Town Council - Regular Meeting

I'll call the August 4th, 2026 meeting to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for a moment of silence. Okay. Item number one, acceptance of meeting minutes, discussion and possible action vote with regard to the acceptance of meeting minutes from the meetings of May 29th, June 2nd, June 18th, and June 25th, 2026. We have a motion to accept. Motion has been made by Councilman Bacala, seconded by Councilman DiLorenzo. All those in favor, all those opposed, the ayes have it. Item number 2, Centerdale Manor Restoration Project. Mayor Lombardi would like discussion and possible vote on the Centerdale Manor Restoration Project Superfund site. Mayor?

Mr. Chairman, members of the Council, as you all are aware of the Centerdale-O'Neill-Kentucket Superfund cleanup, Just to give you an update, uh, I had asked and that Charlotte gray from the EPA. And David paying from Laurel engineering associates come here this evening. Uh, they need our permission for some of the properties there and also to give us a complete, uh, update as to the clean up there. So, if you may thank you.

Just state your name for the record please.

Hi, Charlotte Gray with the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Thank you. David Payne with Lorero Engineering Associates. Thank you.

Ready? Yeah. You want to start with kind of where we're at and then access agreements?

Sure. Yeah, so what brought us here today is looking for an access agreement to do some work along Mike SanClements, Allen Dell pond and liming mill pond so So you may be familiar with the Center dell manor restoration project. Mike SanClements, Since kind of 2018 performing party has been as a settle an agreement with EPA to perform the remediation, where the contractors that have been selected to do the work so we've been working towards. Investigating and remediating the site, which includes the center Dell manner and Brooke village apartments, um, which 1, which we've investigated and remediated so far. And then we have 3 other operable units, which we call Allen Dell pond. Um, and then the adjacent floodplain soils, um, the Oxbow area, which is large wetland, um, kind of behind Allen Dell mill apartments, um, and then Lyman mill pond and the adjacent floodplain soils. So we are getting ready to remediate Allendale Pond, which will involve the excavation of the sediment within the ponds and then the floodplain soils adjacent to it. With that, there are some town properties, particularly it's the ends of roads. So there's Aldrich, Centerdale Ave, Steer, a few others that will part of that is within the floodplain and that was contaminated by the site. So we'll be Excavating the end of the roads, um, it's very limited. It doesn't even really end up into the kind of the, the paved areas. Maybe slightly. Um, we'll have to excavate that and then we'll be restoring it. And then also some of the access for the along lemon mill pond is to just do some sampling at the end of the roads as well as survey, um, as we continue to investigation over the next couple of years. And then in the future, we'll be remediating, um. Those areas as well. So, kind of just the timeframe we're looking at is, we're hoping to start later this year with floodplain. So, I'll remediation. I don't tell pond, um, get into the pond itself next year. Um, and kind of looking at, uh, 2 years kind of per pond to excavate and. Restore, so kind of looking at the next 6 to 8 years to complete the investigation remediation and restoration of.

The site, thank you. Any questions. Councilman. Yeah, my only, uh, so that makes total sense to me. I'm all in favor of it. The only thing that. I would like to see in here is an identification and hold harmless. Provision if somebody gets hurt while they're doing work on town property, I want the time to be. Not liable and we get indemnified other than that. I don't have any issue with it.

Okay. Any other questions? Is there anyone here that would like to speak on this matter? Okay, do I have a motion to approve? with the requirement that comes from our tone of the identification identification and hold harmless. Yes, almost a motion has been made by consummate but the colors their second second second by council feel all those in favor all those opposed the eyes have it. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

The Marians. Number 3 zone change amendment town council to consider approval of an application from Smith realty LLC to amend article 2 section 203 use table of the zoning ordinance of the town of North Providence classified doggy daycare is permitted use in the CPCV and CG districts only. This application was advertised in the Providence Journal on February 6, 13th and 20th, 2026 for a hearing on this date. Is there anyone here? Now, this matter is going to be continued to the September meeting to have a motion to continue. Motion to be made by council, but college seconded by council reports you all those in favor. All those opposed. You guys have it. Proposed ordinance notice was given of a public hearing on this day, whereby the town council would consider passage of the following proposed ordinances item number 4 ordinance 26 dash 0, 0, 2 Z, in order to amending the town and off Providence zoning ordinance article 2 section 203 use table. This item is in connection with the previous zone change. Do I have a motion to continue this to the September meeting? So, 2nd motion been made by councilman second by councilman. All those in favor all those opposed the eyes have it. Item number 28, Centerdale Village Festival. Councilman DiLorenzo requests discussion and possible vote on setting up a separate account for the Centerdale Village Festival. Councilman?

Thank you, Council President. So we're going to sell for the first time in the six years, we're going to sell some t-shirts Mayor Mrakas, Promoting our province like we've been doing for the last six years, so what I like to do is when we sell the T shirts I like to make a separate account a special account strictly for the Sunday old village festival and I ask you that in the form of a motion.

Mayor Mrakas, Do we have to do that through. Mayor Mrakas, or. Mayor Mrakas, We have to create a line.

Mayor Mrakas, Alright, so.

We have to do ordinance. So I'll send it to ordinance because we have to create a line item in the budget to do that.

Okay.

And then from that, we'll...

So I'll make a motion to send this to ordinance.

Second. Okay. That's a very good idea, I will say. So a motion has been made to send this to the ordinance committee to create the line item for the separate account for the Senadale Village Festival by Councilman DiLorenzo. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Councilman Bacala. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The ayes have it. Thank you. Add number 5 ordinance 26 dash 010 and ordinance amending chapter 19 article 10. Section 182 of the code of ordinances of the town of North Providence entitled no parking generally to provide for certain parking restrictions on Cleveland Street. Is there anyone here from Cleveland Street? That's not what you guys are here for.

Okay, I believe I believe she's watching.

Okay. Do I have a motion to pass? Motion has been made by Councilman Pollack. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilman Fiola. All those in favor? All those opposed? The ayes have it. Item number 6, Ordinance 26-011, Adoption of 2026-2027 Operating Budget Ordinance. Do I have a motion to adopt? Motion has been made by Councilman Bacala, seconded by Councilman Leportio. Any questions? There being none, all those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed, the ayes have it. At number seven, Class F1 Liquor License. Town Council consider a vote for the approval of a Class F1 Liquor License for Enchanted Sip Mobile Bar for an event at Camp Meehan on September 5th, 2026. Come up and state your name for the record, please.

Hi, my name is Sonia Torres.

Thank you. Is there any questions? You have all the information in front of you. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Motion made by Councilman Bacala, seconded by Councilman Leportio. All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed? You guys have it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Item number eight, victualling license. Town Council to consider the approval of a victualling license for SM Foods LLC DBA Hangry Joe's at 1670 Mineral Spring Avenue, North Providence, Rhode Island. Is there anyone here from Hangry Joe's? Is there anyone here from Hangry Joe's? Is there anyone here from Hangry Joe's? Okay, do I have a motion to continue this to the September meeting? Motion to be made by Councilman Pollock, seconded by Councilman LaPorche. All those in favor? All those opposed? The ayes have it. Item number nine, Peddler Vendor License. Town Council to consider a vote for the approval of a Peddler Vendor License for Country Fresh Farms Incorporated, 5081 Union Street, Union City, Georgia, 30291. Sorry, I don't have my glasses.

State your name for the record, please. Charles Sullivan on behalf of Country Fresh Farms.

Just speak into the microphone. Sorry.

Charles Sullivan on behalf of Country Fresh Farms.

Okay.

And where will you be selling? We'll be selling frozen meat, choice and prime.

Is that in the parking lots?

Yeah. We have a cross promotional with Lowe's. We set up, it helps bring traffic to Lowe's. We get traffic from them. It works out for everybody. So this is on Lowe's property? Yes. We have been invited by Lowe's.

I'll approve this pending. Do you have to get health department approval?

Yes.

All right. So, so you can pick up your approval pending. You provide us with that. Okay. Um, I don't see that in our package here, unless you were missing it.

I do not have that with me. Um, could I possibly, uh, you can come in and see the clerk.

She'll okay. Her office is right downstairs.

Oh, actually, you know what?

I'm not tech savvy. You can just upload it online.

Okay, um, I'm gonna have to get in touch with my superiors and get that done.

Okay. So I'll prove this. Pending the uploading of the health department certificate.

Okay. Uh, is there a specific health department, like, for this jurisdiction or just the Rhode Island health department anytime you're serving food?

You need a sign off from the health department.

I just, I wasn't sure if there was a local 1 I had to go through or not.

No, no, thank you, sir. Any other questions? Okay, do I have a motion?

So.

Motion made by Councilman DeLorenzo. Is there a second? Second. Second by Councilman Bacala. All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed? You guys have it. Good luck. Thanks, sir. Private investigator license. Town Council to consider the approval of a new private investigator license for Douglas Bell Camp, 15 Thomas Street, North Providence, Rhode Island. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. Just state your name for the record, please. Douglas Bell Knapp. I'm sorry. It's misspelled on my.

I was going to bring that up. I was going to offer to bring up business card or something.

That's okay. Any questions?

Councilman? I just have one question. It says Thomas Lane?

Thomas Street?

Thomas Street, I'm sorry. Your driver's license is Pawtucket.

Yes, I moved from Pawtucket about three to four months ago, and I know per the statute, when your license expires, you have to renew it through your new domicile. I haven't just changed my driver's license from Pawtucket to North Providence as of yet.

So he's on. Okay. Any other questions? This package has been reviewed by our police department and signed off on. So with that, do I have a motion to grant? Motion has been made by Councilman Lepocho, seconded by Councilman Bacala. All those in favor? All those opposed? The ayes have it. Item number 11, license review. Town Council to conduct a license review on liquor and entertainment licenses for one of one lounge. 1759 Middle Spring Avenue, North Providence, Rhode Island. Gentlemen, just come up, please. I just state your name for the records, please.

What's all in?

Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Jerry. Thank you. Um, gentlemen, I have to say good job. I mean, we've had a few small complaints, nothing earth shattering, but we get noise complaints from every establishment in the town. So just be cognizant of that. Um, But so far, you guys have given us your word. I've driven by. I see you guys out there patrol in the parking lot. Good job. Thank you. Makes our lives a heck of a lot easier. So, um, any questions from the council members?

Councilman got a question, but just remain vigilant if as soon as you let your guard down. It'll be a problem. So whatever you've been doing, please keep doing it.

All right. Yeah, definitely. You know, intensify that for sure. And, you know, make more improvements as we go.

We do have, you know, three incidents where the police have been contacted. Like I said, nothing, noise violation, noise complaints. So just be aware of that. And I was like, I think one was at nine o'clock, which is kind of, you know, early in the evening. So. So be aware of that.

Right. We've been proactive to going outside after quiet hours. I appreciate that level of taking pictures and making sure the noise is not too crazy or outrageous or you know that.

Any other questions? No, just to emphasize what Councilman Martone said, keeping it clean, keeping it out there, doing what you're doing, just keep it up. Because even the complaints, the noise ones, I don't think they were coming from right behind you, which was most of the people that were complaining. So, you know, so take that for what it's worth, but just keep vigilant and keep doing what you're doing.

All right. Thank you guys.

When you're doing a good job, so keep it up. All right.

So from going forward, you have a full motion to approve a full liquor and entertainment license from here on out.

Thank you guys.

Yeah. Yeah. The motion has been made by Councilman DiLorenzo, seconded by Councilman Bacala. Question?

The only thing I just want to point out is renewal time is going to be coming up, so just make sure December 1st the license expires. Amanda, when do you start sending that stuff out? Like October? September? Okay. Renewal time is going to be coming up, so make sure you renew the license.

Definitely.

Make sure the attorney is on at this time. You're welcome.

At number 12, Wooded Road, Lewis Squisset Golf Town Council to conduct a review of the measures taken to stop the golf balls from hitting properties on Woodwood Road. Is there anyone here from Lewis Squisset?

I don't see anybody.

I've been in constant contact. Seems like there's been a lot of measures taken to mitigate this, and I'm happy to hear that. window was broken recently and the golf course is paying for it but that was a one one-off so i'll make a motion to remove this item from the agenda so move second motion been made in second all those in favor all those opposed guys had it i told you that noise ordinance discussion resident carolyn mancone would like to address the council with a desire for a daytime noise ordinance to address excessively loud music coming from four cross street

is carolyn mancone here how are you hi good carolyn mancon thank you um so i wanted to come before the council because if some of you may remember that i was here in 2024 because there was a lot of noise coming from that address that year um they have improved, you know, they're not doing it as much, but they did have an incident, one incident, only one this summer, which is excellent. Um, but it was extremely loud. It was on a Sunday afternoon, probably around two o'clock and it was loud enough to be heard, you know, 200, 300 feet away. I could hear it in my living room, in the front of the house with the TV on, with the windows closed, you know, And I thought that back in 2024 that we had agreed to a noise ordinance for excessive daytime noise. I'll just give you an example. That day when I went in my backyard and I did a measurement on my phone with a decibel meter and it was over 80 decibels, which is very, very loud. It interrupts your relaxation and enjoyment of your home. And when I called the police, they didn't want to come out. I kept them on the phone. And I'm like, look, this is a nuisance. When they came out, they went in and talked to the people. The music got turned up. And I asked the police officer about it. And she said, not my problem. She was indifferent. So I called the police again and then they were scrambling, trying to look at what's the ordinance. You know, they transferred me like two or three times. I think I finally spoke to a Sergeant and he sent somebody out and then, you know, then the music was shut off, but did we have an ordinance for this? I, you know, I remember it was supposed to be like, if it was heard more than 200 feet from the source that it was supposed to be not allowed, you know?

because it's inclusive. No, we we do have a councilman.

So I know we had started talking about it and then kind of the issues seem to die down. So we never we never put in place something for the daytime. That's right. You know, considering you're bringing it back up, I certainly think it's something that we can put back on the ordinance committee's docket and talk about potentially implementing that. And and I and you're right, I think the what we were thinking about was potentially something That if you could hear from 200 feet away from the source, that would be too loud. So that way you don't have to get into the decimals and all that stuff.

So, right. I mean, you know, the issue is, I think is that. The technology and for stereos has, you know. I'm so crazy that people have these really loud stereo systems. And they're just not cognizant of the fact that they're disturbing. You know, I'm not saying people can't listen to music, but be reasonable. You know, have have a care for your neighbors and that. I would like to be able to, you know, if that ever happens again to be able to call and say, look, we have this ordinance, you need to come out here. And have the police be informed. That it is on the books. Because they didn't seem to know.

You shouldn't have to deal with that. You're right. Yeah. And we will get on that.

Okay, great.

So that's, I appreciate it. That's unacceptable.

Thank you.

No problem. Is there any questions? Okay. If you have a motion to send this to the audience, so moved. Motion has been made by Councilman Laporte, seconded by Councilman Vaccaro. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The ayes have it. Item number 14, Block Party. Jordan shore request discussion and possible vote on a block party on orchard street on August 29th, 2026. Yeah.

Jordan short cannot make it tonight. She's on her way to Alaska. Oh, good. This is, uh, this is right behind, uh, Richie school. Uh, they want to have about 50 to 75 feet, uh, part of the street, not blocking anyone, uh, just for the sake of doing it the proper way. She has to put the town council. So I like to make a motion that we approve. Uh, the block party on, uh.

Okay, motion has been made by Councilman DeLorenzo, second by Councilman Bacala. All those in favor. All those opposed the eyes have it. Item number 15, pay property Marine Gerard would like to discuss the. The progress of the pay property and to propose a community use. Thank you for coming.

Hi, Maureen Gerard.

Thank you.

Amy Robinson.

Thank you.

I have folders.

Oh, Amy, you and I spoke a few times via email, right? I'll be sure. Amy, you and I spoke via email a few times, correct? Yeah.

Oh, we got homework. So we have drawn up a proposal petition to request a green clean space for the paid property and conjunction. with a parking issue at the KFC field. I spoke with Josh Johnson, the president of the North Providence Jets Football Organization, which is currently using the former KC Baseball Complex on Ivan Street. He's not asked for this plan to be developed, but he is in favor of it. the actions were asking the town to take involved the following remove the basketball poles from the basketball court on ivan street and use the court as a paved parking lot remove the playground area at ivan street and use that area for additional parking in an unpaved lot establish a basketball court and a tennis court one behind the other at the entrance to the paid property with parking for eight to ten spots further in the peat property rebuild the playground in a walking area with benches in a figure eight format we've attached a diagram of this scenario at the peat property additionally we've been in touch with sherry lapoli our grants manager and we have a proposed applying for a lowes community grant for the peat property project And a Lowe's grant can be used in conjunction with Rhode Island DEM grants. I contacted both of them. They don't conflict, I'm told. Rhode Island DEM said you can reapply for the grant we lost and use the Lowe's grant at the same time. It's not conflicting. There are also a lot of other grants that can be used for trees, perennial gardens. We feel that the signing of the names on the petition represent the wishes of the neighbors and those of the mayor who has communicated that he wants this project to be successful and meet the wishes and expectations of the community surrounding paid property. Last but most important, we asked that the mayor and the council form a committee that includes several of the residents of the paid property area to work on overseeing the implementation and oversight of the development of the paid property green clean space. We ask that this be formed no later than this September of 2026. And this is on behalf of the residents surrounding the paid property.

This is really good. Thank you for putting this together. I mean, obviously. It's an initial reactions the 1st time I'm seeing it 1st time we're all seeing it, but this is we appreciate. You guys putting this together. This is very, very good.

Actually pretty good.

We might ask for your help with the grant.

No, this is good. I appreciate it. Seriously. Um. Obviously, this is the 1st time we're seeing it. Let us digest it and, um. Any questions. No, I just wanted to wish everything had this presentation.

We do have a couple of questions regarding our last meeting with the mayor. Um, we were told that the property would be cleaned out, which it was, and we do. That that was great. Um, but since then there was more soil. Um, that was put on top there would be, um. so we want to know what happened with the plan of just flattening out and putting the grass and putting up a gate um so there's been um more soil in addition to the one that was dumped and we want to know why it was brought in and this was not part of the plan that we were told the last time we met with you guys and then we had some serious flood flooding in the area and quite a bit of soil from the paid property flooded into the Washington Street and onto the small bridge, pouring over the bridge in the Upper Canada Pond, moving a small river. Not sure if this type of sediment is safe to be going into this waterway since it is being protected.

Okay. Ernie, can you answer any of those? You could.

Yeah, so I'm familiar with the runoff that they're talking about. Um, there's been runoff twice that occurred. Um, and as the, I'll speak for the soil that was brought into the prop, because I don't think there's an understanding about what the stockpiling of soils. So that has to go all the way back to the embankment line. and that drop that elevation drops off so they're moving soil in there and they are stockpiling in a ramp fashion so when they clean out all the bull briar and the brush and everything else they can flatten that soil out that hill's going to come down and eventually establish a flat field so to speak And then the level of soil erosion that is developed there, it's developed within a half inch of water within an hour. We received an inch and a half of water in 45 minutes. But I can tell you this morning that I met the engineer, met the contractor down there, stepped that soil erosion plan way up from the engineer's design, and that should not occur anymore.

Okay. Okay, thank you. Any questions for Bernie, the council? Thank you very much. Okay, I'm going to send this plan to the finance committee, so we can have a look at it. Look at it in more intimate setting. Um, ask some questions and, um, we'll invite you to that meeting so we can have a more free falling conversation. Unless there's any questions from any residents, any council members. I'll make a motion. Sure.

I'm Ken Conti. I'm trying to get a sense of what property we're talking about. Exactly. I know you guys can't play can't leave just in relationship to the Ivan Street baseball fields. Where is that?

Okay, if you go past the bridge.

Yeah. Oh, so it's not part of the Ivan Street baseball field.

Just past.

Okay, Ken, it's right across the street. There used to be a garage in there.

Oh, the old. Oh, okay. All right. I thought it was the Ivan Street. I thought it was a great opportunity. Yeah, I was gonna say that the North Providence Land Trust owns property adjacent to the Little League field.

Well, that property, you could use that property does doesn't connect.

But they're there feels not owned by the town, though, right?

That's owned by the no, but where they're, where they're proposing the parking lot is part of that is part of that's where the basketball courts are.

So if you want to take a look at it with the field that's past the park, this is the bridge.

So it's not part of it.

In the meantime, I want to make a motion to send this to the finance committee. That's all because it's a great question. I'm made by Councilman Portio, seconded by Councilman Pollack. All those in favor. All those opposed the eyes have it. Thank you.

Very nice. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

And Mr. Chairman, there's a piece of property to the left. It's up a little higher that we utilize for parking. There's property next to that that abuts that last house coming down Ivan Street that we own. We're looking at that at this point in time and maybe trying to garner some funds to increase that parking lot. TO ADDRESS THE NEED FOR ADDITIONAL PARKING NOW THAT IT'S GOING TO BE UTILIZED FROM THE FOOTBALL CLUB AND SOCCER. WE KNOW WE HAVE AN ISSUE WITH THE PARKING. AND ALSO TEMPORARY WITH THE PARKING OR FOR THE PARKING IS WHEN YOU GO INTO THE IVAN STREET FIELD THAT WE'RE LEAVING OFF NOW, RIGHT THERE TO THE LEFT. We're hoping that we'll be able to clear that as quick as possible, put down some of what we call the road grind, and use that for some temporary parking to relieve any of the parking issues there. So that's in play also at this point in time.

Thank you. Mayor, my understanding though is that once Woodhaven School is done, that football field is going to be put back.

Well, that's another issue. because in most of these areas i shouldn't say dealing with but we're dealing with neighbors wishes so at this point in time i'm not sure okay

And number 22 ordinance introduction discussion and possible vote on the introduction of the ordinance number 26 dash 013 relating to resident only parking signs on Oregon Avenue. Not to deal Lorenzo.

So we have a problem on Oregon Avenue with parking. It seems that the people who were there are parking all the way down to the street. The people in front of houses cannot park their cars. However, Steve, I understand the I want I want them to be able to hear because Okay. Thank you. Okay. So residents are having a problem parking on Oregon Avenue. The two houses next to the building, the old days furniture that has four or five businesses in there. Kevin, a community police officer, we were there the other day looking to see what we can do. It's probably need about maybe 100 feet, Kevin? That's correct. Which is what we do need to protect those two houses. Uh, but I understand now that, uh, this game room business cannot open, uh, unless we approve the ordinance for, for the resident only parking sign. I guess they need it on a variance in order to get open. They've been patiently waiting for something to happen with that. Um, Kevin, maybe you can articulate a little bit more what, what the Brent's here too.

He can explain what the come up, please. Thank you. Lieutenant, you can, you can stop.

I could speak to, you know, we've had some calls from residents that are having a hard time parking during certain hours. There are several businesses in that block of 1726 Smith Street that do take up some of those businesses. So I think we owe it to the residents to give them some relief for company and, you know,

By the way, one of them is handicapped and has a caretaker there. The second house has a caretaker there, so I want to make sure we protect her. And the first house, who just had a liver transplant, by the way, something like that. So both of those houses have, you know.

So Steve is correct. They got approval from the zoning board, conditional to receiving council approval for resident-only parking signs down in Oregon Ave.

Right.

Just because there is, you know, a tight parking situation on the property right now, and they don't want the parking extending into the residential neighborhood. They'd rather see it.

Right. I have a question. I have a question. And so I'm familiar with that building. I live right down the street. You have a tattoo shop, a hair salon, this potential game business. And then there's another business, I think, in between the tattoo shop. don't forget the business behind there's a construction company behind that's not their business no no they've got GameStop which is in the street but in the back of that building there's a construction business uh in the back of it so there's five so how are these businesses allowed to open with such little parking on a main road and I say that for the residents but also them like that's not fair to them either like I mean because it's right around that curve so there's not much street parking it's all residential behind the building to park across the street and cross Smith street.

That's pretty busy road. So the zoning board reviewed the, the time schedules of each, um, business and they felt comfortable enough voting to approve it because the, it was alternating timeframes, um, of, of peak hours. So, There's not necessarily enough to meet the regulation. However, they think it could be accommodated on the property. And within the, I believe there are seven spaces on Smith Street.

So GameStop right now is looking for eight spaces that are currently there. There's no additional spots. The ones that are currently there.

So essentially all the spaces right now on the property are utilized by the existing businesses. So they got the variance for what they would need eight. Eat spaces.

Right.

To make the whole lot legal, essentially. Right.

And that's not just this location. That's assuming businesses don't extend their hours for other businesses that are there could extend their hours. Theoretically correct. That's always possible. Yes.

And just seeing that kind of go by what the president's saying. So if you remember, maybe two or three months ago, I had a resident-only parking site put on the right-hand side coming in.

Yes, that's why I'm not, yeah.

Because fire apparatus cannot get through. People, I mean, listen, I'm on that, I go up and down the street 10 times a day, I live there. Right. So fire apparatus could not get through, so I had a no parking sign put there. kind of put some of the people back into the parking lot a little bit. It's not so bad, but now they're on the opposite side of the street.

Right.

Coming all the way down. So, you know, it's a combination. There's one house over there that has eight cars. And between those eight cars and everybody else that's parking, the two people who are needing can't park their cars.

And are you guys going to be okay to open with such a not so ideal parking situation? Mm-hmm. I don't, I don't want to see you guys be treated unfairly either. That's that's.

Thank you. Um, my name is August Wagner and this is Genesis Sanchez. We're the owners of the game house.

Oh, nice. Thank you.

Um, to your question, um, if this is not approved tonight, you will not be okay.

Right. Right. And I'm saying like, I have no problem. Like we're going to do whatever you can to let you get you guys open. Right. But I'm saying going forward, like. You're going to have people coming there and see there's no parking and they might not visit your business because it's such a packed little building.

Sure, if I may. So I think one of the points that we had raised earlier had been raised at the earlier hearings is that so we operate from 5 in the afternoon to 9 in the afternoon, Monday through Friday, and then 2 PM to 10 PM, Saturdays and Sundays. And we find ourselves at the game house every weekend sort of polishing things up and getting things ready that need to be. There's plenty of parking, at least on the weekend. I'm not sure when the complaints are coming in, if it's during the daytime more frequently than not. But in terms of the weekend traffic in that area, it's significantly decreased. We never have an issue with parking whatsoever. The lot is always empty, in fact, whenever we're there on Saturdays and Sundays, and that would be our peak hours. We're also targeting the students from Rhode Island College that are nearby, from Providence College, from North Providence High School. And so the hope is that people would just come to us walking or carpooling and have less needs and my understanding is that the parking variance was for actually six spaces um because we are one combined spot so we would only need six additional spaces but again given our experience there every weekend for the last six months while we wait on the process I I don't think that there's a parking problem on the weekends at least as

I agree with you. At nighttime, it's much easier to get in and out. If you can stay vigilant, have people talk in the back. Absolutely. Listen, I want to see you guys be in business. Great kid. I want to see you guys be in business. We have to worry about the neighbors. They're just as important as everybody, you know?

Absolutely. And we understand. And that's our hope is really that they get their sign tonight. Because if it gets referred, we've been waiting for about six months, just sort of in the evolution of this process. For permitting, I think we submitted our business application back in February. And so it's just we're really struggling because the bills are still coming and there is no income being generated. And as you see from the pamphlets that are in front of you, there's a lot of interest, media, people, the community. And so we really just need a chance to get to exist.

Mayor, is Bernie still here? Well, can we have DPW put up the two signs? And I'll have an ordinance meeting within the next... 2 weeks, so they can open and then I'll ask the little Parkinson's because they've been waiting. Yeah.

You can get with me if you like, and. Yep, thank you.

We'll take care of it.

You'll be all set. Have you be successful? We can see.

all right all right so thank you mayor that's very helpful so they'll put up i'll expedite the the ordinance process you guys okay with that yeah absolutely how many square feet is this

It's about $1,200, but you have floor plans, so I think you might have a more exact. Not there.

I'm just looking at the pitches and great marketing with the free parking sign-up. You know. You've got a good concept going there. It's a place for people to go, so I agree with, you know, getting it open and winning more businesses like this.

Thank you. Can I make a motion to use the audience now? All right, I will, if you want. All right, so.

I'll do it. All right.

just uh yeah just to make a motion to dispense with the reading of the ordinance uh i want to make a motion to dispense with the reading of the ordinance so moved second motion that made by councilman di lorenzo seconded by councilman vicala and a motion by councilman di lorenzo to introduce ordinance 26-013 so so that we're all clear these folks can now open well yes but i i asked well they're going to make just make sure everything from the business perspective is i mean everything everything on the portal is up to date yes but this is just a printout i'm going to have the clerk make sure everything's you know you guys have everything you need but is it if there's anything she can think of you know just check with her before you do it yeah we'll we'll get anything done that needs to get done as quickly as possible invite us to the grand opening yeah all right thank you okay emotions have been made a second and all those in favor okay i'm gonna challenge diorenzo i gotta do one in that look Item number 16, good energy. John O'Rourke, I'd like to address the...

So, as far as the residential parking signs, we're going to take care of that. I don't need to make any motions.

No, you're just going to meet him and tell him where to go. And then I'll take care of that. We just, we got to, it's not enforceable until we pass that. I know that. All right. Yeah. Okay, John O'Rourke would like to address the Council once again concerning community electric aggregation. Thank you.

President Otiello, members of the Council, thank you for letting us come before you today. My name is John O'Rourke. My associate, Steve DiNatale. If you remember, we appeared before you on December the 3rd, gave you a presentation at that point in time. Much of the presentation I have for you tonight is that same information. So rather than rehash that information, and in the interest of time, I'm going to go directly to the last page, which is the key points of these programs. All you're doing by putting together a community choice electricity program is forming a buying group that gives your residents and small businesses another choice for getting their electricity. It also gives them increased buying power to move forward with large suppliers of electricity that want their business. Participation is voluntary. There is never any fee or termination charge to get out of the program once they're in the program. These programs provide increased protection from unscrupulous marketers of electricity, particularly for those seniors that may be preyed upon by those individuals. There's no cost to the town. essentially uh uh we would as consultants to put these plans together we're paid by the competitive supplier what i'll do now is open it up for questions i'm in the program with you now walk me through how i if i choose to want to withdraw and how long that process will be to uh to opt out of the program uh there's a website that's set up that you can go to to fill out a form or you can call the supplier directly you can call us directly and on your next meter read you're out okay i'm just trying to play the devil's advocate i'm i'm 75 years old not computer literate don't have websites i can call you speak to a human being absolutely and and

easily be opted out.

That's correct.

Councilman?

All right. We've heard the pitch, I think, enough times that everybody understands. What I want to understand is we're going to look like heroes if the numbers make sense. We're going to look like villains if the numbers don't make sense. So the last year, three years, five years, you've beaten Rhode Island Energy or you're not beating Rhode

we've beaten rhode island energy and just just as a matter of uh information i'm not sure whether you're aware of this but rhode island energy as of october 1st is going to 17 cents for residential rate uh our rhode island buying group is at 13 cents okay i will say this i know you guys came and several other companies have in december you guys came in october another group came those and we put it in the finance committee

what happened was and i know you were elected at some point our budget came out and as you know you know this year was a controversial budget so we put a lot of this stuff on hold until we finished up our budget so i will be having some finance committee meetings in the next month or so to start looking at the numbers that you just maybe go into those there's no cost to the town okay just so i understand again like for the best

Everybody in town is going to be put into this program. It's there.

They have to opt out. This is an opt-out program.

Everybody's going to be put in. It's their duty to figure out with many ways that you said how to opt out.

There's a tremendous amount of information given out before the 30-day period where they have to opt out. So they are fully informed. The letter that they get is fully informational. Everything we do has to be approved by the Public Utilities Commission. So essentially, we're not acting alone. We're acting through your review and through the review of the PUC. And essentially, again, everyone is initially put into the program. unless they picked a third party supplier and they they can opt out if they want now interestingly enough rhode island had an opt-in aggregation program for many years that went nowhere because suppliers will not bid on that kind of a program so it's an opt-out program it basically modeled on the massachusetts program which was the first municipal aggregation program in the country and the one every successful law in the country is based on right now.

So it's not worth it for your company or any company to come in and have an opt-in program?

You can't do it because nobody will supply it.

Okay, is there this motion to send it back to the finance committee? So, most of them made by constant, but call us seconded by council Marton. All those in favor. All those opposed the eyes have it. We'll let, you know, we're gonna have that meeting those meetings soon. Thank you gentlemen. Thank you. Have a good night.

You got to do, uh, collect money.

Yeah, then I'll do. Okay.

item number 26 coletti farms property councilman pollock request discussion and possible vote on coletti farm property announcement so may you say correct mr president um i think a lot of us thought we were in a place that there was an agreement with everybody what's fine what was finally going to go into that property and then we read the valley grease saying that the town respectfully I don't know what the word is, not decline, but the grant, which got a lot of calls to us from the residents of the neighborhood. Mayor, if you don't mind, I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but can you tell us what transpired between June meeting, the June special meeting we had last year when everybody was kind of in agreement that final program to December? You know, we read that We were aware I know I wasn't aware that the grant was turned back and the other part of the concern is the condition of that property right now. That's I know there's some residents here, a couple of they couldn't come. But are we going to address the condition of that property? Sherry hi. I'm sorry, I didn't see it. I'm sorry.

evening how are you so um in terms of where we stand with the coletti property there are two grants that are for coletti one of them is through the rhode island infrastructure bank which is for phase one design and the other one will be the hud grant that we were awarded through the earmark um and that's for a million dollars one can be used as a match for the other where we currently stand right now is we have the approved designs from town council that were approved last September, I believe. And we have just gotten our extension with the Rhode Island Indian structure bank so that we can move ahead. And we are in the process of bidding out for the design for Coletti right now. We have the concept, but we need the formal design.

So what happened between, I think it was June, especially in December when that first grant,

The DEM grant, sure. So when I came on, there was some conversation about the DEM grant because unlike the other grants, particularly federal grants, there's not as much flexibility with the DEM grants. So by the time that final design had been approved, the concept was so vastly different than what we had applied for that they considered it to no longer be the same project. And so what was advised to us is simply don't struggle with the grant you have withdraw without prejudice. Yes. And that means we can apply again, once we have a better grasp of what the design is actually going to look like everyone's in agreement. So we've moved quite a bit towards that goal of having that final design that was approved, and getting that extension so that we could go ahead and start bidding for the formal design process.

And I appreciate you coming and the explanation. I think some of us, if not all, were just kind of caught off guard reading the Valley Breeze that we all knew when myself, I didn't know. When I got the calls, I had no answers for them because I did not know that that grant was

yeah sure well i would love to make myself available for any type of finance committee meeting that can be scheduled i've got reports waiting for you i could tell you more about how i do things why my position is different than just being a grant writer and the actual the grants manager so there are other elements to what I do that you know what you may not be used to um in the recent past I'm more than happy to go over anything in detail my office is right across the hall so please feel free to you know call on me and I will explain everything to you they have any questions is there any residents that have any questions

Michael Porter, Hamlin Street. I think the most biggest point that I wanted to make right now was that Larry Feeney and I, Larry can't be here tonight, he's on vacation, went to sit down with the mayor back in November 25th. And we had a discussion as far as what was going on with all the dirt coming in. There's more and more and more dirt and it continued. The man made a phone call and said there wouldn't be any more dirt, but it kept on coming.

And it kept on coming all the way until the weather changed.

And then that was the end of it. And then in March, it started coming again, which we're assuming was coming from Richie for the new athletic turf field. Right now, when we walk out my front door, I have a 60-foot mountain of dirt, all grown over with grass. You go down to the back. There was a duck farm, a duck pond back there. They're starting to get beer cans back there. There's kids going up and down the hills on their bikes and somebody is going to get hurt because this keeps getting put off and off and off. Now, one of the last Breeze articles, the mayor was noted on saying this would be taken care of soon. Eventually, the land would be made even, plowed out, get rid of the mountains, but that hasn't happened. And personally, with that back end, with the neighbors back there with the drainage problems, he's already mentioned that that backside will probably have to go up on concrete slabs 11 feet So it's just not a matter of taking that dirt and spreading it out. It's going to have to be done nicely so nobody gets flooded on the other end of the street, the other end of the property. That's a big concern. Hamlin Street right now, OK, Hamlin Street was going to be taken care of. They put down a load of the gravel tar on it. which is giving away slowly but giving away and right now to get to only street on hamlin all the brush and everything is all grown in so the dpw or somebody has to get out there and clean it back so cars can get down it i've already done the tree on the corner of my property because it was vines hanging down from it and i couldn't even pull out so Hamlin Street, we've been there since 2002. Hamlin Street, there's two maps of roads in the town. Hamlin Street is not on one of them. With the big blizzard of last winter, I had to call, and then Councilman Pollack had to come down, and he brought people with us to get the snow plowed. And that's the same condition that street is in right now. Instead of snow, we have trees and holes. Just want to see something. Somebody's going to get hurt. And I want to get rid of the eyesore. And I was speaking to a friend of ours who was a realtor. And she was telling me how much this is hurting the property value of my land. for this eyesore that's across the street, not to mention the dust and the dirt and everything else that blows across off that mountain. Got to keep all our windows closed and everything because of the mess. The other items I brought out about the money, I know we lost the $400,000, but if the other things are still open, I count that's almost like $4.5 million. I think they said this was only going to cost around 2 to have it done. So, thank you very much. That's all I got.

Thank you. So, any other residents that have any questions.

I have a question.

Sure. State your name please.

My name is Joe. Thank you. I want to know why does it take so long. To get any projects done, I'm just saying in general.

You're not wrong. You're not wrong. And it's a municipal state. You know, if we could build, like we would build privately. No, no, I understand.

When you build a house, you don't just say.

That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying. Why? Like, we should have had plans done. We're talking about the baseball field where Mr. Conte was president. All right. I spoke to Nick. I think what you should do down here is you put the girls softball down here and you put the football at Stephen Owen. All right. I mean, you're still going to have parking issues. Don't get me wrong. All right. But it's an open area. It's a big open area. You can, you know. then the other thing is when they use the high school field how long is that turf going to last 10 years right then what happens right may you want to pay for it i'm just because i mean what do we do with the money do we charge them to use the field i i just castelino i think the mega they they did some nice work they did recently down it you know for a second at ivan street

And the Jets are happy they extended. I believe you moved the telephone poles back. So the Jets are happy there. Dino, we've gone to the girls' softball games, and I think at times they get two or three games going at the same time. So you couldn't fit them over at that location. Well, we've been there.

Listen, I coach girls' softball.

Okay. Okay.

So you could fit two or three games. How many kids are in that league? In what? In girls' softball. 40 tops. You have two fields you can use. Or you did. I don't know what the mayor has done, but you had two fields there. Are you talking about Coletti? You're talking about Coletti Farm? No, I'm talking about Knights of Columbus field.

Yeah, you got to stick to Coletti Farm, though. That's this agenda.

I know what you're saying. I understand you. My point is, you're not wrong. I just don't understand.

But I will say, give me an answer. Can I have a minute to explain? You're not wrong. We collectively with the mayor's office came up with a plan for a field.

Yeah.

The neighbors did not want that. And I understand. So then we changed the plan again. This is the fourth reiteration of the planning.

You tell the people, guess what? We did it once. Because of you, we lost money. So here's what's going to happen.

No, no, but I'm explaining it to you. And then we have a bidding process that we have to go through. It's not like when I built my house, I can just go buy the wood. We have to go to bid for it. Trust me, it's very frustrating.

Why not go to bid first? How can we stream this?

If you want to come to the state house with me and argue that point, I'll take you tomorrow.

But I'm just saying, why can't we streamline this? We want to put a, whatever, baseball field, football field. I mean, we get a nice complex over there at the high school. Okay. But it's half done. It's half done.

Oh, I know. I played on that field.

I coached down there. It's half done. Why didn't we do the whole field? Now you wouldn't have problems if it was all, I mean, I don't know what happened. You didn't, you know what I mean, with that project. That's all I'm saying. Then you wouldn't be in this mess if you guys just did something. Spend a little, I mean, I don't get it.

So, um, I think Sherry mentioned about. It's something that we could, I can make a motion at least send the quality project to finance.

Yep.

Let me put that in the form of a motion.

Okay. Motion has been made by councilman pollock. Is there a 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, if I call some color, all those in favor aye. All those opposed the eyes have it.

Can we just, uh. Maybe notify to at least something more down and kind of. Trim along that handling speed area and make it a little more accessible.

Okay, motion has been made by councilman pollock to contact about the. Overgrowth at Hamlin street and taken it by councilman, but call it all those in favor. All right all those opposed the eyes have it.

Thank you.

No. Okay. 18, Brooke farm bridge, Kenneth, like an update on the bridge on Brooke farm road. Excuse me? Mr. President.

uh thank you council for uh hearing me tonight one second i have to recuse myself from this item okay just know for the record councilman fielder is resent uh recusing sorry thank you i'm ken conti uh nine carriageway um i was uh before the town council about i think it was four months ago and um identified the issue of the bridge over at brook farm drive that leads the road that leads to Birchwood Middle School, and the entranceway that leads to Farm Platte. You know, the issue was that there's an issue with the bridge structure, I suppose. And, you know, it's been there. There's been a temporary plate over that area. Um, I think this is the two year anniversary of it actually. Um, and you know, nothing's really been tangibly done on this. Um, at the last meeting back in March, um, I understand that the mayor came up and identified a potential solution and was hopeful that by today that we would actually see something going on there. Um, but yet there's still nothing tangibly going on. Um, You know, it's an issue that I assume there's a reason why those plates were put there. It has to be, I assume it's a safety issue, right? Why else would you put plates over a bridge, i.e. the bridge or the big bridge over there in Providence? There's gotta be a structural problem. Something's going on. It's been there for two years now. Those plates aren't gonna last. It's not a permanent fix, right? I feel as though if I didn't come before this council four months ago, status quo. It would be status quo. Nothing would be going on. I did call the town engineer who we have on retainer, David D'Amico. We had a good discussion. He did explain to me, I think it was about a month ago I spoke with him, that the town is now seeking a... They moved some money from the EPA from West River Restoration Area to move it for this project. Because he indicated to me that it's going to be a very expensive project just the permitting alone. It's going to be six figures. I was kind of surprised at that. But it's an issue that people in the Platte don't like. We pay a lot in taxes. North Providence, second highest tax rate, just got my tax bill, went up. And we pay a lot of taxes. The expectation is that the services from our town are going to meet those taxes that we pay. And repairs like this should be done on a timely manner. It's a matter of public safety, from my opinion. Those plates, from what I understand, I don't know, maybe I'm not sure if anyone in the council knows. I'm sure the mayor can let us know. I don't think we own those plates. I think we rent them. So I think there's a payment that we make, whatever, to rent those plates. There's a cost there that's going on for two years now. I'm not saying that's going to cover the cost of replacement of the bridge or repair the bridge, but there are certainly solutions out there that we should be should be further progressed than it is right now. I understand that there may be not a lot of communication from the town to the council on this.

I know I personally don't understand why.

I understand it's up to the mayor to run this town and I commend him. He's doing a great job for 20 plus years. Um I've always been on the mirror side on on many things um but at this this point I think that this this is going on you know like I said it's been two years and we kind of joke we call it the mini the mini Greystone project there and uh you know it's it's it's still access but again there is a concern that you know there's a reason why that's that those plates aren't going to last forever and I think that we should identify you know some tangible schedule to the replacement of the bridge you know I understand that there's some form of a grant or whatever but there's got to be money somewhere for emergency fund that can you know push this along we don't even have a design yet you know there are certainly structural engineers out there who can come up with a solution Um, my company is a civil engineering company. Um, we just, we were in the process of doing a project. Um, we're not structural engineers, but we have a project where there's a similar issue where there's a, a major culvert that replaced a, a stream for about 2000 linear feet, which is a lot more than this bridge. And it was an issue that we wanted to put a parking lot over this culvert and it wasn't, it was, you know, a hundred years old. And the structural engineer came up with a design to do an insert inside the culvert to improve the structure of it and not have to rebuild the whole culvert just for the parking lot.

Maybe that's the solution here.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think you got to go out to bid and get some ideas of prices, I would assume, before you can come up with a solution. find out what it's going to cost because right now i don't think anybody knows how much it's going to cost to replace that and i i think that should be really the starting point thank you does anybody have any questions for ken while he's up here i don't want to talk about what i would feel mayor do you have any updates you can provide for us

hi again um so brook farm bridge yes it is obviously a priority when i came on i was made aware of its priority and one of the first thing i did was i applied for an earmark grant however probably to the point the last gentleman made as you know earmark grants can take about a year to to be approved so that's like too far down the road we had also been approved for an earmark grant for the west river parkway which is right near the brook farm road bridge i attended the mandatory webinar and i found out that we could do something called a technical correction if we wanted to change the scope of the project See, every grantor is different in what they allow you to do. So these people said, the EPA said, you can do that. So I contacted the person that I normally speak to. We started the process of the technical correction. It looks like it's going to be I can't speak prematurely. That wouldn't be right, but it's going in the right direction. Let's just say it's really going in the right direction. I spoke to her again today. Not only can we probably get a technical correction that will allow us to use the funds for the Brook farm road bridge and the larger areas, stormwater issues. but it's looking like we will be exempt from the environmental review and any match requirements. So I've been working on that with them as well. So if this goes through, it looks like it could be another two or three months, but yeah, nothing gets done quickly. It does take a very long time. I can't speak to anything else in the budget because I just deal with the grants, but I can tell you I've been working very hard to see if we can get some funds in our hands much sooner than the year to two years it would take if we went through the entire formal earmark process.

Any questions for Sherry? Daniel, I have one. Councilman? Sherry, when we apply for these grants, and thank you for moving forward on this. Yeah. When we apply, should it be shovel ready? In other words, we get approved and we go to work on it?

There's a process. In the beginning, you're alerted to the fact that there's earmark money for you and you're told that you can propose a general idea, a general budget. It's not a very detailed application. You submit that. And it goes through the steps of general assembly then to, you know, on and on and on and on. If your project is approved, that does not mean that you should be shovel ready. That's just the beginning. What you have to do next is obligate the money. And that's where you sort of go through the conversations of, okay, well, we said that we were going to do this project, but now let's talk about it in specifics. Once you get the specifics of that project, you get the specific budget of that project, you can obligate the money, you submit that final application, and then the project gets moving. So it's multi tiered in what you have to do. I'm at the point right now where several of the earmarks that were approved now have to be obligated and the full applications have to be written. And I'll talk to you more about that when you call me up for my, my item, but that's pretty much what I'm in the process of doing. So there's multiple grants.

So my question is kind of double. I understand. Great explanation. Do we have a plan? Do we know what we're going to do to this bridge?

for Brook farm bridge, we're in the middle of discussing different options, but I haven't really been involved in the discussions for the specific types of, you know, we are going to, we're going to have to go back to bid if we are allowed to do this technical correction and it's going to have to be for structural design. Um, there's possibilities of, uh, saving money in certain ways that we've been talking about. Um, but the specific plan as of yet kind of hinges on whether or not we get the technical correction and how much we have to incorporate of the surrounding area but we are working on definitely working on ideas to getting this bridge done as quickly as possible thank you thank you any other questions the only thing the only thing i can guarantee everyone here and especially mr leconte

that's safe it's not an issue where it's not safe clear that up with you and the discussion now is whether that bridge is going to be built on site or because of the size of it not being that bill big if it's going to be built in someone's welding yard and once it's built just dropped in place which would mean that that road won't be closed for that long because if the bridge is built on site it's going to take console longer time these are of all the discussions at this point in time Now, I will tell you this. If we can't get that transfer of the funds, then we will be back to you asking for the money. But at this point in time, being that it's safe and it's not an issue of safety, we feel we're moving in the right direction. And that's all I got to report to you at this time. Thank you.

Mayor, do we have any thoughts on a ballpark on how much that?

The last I was told, Steve, is somewhere around $600,000, $700,000, which is hard to believe because the bridge is not that big, but that's what it is.

Thank you. Okay. Any other questions?

Can I talk a little bit? Yeah. First of all, I appreciate, again, the Mayor giving us that update. But quite frankly, the fact that, take your word if you're certain things, but you're telling me it's safe, but there's a reason why those plates are there. It must not be safe. That's my opinion. Okay, it's my opinion. Mayor has his own opinion.

Wanted to make sure it was safer than what was there.

Are we renting those?

Yes, we are.

From DOT?

I want to say it's for the company of...

The point is, I really don't know what the issue is. From what I understand, there's some substandard concrete that was poured, that was used, that was not sufficient for that type of a use. Oh yeah, it was before the mayor. It's his job to fix the problem, unfortunately. Um I I just think that at this point we should go out for at least the design and have a concrete idea of how it's going to be corrected right now I from what I understand I don't doesn't sound like there's no one working on a design we don't have a structural engineer this hasn't been a survey made uh performed on it um you know we need all those things done now so that if the money does get allocated it can be done a little bit quicker um yeah that's all I would ask that the council consider trying to at least coordinate with the mayor. If he does have to come and ask you for money, I'm sure you're going to want to see a design. So at least let's try and get that going a little bit forward. It's not a lot of money, I don't think, to do that personally.

That's a good, okay. All right. I think, you know, Councilman Bacala put in the form of a motion to start working on it, to send a letter to the mayor.

May as well have to start working on conceptual design and see where we're going to go from and start getting some costs. Did you want to say something, Laurie?

Sure.

The motion has been made by 2nd, Councilman seconded by Councilman.

Hi, I'm Laurie Conti. I live in these farm, so, you know, the address. Yeah. Okay. 9 carriage. So, just to give you an example of. I mean, even maintenance of this, this is. currently what it looks like not even like the dpw is keeping the bridge free of debris garbage all along the sides and the other side as well this is what it looks like um just disgusting like i was in downtown providence and driving around in the hood that's how i feel for the amount of taxes and the amount that my home is assessed at i feel like this is This is not up to my standards. And I don't think it's up to everybody's standards that drives in to their house in Lee's farm. And I'm sure multiple people would agree so and i'd like to maybe get an idea of what we're spending on those plates too because i'm sure those are not cheap to rent so at some point i will be back again we will be back right i'd like to know what the charges for these plates so but um no Uh, and and secondly, it's a giant speed bump. So vehicles coming in and out. Are taking a hit, you know, every time you go over back and forth, I'm in and out of the plot every, but to me, you know, like I said. The neighborhood in North Providence highest taxes we pay with 3rd in the state 2nd or 3rd in the state. This is no. Not good. It's just, just not, doesn't sit with me. Um, and that's basically, you know, and I'm sure other people in the neighborhood, whatever I got the, I have a big mouth. I'll speak and say the truth, but, um, that's basically anything else that, yeah, no.

Thank you.

yeah i mean houses in the platter going seven eight hundred thousand dollars does that look like what you want to drive into does that look like what you want to drive into your neighborhood and look at every day that's ticks me off and i don't think you know

Okay, thank you. Any other councilman?

It's been 2 years. The problem should have been addressed from day. 1. Should have been found out what was structurally wrong and then going from there. But we kicked the can down the road. Like, we did with the other situation and the other bridge. Now, we're in the junior stage, so thank you.

Thank you. Council.

Make a motion. We just. Senate request to DPW to go down and clean around those barriers and just kind of continue to maintain around that.

Okay, a motion has been made by Councilman Pollack. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Councilman Bacala. All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed? The ayes have it. Item number 17, Centerdale petition, petition on Centerdale streetscape bypass. Hector Benacor would like to present a petition in opposition to this issue. Hector?

Good evening, Council. I have Joyce here that is going to read my petition of 269 sentences. Hello. Hi.

Just state your name, please.

My name is Joyce Kasiba.

Thank you.

All right, I am reading here a petition that Hector Boutanker put together and had 269 people sign. It's called the Centerdale Bypass Petition, May 23rd, 2026. North Providence Mayor Charles Lombardi is in the process of negotiating a change to Centerdale Bypass. He is proposing a project in conjunction with the Rhode Island department of transportation to create a two way street in front of the town hall, as opposed to keeping the current one way street, the plan encompasses eliminating parking on one side of the street to accommodate the new central flow lane to this end, A federal grant of $1.7 million has been approved in 2024. Grants manager Sherry Lapoli explained that the town of North Providence would have to provide a 20% match that equaling $425,000. Mayor Lombardi and Councilman Mayor Martone expressed hesitation in a May town hall meeting about going forward with the project because their personal goal is to reduce the town budget, not put added stress on it with the 20% match. I, Hector Bentancur, believe there are secret ulterior motives behind the project that have not been disclosed at this time i'll explain this in a town meeting we as residents disagree with this project because it does not help us it would benefit only a few businesses in centerdale while putting the financial burden on us municipal and federal taxpayers hector butanker

Thank you. Can you?

Thank you.

Can you submit that petition? Can we have a car a copy of it? I we have it. We have it. I'm sorry.

And then I bring the I actually I email some of the console men. Okay. Yeah, I but I will say thank you. And yes,

Yep, thank you. And I think, I think most of the council agree that we do not want that as a two way street. So and I and the mayor stated to that he he that was just mentioned in an article as part of a project. But that was never there's no working with the DLT or anything like that. So we'll keep an eye out for it. And thank you for presenting that.

Oh, it's the way my mom.

I know.

But it's called the community. include size $2,125,000. Right? I found that these are what we call it. It wasn't the media, but they had a great group. And it's the imagine what is called the biggest park in the United States. I put it as a problem. Somebody is is making claims to the federal government they keep their trump on the recession but now it's going to be a big easier number one of the part is 23 feet three inches five fifty five inches s check it's just they call it not hot put a little breeze around around there on a bench So you always can say with the boyfriend, he's got to scream all the time. The facts are keeping going up.

Thank you.

Can I just say something? Sure. On my own personal.

I would just like to point out that like in these meetings, which I'm very new to, this is something very new to me, but I think everybody, all the taxpayers should really open their eyes because just in this one meeting alone, you guys are planning discussing like, I don't know, like $6 million, at least he said 4 million, this project's 2.4 million. You got one meeting you're talking about $6 million, you know, it's a lot of money and everybody really needs to pay attention, you know, to make sure You know, everybody needs to be accountable and everybody needs to pay attention to who we put in office. Although you guys all seem very nice. Nothing personal. I just mean, you know, I'd like to see more diversity on the stage a little here. You know, it looks like all white, maybe all white Italian men. I'm not quite sure. But I'm just saying if there were women out there, people of color, I think it would more represent our community. And also, I just noticed, and I've only been in two meetings, I've noticed that there's people coming up here like, oh, my God, this is going wrong. And we've complained and we've complained. And why is it being pushed back? And why is this being pushed back? And they're right. Our taxes are like the highest. They're so high on a middle class community. It's even more of a burden because we're not East Greenwich. This isn't East Greenwich. It's like North Providence. And I just think people really need to pay attention to who they vote for. They need to get out for elections and vote and put people in there that represent all of us. And you have people in here begging for little things, but yet I've only been here and you guys are talking about project after project after project of new things to be installed. You know, it's just like your home. If you don't, if you can't keep up with your current bills, don't make more bills worth millions and millions of dollars. And that's all.

Thank you very much. Hey, do I have a motion to accept the petition? Thank you. Motion made by Councilman Bacala, seconded by Councilman Martone. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The ayes have it. Item number 19, speed bumps on Baird Avenue. John Henkelman would like to address the town council regarding speed bumps on Baird Avenue.

Good evening. John Henkelman, 49 Baird Avenue.

Thank you.

I initiated this petition along Baird Avenue. The logistics are pretty simple. When you start at Ward Avenue going toward Mineral Spring, you got Ward, Anderton, Atwood, Mineral Spring. That's about a third of a mile. And there's no impetus for any reduction in speed for that third of a mile. there are stop signs on anderton and atwood and ward but once you get on baird it's a straight shot and you can go well too fast which is why we've got this here so i wanted to bring this to the attention of the council spoke with everybody i possibly could on baird avenue for all the eligible households on baird avenue we have about 86 87 percent that have signed for this so when I was doing the uh signatures July 25th 26 27th I was doing sort of a a quick head count of children that I saw on Baird Avenue 10 to 15 that I saw during my times so I think that's very important that we get some sort of structure in there to keep the speed down from the cars and the mini bikes which are just zipping up and down like crazy along with that we also have the commercial structure that's going up on the end of baird avenue which is only going to increase traffic even more so this is something that i feel is very important for baird avenue to get the speed down to keep it to a safe level because right now it's really not between the cars and the mini bikes that are going up and down trying to circumvent mineral spring and so They, they use Baird as 1 of the ways to do that.

Okay, so you have the petition.

Uh, yeah, that was no, no, I don't.

So you have the petition.

Yeah.

But there's always a 2nd step. See, we, we're the vehicle to get the conversation started. However, it is our police department that has to actually enforce the, whether people are using, you know, using the street speeding down the street if the speed bump is effective. So, um. our police do have a little bit of an issue with putting a speed bump there they did two or three traffic studies and so i think this is something we have to discuss and uh i'll let you hear from the lieutenant as to what their findings were okay back in march um for a 10-day period we did do conduct a uh

traffic study we had our trailers out there and over that 10 day period there was 4157 vehicles that went down that street yeah over 10 days um there was about 415 cars going down that street per day um the average speed was 17.13 miles per hour um 50 percent of that people going down the street were doing 16 Miles per hour. 85% of the people were doing 21 miles per hour. I think it's something that we have to take a look at. There may have been some construction during this period on Mill Spring Ave that may have sent some people down and slowed people down. But I'm open to revisiting it and conducting another study.

It's the legal speed limit up there.

It's 25 miles per hour. Yes. There was a maximum speed. There was one person who drove down 54 miles per hour, which obviously is dangerous. But like I said, the average speed was about 16 miles per hour.

Mr. Henkelman, I know, how are you? So I know we talked a little bit and you had mentioned about the, I don't want to say motorcycles, but those bikes and whatnot. Yeah, just so you're aware, and then, Lieutenant, they're in the process of trying to look into the issue townwide, maybe with ordinances to enforce that. That's not just an issue on that street, I can assure you. That's an issue all over town. So the police department is working to try to give them some legal backbones to, you know, to enforce that. Also, so that is one step.

What is enforcing of that? So what would an enforcement look like?

Well, the difficulties that we have now is that they've created these e-bikes, which don't fall under our current laws. Our statues are limited with that. So we have to revisit it. The town of East Providence developed an ordinance to address most of those concerns. We have that ordinance in hand. We're working on it. We're going to try to address it. Not to enforce it, to give us more teeth to enforce. Anything right now is that considered like a bicycle? Yes.

So it doesn't matter how fast he's going. It doesn't have a registered vehicle and it's not, he could be doing 50 on his e-bike and there's nothing to stop and he's well, you don't have an engine on it. So, right. And it's not registered. So what are you gonna do? I'm telling him, slow down.

Basically. He's got to follow the traffic laws. We'd have to issue tickets. Like, we would somebody driving a bicycle and we don't do it that often. But it's obviously becoming an issue. It's a statewide issue. It's a country issue. They developed these e-bikes that go very fast, and there's no regulations on them. And then they leave them places. They leave them places, and that's a whole other issue. It's something that we know, we're aware of. We're enforcing what we can. We have issues in our parks. We have an order that says they obviously can't ride them in the parks, and we're addressing it. But on the streets, if they're following traffic, it's a hard thing for us to enforce.

But I think you're sort of finding problems, especially on Baird, where you've got this straight shot, a third of a mile long, with no impetus, no hindrance to slow it down.

Yeah. We have several streets like that, unfortunately. Right.

And the children, like I said, there's going to be increased traffic with the commercial business that's going on at the end of the barrier.

I think it's something that we'd like to conduct another study and see if it was because of the time that we, the period that we conducted it, maybe, um, maybe things have changed. So it was back in March. Um, definitely do another study and see where we're at. Yes.

I'd like to entertain a motion. uh to if i wouldn't wouldn't mind send this to ordinance so we can keep it on there and we can see something but also maybe the police do and then make sure we make a motion they do another study for it for a month or six weeks anyway whatever we can do to get more data just so we know what we're dealing with also lieutenant could you uh possibly just i know you guys are busy as it is but in the meantime trying to increase the enforcement in the area a little bit yeah we'll make sure we uh have some nice post up down there I need someone to make the motion.

I'll make the motion.

Okay. Motion has been made by Councilman Fiola, seconded by Councilman Pollock. All in favor? All right. The ayes have it.

Are we happy to share this with you? Yeah.

Take a look at it. I'm sorry, Mr. President. if there's an issue in that neighborhood and you get one of these bikes or somebody speeding up and down the street, by all means call the police department so they can get out there right away.

Okay.

Thank you. Yeah.

Hi, my name is James Piccolo. I also live on Baird Avenue, 47 Baird Ave, which is right in the middle. Um, well, A year and a half ago, I woke up at 4 o'clock to go to work, so I'm getting ready, and a police officer knocks on my door because somebody totaled my fiance's car right in front of my house. They were speeding. They fell asleep. So right there, that's the image, which is on the insurance companies, of course, but it could have been avoided if we do put in a speed bump, particularly at Atwood Avenue, where it crosses from Baird. There's an ice cream parlor at the end of the street, and there's tons of families that walk to the ice cream parlor every night in the summertime. And that is also public safety risk if somebody gets hit by a car. Those are my two concerns. I walk my dogs through the neighborhood all the time, and I have to pull them off the road. gonna have to please conduct another study we're gonna continue this we're not just gonna no i understand we're not gonna just say no we're just gonna with all due respect to the um traffic study if you see a big white metal frame with something telling you how fast you're going you are going to slow down and for 4 300 cars to go by in a week uh or 10 days i'm sorry i leave my house and i come home i travel down that street twice a day so that's a hundred times um More than it should be for the whole street. There's only 40 units on the street. All right, thank you.

Thank you. Okay, number 20, Senator street scape and revitalization project, Sherry, the Polly grants manager request discussion and possible vote regarding authorization. To enter into an agreement with regarding the standard L street scape and revitalization project. This item was continued from the May town council meeting.

Mr. Mr. President, if I may, I have to recuse myself for the record.

Councilman fail is accusing you get a deduction.

Good evening. So picking up where we left off a couple months ago, a lot has developed. So I'd like to fill you in and hopefully get this approved. First of all, I'd like to clarify anything that is still out there that has to do with that contraflow lane that we were discussing. This is a $1.7 million grant, it would never ever cover the cost of removing the bypass and creating a two way traffic pattern. What the conversation had been was, perhaps we could use some of the funding to do a feasibility study and see what would make sense to make the bypass area safer. The reason this came up was because we had done a revision of our safety action plan in 2025 and although it wasn't specifically advised for us to change the traffic pattern it was noted that the bypass is a high injury network and it was recommended and this is public information you can find our The whole document is on the website under safe streets for all. So it's public, it's there for everyone. They did recommend that we look into ways of making that area safer, particularly for pedestrians. And so it was simply an idea that had come up in discussion with DOT that maybe we could see if it was feasible. based on the reaction that we got when it was kind of mentioned just in passing i went back to the funder and said it looks like at this point we're going to stick to just the beautification aspect of it the streetscape aspect of it we're not going to be doing anything with the traffic patterns for now so it is back to its original form we're looking to obligate the money so that we can do the beautification projects The second concern that we had was obviously the match $425,000 is a big match. Um, since then, obviously you've dealt with the budget and I've dealt with things on my end. I couldn't really tell you this at the last meeting because the decision had not been made yet, but I was able to get grants that will cover the match. I was given a $392,000 grant from Rhode Island commerce, which will allow us to do all of the lighting in Centerdale. And that will serve as the match to the $1.7 million that combined with um studies we have from crossman engineering that we paid for several years back when the project began it's covered so knowing that and knowing that it's just back to a beautification project i would like to request that the council sign to let us progress with the project sure sure As an added bonus, the lighting that we are going to remove from Centerdale so that we can replace it with new lighting, many of those lights are still functional and in very good condition. So we're going to take those and we're in combination with another Rhode Island commerce grant that was secured before my time for Maryville, we're going to actually be able to move some of the lights we have from Centerdale into Maryville. And then we're actually also going to be able to use some tree grants to plant trees in Maryville. So we kind of have multiple projects that are all going to be able to stem from this sort of one larger project. And we can definitely utilize grant funding to match each other. We've got a strategy in place. So, um, It looks like if we can get one area done, we can start moving into the next area.

I just have one question. As far as the lighting in Centerdale, as far as what we're looking at.

Yes.

do we have because before we go out and ask for money we're gonna know what we're spending what we're spending it on like I think I made the comment of doesn't need to be Paris but also I don't need it to be Beirut either that's right so that's right um so or to be blunt but that's just fine you know I don't I don't have any skin in the game right I just get I get told the numbers and I get told what we want so I can tell you that um essentially our

communications team is the team that is in charge of the lights lighting as well they were able to give me costs based on what they had recently gotten quotes for um and there were 101 lights in centerdale that need to be replaced the entire grant was for the replacement of the lights plus whatever the cost would be for our folks to yeah exactly any way we can get a look at those or no um i'm sure that i could see the lighting that you know i'm sure they must have a catalog or something of some sort i don't have it on me but i can reach out and i can get it thank you yeah sure any other questions councilman yeah so i know we saw the design last meeting was that design um created with that number in mind

What the grant number was?

With the 1.7 million? This design that I have was created many, many, many years ago. I don't know if it was done in tandem with that idea. I'm sure it informed the ask. Again, I have to write the complete application. If it's approved, then I have to go in and say this is specifically what we're doing with it. um i'm happy to share the binder with you it's got everything in it for the grant and it's got the designs as well and i think the date on them is from 2021. yeah i mean i'm just saying what if that design comes in at you know 1.2 or what if it comes in at 2.5 you know to make sure that we have it funded and not to get out of hand so to say and um that was either the bossman group or beta

Any other questions? Sure.

I was just wondering what's going to happen to the clock?

What's going to happen to the clock? Nothing is just going to stay there. That's that's cool. are they going to be topiaries you don't know okay well you seem to know a lot of like all the numbers because you had to present them to the government do you know the annual maintenance costs you don't have that oh my god that's important that's very important

And then anything that happens with maintenance?

Well, no, I'm just shocked that there's not somebody here to talk about the maintenance costs. Does anybody have the maintenance costs? Or know who would have the maintenance costs?

Well, we all do respect it. We don't know what we picked yet, so you don't know what the maintenance is going to be if we don't even know what we're having, but each plan pitch should show the maintenance class.

I mean, you wouldn't make a decision without knowing the maintenance class.

Probably have to take that into consideration when we find out once we finalize and we can. Okay.

I was just, yeah, 1 of the reasons that, like, like, I'm just wondering, like, is the changing it to the streetscape. how much is that going to increase our annual maintenance costs you know and also if topiaries are put out because i think i saw a plan that had topiaries i don't know if it's the same plan you have there now because you're saying you have a different plan than that was presented from the lady in the purple suit um is that you know the lady from the last meeting in the purple suit what was her name what's the decisions made mr chandler members of the council then we'll know that the maintenance course was So you make a decision without knowing the maintenance costs?

We haven't made the decision yet.

And will the public know about the maintenance costs before you make that decision?

It's all here.

It's all here?

Yeah.

Where? Well, it will be once we... At another meeting, you'll discuss the maintenance costs prior to... Before we make a decision.

Before you make a decision.

Okay, I'm just curious about that.

Just to address your concern, excuse me. Every single meeting we have is public. So every meeting we've had, we have is public.

Yeah, no, I know. I saw it.

I'm talking about costs. So like every cost of projects that were brought up tonight have been discussed in a public forum. I would say close to 30 times prior to tonight.

Okay. But I don't think any maintenance costs.

No, no, no. We're talking about other, I'm saying, I'm just, I'm only talking about maintenance costs.

That's all.

We're talking, I'm, You keep saying that we're throwing around big numbers, but in general, like millions and millions of dollars.

You're right.

That's a lot of money.

We may go with plastic flowers. We won't eat anything.

It's an option. I'm for it. Anyway, that's all.

Thank you, Sherry. Is there a motion to enter an agreement for the revitalization? The motion has been made by Councilman Matone, seconded by Councilman Bacala. All those in favor?

all those opposed the eyes have it thank you item number 21 green infrastructure center Sherry Sherry I'm sorry I want to thank you for putting this this piece out for us yeah I just have one question if we could can we touch on that you know at all yeah the Brute Hill Brute Hill yes oh Um, it says that you met with Dave and the grant, uh, it won't be extended any further.

That's correct. We got, I think already one extension and they are giving us until December of this year, the end of December of this year to get the final designs. We've spoken to DEM. They approached us because there was an opportunity for them to provide us with technical assistance. I believe one of the reasons why the design process has slowed down is because there were certain stormwater elements that they were trying to figure out without excessive cost or without disruption to the residents around them if we are awarded this technical assistance then dem is going to help us to design the rest of fruit hill we should know that within the next couple of weeks or so if we are awarded that and then that way we can finish the design and we can move on to the federal portion of it who's doing the design Um, David D'Amico.

David. Okay. So he knows this, that we have to have this because this thing has been around for quite a while.

Yes.

And I still get calls from the residents constantly.

Yeah.

And we, we keep on putting it, let's move it forward, move forward. And it stalls.

Yeah.

Now we've got $639,000 plus another 80,000 that we potentially can just wash our hands with unless we have everything done. That's right. David, to get these designs ready for these people. That's correct. Got to be done by the end of the year.

Yes.

Okay. I just wanted one of that said, because I thank you very much for all this.

You're welcome. Anytime.

Thank you. All right. Number 21, Green Infrastructure Center. Brent Wagon and Molly Henry, Community Forestry Planner of Green Infrastructure Center, request to appear before the council to present findings of the RIDEM Urban Forestry Technical Assistance Program.

Brent. So as part of that technical assistance program the green infrastructure bank was uh Center sorry Center but not bank um was uh hired by this it was I can explain it yeah if you want it's kind of confusing hi everybody good evening I'm going to try to make this fast because um you all had a packed agenda oh look

There's a presentation there. So originally, Inflation Reduction Act funding, so federal funding, came through, filtered into the state, went to the Department of Environmental Management. They hired us, the Green Infrastructure Center. I live in Pawtucket. I'm local. Been working in 12 different municipalities. Now we've been providing free technical assistance around urban forestry and related things like stormwater and urban heat. And the town of North Providence was one of those many communities thanks to Brent and the mayor actually for sitting down with us and realizing the value of the program. We are a nonprofit. We do a lot of mapping, spatial analysis, and we do some outreach engagement. We also have free money for trees. And I want to mention that trees are a great traffic calming mechanism too. So the speed bumps, that conversation, there's definitely a connection. And I was looking at Baird and I was like, there's a lot of plantable space down there. So if we could get some of those front yards planted, that would really help. um if you can advance to the next one um this is the process what we went through it's about 10 month process we had a ad hoc committee it was um town staff and land trust members and who else was it um we had some public works we had our gis yes coordinator public safety Yes, and so kind of we went through and they gave us feedback on projects that were happening, what would affect the current landscape. We were actually able to assess the land cover for the entire town, which I'm going to share with you. And we did a code and ordinance review looking at everything that impacts stormwater and tree canopy. and um came up with a goal because before this there was no data on what the canopy cover looked like so that helped inform a goal and the strategies that would support that and then we're kind of at the phase where we completed all the technical assistance and we're going to be publishing a report in the I don't want to promise a timeline. In the coming year, there's some other communities ahead of you. But before that is published, I want to make sure you all are aware of this and the findings and recommendations before that goes into publication. So if you can advance to the next one, this is your tree canopy cover, your land cover. You are 27% tree canopy cover. So if you're a bird flying over, 27% of the land area is covered by tree canopy. Pretty significant amount of imperviousness. That's all of your pavement hardscape. That's where water has nowhere to go. So you're going to ask me, where does North Providence stack up compared to other Rhode Island communities? If you go to the next one, this is a comparison. So you're kind of on the lower end of the 12 or so communities that we have done a land cover analysis for. And you also have pretty significant imperviousness relative to other communities that we have analyzed. So just something to consider because I know in Rhode Island, we all like to compare what our neighbors are doing and maybe a little healthy competition is good. But with that, I will advance if you can advance. We did develop a goal. So this ad hoc committee, the Tree Canopy Advisory Committee is what we called it, wanted to increase canopy by 2% over the next 10 years. And that includes maintaining the trees that we currently have, making sure we're saving them through policy, um and then also trying to create programs to add tree canopy because you're going to need to do both in order to really add the numbers look big and they are big because if you want to increase by two percent you're looking at somewhere around 700 trees annually but this is public and private property so um we need to have programs that encourage and educate um residents and property owners to plant trees in their front yard so bared app Great example. You can get trees in that front yard, you can get traffic calming, you can get cooling effects and you can have it contributing to the goal. So if you go to the next one, um, we have a lot of maps. They're all going to be in the report. This is just the goal broken down by neighborhood. Um, the, the darker colors of orange are the areas that need to be prioritized more. Um, when you break down that, um, overall canopy goal. And then if you go to the next one, I just like to point this out, really stark imagery here. So all of your commercial corridors have really high heat zones. Maybe not news to you, you drive down Mineral Spring, it feels hot, it looks hot, but the data is really showing us there's a huge heat disparity. in those areas. And just something to think about is that trees take a long time to establish and to grow. So if you want to get all those great health benefits that we know that they provide of air quality and heat reduction and stormwater mitigation, you have to plant them now. And we're looking at in the mid-century, we're going to have up to 12 days over 100 degrees. So if we don't do those measures now, we don't have a way to protect people and combat some of the heat that we know that we're going to experience. Next one, stormwater, just because it's a big issue in North Providence. Takeaway here is your trees right now. All of the trees that we have analyzed and figured out in terms of the value that they're bringing to North Providence, into your stormwater infrastructure, and to the health of your ecosystem, All of the nitrogen, phosphorus, sediment, we have all those numbers for you on what your trees are doing right now. So if you lose them, or if you add that number is going to change also the volume of stormwater. We've in the last few days had a ton of stormwater or ton of water in general. maybe not up to the one year 24 hour rainfall event, but it's doing a tremendous amount to reduce stormwater, right? And so just thinking about that, that how important these trees are, it's not just like they're pretty to look at. They're doing a lot of work. They are a part of the town's infrastructure. um and then the next one um i mentioned we're doing a canopy plan this is just patuckets um because we published it so that's an example if you want to look and see what the plan might look like that's a good example and then these are the top five strategies again we engage the tree canopy advisory committee and residents so we had over a hundred residents through a virtual survey and in-person events, give us feedback on what they wanted to see for strategies. And so those are the top five. I'll let you read those on your leisure. And I just want to end with this takeaway, which is that for town council, things you can do. I don't want to talk about money because I feel like that's a sore subject right now, But there's a lot of great financing mechanisms to pay for planting and maintenance of trees. Brent has already come up with some really interesting ideas that were one of the top five. So building permits, having that go toward dedicated fund. There's also tree bonds. There's ways of having dedicated funding for planting and maintenance of trees. I also would love to see a 10% minimum for all of your streets, town streets. um in the comprehensive plan and also um i'll just point out that uh you don't have a way to really protect any of the trees right now um that are standing and we just talked about all the work that they're doing and um i recognize that it's going to take baby steps right to have any sort of you know significant tree policy where you're protecting it on private property that would be like the end goal potentially but one thing you could consider is the town of warren does this they have a voluntary program where if there is a significant tree and you would have to identify what that would look like in the the ordinance um you would then be able to protect that tree through an easement um and that would be you know saved in perpetuity and so that's a really good easy strategy just to start like you know really trying to protect your existing trees so that's all i have for you um i blew through that pretty quickly this is my contact information my colleague aj elton is also um our community forester and arborist and we've been working also with the tree warden really closely so tim thorpe has been finding projects left and right for us um we'd love to get you know your support if you have constituents who are really looking for for trees or issues around flooding or heat please you know let let brent know um and thank you so much for for having us great presentation thank you this is great thank you i'd like to add that we just got a grant to um get tim a gps device to map out locations of new trees so if you have any ideas of

locations of tree plantings uh we also have many trees that we uh received from the green infrastructure bank and several other uh resources so Frank can any of this be incorporated in when somebody's gonna has a building permit they're building a house they're building a commercial property whatever I know we talked about at some point having so much greenery and not so much of parking lots can any of that money be used if we tell somebody that's you know they're going to put the project up oh by the way if you put some trees in there we have

know money for things updated make sure we have that green space and adding the trees in it at no expense to we can certainly develop a program like that um we are discussing um raising the i think it was from 5 to 15 landscape requirements for commercial so uh since it's a requirement you can certainly assist okay businesses uh property owners to plant them

And also, I'll just mention that Sherry has been great at getting grants with DEM. There's a lot of money out there for things like just programmatic things, also physical trees, because in the next year, this grant is going to expire that I'm working under. But the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank also has lots of grants. We have other communities that have literally used this data and these reports to apply for grants that have been successful.

when you talk about maintenance, it's really, it's just trimming them and keeping them like neat. It's not, we don't have to fertilize them. We're not.

No, I mean, maintenance is really in the first two years is the most important. So making sure that they're getting watered because the urban tree, they struggle.

Yeah. I'm going to take horticulture next week. Brent, the encompass spot you mentioned that was green, the green infrastructure bank also.

So, We were going to use trees from the green infrastructure bank, and they were involved, but that was you or I that.

Was really yeah, no, I was just going to compliment because the mayor explained it and gave me what was going to be there tonight. I was just going to thank you because I know at 1 point you had mentioned green infrastructure.

The lead designer, Stephanie Nordoff, does work for us. She's taking a break and working for the lab over the summer. But we've been talking about that plan and possibility of investing some of our trees if there was interest in implementing a phase of that project.

Yeah, the mayor explained that tonight. I was going to say thank you because there was a lot of misconceptions with some of the neighbors down there, what was going there. Yeah.

Yeah, a little bit of that was just students' greetings.

No, I wanted to thank you. The mayor explained it to me tonight, so...

If I may, Mr. Chairman, the biggest, one of the biggest problems we have now is addressing the calls that we're getting from residents that want trees taken down. And I can tell you that, you know, we're in a debate daily, you know, go out, take a look at them, and then we have to call Northeast because they're the company that provides the service to us. And I can tell you that we're doing our best to try to convince them, let's trim it instead of take it down. Oh, I just want to take it down supposing it falls. So now Tim will grow trees like this. It's not going to fall. But I just don't want it there anymore. So that's another issue that we're trying to handle right now, people that are requesting the trees to be taken down. And we're doing our best not to take down many trees. First of all, it's costly. And second of all, you know, talking with Tim and we take him out there, you know, we're trying to stay as green as possible. So that's becoming a little issue with us now.

Can I make one comment on that? Um, I, we talked about this in our meeting. So, Tim, your tree warden, um, I would recommend, um, having the tree risk assessment qualified. It's track. It's a international society of a boriculture certification. And the reason I say that is because having him go out there and assess those trees for possible risk, and then having it that put in in any sort of inventory, which, you know, we've been talking about with that, that grant. reduces the liability for the town. It shows you've been here. You check the tree. He's certified. He says that it did not have risk. And so the town is then reducing its liability. So I would definitely highly recommend encouraging. He's also very enthusiastic. Yes.

I'm glad you brought up liability because I had a question. So And I'm in favor of this as a practical matter. But if you walk around Providence, the amount of sidewalks that are uplifted or roofs. So is there something that you're doing differently when you plant trees? Or is there something because from a liability perspective, I work for the city. Half of our slip and falls were as a result of tree roots that came up.

Absolutely. So it's what we call in the field, bright tree, right place. And one of the issues with the trees probably that you're seeing, I just looked at the tree inventory that DEM did last year, technically, or it was like early this year. Half of your trees are maple. First of all, that's problematic because of species diversification. But if you look at it, most of those are Norway maple. And if you're familiar with Norway maple, They're one of the fastest growing, most crumbly trees, and they've become your prominent street tree that like to pull up sidewalks. And so when you don't have right tree, right place, and yes, they're not properly planted and planted in a good location, and there's not enough soil volume, and I can nerd out and talk about all that stuff. But there's a lot of thought that goes into making sure the pit size is large enough it's the right size tree there's you know aj my colleague who's our you know forester and arborist he's adamant about making sure right tree right place happens so thank you thank you and he's why we're addressing that is you know come on i have to talk about it give you an example uh paul will talk 35 years ago

big program, all these new sidewalks, gorgeous. You know what's happening today?

Looks like nothing. I go down power all the time.

No, no. You know what's happening today? Trees are lifting up the sidewalks. And so what I'm concerned is that if we plant some new trees here to make sure the arborist or whoever is going to make that decision that that tree, when it blows, it's not going to stop falling. And you know, it's The sidewalks up and they see all those guys and know what they were doing. So it's another issue. Oh, which we don't plan. Good. But we're worried about that. Now we're down the road.

We're also taking into account no utilities, structures and that kind of thing. So they don't want large canopies in narrow areas.

Yeah, overhead wires are underground. I mean, big states have to be called for all so

everybody all set thank you thank you very much item number 23 ordinance introduction discussion and possible vote on the introduction of ordinance 26-014 relating to an amendment the flood hazard district ordinance do you have a motion to introduce is there a second 2nd, most of them made by constantly my tone 2nd, if I constantly all those now, this has to be passed by August 27th 27th.

Yes.

27th.

27th, so that's essentially just a minor typo. A letter has to be changed to a J or vice versa and 2 dates have to be changed to the end of June.

Okay. All right, so we're going to have to have a meeting before the 27th to pass this for insurance purposes. So tomorrow send an email out, get everyone's availability. Thank you. Okay. Emotions have been made in 2nd, all those in favor, all those opposed the eyes habit. I have number 24, what haven elementary school council president request discussion possible on privacy concerns for what haven elementary students and residents on Jacksonia drive. Myself councilman report show and councilman attended a neighborhood gathering at a residence house. All the residents on Jacksonia Drive's properties are completely wide open and exposed to the side of Greystone School. They were told in several building hearing meetings that there would be a privacy barrier put up for them with trees, or whatever, and that has not been done. Those students that are on the second floor can literally look down into their house, and the people in those houses can look up into the classroom windows. i'd like to send a letter on behalf of this town council to our finance director to instruct the building committee with to use any leftover funds from the bond to go towards creating that barrier that these residents were told i can't see the view from the room Okay. I will say the superintendent has been very helpful with communicating back and forth, but this is a concern, and they also need to go and look at it when it's the winter and the leaves on the few trees that are there. So that's the form of a motion. The motion has been made by Councilman Lopoccio, seconded by Councilman Bacala. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The ayes have it. Thank you. Item number 25, dash light installation. Council President Oriella requests discussion and possible vote on a dash light installation for Father T.J. Varghese's vehicle. This item is going to be removed from the agenda. Item number 27, property at 995 through Mineral Spring Avenue. Councilman Pollack, request discussion and possible vote on debris and garbage in lots at 995 to 1005 Mineral Spring Avenue. Councilman Pollack, nice work on this matter. I know it's been addressed already. Therefore, I was under the assumption it was being moved off the agenda. I know the eviction license, the town clerk has spoke to them. They're coming in and fill out the paperwork. If there's anything else you'd like to add, I thought this was being removed off the agenda, but apparently not.

As long as they're coming in, we're good.

Okay. Thank you. Item number 29. Board appointment. Town council discussion in action. Forgot to the board appointment to be made to the following board. New appointment. Board of canvases. Republican alternate. Michael Choma. Do I have a motion to appoint Michael Choma? Don't move. Motion has been made by Councilman Bacala. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Councilman Feola. Item number 30. The motion has been approved. Item number 30. Claims submitted. Town Council discussion of possible vote with regard to claims received from the following. Albert Santanello, 22 Cushion Street, North Providence, Rhode Island. Verizon CMR Claims Department PO Box 60770. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Nicholas Peasy, 32 Andover Street, North Providence, Rhode Island. Audra Cornell, 31 Justice Street, North Providence, Rhode Island. Michael Marino, 172 Pleasant View Avenue, Smithfield, Rhode Island. Denise DeFenze, 203 Obed Avenue, North Providence, Rhode Island. Do I have a motion to send this to the claims committee? Motion has been made by Councilman McCulloch, seconded by Councilman Fiola. All those in favor?

All those opposed?

The ayes have it.