesn't make sense to me. help me make sense of it.

So, we have to remember that this was an 18-month sticker. So, a lot of the um revenue was recorded in FY24. So, when the projection when the audit said 600 and change, 377,000 of that was actually realized revenue for FY26. majority of the 18-month sticker which ran January 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025. Most of the revenue was collected in FY24.

Okay. So that and and that revenue was not divided by the years or in into a I'm sorry into a fund that would have would have passed up and and uh funded the next year and the audit would have essentially rolled into the fund balance. Yeah. I I I I I I get that, but it seems like we I'm not sure how we get $86,000 um off. That seems like a lot of money. Um if it was just a matter of rolling it forward, that money would have been back in 24 and probably created a surplus for us in that year. Is that correct?

That's correct. As I've been going backwards, uh, calendar year 23 ended in a result of a deficit. 20, the 18-month sticker was a small surplus, but I'm going back to see it's kind of hard because it's compounded over the years being the calendar year. I can't physically point out one particular where the 86,000 is as of just yet.

Okay. But in that case, it would seem to me it's a a little bit of a penalty to the to the users the transfer station that you get the 80 that we are paying for the $86,000 this this year. Um because of mistake that has been made for I guess over three years or so. Um and I would just say you might think about ameliorating some of that. Thank you. But that would require utilizing taxpayer money and putting thumbs on the scale, which you were against doing last year for curbside.

I I I I still am, but the the the point is I've just I've just discussed with Miss Marsen that we don't really know how much that she's 86,000. He's trying to figure it out, but I I it seems like a whole lot of money to me just for this this uh uh the money was there. I'm willing to bet or most of the money was there and it went into the general fund. I'm willing to bet as well. And if it doesn't go into the general fund, it stays in the enterprise. Well, we had this discussion at the audit. Everything goes into the general fund. As I found out at the audit,

it's called the general fund, but money monies applied to and spent out of this enterprise fund stay in said enterprise fund. And that's not what I just heard. Okay. Right. So, anything that pertains to the Headley Headley Street Transfer Station is in a fund. And I'll name the fund 688. Monies do not go into our general fund, which is a fund account of 100. Okay. And it shouldn't it shouldn't be hard at all to go back and and and get and and find out these what what the real uh revenues were.

I can assure I'm going back I've just ended calendar year 2023. I'm going back into calendar year 2022. My system only allows me 2020. Okay. Part of the difficulty here is that every every cycle for as long as this program was inception, it was an inception cross two fiscal years. Yeah.

Every single time, which made it extremely difficult and then when you're computing the sticker price for the next year, you don't even have that audit yet. That the audit you have is from two years previous. And then so as Kayla has stated, this is probably a an issue that fluctuated up and down for for many many many years that if the $86,000 is missing, uh what happened is there were probably sticker prices that were for many years uh perhaps a few dollars lower than they should have. Yeah. No, I I I get that and we can't go back further than than the uh the 2020. Um, so all right,

Mr. Cassen. Mr. Kassen.

Good evening, Mr. Kassen. Uh, 3241 East Main Road. Um, I I've been on this ad hoc committee and I have to tell you that this has been uh a three-month challenge to say the least. Um, the information we captured, recorded by the town, they obviously know what's going on. I don't have that good of a Dakota ring at my house, but I still have my separate spreadsheets, Mr. President, and I don't try to get it down to the penny. If we're in within about five grand, I'm pretty happy. Um, it's in the noise. Um, Headley Street, um, I thought the increase was going to be in the vicinity of 370. The reason I thought that was um I downloaded the the audit uh December 22nd, 2025 and I I logged the file. And the reason I do that is because in the past I've been caught looking at the wrong file. But anyways, the file I downloaded when I go to page nine, it it states the business type activities increased the town's net position by 1.15430,000. This resulted primarily from a um 1,738 decrease net position in the septic loan program. There's also a decrease of $152,000 in the transfer station and a new fund was established the curbside pickup and had initial charges uh changes in the net position of 1.39168 um which can uh each of which contribute to

an overall decrease. I don't understand that because when you have 1.3 million that you haven't spent the money on and it's collected for the next year, I don't understand why there's an overall decrease. But let me go back to where it says there's a decrease of $152,000 where I saw that in the audit on page nine. And I wish I'd made copies of it now and brought every one of you's one and one for the record. Um, that's usually on page 9 when we look it says it's 152 and it's in parenthesis. And that's the way that the town markets a a negative uh fund balance. In the past, that's always been carried forward as the deficit for the previous year. I then went online when when I when I did an estimate of 370 and saw this the sticker price of 322. And again, I'll go to the same document. And oh, by the way, today when I go to the when I go to the town website, there's a new file there. And the reason I know it's different is there's a um a different um kilobyte um status on the file. The size of the file went from 3007,000 kilobytes to 28 2,85 kilobyt. So there is a brand new file and oh by the way it's it's now has a new name ACFR_1. When I go to that document on page nine, it says the business type and it's totally written over. Almost this whole page nine is written over as is all the the fund balance, the net positions for the whole governmentwide finances, which I was very surprised to find. But anyways, the business activities

decreased in the town's net position by $22,215. the resultant primary from $1,738 decreased in a net position on the septic program that stayed the same. There was a decrease of $529,167 from the transfer station and a new fund was established for the curbside that had initial charges of $15,56 which I have no idea what that was spent for because it's less than what we pay in a month for containers. And that's the way that that sentence ends. What?

I don't want to interrupt you, but uh that was the advertising that was pre-expended uh to the curbside program. So that's that was that was the advertising and and we didn't pay any any containers because I thought we cuz containers were on the street. I thought we made a container. So that was advertising. That's good to know. The containers are amortized over the 5year period of the transfer station, the curbside fund. So we didn't somebody pays their $460 this year or 620 next year or whatever the price. Okay. So we So we didn't buy the containers from Mega. Mega bought the containers. We're paying them back over five years.

Thank you very much. So again, being part of the solid waste committee, I'm just trying to get my head wrapped around new prices. When I go to that when I go to that um page nine, it shows me that um it also still shows me that um when I go to 17, we have an 814,000 $570 expense, but we only collected $285,43 in the new fund. And I don't understand that. which then the business activity is down minus 529,167. And when we when you roll through that complete transfer station estimate and you get to page 24, it's basically pages 17 through 24, by the way, with nine being the word explanation for the funds. you'll get to the $86,000 negative net position that that in in the original fund on on the December 20 22 file was at at minus $152,000. So I am very confused but elated that we don't have a $370 sticker price. The third thing I want to Hang on a second. Let's let's just answer that question first before we go on to the next cuz we're you're going back and forth between transfer station and curbside and we haven't gotten to

No, I'm just I'm just mentioning what's in the statement in the audit. Sir, I'm not bouncing between programs. Let's let's clarify the 5 - 529. So, um it I think it's important to look at page 25. That's where we see the net position at the beginning of the year versus the end of the year. And you will see which report? Um, it would be the same for both reports. It would be the same for both reports. Let me see if I have page 25. I do have page the same. I do have page 25.

So, in the original report for the transfer station, the net position showed um an operating surplus of 291,000. after we realized that 377,000 was collected in deferred revenue. That is where the 86,000 deficit was apparent. So, trying to find it on this page. Boy, I'll tell you, I wish I made copies for everybody because we could all be looking at this today up on the screen. You just can't see it from where you're standing. They're following along.

That's good. But when I looked at the when I looked at the when I looked at the old report, that's where it said it was minus 152,000. The third line up where we're now declaring uh this this number right here, the 529, 167 or the 86. This row right here is 291. Which row is that? On the 67, the transfer station side. It's this guy. No, that guy. This guy here, that's 291 167. That's 443167. This is minus 152,

which match which matches the word of a deficit that was on page nine. So the only change here was capturing the deferred revenue.

Correct. The deferred revenue was was in the 2024 audit. And again because you guys are consistent in your MDNA uh representation that you said the business activities increase in the town net position uh increased by $317,577. That money is what I thought should have rolled into the 25 audit and not caused the deficit. There was no deferred revenue in FY24 because that sticker ran 18 months. So the reason for

So why so why did you why did we declare on page nine of the 24 $317,577 as a increase in a net position which to me is a revenue position positive in 24. Mr. Kess in the future, please allow her to finish her statement before starting your next question. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. So, let's hear the qu let's hear the answer fully out then.

Too many papers. You already asked the question on page nine. On page nine on the which report are you looking at? On page nine on the 2024 audit. That's when we collected the extra money. That was the the 18mon sticker. Please give me a minute while I pull up the 25th audit.

So, so this the line states is that what you're looking for? without me going back to the FY24 audit right now because I'm privy to the 25

the 300 from us from April

which would have been applied to the 18-month sticker, which was over at that point in time, but it was the surplus from the 18-month sticker that we hadn't expended. It was revenue we took in, but it didn't roll to the next year. That's the way I read your audit. I I'm I can be wrong. It's cool. It it it doesn't leave the enterprise fund. I I didn't say it did, right? So, the money rolled over there. The money The money's there. It rolled over the expenses. Yep. To a point. And apparently, and I hate accounting because it's a pain in the neck, but apparently

I only tried to within $3,000. Apparently, we're $86,000 short over the course of the past 17 years of doing a transfer station. That's all it comes down to. Okay. I I it's you know, you say if we're close if we're in five grand, you're okay. Well, we've got 17 years of five grand. So, that means we're well into it with 86,000. Well, we've never been out this much before. Maybe the bookkeeping is getting better.

I think a lot of the bookkeeping is getting a lot better. And I think the big change going from fiscal from calendar to fiscal year messed up a lot of things in terms of that will be covered and cleaned up this year including So I have one so I have one more question Mr. President. Yes sir. The audit that we that we received for the audit meeting. Yes. And approved and put on record. Is that what went to the state? Yes. But it was restated and sent again.

That's correct. without without you approving it in this in this room and placing it on file. The new the new record. I don't believe the council approves. We don't just I thought you approve I thought you received it on file. We don't approve the audit. It's approved by the auditor the general. Thank you much Mr. President.

Thank you sir. Appreciate it. Any further questions on the transfer station? We're not going to make any votes tonight to set a sticker fee because again it is a enterprise fund which does not affect the overall general budget or the mill rate going forward. Mr. Gleason,

I want to try a different tact here. Um, obviously the $86,000 deficit was concerning that we just found out about it. Um, sure Kayla didn't feel too good about it either, but it is what it is. Um, the transfer station sticker ending up at if it ends up at $330 is still a reasonable increase, but could we not gain the $86,000 by um looking at eliminating a gate guard? One possible option. Initially, I thought that a lot of the money that was missing, so to speak, was as a as a a result of money that was taken in by, you know, by our tax department for stickers for calendar year starting in 25 while we were in the $380 sticker period of of 18 months. And I thought it was just rolled into the general fund. So, I'm hearing that's not the case. So there's no way to pull there's no extra money in the general fund from this error, right? It's just past mistakes.

That's correct. Okay. Yeah. So correct. It does it doesn't go into the rainy day fund. Let's let's use rainy day when we're talking about rolling things over. So that's that's not makes life easier, I think. Yeah.

So um the other thing is um going back to a a part-time uh waste management program director. We could save some money there. So, I just throw those options out for this council to consider. Um, and when I say a gate guard, I mean somebody that works for MIGA, there's two people up there now. We could go to one person with the truck driver that shows up every other day or whatever his schedule is, and that would help fund the sticker at the lower price. You'd get down to back to 290 or $300 again by taking that 86,000 deficit out. But I think I just throw it out. I think our bigger concerns are going to be with curbside. So, we want to move on to that.

I think Mr. Fitz Morris has a question on the transfer station, I'm sure. But, uh, I I think the first thing we would have to look at is that contra contractually allowable under the contract we have with waste diversion. It's technically not MIGA, but it is MA waste connections. Thank you. I know it's waste something. I I I agree with you. I think he's just considered an extra man. Well, contract would have to be reviewed. We have to review it. Yep. And I just throw it out to take a look at it. Mattel,

and and I'd just like to add that I think um when the ad hoc committee continues in its work in those two areas, both Headley and curbside, those kind of things will probably come to the forefront. That's my They could be part of recommendation. Yeah. Yeah. with the thought process that the recommendation if you don't finish soon enough would be for the following fiscal year because we have to do a budget before June. It will be done. Mr. Fitz Morris.

Thank you, Mr. President. Larry Fitz Morris, 50 Christristen Court. Um, this is a 10% increase um, year-over-year in the sticker price as I calculate it. And from what I've heard, we believe that we've reached something of a accounting stability in the calculations here. But I'm presuming that the 10% includes bringing us whole on the deficit. Is that correct? That is correct. So the next year we should not expect a 10% increase. Okay. Assuming the same number of signups. Yes. All things being equal. Correct.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions on the transfer station? Mr. Kassen, you're going to limit me to the transfer station. That's going to be bad. But I want to ask one question. Um, curbside pickup and we're we're thinking about a new cost for prudence. Another way to do cost. Mhm. It's been the experience in Middletown that we've only had an 80% um dissipation rate. Middletown's program and our program are completely different. Stop.

Middletown's program and our program are completely different.

They are. But we've but we're only experiencing an an 80% participation rate. If that happens in these self-supporting funds, right, the two maybe three because I don't know whe whether you're going to take any recommendations coming from the ad hoc committee. I don't know whether they have any other than a a little bit better bookkeeping which we're finding out already. But the question is when they run short. Okay. And and there was a letter here. I didn't make it to the last meeting. There's a letter circulating that's going to be sent out. Can payment be demanded in terms of if at the end of the fiscal year?

Anytime. Anytime. It would have to be the end of the fiscal year. If there was a deficit in the enterprise fund, we could send a letter out to the existing enterprise fund users to say, "Hey, we're running a deficit. You owe us another 10 bucks." Is that your question? Well, no. It's the people that aren't participating because because in the audit, we have we we have a letter we are sending out to the 1,200 households that aren't in the either one. Again, in the audit, there's 816 businesses. I can see where 816 businesses would not participate. businesses aren't required to rep participate in the enterprise fund

and neither are curbside but but we're requiring our residents if they're part of that 816 to participate. So I guess my question to you Mr. president to ask legal would be if in fact we develop a fee and nobody pays we have nonparticipant but they're also not causing anything can we demand payment from them because it's not a tax Mr. President, are you talking about prudence or you talking about I'm talking about I'm talking about prudence. I'm talking about the transfer of when you're suggesting if we have a deficit in any of our funds.

No, I'm not suggestion. I'm asking can we demand payment and and and I I get a legal opinion. You ask the lawyer if if that's possible because that may be some of our deficit. I don't know. So your question is it it as you said I'm trying to not put words in your mouth because I don't want to but we have 1,200 households who aren't participating on I don't believe it's that high but go ahead. Okay. We have 1,200 households that are not participating in either the curb side or the transfer station. We're going to leave prudence out of it. Your suggestion is if we have a deficit send them all a bill.

No, that wasn't my question. That sounded like my question. My question was, are we legally according to the solid waste because it's not a tax. We can't sell the house. It's a fee. Can we require them to pay? So now you're asking, can we put a lean on a house? Nope. Nope. Okay. The answer is no. I don't think there's I don't think there's a there's a there's there's not a mechanism in the ordinance for us to go after somebody if they don't pay or they don't join one of them.

Enterprise funds are intended to be user fees and and I think once you move from a voluntary user fee to a mandatory payment, I think you're bleeding into the world of taxes. Um and I and uh you'd have to budget it differently, I would think. Um we probably also need enabling legislation. And you'd probably need enabling legisl Right. your your the general assembly allows you to levy real property and and personal property taxes, but it doesn't allow you to I don't think at least not that I've seen assess mandatory fees um across the the full spectrum of residents. So I think you can assess it as you know as enterprise funds always do they assess it to the users. Uh it's the goal of those funds. They they assess to the participants

correct voluntary participants. Correct. Thank you. Okay, now we're going to move on to curbside as quickly as we can because we still have an executive session after this. Okay, so if they can just don't want to be here till midnight.

Okay, so with respect to curbside year end, this program is operating as designed uh but as alluded to participation is below projections which is affecting the financial outcome. So, as we close out the first year of the program, we're seeing results that are generally consistent with how a new program like this tends to perform in the first year. We projected approximately 4,000 households would participate in the program, and as of today, we have approximately 3,225. That gap in participation is the primary factor affecting the financial performance of the program. The program itself is operating as designed. Routes are being serviced, collections are occurring as scheduled and the contract is being executed as intended. The cost of the operating system does not decrease significantly with fewer describers subscribers because the same routes are run, the same equipment is used and the same staffing is required. So when participation is lower than projected, the cost is spread out across fewer households. That's an enterprise fund. We are also seeing indicators that indicator indications that waste volumes are higher than expected relative to participation and recycling levels are lower than anticipated. That suggests that participation and usage behavior are both factors in the current results. This again this is not unusual for a firstear program. It's typical uh that a program takes some time for participation levels uh to equalize and usage patterns to stabilize. As we move into the next fiscal year, the focus will be on increasing participation, improving waste diversion, and continuing public outreach. So, in summary, the program is functioning as intended, but participation levels are below projections which are impacting the financial income. So, this program because uh we did not meet

the 4,000 anticipated households uh and including the pre-expended uh advertising costs which will uh are accounted for obviously in the very top uh which will be accounted for next cycle uh in the uh deficit. So, this program for this year ended with a uh $234,993,000 deficit. So if we move on to the projected budget. So as with the transfer station again this is an enterprise fund which means that the cost of the program is supported entirely by the voluntary users of the program. Based on current projections, the proposed annual subscription cost is approximately $620 per household, which reflects an increase of $160 over the current year. And again, the primary cause of that increase uh is participation. We projected approximately 4,000 households will participate. We currently have approximately 3,225 households enrolled. So that is the number that we used in projecting the sticker price. we don't see uh without a huge influx of people which we would be happy to see uh but we we think it's prudent to use that same number and projecting the cost of the sticker for next year. So the cost of this program is now being spread across roughly 7 to 800 fewer households than anticipated and the operating cost of the system has not changed in any meaningful way though. So with fewer participants the cost per household increases. We also believe that some level of shared use is contributing to this gap. It's also important to keep in mind that the current program provides weekly trash collection, weekly recycling collection, and seasonal yard waste collection. And

even with the proposed increase, the cost remains below what many residents were paying prior to the implementation of this curbside program. This is the first full year of the program. I mean, and again, I just want to state it's not uncommon to see adjustments in participation levels as uh this thing stabilizes. And just to reiterate, uh going forward, our focus will be on increasing participation, improving recycling rates, and continuing public outreach and education. That letter to non-participating households that we discussed earlier as part of that effort. So the proposed fiscical year 27 price reflects the actual cost of operating the program under current participation levels and positions us to stabilize the program moving forward. So moving forward, uh obviously if we're programming 300 3,225 households, uh there's and we had thought we were going to get five or 4,000 this year. Next year we're only going to budget uh or factor in 3,225 households. This should stabilize and uh it should be expected that we we would see a drop in the curbside sticker cost next year. So, the proposal is a curbside sticker cost of it came out to 322 or $622. We would propose $620 to round it off. So, to to recap some of the highlights or low lightss, uh we're 800 short of roughly 1,200 households that haven't signed up. Prior to the switch, we know Waste Management had about 3,000 households and MIGA had about a thousand households and then a bunch of other smaller ones scattered in there. So, we know that there were over 4,000 people utilizing curbside pickup prior to this program. The thought process was a lot of people were just going to bail and go to the transfer station, which didn't happen because the number at the transfer

station has also gone down. The amount of trash we're throwing out by industry averages curbside is over what was expected for 4,000 households, but we only have 300 3,200 households. So, we can only reasonably assume that there's a lot of barrel sharing and sticker sharing going on and a lot of extra waste is being tossed in without being paid for. That's plain and simple as I see it. Anybody can try and prove me wrong, but that's what's happening out there. Miss Carcella, you're going to try and prove me wrong, but I'm going to disagree with you.

Chris Carceller, 63 Leaps Road. It's March Madness and I guess I'm participating because it's March and I'm pretty mad about a 35% increase for curbside pickup. As many of you know, I was never in favor of our town getting involved in curbside garbage pickup. I spoke to both the previous council and this one asking you not to enter into this contract for several important reasons. One of my business biggest concerns was the assumption that 4,000 households would sign up for curbside service. I told you then that this number was unrealistic. I personally know many residents who do not use curbside pickup and for good reason. Some are not full-time residents and take their trash with them when they leave. Some elderly residents I know rely on family members since they can't leave the house. Some business owners dispose of waste at their workplaces. Others share services simply because they cannot afford the cost. So you're not wrong. I don't blame any of these people. They are doing what they need to do. And despite being told I should be frustrated with them, I am not. My frustration lies with the decision to move forward with a contract based on numbers that were never accurate to begin with. I actually don't see any less or more garbage cans in the five neighborhoods that I walk every single day. Everybody who had curbside before has curbside now. So, I don't know where these numbers were coming from. Now, we are being asked to accept a 35% increase in curbside pickup from 460 to 622 a year. Why? because the original projections were wrong and now residents are being asked to make up the difference on top of paying even more going forward. This is exactly what I warned you that would happen. And here's something else that doesn't make sense. Before this contract, many residents using Mega Waste Manage and others, including myself, were paying around 450. I paid less. Now, Mega has

significantly more customers through this townwide contract. So logically, prices should be going down for them, not skyrocketing. Instead, we're seeing a 35% increase. That's hard to justify, and frankly, it's concerning. I spent 25 years doing business with Waste Management. Every year, I negotiated my rate. If I were ever faced with a 35% increase, I would have had the freedom to walk away and find a more affordable option. But under this contract, residents no longer have that choice. We are locked in. And also, we are locked in. They don't get a military discount any longer and they don't get a senior discount any longer. We are locked in. Um, my family chose curbside for the convenience. It was one of the services we paid for to save time. Now we're being priced out of it. Some council members previously mentioned the possibility of incorporating garbage costs back into taxes. Maybe now is the time to seriously consider that even if it's not the full cost. Perhaps a portion could be covered to provide relief both for those using curbside and those relying on the transfer station. You're talking about mandating people who are not voluntarily using these programs. This is how you get them to help pay. You don't send them letters and beg them to do it. You put it through the taxes like they used to be here in town. With this kind of increase, many residents will leave curbside service. I did a Facebook poll. 7% of the people said they will be leaving curbside to go to transfer station. My family will be one of them. Others may stay for now, but how long before they too reach their limit? This pattern is not sustainable over the next four years under the current contract. I also asked last year for a comprehensive survey of every residents to determine how many people actually handle their waste, curbside, transfer station, or other. That request was dismissed with asurances that the numbers were already

known. Clearly, they were not. And now the cost of that miscalculation is being placed on the residents who voluntarily use the service. It's not voluntary when you want to use curbside because you only have one choice now. That's it. It's not voluntary. There are also operational concerns. We were told that issues would be handled through the town. Yet residents are now being directed to contact the contractor directly despite not having individual contracts with MTG. That lack of clarity needs to be addressed in the future. Who is responsible for helping our residents when problems arise. At the end of the day, this comes down to affordability and fairness. People are already struggling with rising costs. Gas is through the roof. Heating oil is through the roof. Electricity is insane in Rhode Island. And now we're adding significant increases for basic services like garbage. If you think people are sharing services now, just wait until next year. It's time to consider solutions that support this community. Whether that means resid revisiting how garbage is funded, renegotiating terms, cutting a $48,000 truck we pay for at a curbside, or simply acknowledging that this model is not working. Something needs to change. Our town should be helping its residents, not placing additional burdens on them. So, I ask you not to approve this curbside pickup sticker price, which is an increase of 35%. And I have a quick question about the budget I just saw. It says, um, you know, curbside pays 67% of the employee. Um, with our numbers down, is that number changed from last year or did it stay the same?

Um, it stayed the same. So, we're applying 2/3 to curbside, one/3 to But what is So, how many transfer station people now and curbside numbers do we have? Is that number appropriate for the coming year? Uh, that's a good question. We can relook at the ratio. Okay. 3225 for curb size for programming and we're looking at uh 2,200 about for uh uh transfer station. So it's it's it's a good point.

So if we could look at that to make sure it's even so people in one program aren't paying for people in the other. But I still I I I would ask this council to re look at not I know you can't put it all back in the taxes. Maybe we could put a portion of it. Give people a chance. There there's people who cannot pay $622 a year, but they can't also get in their card and go to the transfer station. We need to think about everybody. And if we're going to think about everybody goes in the taxes, everybody pays. Everybody benefits. That's how we used to have it. I wish we went back to that. Mr. Boyd,

Scott Boyd, uh 12 Kensington Avenue. sometimes say 20 because I lived there for so long, but now at 12. The truck, I asked about the truck in the past, so I'll ask about the truck again. That's in this budget at 4,000 a month. Who drives the truck, a town employee or a mega employee? Mega. It's a small truck. This truck was added uh because they needed a small truck. We asked for service on small inaccessible roads and private roads. They couldn't do it with the same size truck that they service other trucks with. Uh so at our request, this truck was added to service those customers.

It was not in the contract that they would also service these inaccessible locations from the get-go. No, it was an add-on. Okay. Well, that would explain it, but I thought it was originally in the request for proposal that we would uh service 70 odd homes that were inaccessible. That's different. That's that's seniors. Okay. Than than so private different animals. Okay. Right. There there are 75 that have Right. We we had like a set aside in the contract, I believe, to anticipate that there were going to be some number of citizens that weren't able-bodied enough to get their bins, right, where they needed to be, right? Okay. So, that doesn't really have anything to do with the truck,

right? The truck is more to access the roads that the big truck can't get down, right? Okay. and we're paying for it as a line item only because we didn't think to put it in the original RFQ and get it built into the program, right? We could have built it into the program said you have to add you have to come up with a solution to get to every property right at the RFQ stage. So when we do this again in three years, maybe we look at addressing that, rolling it in so that it isn't this separate line item that I'm going to keep picking that because it just doesn't feel right. Thank you.

Oh, and as far as who can you send a bill to and demand that they pay, we we went through that, Mr. Kesson, that was a healthc care thing. Healthcare. Mr. Carcell.

Hey, Sal Carceller, 63 Leaps Road. Entertain me for a minute. Um, this is just a sanity check. So, one of the premises of tax relief is to have businesses in in the town, right? Lower residential taxes with businesses, lower residential taxes by other means. The garbage program right now doesn't take advantage of that. It doesn't do any of that. It actually puts the entire burden on those families that can afford it the least. So, I did some numbers, but I want to I want to verify them. Um, is our budget roughly $78 million for the year? Current budget? Yes.

Okay. How much do we spend all in? I I don't need all the little just all in. How much does if you were if if you were to pay all the bills for the transfer station and curbside, what would be the total cost? I came up with my number, but I want to know if I'm right. Roughly 2.2 or is it 2.3? That's what I came up with. 2.3 looking at the current budget. That would require just just I'll go down the rabbit hole you're going down. Hold on. To maintain current services and put that put all of that trash into the current budget would require roughly a 10 or 11% tax increase in one year.

Okay. It's okay. That's not why I'm doing this. I'm doing this to show the ludicr. So let's round it to 2.5 million all in. Let's assume that we're off few hundred,000 allin cost for garbage in Portsouth for both curbside and transfer stations. 2.5 million. If I add 2.5 million to a $78 million budget, it becomes 80.5 million. That's a 3.2% increase to the budget. I know where you're coming from, President Hamilton, that we have other increases. I get that. I'm not doing this for that purpose. I'm doing

It's not just other increases. You can't just add it to the topline budget. You have to add it to our where we get our taxes from. So, we can only go up a certain percentage, which is four of the tax levy. So, in order to get that $2.5 million, it's a lot more than that 3.5. I get that. Ju just entertain. I I understand all this.

So now for those listening today, if you have a $5,000 tax bill and you add 3.2% to a $5,000 tax bill, it's 160 bucks a year. If you add 3.2% to a $10,000 tax bill, it's $320 a year. If you add 3.2% to 200 to a $20,000 tax bill, it's 640 a year. However, if you had that $5,000 tax bill at $160 a year, you would be entitled to use the transfer station and the curbside both. Think about that deeply. What are you really doing here to the residents that use the curbside? And you're worried about participation. Participation would be automatic. So, I go back to my wife's point Christine made. I hear you. I keep hearing this argument, we can't put it into the taxes. Well, we better start. I'm not saying put it all in, but I think it's a wonderful idea to revisit maybe put 20% in, 10% this year. Come up with a plan to put this garbage back in its place the way it was in t in the taxes where everybody pays their fair share. You um the administrator mentioned how to distribute costs. I can't think of a better way to distribute costs. The costs are distributed based on your property value. If if the town wants to be in the business of town services, they need to be done at property value. That's all I'll say. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Any other questions, concerns? Mr. Cassen, which page on the budget or the audit do we have to go to? That one. Okay. I'm just trying to anticipate it. You won't get there. All right. You pulling up the mic a little bit on the curbside pickup and and the transfer station. Pull the pull the mic up a little bit. You're a little bit tall. Cassing 3241 East Main Road. So on the curbside pickup and the transfer station, do do the costs include any fuel charges? Cuz in the ad hoc committee, we started seeing as in fuel search charges from

Yeah, they ended up being pretty big and I don't have my uh laptop with me. We were getting fuel charges for the ferry. We're get we're I think we're getting fuel charges from Lawrence. I think the bigger issue with the ferry is the new rates that they want to charge. They haven't had an increase in 10 years. Agreed. Can you imagine if we did that with the taxes? Sell with cell. We're sell. We probably wouldn't have a police or a fire department. You only need them on a bad day. Yeah. Or maybe or maybe the blizzard once every hundred years.

We needed more than just them. But so have have we started seeing any fuel search charges? That's incorporated into the escalator that's built into the curb side. So the curbside has an escalator of the CPIU for garbage, waste, sewer, trash. That was 4.7. The transfer station, that contract does not include an escalator. So that that cost is fixed. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Yes. All right. Yeah. I just wanted You turned it on and off and on again, so I just wanted to make sure you really Okay.

I just wanted to get back to the um the truck question. I think originally the truck was part of the contract. Correct. And then it was taken out. Is that correct?

No. Um the plan was they did a survey of the roads, the roads that they could do, the roads that they couldn't do. And the roads that they couldn't do, the plan was that those people would transport their bins down to uh the nearest big road that a truck could get down, much like Middletown does it. Uh we were asked to try to accommodate those residents. So the only way that Mega could accommodate those residents was to get a smaller truck. uh and we had agreed to that because we wanted to be able to offer this service to those people.

So it wasn't in the contract and then taken out for us, right? I mean it wasn't originally in the contract and that was an addendum. Well, you're you're asking if it was excuse me or not in the contract but originally in the RFP. Yes. Yes. And I I I believed it was right. Well, the RFP became the contract. Really have to go back and look at it. I think I I I don't know. I remember this discussion about the truck and then when the truck when the five when it we we still own the truck, correct? Or we don't? We do not. But we bought it

incorporated into the contract price. That is the cost of the truck per year. That's something funny. That's the lease. All right. Do you need any action from us at this point for the curbside sticker fee? Like you to both. Okay.

I just I just want to make a couple comments. Uh the increase last last time last year the refues and the u recycling costs were 618 excuse me 590,500. they have increased to 618,25350 per program per refu or recycling and that is that is $56,000 alone you know and we can expect that for every year due to the CPI um adder that's in the contract just part of the contract yeah it's you know CPIU number as of December 31st each year we don't have any control over that right

Mr. pick up. Yeah, this this was a question that I had when we um looked at Headley, but in in our um backup here. It's a minor question, but there's different um amounts attributed to truck uh tires. There's a 250 for in one, there's a uh $21 for another, and a $10. They're all three different prices. Is that in a trans? Depends on the I'm not sure which budget you're looking at, but there is a different fee for different size tires. Yeah, there's truck and there's regular. There's truck and regular. And then

but truck tires, shouldn't they be consistent across the board? It depends on how many we're going to receive. We try to forecast how many you're going to receive. So, year end, we have a number and then we try to figure out how we forecast how many we're going to get. No, but it's a it's a it's an amount that's attributed to the quantity, you know, for it appears for individual ones. No. Right. But people pay for attire. Right. So it it it it doesn't affect the sticker fee because it should just it's it's a guesstimate of how many are going to come in. People pay the cost to remove the tire individually. Correct. Okay. I'll show you what

I I No, I understand what you're saying, but it doesn't affect the sticker price because the sticker price is paying for more of the refuge than to remove the I know that, but when we're doing our work in the ad hoc, I mean, we have to have the right figures. That's all I'm saying. They had three different ones. Mr. Castle. Mr. K again. So, Mary, there are two different prices for for tires. One is passenger size and then a truck tire. And a truck tire, correct? But the truck tire along with the three different scenarios have a different price associated with each one. That's all I'm saying. It's it's a small amount. It's a very small amount of revenue. It is. I'm just saying it's

the truck tires are now $21. That's I think what you're saying. The truck tires are now. How come it's not in all of them? How come you know it it doesn't reflect that in all of them? All of them. What?

There's 21. The $21 was a data entry error by one of my clerks. It was for three blue bins. It comes under the I'm sorry. It comes under the transfer station miscellaneous costs. That's all it is. The tires are consistent. They have two prices. $21.

$21. I'm just saying different prices. That's all.

Okay. Any further discussion on we're going to move away from the transfer station. How we got back there, I don't know. But we're talking about curbside at 620. Were we rounding down to 620 or we rounding up to see if we keep it at 622? Just I've just found what uh councelor McDall's looking at. So the $10 fee did not get raised to $21 in that discussion item for Headley with the Prudence Island and we'll make sure that gets corrected.

Thank you very much. Yeah. Does the council have any opinion or would like to make a motion to approve the $620 sticker fee for the curbside for the next fiscal year?

Mr. President, I certainly wouldn't like to. I really feel bad for those folks. You know, we're in we're in a position now where we This goes back to 2022. I wasn't on the council. 2020. Yeah. um case being made that we went to larger containers, we got rid of the orange bags and uh we we are not hitting any kind of recycling rates. Um and I don't know if that needs to come back into the discussion. We're 22% right now for curbside. We're at 32%. Um, and that, you know, looking at I didn't look at these latest numbers, but this 50 50 pounds of trash per month on the curb side, that's more than there is on the transfer side, you know. So, we need what whatever we do here, we need more education in town. Um, the money that we get from Ryre has dwindled down to a lot smaller amount and and I don't know if we're going to make the same kind of money that we have budgeted in here. I get it, Mr. Rainer. It's a guess. You You know, nobody has a crystal ball here. But, you know, my my plea is out there that we need to do more as a town to

you know, get our rates up higher. And um you know, if we're sticker sharing, we need to do something about that as well. Maybe that's the reason there's more trash in there. I I I don't know. But but you know, the trash numbers are pretty accurate in terms of how much a household uses. Yeah. The fact that we are well over the tonnage for 4,000 households means that we are certainly getting refuge into multiple multiple households into one bin. There's no other way. I guess or we're just not recycling. I I don't know that that that's definitely part of it. But all of those changes that you mentioned this the 96 gallon bins

y and not doing pages throw were all requests of the citizens who wanted to keep curbside right and you know the reality is if you go on to a website now and look at waste management it's $7425 if you wanted waste connections or one of those it was $243 a quarter it's still less expensive than the market price I agree and we can and will do better next year as things settle out as Mr. Rener has stated once everything kind of finds its level and I I don't have the stomach to go after um and a 90-year-old grandmother who throws out one bag a week,

but there are others who are legitimately not doing it the right way. Mr. Vice President Gleason, was that a motion that you It sounded like a reluctant motion. Yeah, it was wasn't a motion. I'm just I just I know we need to do something here. I just don't like the increase that we have for us and I don't want to be chastising the porch times for doing this because it wasn't my fault and I but there are other options. We could go to pay as throw at on curbside which would reduce the sticker fee and people would pay more. Yeah. Um, but would you use strength, right? Would hire would hire, right? Would require Colby to work harder. Um,

more cameras. Um, it would require it would hopefully force people more into thinking about what they're putting into the Yeah. the the the bin as opposed to putting into recycling bin. We could stop c yard waste. You know, we have more yard waste going up to the central landfill than any other city or town in in Rhode Island. How that is or why that is, I don't know. It's insane how much yard waste we send it. You know, we have we we have to borrow cap money, cap space from other towns because of the amount of yard waste we put out, you can you can recycle, you can compost.

Let's just go back. I'll let you give you a minute. the the subject of the pays to throw bags wasn't wasn't popular when we did it at the transfer station. It was a recommendation by the recycling committee, right? For a reason, you know, to reduce our waste and to increase the stream to pay for everything that it may be necessary here. If as a minimum, just look at it as a threat. If people aren't going to change and we need more money, it's an option that we have. Well, it's not that we need more money. It's it it it creates if you and I if you and I are sharing a bin and I got to buy the bags. Yeah.

It's a lot more expensive for me to pay a dollar a bag than it is to pay 350 for 20 bags. Right. So that revenue would increase that way. So it would if everybody was buying bags and doing it right. Correct. It would be a better program for everybody. It would be less expensive and and higher users would pay more money. But Mr. Mayor,

uh, thank you, Mr. President. I I'll be the one to make the reluctant motion, and I'm Yes, the sticker shock is something that I am concerned about, but you kind of hit the nail on the head when you said um what the average price is for waste management if we were all going um private. I was one of those people is paying the same amount. You and I live in the same neighborhood. Um my my only call to action would be is if you are not signed up please sign up. Uh the sharing we all have to then brunt the cost of it. We want to be able to next year drive the cost down but the only way we can do this is through utilization. I will say what you're getting for the price is great. There is weekly pickup, weekly recycling. The lawn is what probably for me is those of us that like probably mow weekly or every other week. Although Keith comes by my house all the time and tells me I need to mow more often. Um is absolutely amazing. What you're getting for the product is great. Yes, this is a sticker shock this year, but we need the utilization. That's my only thing that I will implore everyone to do. Um it is I I will do it reluctantly, but at the same time, the administrator needs disability in order to be able to present the budget on Friday. Um, so I will motion that we increase the uh the sticker to the recommended 620.

I have a question. Is there before you ask a question, is there a second? Second for second for discussion. Thank you, Mr. Gleas. Thank you. Now your question. Question. Um, have we looked at if we maintain the same sticker price as this current amount that delta and we put that into taxes? No, we if let's let's start with

we're up against the wall on the budget in general specifically because we just got hit with a 16% increase in in healthcare. Um, and we have to factor in a potential for a bond for school projects next year. So, we are already up against the wall at this point in time. To put anything more in is going to be difficult. I think if we wait one year, let the water find its level in terms of the curbside and and a transfer station. As I mentioned, they they both went the number of users for both services went down significantly in this town. We're down 140 roughly people at a transfer station and we're down 800 to,200 people depending on whose numbers you want to look at doing curbside. It's it is what it is. Once we get to a level at both facilities, then we could potentially start looking at rolling in whether it be $100,000 a year or $200,000 a year. But people going to have to start to make hard choices. I mean, it it's it's simple to use Sal's numbers, the $78 million and say it's 3%, but it's not because it's the what we can levy off of and that's where the money is coming from. It doesn't factor in all the other things. Our levy is $51 million. I'm sorry. Whatever it is, it's going up from that, not the $78 million. So, we're talking a 10, 11, 12% increase in one year if you want to just roll that in.

Just the delta, not the delta, the whole kitten koodle. Yeah. I'm saying not not the whole kitten koodle, just the delta to to maintain another year at at a similar price. Yeah. Well, but would you do the same thing? You would have to do the same thing for the transfer station users and say we're going to maintain that $ 290 and cover the $40 or or $30, whatever it ends up being. Yes. That that's what I'm wondering. That that that would also probably create a structural deficit for the next year. No. Well, yeah. No, because No, because if you you would have to maintain that in that.

Yes, you would have to maintain it, but you're talking about when it comes to utilization and those numbers the way that the enterprise fund is structured, you would have to maintain that every year. you would have to take that $243,000 the number saying while we're getting started and while we're kicking off and an attempt to get more people signed up and to mitigate impact to citizens to maintain the same cost

you're you're talking about and I'm going to round $330,000 of taxpayer money to to close the gap on both funds 86 on the transfer and the 243 roughly on the curb side. That 300 thou you'll find out on Friday, but I don't think that $300,000 $330,000 exists. Not without going well over the cap. Because of because of the healthcare be because well the healthare

bond issues all kinds of cost you know contractual obligations. Yes, Mr. Very briefly, Keith Scott Boyd again, 12 Kensington. So, doing what Saunders proposing, everyone in the town will be paying whether they used a service or not. That may incentivize some of these people to then come into the programs. It might

at some point they're going to say, "I'm getting taxed for a little more money. I can actually use the service." And this might be the way that we bring it in over a number of years as these cost escalations come. If we take them from the if we build them into the budget and just hold the line on these costs as they are today over the years eventually. We're almost there. When we go to renegotiate this contract, then we really can work on the last piece of it. But we're starting to bite off more and more of it as we go. Well, one of the things that's going to happen at the end of the contract is is we own the barrels. That takes $42 off the top in five years. Great.

Yeah, that's good. I'm just saying conceptually, you know, what she's exploring there may be a way to start to get it in to the general tax base or and then to also make tip the scales for the people who are looking at it going, I don't want it with me. But we have to do it in the context of the entire budget. Yep. I understand. we see the entire budget. No, and I understand that you've got tough everything else in the budget competes with it. But I'm just saying it's a concept that's worth exploring. Like the way I'm hearing it from the audience tonight, you guys are voting on a motion that's just going to establish that next year curbside is this new project. We have to establish a number at some point. Right. We do, but I'm not I wasn't expecting it was going to be tonight again because

But we can also Yeah. direct staff to look into those options to see how they would fit into the budget. Right. when we also have a committee looking into all these options. Where's the line when the council doesn't come back and redisuss it? Is is there a point at which it'll be discussed during the budget process, right? So, it could be modified more throughout the budget process, right? If you if you move this motion tonight, it's not done. It's not dead. Committee is going to come back with written recommendations, but we need to start placing numbers in the budget. Move the budget

process. to echo what the president said, that's exactly just to give the administrator a number to work with. I think that I'd rather go high and come down from it than us doing it the other way around. Mr. Cassid, I'm going to ask you to hold on a second because Miss Gle Miss Gleason is holding. Absolutely.

Thank you, Keith. Uh Karen Gleason again, 63 Masses. Uh I caution you. I I believe you're getting off track a little bit when you're starting to talk about putting it into taxes. Um but I will just add to that there were people in the past that um you know wanted to close the station transfer station. So I caution people thinking about rolling it into the tax base because it could possibly lead to only choosing one venue and not having two as an option. So I just want you to try to remember that going forward. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, Mr. C.

One of these crazy out of the box um proposals. You only said that uh containers were $41,000. Is that what they were on a yearly? No, a yearly basis. Oh, on a yearly basis. It's it's it I'm trying to remember off top my head from the proposal last year. It's it's 42,000 per container per year. So, times two. So 84,000 here, right? But but I would suggest instead of doing because nobody wants to do B 137,000 137 per year. Okay.

Right. So 137 per year. Um we haven't looked at curbside in the ad hoc. Our recycling rates are pretty high or are pretty low. We also have a $2,500 rebate in this that we probably won't get in this curbside price, but um maybe we will. Is it is is it easier to force people to buy in when you actually use a smaller container? We own the containers at this point. I understand that. So, so collect them, collect them, store them, and buy more containers

and buy smaller and buy smaller ones because it's an investment as opposed to So, now you're you're going to be adding We're going to go I don't know what the number is. To a 75% increase. I'm just guessing at a number, but it's No, I'm not saying bill them. I'm saying have the have the town buy in so we force recycling. I don't know what that number means. That number means a lot. If you're talking about buying I thought it was only 41,000 when I heard you in the back of the room. That's that's a yearly cost. Yes. Okay. I'll go to sleep again.

And then Mr. Kesson also for those that were moving from waste especially waste management the size tote that we have was the equivalent. So it wouldn't have it would incentivize people to join because things would have been all things would have been all things equal. Sorry, I'm getting tired now. Right. And I get that. But there was a mass study out. It's in the It's in the correspondence and it says like page throw bags,

unless you're forced to make a decision, you're not going to recycle. And if we had 36 gallon containers, all right, they would force it to be in the recycle bin rather than throw it in the waste. And maybe we wouldn't have 4,400 people producing waste based on the waste number. and we really only would have 3,200 people that are that are actually participating. I don't know what the number is. I'm trying to say there's another solution. I misread um Keith's cost at 41,000. I didn't realize that was a a year rather than for the full containers. If that would force the recycling and the covers were interchangeable as they got damaged, you could then recoup the cost of the containers we own now. All right, let's start. We have a motion and a second. I think it was a reluctant motion and a reluctant second. But

can I just ask for clarification on the motion? Would that motion be considered a placeholder at this time? Is that your intention? Well, I think anything's a placeholder. Everything in the budget is a placeholder. That's just to be clear.

I mean, we still have the ad hoc committee to come back and if other information comes forward that can make us lower this, like I said, we could If if we kicked out yard waste, it would lower the price, but I think a lot of people would be upset about that because a lot of people want the yard waste. We have asked about um weekly waste and bi-weekly recycling, but we need a sister community to be able to do that with, and we don't have one. Meaning they do Porsche even weeks and they go to Bristol, the art weeks. That makes sense. not saying Bristol but just because they're across the bridge and we talked about them tonight. So we staff continues on a daily basis. Colby, Rich, Gavin, and Paul are looking at ways to try and cut the costs. The biggest thing to me is we have to figure out why we have over 4,000 households of trash and only 3,200 households signed up. That's it. And go I'll go back to the same numbers. We reduced the number of people at the transfer station even though it was supposed to explode because of the curbside contract. Waste management said they picked up they had to pick up 6,000 bins which means they have 3,000 customers. MIGA told us they had a,000 customers. We already have 4,000. And then you had Jamestown, Republic Waste Innovations and other companies in there that easily had another 500 600 customers. So there are customers out there who are doing something with their trash other than taking it to work, taking it to Cape Cod, taking it to um you know, whatever.

I think a reasonable path forward is to uh I know we were reluctant before, but to consider the pay as you throw for curbside. That's another option as well. Um we and we could we can pass the 620 and give suggestions to staff to come back with numbers and the ad hoc committee is working on it as well. Yes. And and also request the administration to just to look at that subsidized method to keep the transfer station and curbside rates the same or mitigate some of the increase. So to to cover the deficit in both with taxpayer money between pay as you throw and cons considerations of looking into that

that's pay as you throw is separate from the consideration of covering the gaps with taxpayer money taxpayer taxes. If we do both, I feel like we'll increase

I if I can just interject here, I don't want to lead anybody down a primrose path. I'm turning in a budget on Friday. As of tonight, we're over the cap. There's there's no capability to do this in this next budget. I got to figure out how to cut $100,000 out of this budget between now and Friday morning. Would would adding pay as you throw help you?

No, because that's it's an enterprise. So, this isn't this is independent. It pays for itself. And this year, it didn't. So, we have a motion and a second to set the sticker free for curbside at $620. We still have a full budget process and the ad hoc committee to come back with suggestions that may or may not lower it. both processes. All in favor? I

I opposed. Motion passes four to three. New business number 9A. Miss McDow would like to request a prorated price of 50 bucks for the last three months of the year for Prudence. Well, I I think what I'm going to do is this this wasn't my agenda item. I did bring the uh option that Prudence Island brought to the committee with a pro-rated, but apparently, you know, it's been discussed with Mr. Rener and his staff to do the 50, which I think is a great idea, but this this, you know, was not done by me. Thank you.

It just says your name on it. No, I said well I just want councelor McDall did discuss with me a proposal to implement a graduated monthby-month prorated fee for the remainder of the year. I discussed this with John Spedaro. I discussed this with Matt Huff and a tax assessor that we all think it's a great idea. However, uh their comeback was to suggest just a $50 prrated pass uh from now to the end of the year. uh the approach is simpler to administer easier to implement. Uh it's still fair to the seasonal people that are coming back prior to the start of the next fiscal year and uh it it definitely avoids an unnecessary administrative burden. So we're all on the same page, but uh chair and the tax assessor are just recommending just make it a flat fee,

right? So whether I am a prudence island resident and I need a sticker for April, May, and June, I'm paying 50 bucks total. Just $50. If I pick it up June 1st when I come over or May 31st, it's $50. $50. Um, do we have a process in place for this? Um, but we'll have one by Wednesday.

And do you have any thoughts of what it might be? because I do think it's important to have a process that makes sense and not just another, you know, piece of paper that they get. Uh maybe when the letter that John sends out, maybe they can have a bottom the bottom of the letter where they fill it out and uh send in their check with the with a response. And maybe that would be uh one of the ways of doing it. Now the other thing is what are we going to use for to indicate that they have bought the pass? That's the other question that I have.

Yeah. I mean there's a couple ways we can skin the cat. I don't know off top of my head. I mean obviously we're going to be a temporary pass. I mean it's a simple placard or a piece of paper that says they paid. I mean, maybe DPW director might even have some ideas here. They share. Yeah. Matt does have enough stickers left that we could sell him a $50 sticker for the reag. You could. That's great. Great. Thank you. Uh John, he left. He's back. Are you there?

Yeah. I was just going to say, you know, this is a short-term thing. Um, following following on Paul Rodri's, um, I think we should use the same process we've used for the less than fully year pass. Um, and just have it purchased at the transfer station and and have a piece of paper that shows an expiration date of um, of June 30th and and simp simple at this point just to to make it work. Okay, we'll figure it out. And apparently we have enough stickers to do it and just give them stickers for the three months, one month, two months. So, is there a motion to approve the $50 prrated fee for Prudence Island for the rest of this fiscal year?

Second. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes seven to zero. Next up, we have our correspondence. Uh, is there anything on here that anybody wants to pull off? If not, speak now forever. Hold your peace. Somebody make a motion to receive and place on file items 1 through 18. So move that there there was one on here um related to the item the house bill that we didn't talk about. Should we still the 8029? Should we still receive it? Yeah, that's from that's from Chidan.

Okay. It's a it's a it's a specific enabling legislation just for TIV. So there's a motion and a second to receive all 18 items and place them on file. Second. First and a second over here. Carlson third. Okay. All those in favor. Opposed. Motion passes 7 to zero. Future meetings. We have our normal meeting on the 13th. On the 27th we'll have our initial town council meeting and also a overview of the budget. Mr. Mr. Rainer, are we doing revenues on that Monday night like we normally do? Yeah, we'll do revenues that Monday night. We'll do uh fire, police, DPW on Tuesday. And school.

Uh and then on uh Wednesday, we'll start with all the other departments. Okay. Uh the enterprise funds and special revenue and then we'll have the 30th if we needed it. Okay. And Mr. President, can I just note that um I've already talked to Mr. her about this, but I'll be out of town um out of the country for that week and so I will not be here during those budget meetings. Budget meetings are okay. I I I I was going to say if you feel like you need legal counsel, I'm sure we can solicit solicitor Mariss Larissa for that. But if you're going to be in Italy, you better bring us back something nice.

Vietnam. Never mind. Hot sauce. Vietnam. All right. We are now going to go into executive session under Rhode Island general law 42465A. sessions pertaining to collective bargaining and also litigation. Uh if we can I have a motion to go into executive session and then we'll have a fivem minute recess to clear. Second. All those in favor? I