Town Council - Regular Meeting

and welcome to the June 22nd, 2026 Portsmouth Town Council meeting. In the event of an emergency, if we're asked to evacuate the building, if you please orderly exit out the door you came in, the one that's back behind your left shoulder or behind Mr. Reese over here, we would all exit out over to the school department building and wait for further instructions from our men and women, from our first responders. If you are now all please join me in a pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence for our men and women in harm's way.

my diligence to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

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

Mr. Gleason?

Here.

Ms. McDowell? Here. Ms. Patton? Here. Excuse me, Patton. Mr. Piero? Here. Mr. Reese? Here. Mr. Hamilton?

I am here. Ms. Blank won't be able to join us this evening because she is tied up with work. We did have an executive session earlier this evening, right before this. We had a discussion on a contract question with the fire department. There were no votes taken. Next up, we have our public comment. First up, we have Mr. Sal Carsella, who would like to discuss, like to talk about curbside. There won't be a discussion. Thank you, Sal. Yeah, just direct right into the front.

Sal Carseller, 63 Leaps Road.

Last month.

No, actually. Okay. Now it's on. All right. Sal Carseller, 63 Leaps Road. I was at the meeting at the end of last month. And we were discussing not particularly curbside, but the funds and how they're held. And Mr. Reese was at that meeting brought up maybe revisiting investment choices and fixed equities. Definitely, we're not talking stock market investments here. I wouldn't want that done with our money. One of the questions my wife and I had after Mr. Reese had brought this up, we were thinking about the enterprise funds. And I know my wife sent you on the 30th to Mr. Rayner and to all the counselors were copied. We never heard back. What we were asking was, this is an enterprise fund and it's our money. When I had waste management, I paid, well, you could pay monthly, you could pay quarterly. I paid quarterly, which meant that I held on. If you look at the way it is today, meant that I held on the nine months worth of my for the year of my money. And I kept that, you know, conservatively invested. So I'm asking the same of the town council. I think Mr. Reese brought this was going down this route. I'm not asking about the town funds, the town tax side. I'm asking about particular this enterprise fund. I'd like to know how this money is invested since it's ours. And I'd also like to know, is it in laddered CDs? Is there, you know, because my understanding is you collect it all before, like I'm going to pay for my, for this fund. beforehand, well, now this month. And then in July, monthly payments are being made to mega, but you collected all my money upfront and being able to invest this very wisely, like I was doing when it was my money in my account, behooves all of us as residents because that money now can help offset some of that interest can help offset. So my thoughts here are, if it were me and I was investing it, I would definitely keep, you know, the one quarter's worth in cash because you need it. You're going to have to pay it. And then I'd ladder CD the rest of it, something like three months, six months, a nine month laddered CDs. So that's all. That's all I have for today. Thank you.

Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Carsella. Next up, we have Mr. Blake Anderson about the short-term rentals. Thank you for letting me speak today about this. Mr. Anderson, you're a little taller than Sal. Thank you, sir.

Yeah, I'm a resident Portsmouth. I live at 250 Fisher Circle. I've lived there privately and peacefully for 20 years. And last year I discovered that the property next to mine had been changed from a single family residence to a short-term rental with absentee landlord and then all the problems that came from that. I've been to town hall to file complaints with the parties, found that there are no consequences to the owner or the renter. only to the neighbors. We have to face the noise, the traffic, the intrusion on our privacy. It's a situation that I think is going to continue because without the landlord there, maintaining compliance and accountability is going to be a week-to-week issue, at least for me. When I came to Town Hall to learn more about the STR process, I was very surprised to find that a change of use of a property happens administratively. I'm a registered professional engineer. I founded Northeast Engineers in 1987, and I have done scores of projects in this town. They all followed a similar process. Abutters were notified. The project was advertised. A hearing was held. Testimony was given. There was a vote by your peers. And it was a yes or a no, but it always followed the same process. And the part of the process that always seemed to be the more important part, because the engineering was already taken care of before you get to zoning, that was adhering to the master plan, the comprehensive community plan, which is a long range policy guide intended to guide future land use and zoning decisions. Now I decided to look at the STR process and forgive me, I'm a civil engineer. I look at things a certain way. I'm not a lawyer. That's what he's here for. I wanted to compare what the comprehensive plan was looking for when it came to housing and to compare the STR process to those goals. Three came to my mind. Number one is the preservation of character of traditional neighborhoods. A single family neighborhood is meant to be a stable, quiet, and safe place where long-term residents build relationships, raise family, and contribute to cohesive communities. I believe the STR process of administratively approving a change of use is not in keeping with that goal of the comprehensive plan. Next came the item of preserve existing year-round housing. I believe from examining the types of homes and the use of them, that these are more seasonal than year round housing. So it fails on that goal. Recognizing the need for additional housing, particularly affordable and workforce housing. The one thing I've learned is that this STR process pretty much covers the whole economic spectrum of the town of Portsmouth. However, the concentration is in our R10 zones. We are allowing out of state, out of town and local investors to buy up our housing inventory and deny the single families that should be living here with us in our community. I believe right now we're up to about 150 STRs with no cap. So as someone that looks at things as an engineer and by definition, I just wanted to bring this to your attention that I think the existing process is not fair to the neighborhoods, the abutters, and to the goals of our plan. So I ask that you re-examine this and see if there's a better way to do it. My neighbors, we're all retirees, are extremely upset. They feel powerless. And they don't know what to do because we now have this issue in our community. A retirement community has like four to five trips a day per house. And that's if there's two people there. Six of my neighbors are widows. You bring in an STR, and of course with all their friends, it's a much bigger traffic, a much louder noise, a much more noticeable impact. So I don't believe that this is a victimless process. I believe it's something that's been allowed to evolve because once STRs were just your neighbor renting the house for two weeks when they went on vacation in New Hampshire. But it has since evolved into something much bigger. And I believe it's damaging our community and our neighborhoods. That's all I have to say.

Thank you, Mr. Henderson. Appreciate that. Next up, we have our consent agenda. Do we have a motion to approve as presented? So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 6-0. Next up, we'll be sitting as the Board of Licensed Commissioners. We have three peddlers licensed. One for Victoria McDermott doing business as Little Lattes on a Roll. And Love Language Food, LLC, doing business as La Cata Salata. How did I do there, Mr. Perriero? All right, thank you. And C, we have Cordero Confessions, LLC, doing business as Tag Team Treats. Motion to approve.

Second.

All those in favor? Opposed? Motion passes. Ticks to zero. Next up, we have two entertainment licenses, one for... Safe Harbor Marine, NEB, LLC doing business as Safe Harbor New England Boat Works for their annual race week from six to nine. And then also for 706 Park Avenue, LLC doing business at Sunset Cove for two concerts on July 1st and 2nd from five to eight. Motion to approve.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes seven to zero. Motion to adjourn as the board- Six to zero, sorry. Motion to adjourn as a board of licensed commissioners. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. Next up, we have our minutes from 6-8-2026 in the executive session and also the minutes from 6-10-2026. Any corrections or additions? There are none. Motion to approve as presented. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. We have a tax vouchers. A tax voucher, excuse me. Tax voucher number 20260622-01. We have a motion to approve. So moved.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. We have our town administrator's report. Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. President, town council, ladies and gentlemen. The United States Small Business Administration has approved economic injury disaster loans for eligible businesses and nonprofit organizations affected by the February snowstorm. So if an organization has experienced economic losses as well, or as a result of that event, assistance might be available. And we posted that information on our website, including how to apply and where to get assistance. And our emergency management director, Ray Perry, is available to answer any questions people may have. I'm pleased to report that the Friends of the Glen Manor House have been awarded $148,000. This is a grant from the Alita Morris McBean Charitable Trust, and it's to support the restoration of the loggia at Glen Manor House. That structure is one of the property's signature architectural features and serves as a backdrop for weddings, education programs, and community events throughout the year. So I'd like to thank the friends, their chair, Brenda Doran, and the team at the Russell Marin Catering and Events for their work in securing this funding and for their continued commitment to the preservation of the Manor House. I also want to share some good news regarding our cybersecurity program. The town has been awarded almost $144,000 through Rhode Island EMA state and local cybersecurity grant program. These funds will help support our multi-factor authentication program over the next four years. I want to thank Major Mike Morris for his efforts in securing this grant. Cybersecurity, as you know, is continuing to be a growing challenge for all municipalities, and this will help protect our IT systems for the next four to five years. I would also like to recognize two important personnel milestones for the Portsmouth Police Department. First, I want to congratulate Deputy Police Chief Major Mike Morris on his retirement after a distinguished career service to our community. Mike's last day on active duty will be next Friday, although I'm pleased to report that he has sworn in today as a reserve police officer and will continue to remain connected to the department. On behalf of the town, I want to thank Mike for his years of dedicated service, leadership, professionalism, and commitment to the residents of Portsmouth, and I wish him well as he begins the next chapter in his life. I would also like to congratulate Major Richard Ruist on his promotion and selection as Portsmouth's next Deputy Chief of Police. Rick was sworn in today and brings nearly 38 years of law enforcement experience through his service with both the Tiverton and Portsmouth Police Departments. Since 2022, Rick has served as a patrol captain and he is in charge of supervising 23 officers and playing a key role in the department's daily operations. Throughout his career, he's demonstrated strong leadership, sound judgment, and commitment to high standards of performance for both himself and those under his command. So on behalf of the town, I thank Major Morris for his service and congratulate Deputy Chief Ruiz on his well-deserved promotion. And then lastly, town hall will be closed Friday, July 3rd for the July 4th holiday. The Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation landfill will be closed Saturday, July 4th and that Monday, July 6th. So all curbside service will be delayed one day following the July 4th weekend. So the Monday pickups will be Tuesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, so on and so forth, including Friday pickups, which will be held on Saturday. The transfer station will also be closed Saturday, July 4th and Monday, July 6th. However, the transfer station will remain open on Wednesday, July 8th, which is normally a closed day. And Mr. President, that concludes my report.

Great.

Any questions for Mr. Rainer?

I would also echo your congratulations to both Rich and Mike. Mike, good luck with your retirement. Major Morse was the leader in our cybersecurity. So all of you who get the monthly reminder to do your cyber training, that was Major Morse who really spearheaded that. So far, knock on wood, it has kept us relatively safe. All right, we have appointments and resignations. We have two resignations from the Design Review Board.

Mr. President, I move that we receive with regret the resignations of Mr. Nick Avery and Mr. Ray Abraham.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. If I may, Mr. I just would like to thank Mr. Avery. He put in 20 years at that position. So thank you for your service. Mr. Abraham may have as well. He didn't listen to the time he's been involved, but I think he's been involved for quite some time as well. Thank you, gentlemen.

All right, we have appointments, all reappointments. Ms. Moulton for the Bristol Ferry Town Common Committee. Mr. Gibson for Design Review. Two for the Harbor Commission, Mr. Egan and Ms. Garcelle. I'm going to mess that up. Mr. Gump for Housing Authority. Mr. Kelly, Ms. Nally, and Ms. Sylvia for Juvenile Hearing Board. And Parks and Recreation for Mr. Gallo. You'd like to do that as a group? You know, individually?

Sure. I have a comment. The comp plan is to set up a new affordable housing advisory board. That's right in Section 430, and that's to be appointed by the council. With the pending formation of the new board, there is no need to continue the Portsmouth Housing Authority, which was exclusively focused on overseeing the Quaker Manor and Quaker Estates. And these properties have both now been transferred to Sabatus Housing Phoenix and are no longer under the town's control. So since the PHA has not had a meeting since last year, and we're going to be setting up a new board, Mr. Gump probably should not be re-appointed to PHA, but can be told he can apply for a position on the new board when it comes up because there's no property now that they'd be managing and they don't meet.

I believe they still are overseeing the. It's run by Sabatus. It's run by them, but they're overseeing their use, but we can, we can cancel it out at any time. All right, so we'll do them one at a time, Mr. Gleason. Okay, sure. Thank you.

Motion to approve the reappointment of Linda Moulton to the Bristol-Ferrytown Common Committee.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 6-0. Motion to reappoint Cyrus Gibson to the Design Review Board. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 6-0. Harbor Commission. Motion to approve Dave Garceau and Katie Egan to the Harbor Commission. Reappoint.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 6-0.

Can you just make sure everybody says aye into the microphone?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Next one is to reappoint Mr. Gary Gump to the Housing Authority. Second. All those in favor?

Aye. Nay. Opposed? Nay. Nay. Okay, let's try that again. All those in favor.

Could I ask a question now that I've heard what Mr. Reese has said regarding that? So the housing authority, it remains the same even though the owner has changed? Is that what I'm hearing?

It's no longer under town control. It's run by Sabatus and Phoenix.

Any clarity on this? I see that you...

Two issues. One, I think the authority is, there's some statutory.

If you don't mind, it is clearly delineated under 452515. You are required by state law to have a housing authority in your municipality. So whether or not the authority it is, we are still required by the state law in order to be able to empower an housing authority. We could change the regulation, but right now, one, it would not be germane in order to be able to do that right now under the agenda item. And secondly, we are not empowered to not put a full board up because we still have it under state law.

Well, that's news.

It's not news, it's law. You're not reading, you're making news. I also think that they're obviously aware of the Quaker manners. Those states have been turned over to Spadis. But I do believe that they are planning to come before the council to discuss their future role and possible involvement in that section of the Portsmouth Comprehensive Community Plan. So I think it might be a bit premature to not staff the housing authority, but certainly to have a discussion on what their future should be.

Do we know how many members are on there? Do they have a quorum without one member?

Offhand, I don't know.

Look at the website.

It depends who comes to the meeting.

With every meeting, it depends on how many people come to the meeting.

There's five.

So taking an extra one off could limit it.

Should we just delay this until we get some kind of report on what they plan on doing?

I don't see a reason to delay it if we need to have one by state law. And if we're worried about quorums, taking one person off is going to risk both of those.

go ahead with the appointment and add it to an agenda?

Yeah, those are two separate items.

Right.

I just have a question for Mr. Raynor. So the housing authority is in discussions of being a part of this new board, correct? Is that what I heard you say? They'd like to have something on their new board, correct?

They want to come before the council and discuss their future and what is your desire in utilizing the Portsmouth Housing Authority to address housing needs in the communities moving forward?

Okay, so given that it's a state statute that we have to have that, what role do we play then in even determining that? Okay.

I'm not fully up to speed on this issue, but I do have some probably basic input that we should give some time and thought over. I don't believe it's necessary to have a housing authority under state law. But once you have one, there's a process for dissolution that actually involves a superior court judge making sure that all the obligations of the authority have been satisfied. So there's a process that that board through the council has to go through in order to dissolve or radically reform that authority. So I would think you'd want the board to have at least adequate membership to vote on their own dissolution if that's what they want to do. I don't think you want to leave them without a quorum or, you know, that would be my concern. That process, you know, is something that has to be considered and take time. You don't have to have a housing authority, but you have one. And so now you've got to run through the traps.

You have to go through the right steps statutorily. Okay. Thank you. That was good for some clarity.

Okay, back to the appointment of Mr. Gump. There was a motion in a second, and I believe it was three to three, but I'm not sure. Ms. McDowell, what was your vote?

I didn't vote. I wanted some clarity.

You want to re-vote this?

I would prefer to, so that we can get clarity on that, please. How do we cancel the previous vote, technically? What would satisfy you?

well we can rescind we can make a secondary vote it's not it's not a big deal but it's just it's a matter of i don't know who said yay or nay i said yay mr pierre said gay yeah i shouldn't know so we have a uh a two to three you had a three three and an abstain vote still open there's still one member that has not voted yeah i was just gonna suggest you could just complete the vote by council mcdowell's

Giving her indication and see where that goes. The vote's not closed.

I would vote in favor of the appointment given the solicitor's remarks and what lies ahead in the future.

Okay. So that makes the motion fail three to three. Is there a motion to reconsider? So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Motion passes six to zero.

We have to redo that vote. Which one? Mr. Gleeson cannot make a motion. He cannot be part of the second. He was not in the affirmative of the original vote. He was in the victory.

You and I can't.

I need to shut up. Someone else needs to second the motion.

Nobody needs to second because there was no motion. The motion failed, so anybody can reconsider.

No, the affirmative would be those that voted in opposition to it. No. Yes, that means that the motion failed. So he did. Yeah, I'm saying I should shut up and not second it. Someone else should second the vote.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. We'll get through this eventually. It's the affirmative. I hope you brought snacks.

Love and hate it.

Next, we have the Juvenile Hearing Board. Mr. Gleason.

Where were we? Juvenile Hearing, please. Okay. Motion to reappoint Mr. Paul Kelly, Linda Nally, and Carol Sylvia to the Juvenile Hearing Board.

Second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. And one reappointed from Mr. Scott Gallo at the Parks and Recreation Committee. So moved. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. Next up, final approval of the fiscal year 2027 town budget. We went through and had a public hearing on the 10th. There have been... a couple of minor adjustments to the tax rate that go out to infinity. So it goes from 984-ish down to 983-62693. I'm going to stop now, but somewhere in that area. So the general fund expenditure for fiscal year 2027 totals $79,166,565.

And that represents a 2.69% increase over the previous year. With respect to the tax levy and the levy cap, the total tax levy increases 2.8989898. So 2.8989%. The levy cap is 4%, so we're under the levy cap. The tax rates per thousand of assessed value, both residential and commercial, are $9.83.4. That's down from $13.27. The tangible remains unchanged at $15.65. Since the budget was provisionally approved on April 30th, the council revised the Pruden-Sino School Foundation civic support to $25,571 and placed $25,000 in a town contingency account. The council revised the curbside enterprise fund budget by voting to spread the $250,000 deficit over two fiscal years. So this reduced the fiscal year 27 sticker price to $569. There have been no changes that affect the provisionally approved budget of $79,166,565. So we're asking for the council's final approval of the proposed fiscal year 27 revenues and expenditures of $79,166,565. $166,565, respectively. And if you do, the tax clerk is prepared to read the budget ordinance. I'm sorry, the town clerk. You just gave her more work.

Thank you.

Is there a motion to approve the fiscal year 2027 budget? So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. Madam Clerk, your favorite night of the evening. Her annums and go for it.

Yes. An ordinance relating to the levy in the collection of taxes, number 2026-06-22. Be it ordained that the town council of the town of Portsmouth at a regular town council meeting legally assembled on the 22nd day of June, 2026, hereby levies and orders the collection of one, a property tax on the rateable real estate and tangible personal property. said levy to be based on the assessments made as of the 31st day of December, 2025, as subsequently adjusted for new construction or damaged or destroyed buildings according to law. Total taxes prior to any adjustments for subsequent increases or decreases in the assessments shall be a sum not more than $67,218,115. Said taxes for ordinary expenses and charges for the payment of interest and indebtedness in whole or in part of said town, for the payment of the town portion of the state tax and for other purposes as specified in the budget and warrant items approved at this meeting as authorized by law. The said property tax shall be apportioned upon 100% of the assessed valuation as determined by the tax assessor on the 31st day of December 2025 at 12 o'clock midnight, according to law. Any subsequent adjustments to the assessed valuation shall be apportioned on a prorated basis during the calendar year, according to law. The above shall be exclusive of veterans exemptions. And for those of the, for those, the elderly as provided by law, the time tax rolls are certified. The maximum gross property tax levy of $67,218,115 does not exceed the 4% levy cap. The fiscal year 2027 tax levies have excluded motor vehicle excise taxes for the purpose of determining tax levy growth pursuant to Article 11 of the 2017 H5175 Sub A, As amended, Rhode Island General Law 44-34 repealed as of 7-1-2023. The tax assessor shall upon completion of said assessment date, certify, and sign the same and deliver it to and deposit the same in the office of the town clerk. The town clerk upon receipt, on receipt of said assessments shall forthwith make a copy of the same and deliver it to the finance director in their capacity as treasurer who shall forthwith issue and affix to said copy warrant under Their hands directed by directed to the town to the collector of taxes of said town commanding them to proceed and collect taxes of the persons and estates liable therefore. said taxes shall be due and payable on and between the first day of July and the first day of September, 2026, and all remaining unpaid on said first day of September, 2026 shall carry until collected a penalty at the rate of 12% per annum upon real estate and tangible personal property. Said taxes may be paid in four installments. The first installment to be 25% on or before the first day of September, 2026, and the remaining installments as follows. 25% on the first day of December, 2026, 25% on the first day of March, 2027, 25% on the first day of June, 2027. A grace period of seven business days will be extended for each installment period. Each installment of taxes, if paid on or before the last day of each installment period successively and in order, shall be free from any charge for interest. If the first installment or any succeeding installments of taxes is not paid by the date of the respective installment period or periods as they occur, then the whole tax or remaining unpaid balance of the tax, as the case may be, shall be immediately become due and payable and carry until collected a penalty at the rate of 12% per annum. Provided, however, that the option to pay said taxes in equal quarterly installments shall not apply to any tax levied in the amount not in excess of $100, in which case the tax shall be payable in a single installment. Whenever there is a subsequent adjustment to said assessments because of new construction or damaged or destroyed buildings, the resulting additional or decreased taxes shall be administered due payable and collectible in accordance with the sections 44-5-13.13 and 44-5-13.14 of the general laws of Rhode Island as amended in any ordinance of the town of Portsmouth. Be it ordained further that the town council of the town of Portsmouth at a regular town council meeting on the 22nd of June, 2026, hereby orders that the tax assessor of this town shall assess an apportion of property tax on the inhabitants and the rateable real estate and tangible personal property of the town of Portsmouth As of the 31st day of December 2025 at 12 o'clock midnight according to law assesses assesses and apportioned adjustments to property taxes on new construction or removal of damaged or destroyed buildings in the town of Portsmouth according to law. ordained that the budget amended carrying a gross portion of $79,166,565 together with the following order in the accounting of refunds, state aid, federal aid or any other credits not specifically stated in the foregoing budget that the town treasurer be directed to credit such funds to the department concerned, and such funds are hereby appropriated by the town council at a regular meeting on June 22, 2026, for the use of departments concerned, provided, however, that such receipts for the school department budget be accepted. ordained that the town treasurer is authorized on behalf of the town of Portsmouth to issue notes in anticipation of the receipt of taxes levied in this fiscal year as authorized by section 45-12-4 of the Rhode Island General Laws, 1956, as amended, the outstanding principal amount of which at any time, one time shall be shall not exceed the amount permitted by section 45-12-4 of the Rhode Island General Laws 1956 as amended. The notes shall be signed by the town treasurer in their capacity as director of finance and countersigned by the president of the town council. The notes shall contain such terms, conditions, and details and bear such dates or dates and mature at such time or times from their date of issuance as the town treasurer may determine. Ordained that the books and accounts of all departments handling town funds be audited by the State Bureau of Audits or by an independent certified public accountant for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026. Ordained further that all monies collected by the town clerk and the tax collector be turned over to the town treasurer monthly or at more frequent intervals as accumulations may warrant. Gross appropriation, $79,166,565. Less estimated school receipts and state aid of $8,209,786. Less estimated miscellaneous general fund receipts of $3,988,774, leaving to be raised by taxes $66,968,005. Less estimated prior year and prorated and pilot collections of $1,262,576. Plus estimated uncollectible spread of $1,512,686. Maximum tax levy, $67,218,115. Keith Hamilton, Town Council President. Fine job. Your favorite night of the year. My favorite night of the year. Favorite night of the year. And I'm done.

They are done. Fantastic. All right. We are on to old business number two. Request approval of FY26 Headley Street Transfer Station sticker application and revised operating procedures. Mr. Rayner.

Yeah. So as the council recalled during the budget process, the council voted to eliminate the second operator position at the Headley Street Transfer Station effect of July 1st. Following that action, we met with Waste Connections, that's the operator, to discuss implementation of the council's decision. Based on those discussions, revised operating rules and procedures were presented for your approval at the last council meeting. The council tabled that discussion until tonight, pending a response from Waste Connections. Their response is linked to the agenda. In summary, Waste Connections has expressed concerns regarding the contractual, operational, labor and safety implications of moving from a two person operation to a single person operation. At the same time, they've indicated a willingness to work with the town to accommodate the council's cost saving objective through a series of operational adjustments they believe are necessary to safely operate the facility with one employee. Those proposed adjustments include lunch closures, revised entry cutoff times, temporary closures during certain equipment operations, and other operational changes as laid out in the letter and the email from Waste Connections District Manager. Because these staffing changes take place July 1st, we need direction regarding how the council wishes to proceed. The question is whether you wish to move forward with the single operator model together with the operational accommodations proposed by Waste Connections, or whether you wish to provide alternate direction regarding implementation of the council's budget decision.

Thank you, Mr. Raynor. The suggestions by... waste connections are to have different lunch window schedules and their examples would be monday and thursday from 11 to 11 45 and then tuesdays and fridays from 12 45 to 1 30 and then saturdays at one o'clock which would as i had mentioned at the last meeting allow for those of us who work from home to be able to get to the um transfer station during uh lunch hours The response from Waste Connections was that they did not agree that the contract states that we can, well, that they have to be open at all hours based on the contract, but alternate A states that they, the terms of the contract allow them to have the two employees so if we're going to make an adjustment and remove the second employee we need to make the accommodations for somebody to be able to have lunch and also be able to be safely closed at times when they need to move equipment around so what is the council's pleasure miss mcdowell

No, I just, I want to, I guess, refer to our solicitor because at the last meeting, I think I posed the question to him regarding the contract with Waste Connections. And he did reply then that we were on solid ground in terms of our ability to not fund that because it was an option there. in the contract itself. Are you still under that opinion?

I think so. I did review the letter they sent, and I think it's not an argument completely without merit that we opted for alternate A. We did, but the contract itself doesn't have any indication as to whether that has to be an alternate that we can sort of flip the switch on and flip the switch off. And so I think what we're doing is a reasonable interpretation of the contract of what you voted for. I think the question of whether that then requires some sort of adjustment to the hours, I think I don't agree with them on that at all. We keep referring to it as a second staffer, but really that's not the way the contract is drafted. The alternate A is to provide an additional employee. Additional based on one or two part-timers or three part-timers or however it is that they would manage the agreed-to hours of operation that were in the contract. I don't see why that would be on the town to solve. I understand they make the point in their letter that there's labor requirements. You can't have somebody on eight hours without giving them a chance for lunch. Those are all perfectly valid points to make. I just don't see why those are the town's issue. They bid on this contract. We could or could not have selected alternate A. If we hadn't in the first place, they would have had to come up with a staffing schedule that kept the transfer station open for the hours they agreed to and absorb the cost of that. That's what they bid on. So I don't agree with much of what they say in here. I'm not weighing in on the practical matters of the transfer station, but from a legal perspective, I just don't agree with much of their response here. And to their third point, that it increases rather than reduces the contractor's cost, I'm sure that's true. That makes sense. They would have to come up with a way to do this. If we had an exercise alternate A, I'm sure they took that into account when they made the bid. we hadn't exercised that, they still would have had to comply without that extra $84,000 and make the math work. I don't see how that changes our legal analysis. And to their point four, that it requires a compensation adjustment because it's a substantial change. Again, I don't agree. I think that they bid with alternate A being at our discretion. And so if we are choosing not to continue with that alternative, that additional cost that doesn't change their original bid, their original obligation?

So if we were to disagree with them and they were to take us to court and we lose or we win, depending on what will go through the checklist there, those expenses would be incurred in the enterprise fund because we were fighting the enterprise fund. So if we rack up a $5,000 bill going to court, that $5,000 goes into the enterprise fund because it is a fund that is self-supporting.

I don't know the answer to that. I don't have the sort of authorization for the enterprise fund in front of me to answer that.

The reason for going away from two people was to save, as you mentioned, $84,000, which would cover the deficit of $86,000 that was discovered, which is a one-time implementation of the $86,000. That $86,000 would then be gone next year, which then would allow us to fund that employee again at essentially the same $325.00. there is an extra $20 per pass that gets us roughly halfway there to the 86 if we forego a year of the maintenance fund. Correct? I mean, 2,100 times, or 2,200 times 20 is 44,000. So if we are having the... anticipated, and I don't know what the sticker sales have been. Do we have a number yet? Or Matt, can you answer that question? Roughly? Thank you, sir. So my thought process is if we forego the $20 fee this year, which would make up more than half, about half. We could split to 86 and fund the full operation without having a lawsuit. Or we could just anticipate, we can either potentially anticipate a $40,000 deficit going forward, or we could, if more people are signing up, it might be covered. If there are more people moving from curbside to transfer station. Go ahead, Mr. Reese.

But right now, we basically have set the sticker application. I was wondering if we could break this into two parts, request approval of the station sticker application, which basically we've already done at 320, because I've already bought mine.

That's the sticker price. That's the sticker price. That's not changed. What we're trying to figure out is how we're going to run the cash repayment.

And then work on the revised operating procedures. But that's probably the best way, like you're talking about, split it up.

Before the start of business today, there were 233 households that have paid.

For the transfer station?

Yes.

Okay. So we don't know if that's going to be an increase or not. We don't, you don't know if any, how many of those have moved from curbside to how that, okay.

They don't run out till.

They got two more, they got.

Yeah, they don't run out.

Can I comment, Mr. President? Yes. Before my computer dies here. The original contract shows from July 1 through June 30, 2026, the contractor must furnish sufficient labor and equipment to operate and maintain the transfer station and to haul any and all solid waste and recyclables to their final deposit site. That has always been there, what they bid on. And we provided the second one as an option. Originally, I've said it before, there's room for argument, you know, to police the trash going into the hole. And that has turned into, you know, there's two people on site. One of the things that people have told me, and I saw it today, there was only one man in the station, and they've said that we need two men to operate our equipment, et cetera. He was operating the equipment. He was pounding down things in the bins, but there was just one man there with our own gate guard who was unaffiliated to that operation. So they say one thing but do another. I think people get upset that... They go in there and they only see two people. They see two people, but not doing a heck of a lot. Sometimes you only see one. So I know they can do this. They also have a truck driver that comes down and, you know, I don't need them to tell them how to run their business, but they could swing this and do it. I mean, Waste Manager did it with one person and twice as many customers with one man back when Dennis was there. All that being said, You know, I don't want to see people inconvenienced by delayed hours or only five vehicles in the station. You know, we got to accommodate, they need to accommodate the gentleman's lunch break with their own people somehow. You know, it shouldn't be at our sacrifice. But is there supposed to be a compromise here? If there is, I just want to throw out some other suggestions for numbers for clarity. You've mentioned the maintenance fund dissolving that.

Just delaying implementation for a year.

Yeah. But I mean, if we have these numbers and there's money left at the end of the year, we could use that instead of putting a sticker price, that could be part of the maintenance fund to look at. I had already asked Mr. Rainer, can we delay the $86,000 deficit over two years? And that was a $20 per sticker price reduction as well. But one of the things that we really haven't talked about, and I'll apologize to you up front, Kayla, because of the finances. When we talked about the program, when we were told there was a deficit, it was because we had all bought an 18-month sticker. and instead of putting some of that money towards 2026, it all went into 2025, okay? I'm here to say that I think that a third of that sticker price really should have been towards the 2026 numbers, and maybe there's a way to reapportion that money, for lack of better words, back towards this program, because that's where it was really supposed to go. It doesn't take care of, there are other deficits over the years, but that one to me is clear that we collected for 18 months, but we didn't put six months of it towards 2026. Is that a fair statement? Am I all wrong on that one?

No, so without looking at my original statement, going into FY26, it was a fiscal year sticker. So what happened at that year end is instead of applying the FY26 sticker, it was applied as revenue for FY25. So it was recorded or realized early. So by moving the money, it was essentially collected in FY25, but supposed to be for FY26. Correct.

Correct. I think we're saying the same thing, that there was six months of money that should have gone towards the sticker in 26 that went to 25.

But the correction has been made.

Yeah. And you can't reverse that correction?

No.

Okay. Okay. Because the audit's been completed, we can't go back and change that?

That's correct. Okay.

Ms. McHale?

I still, I'm concerned about a couple of things. One is during the month of June, and I think I have to ask Mr. Raynor this because he may have the answer, but is it my imagination or did they operate off and on during the month of June with only one person, one employee on certain days?

don't know the answer to that but is there someone on uh zoom that might be able to answer that to my knowledge they did not operate with less than two people during june yes correct how about unless someone calls out which is which is beyond anybody's control okay then um

Like, for instance, today, nobody was around.

Someone called out this morning.

What?

Someone called out this morning, which is why there was only one person there.

I didn't even see one. He was there this morning. Anyways, I think we can come up with solutions monetarily, but I think I still live with the fact of two things. One, it was an option in the contract. And we opted for that. And from all my notes in past history, what I can find is we opted for it because we were going into a system that was going to use the orange bags to reduce recycling. And this added us, this added employee that we wanted there was going to monitor the trash going in. It was a new thing, make sure, help people, and so on and so forth. Well, people are pretty, first of all, the number of people going to the transfer station has drastically been reduced. And that is not happening. I can assure you that that is not happening as a person that goes there three times a week. So that employee, I feel, is not needed. And more so, it was not really necessary when the RFP was put out and they bid on the RFP. So I feel strongly that... You know, they should figure it out. I have a plan here. And again, I have so much information on this trash situation, as I'm sure everybody else does. And it says Portsmouth Transfer Station Facility Operation Plan, operated by Waste Connections of Rhode Island. So I'm assuming it was... done at the time of the contract and given to somebody. But on page three of that document, it says there is one full-time station operator and one full-time transfer trailer driver that operate the transfer station and one part-time assistant. That's what they say here. One full-time security guard provided by the town of Portsmouth is stationed at the facility guard shack during operated hours. All employees are trained by competent personnel prior to starting work. Their titles and duties are as follows. So that was then. And I also have an email that Colby had provided me with when we as an ad hoc committee were looking into the total trash operations in the town. And it was from Angelo. And Angelo was responding to what he heard at one of our meetings that we were considering eliminating that employee that is funded by our town. And he talks about the issues related to that. And he says, my first issue with, he calls cutting the guard is that it now puts a new set of responsibilities on our staff there. He goes on to say that, that it puts us more under scrutiny than we have had in the past, and it would be ideal to be able to avoid this, especially after what happened last year. Then he gives another issue, and he says it raises safety concerns. As one person working back by himself on occasions operating equipment, et cetera, which we've already heard, He doesn't say anything here about it's contrary to our contract. And this was in March, March 25th, 2026. So, I mean, I feel strongly that we have the, I know litigation is all around us. I understand that, but I feel strongly that we have the right to eliminate an employee that's working not under our direction, but we granted that and it was an option, we can take it away. And if we go down the route of getting that extra employee back, I am being adamant about making sure that the job that they were hired to do is being done appropriately and effectively. So thank you.

Okay, so that brings us back to where we started tonight of... Deciding. The. Hadley Street transfer station rules. And if the council is of the opinion. That they must uphold the contract, then we would have to change operational changes in the beginning there. That well, the changes. Sorry. uh i gotta look see where it was we have to change the transfer station hours monday friday saturday from 7 30 to four o'clock tuesday and thursday from 7 30 to seven o'clock and then closed as usual on wednesday sundays and major holidays I don't believe there's anything else in there that really needs to be changed. Correct? It should just be the hours that would need to be changed.

Well, I think they're talking about hours and, uh, no more than five vehicles on site was another requirement I think was in there. So, I mean, this, to me, to me, those are unacceptable and we need to find a way around that. Um, What are the thoughts of a, you know, in theory, if you're paying $86,000, $4,000 for one full-time employee, whether you can get that price cut in half for a part-time employee. So he comes down during the lunch breaks and moves the equipment back around as needed. And they have a truck driver as well because he doesn't go away. That leaves you with two and a half men.

To me, whatever the council decides has to be funded by the $325 sticker fee. Right. That's the biggest thing. We can't change the sticker fee. People have already purchased them. It's already been advertised. Correct. So whatever the council does, A, has to be within that $325, and B, with the anticipation that there could be a lawsuit to cost more money into this enterprise fund. Sure.

So two of the suggestions I made would cover that $40,000 would be eliminating the 20,000 per sticker maintenance fee and spreading the deficit over two years.

Well, we wouldn't be eliminating it. We would just be repurposing it. We wouldn't be eliminating it. It would be, it would be taking that $20 and not establishing the maintenance fund. That's correct. Unless there was a surplus at the end of the year, I think it was. Right. Right. Right. Um,

which, and then if that was agreeable to them to do it part-time, it would still be affordable at the same price.

In theory, if they had a $44,000 rounding here, but $44,000 employee part-time to cover, to make sure that we can maintain the normal operating hours without the lunches and the short ending as ending.

All right. And, you know, I agree. It says they're supposed to do everything. This is a compromise to get back to where we're at.

Just accomplished.

So can I ask the question on this plan that I have before me that it says personnel duties 1.4 in the section 1.4, it says that there's a one full-time station operator, one full-time transfer trailer driver that operates the trans and one part-time assistant. Did we always have a part-time assistant? that they provided in this document?

I believe that was an operations plan that was submitted to RIREC. And when this contract was bid on, they incorporated, they lowered their operation costs to incorporate our desire to implement the Section A for the second full-time employee. So overall, with that contract, the idea was we got two full-time employees. And then with regard to your previous point about the employee, I think that email was in response to the proposal to cut the security guard. I think that's what that was. And that's... They were talking about how much stress that would put on them to also man the gate. So, yeah, obviously we should have to take a look at that, but this situation that we're in right now.

And just to clarify, there is no full-time truck driver per se, right? I mean, that's a RIREC document that we presented to them. He comes and goes, basically.

Yeah, he's full-time working for Waste Connections, but that has nothing to do with us. Yeah, but not always at the station, driving back and forth to Johnson. Is that it?

Yeah. And there's also if we're going to change anything to on the I think it's the the last page. It says vehicle capacity restrictions with five vehicles on site at one time.

Yeah. Well, if if the council wants to go to full time, we can just, I mean, the council could strike the operational changes effective July 1st, 2026. You just have to change the hours of the first three pages, four pages, three pages. I hate PDS.

What is the council's plan? Not an easy decision here.

Sorry, I have one more question. Do we need full-time?

If it's just to cover the lunch groups and the- If the council is in the same- My thought process as Ms. McDowell, then we can say it's full-time, everybody gets in whenever they want, and Waste Connections has to figure it out for our solicitor and her interpretation of the contract.

Only mine, the solicitor as well.

I said the solicitor and your interpretation of the contract. No, no, no. That's up to you two. So if that's the case, we can forego any of the changes and just leave the operating procedures the way they are.

Right.

Which would, I would assume, lead to some sort of action by Waste Connections. Legally. They may turn around and say, you know what? The juice isn't worth the squeeze. We're not going to do anything and contracts up in a year and a half, two years, and we'll just not bid on it again. Who knows? But we need to do something tonight. We either approve the procedures identical to last year with the sticker price of 325, which has already been established, or we adjust the hours and the capacity levels. Those are basically the two options that we have. If somebody would please make a motion so that we can make a motion.

I agree with option one.

This would be to maintain the operating procedures as they currently are.

I make a motion that we maintain the operating procedures as they are and have been.

In hours, I'm sorry.

In hours. Second. Second.

Any further questions or discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Motion passes four to two. So the transfer station will remain open from 7.30 to four o'clock, Monday, Friday, Saturday, and from 7.30 till seven o'clock, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Moving on to, I really should have grabbed a regular agenda. There we go. Old business number three, which is our finance report. Ms. Marsden.

Good evening, Mr. President, Honorable Counsel. As of the end of May, the town was 11 months or 91.7% through fiscal year 26. Year-to-date general fund revenues were at 95.2% of the budget, primarily driven by state aid, tax receipts, and real estate transfer fees. Year-to-date general fund expenditures were at 89.5% of the budget. Drivers there include the school appropriation and the water hydrant yearly fee. Financial performance remains positive as we approach fiscal year end, supported by ongoing monitoring of the revenues and the expenditures. The fiscal year 26 audit is also underway with the auditors on site this week conducting their fieldwork. And that concludes my report.

Any questions for Ms. Morrison, Mr. Fitzmaurice?

Thank you, Mr. President. Larry Fitzmaurice, Kristen Court. My usual question, what is your projected surplus as of June 30th?

Sure. So based on current trends, I'm not seeing anything that would materially change the estimate provided back in April. But that being said, we are still actively working on the year-end process. So the final surplus could vary, but not definitive on my answer again, but in the range. I would say roughly maybe 500,000.

Thank you.

Any other questions or a motion to receive in place?

So moved.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. Next up, we have an update on the 3S fields. Mr. Rogers or Mr. Lopes, I don't know. Mr. Rainer, are you going to kick us off?

I'll kick it off. All right. I'll turn it over to Paul. So we just wanted to give you an update on where we stand with the 3S Fields Project and get your direction on the next step. We've been working with VHB, one of our on-call contractors, on conceptual plans for the site. And we've been discussing those plans with the Equidneck Island Land Trust because the property is subject to both conservation and trail easements. After reviewing the concept plans, the Land Trust informed us the current layout is not consistent with the easements that exist today. Their concerns primarily involve the location of the proposed parking area and the access roadway, as well as portions of the trail easement. Just to be clear, the Land Trust is not saying that the athletic fields themselves are prohibited. In fact, the easement specifically allows recreational fields in certain areas of the property. The issue is that the supporting infrastructure shown in the concept plan doesn't align with the locations contemplated in the original easement documents. The Land Trust also acknowledged something we've been discussing for some time, which is that wetlands and site constraints make it difficult to develop the property exactly as was envisioned when these easements were drafted more than two decades ago. We met with the land trust to discuss those challenges and what options might be available. Their recommendation is pretty straightforward. If the town desires to continue pursuing the concept, we should submit a formal request for an easement amendment. What they're asking for at this point is not really that complicated. Once we receive revised plans from VHB, we would then submit those plans along with a request asking the land trust to consider an amendment to accommodate the proposed layout. The Land Trust cannot say whether such a request would ultimately be approved. They need to review a formal request first. If they support an amendment, the proposal would then be reviewed by the Attorney General's Office to ensure it complies with state law and does not result in a material loss of conservation value. So the question before you tonight is, do you want us to pursue this project by formally requesting an amendment from the Aquidneck Island Land Trust? Approval of that request would not commit the town to construction, nor does it guarantee approval by either Land Trust or the Attorney General. It just allows us to continue the process and determine whether the project is ultimately feasible. So with that, I'll turn it over to DPW Director Paul Roderickson. He can walk you through the layoffs.

Paul, before you start, can I ask one question on this? Since DEM is involved and there's wetlands in the area, should we, before we go to ALT and ask for their permission, should we get a plan that is suitable to DEM first and then go to the land trust so we're not having to go back and forth multiple times?

I think, Paul, when he walks you through the diagrams, what we've done is we've tried to create a concept plan that would avoid conflict with DEM regulations.

So on concept plan one, we had the driveway in the walk-in trail easement. We then moved it to the backside coming off of Sandy Point going in midway. They also suggested they didn't want it on that side of the easement. So that's what we're drawing up now is to bring the easement off of Sandy Point straight in to the east side of the property, which would require opening the stone wall where we originally had it at the opening of the stone wall. So that's the only change there. Everything that's in is not being built in the wetlands, but in the wetland boundaries. So that's something we hope that the DEM would pass.

And THB feels confident that... I just don't want to be going back and forth and having to ask...

It is a possibility, but they feel confident that they would accept that.

And the access is... moving, what, about 100 feet down? Correct. I'm just trying to eyeball it up there. Okay. You understand my concern. I don't want to go to a land trust and get approval for this kind of a plan and then go to DEM and they say, no, you can't do that.

And then we have to go back to the- That's always a possibility, Bob. That's the best option of anything, of putting it in there, was staying away from the wetlands and it would only be in the wetland boundaries.

So part of the original thought process was actually to put a restroom facility in here as well. Obviously, that is kind of out the window with this plan.

Very much. What kind of facility? Restroom facility. Oh, yeah, yeah. That is probably... I don't think that parking lot's going to fly either, personally. I think that was in their letter, if I'm not mistaken, but...

They just wanted more buffering zones around the parking lot. Pretty much all sides of the parking lot have to be buffered by trees.

In the discussion with ALT, they were actually pretty pleased that the size of this parking lot was smaller than originally proposed. As Paul stated, their concern is the buffer that would have to be planted around it.

Right. Well, two things. Isn't DEM already involved in some of the permitting process? You had to get some kind of permission just to start, didn't you?

No, I think VHB just had an informal discussion with them regarding the plans. Okay. Nothing formal yet.

And the plan two, if you could put that up, Kathy. To me, I think plan two i can't see all of it there so plan two shows the plan two shows the road on the east side as opposed to the west side

Right away from way from the neighbors houses and shows the entrance going to the center of the soccer fields.

Yep.

And along the walking trail. Yes, man. So the third drawer is going to be straight on from Sammy point.

And right, right.

Opening the stonewall.

You can't travel on the same lane as the walkers. Right. That's what they suggested. We don't. Okay. It's moving forward. Thank you. So I would make a motion that we ask permission from the ALT for the new changes.

basically what you're looking for we don't have to get any more complicated than that okay go ahead and i'll second that ask for an amendment to the to work with our solicitor to establish an amendment with the land trust yeah okay all those in favor i i think oppose motion passes six to zero thank you gentlemen thank you for checking out the street for me before a car falls into it no It was a weird looking formation in a road. All right. New business number one, request a partial road closure for. Can I shit? Can I shit? I can always mess up this road, but either way. Yeah. Behind Dunkin' Donuts. That will extend the intersection to Seneca and Borden Farm for the 4th of July block party. Closure is requested for Saturday, July 4th from 1 to 9 p.m. Good evening, gentlemen. How are you? Good evening. Well. So this sounds like a nice neighborhood thing. It is. I will ask the police and the fire chief if they are okay with it. They've looked at the plans. Is the usual request? Yes, that's okay. Not as good. Police chief is saying yes. The biggest concern, obviously, if there's an emergency, you've got to be able to move, so nothing permanent that they can't get by, all that good stuff. Yep, we've already worked out a plan. All right. I am all in favor of neighborhoods getting together and having a good time. Is there a motion to approve the partial closer from one to nine on the fourth? So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. Enjoy the fourth.

Thank you all for your time.

Have a good time. Thank you. Have a wonderful holiday. Next up is our first public hearing of the evening. Request approval for a variance of the sound limits set forth in a qualification of ordinances 257. This one is for Safe Harbor Boat Week. Anybody would like to speak for or against the variance for Safe Harbor? Going once, twice, a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. I have a motion to approve the variance that Mr. Hierro is going to say is not a variance, so we can skip that for all three of us.

Motion to approve the sound variance with a maximum level of 75 dBA per ordinance from Chapter 257, noise. Second.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Opposed? Aye. Motion passes five to one. Next up is a second public hearing for requests from Ian Hutton for approval of various sound limits set forth on Cotter Pages and Origins 257 noise for an event to take place at 48 Aquinn and Cavendish. The event will be held August 1st from 4 to 11 p.m. to allow live amplified music in his backyard. A motion to open a public hearing.

So moved.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. Anyone here to speak for or against? Anybody online? Do not see any hands up. Going once, twice. Motion to close the public hearing.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 6-0. We have a motion to approve the variance for 48 Aquinnick Avenue.

Motion to approve the sound variance for the maximum level of 75 dBA per ordinance from Chapter 257, noise.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Nay.

Motion passes 5-1. Third public hearing. Request from Mike McFarland for approval of a variance to sound limit set forth in codification of ordinances 257 noise for events to take place at Sunset Cove 706 Park Avenue. The events will be held on July 1st and 2nd from 5 to 8 p.m. for live amplified music for two Mac McAnally concerts. I have a motion to open a public hearing. So moved.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. Anybody like to speak on this public hearing for or against? Mr. Clark, come on up.

Good evening. My name is Craig Clark, 701 Park Ave. I live directly across from Sunset Cove. I moved to Island Park 10 years ago. I've enjoyed everything this neighborhood has to offer. including Sunset Cove and all the other restaurants in the area. On Saturday, I received a letter from an anonymous neighbor asking me to sign a petition complaining about the noise coming from Sunset Cove. I wanted to get ahead of that. I just want to bring this to your attention because they're all going to head to Mr. Rainer, I believe. And I wanted to bring this to you directly and constructively before it becomes a fight between neighbors and businesses. I'm not here to be an adversary. I value having a vibrant restaurant in our neighborhood, and I want to see it succeed. I just want balance. This past weekend alone, there was roughly 15 hours of music coming from the property between Thursday and Sunday, consistent and amplified. Well into the evening, clearly heard inside my own home at the volume and frequency that I and my neighbors simply can't enjoy our own properties. I'm not here to argue about the decibel numbers. I'm here about livability. So my ask is this, before the council acts on a variance to allow another event that exceeds the sound limits, I respectfully request that the condition be added that the owner of the Sunset Cove agree to attend a town organized meeting within like 20 days or so, invite the neighborhood, invite the abutters, and just get together to work out a reasonable terms together of the hours, frequency, sound limits, whatever it takes. I'd rather solve this as neighbors than as complaints. My goal is as a community that stays enjoyable for all of us, residents and businesses alike. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Clark. Appreciate that. Mr. Farley, would you like to respond to that or you want to? take up the offer to have a meeting with the neighbors?

Sure. Mike McFarland, 706 Park Avenue here in Portsmouth. So this will be our fifth year doing Mac McAnally concert, which I've never had any complaints on in the past. We have it scheduled for next week. The only difference with this year is we're doing two nights because proceeds from this concert, I'll go to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund. And the only way we could raise more money this year is to add a second night because I'm limited with ticket sales. So I'm here tonight to...

kindly ask for sound variance for these events next week and anything outside of next week I'd be happy to discuss with neighbors or anybody else at any other time thank you thank you sir right uh since these events are next week and Mr McFarland has agreed to meet with the neighbors to discuss um I guess the weekly concerts that are going on that concerts but live events that are going on um Well, first, anybody else want to speak on before or for or against?

Mr. Tom organized that meeting. That's what I was told.

If I may, I would personally like to keep that out of our motion and leave it between you and whatever group you have. If you have a problem, come back and see us. But I think he's willing to sit down and speak to your neighborhoods that are concerned. You know, I think this should just be for a sound variance only. Yeah, specifically because it's not really advertised as such. I hope that makes sense. Yes. And just to expound on that, this council has typically, you know, have rubber stamped a 75 DBA, you know, ordinance variance. And it's really not much of a variance, but it is higher than what's allowed during the nighttime hours. And somebody cutting your grass is actually making more noise. But this basically gives a person that's at their house, if you call the police and say it's noisy, they're going to come to your property and that applies at your property line. If it's above 75, he has to get turned down the music or face consequences of being shut down. It's not the ultimate solution, but, and most people, we don't hear of any complaints, but it just, it's there as a safeguard. And the way I look at it, you know, that allows people to say, Hey, it's just too loud. And I could show you it's too loud, you know? So.

With that being said, hold on. We got to close the public hearing first. So I just want to go down the line. Nobody on the line, hands up. You can discuss it once we close the public hearing.

Excuse me, by the way, we got the same letter. So yeah, it's out there.

Okay. Is there a motion to close the public hearing? So moved.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes 6-0. Ms. McFarland?

Yeah, I just wanted to...

Sorry, Ms. McDowell.

I just wanted to follow up, though, by the citizen's request of an organizational meeting. And I hear Mr. Gleason's concern that it would be great to, at this point, to not have it come from the council. However, who, Mr. McFarland, would you be willing to support take the ball on that and start it rolling for an organizational meeting, maybe at Sunset Cove with neighbors? Good. Okay. Thank you.

All the hearing is closed. Is there a motion to approve the variance for the July 1st and 2nd concerts?

Motion to approve the sound variance for the maximum level of 75 dBA per ordinance from Chapter 257, Noise, for the Two concerts. What do we get? First and second. First and second. From 5 to 8 p.m. From 5 to 8 p.m. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Aye. Motion passes 5 to 1. Mr. Aiero in the negative. I didn't say that the last two times. I'm sorry. Okay. Next up, we have new business number five, which is an update on LMI housing resolution. I actually asked to put this on. I just want to let... Well, let us know where we're at. My main concern is that General Assembly's out of session. We don't have a lot of sister towns signing on on a monetary basis. So I don't want us to be spending any more money on a fruitless exercise. That's my concern. So if you can give us a quick update.

Yeah, I don't think there's much to update. beyond what we talked about at the last meeting. The one point that I don't think I had an answer on and I do now is the status of the The draft complaint, actually, Attorney Larissa and I spoke at length today about this. It is essentially prepared and drafted. He wants to do another walkthrough on it before it circulates. But a lot of towns did ask us for something more substantial in terms of the content of the proposed litigation or request for an injunction. And that is essentially completed at this point. So the good news is... you know, once that goes out and could be as soon as next week, I guess. you know, then we can sort of sit back and wait to see what comes in from other towns and their levels of support. You know, as you know, summer is a difficult time to get on town council agendas, but, you know, the solicitors I've spoken to still, you know, believe it's worth getting in front of their respective councils. You know, it's going to take a little grassroots effort, but not a lot of legal effort at this point. And I think what we can do is, you know, aside from what's already gone out, right, with the billing that we've done so far in this matter, you know, through the month of June, I don't expect it to be anything of significance for July and August. And I think that's probably the appropriate window to see and really assess whether or not you're going to get the buy-in from the other cities and towns.

We're at where close to seven, $8,000 or so spent specifically on this week and the council authorized about 20.

I think we were under seven as of I think it was just 6,700 and change as of the last invoice while we sent out probably another, let's say 3000 for June with the finalization of the drafting. So you're probably under 10. And like I said, I don't think there's going to be a lot more activity in the next two months. Okay.

Again, my concern is that, A, we're not seeing the support from other towns monetarily. Everybody wants it as long as somebody else is paying for it. And the original cost was prohibitive and much more expensive than what we had approved.

If we were to go the full amount. Yeah, the full effort. The full effort would require, yeah, some decisions. Okay. Ms. Patton?

How many towns do we have as of now signed on?

The only one I'm aware of is Hoppington at this point. Signed on? Monetarily. Monetarily. A dozen towns who have passed resolutions consistent with the Portsmouth resolution and are, you know, have been asked to contribute.

Yeah, but they haven't contributed funds.

So is the reason they're not ponying up in money is because they haven't seen this draft, maybe, or what?

That is the response we've gotten from some towns. So during our last meeting, Charleston was meeting, so I didn't have this information until later the next day. But that was their question specifically. They would like to see something more substantial in terms of an outline or a first draft of the complaint so that they can make their decision. I think we're on the agenda for Charleston on their July 16th meeting. So they want to consider it at that point, but they were hoping for a little more information coming from us.

And so the draft, will that be given to us first? Or how does that proceed from this point forward?

We can do it however you'd like. I think one of the problems that we ran into was with a lot of these reviews by other councils is that public notice publishing, getting things on a docket, it was a snowball of delays because it had to go in the process that each town has to follow. So whenever they would have a question for us, it was another two weeks at least to get their reconsideration. So I don't have any problems circulating that. It's not a secret that we're doing this. The legal strategies are pretty clear. I don't think we would need to do this in an executive session necessarily. So if you're okay with us, Attorney Larissa, circulating this to the council via email, not necessarily at a meeting, we don't have a problem with that being a public document, at least from my perspective. So Yeah, we can circulate that. And I would just encourage, you know, as we always do to not, you know, enter into a non-meeting discussion amongst the council members.

One other question. So how much has the Hopkinton?

I believe their pledge was just over $4,000.

Okay, and when their pledge comes in, do we start to use any of that for this drafting too? I mean, at this point or not? You know, are we still bored? You know, do we still... have all the responsibility of legal, even though they've committed $4,000?

They've committed to contribute. There's nothing restricting you from using that once it's in the account, once it's in finance. You know, I think that's a good question to have, you know, at some point. You know, you want to make sure you're being good stewards of both your money and their money.

Exactly, right. And I think that if they have agreed to the money and agreed to pursue already by a vote, then that $4,000 becomes part of the kitty, so to speak. But our kitty of 20,000 that we put in or that we voted on, I would just like, as we go along, you said that there's 67 right now without the document being fully drafted. Is that what you said?

It's in initial draft form. So it just needs another review or two internally between myself and Attorney Larissa before we're comfortable circulating it. But that's a matter of days now.

So we could be looking at a total, after this draft is done and circulated, maybe $8,000, no? He said about $10,000.

About $10,000.

Oh, to finish the draft and then circulate it?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, we should be certainly asking for some help along this way, too, I believe, by Hopkinton, because they have shown an interest and committed monies to that interest. But, you know, I just... The legislature is out. It's summer for town councils, you know, as you said, getting on the agenda. So I guess I would feel that we should continue. However, this summer after this draft, I think we should kind of lay low until we see where people are at. in, let's say, September, you know, when things get back up in terms of town councils, et cetera. But that's just my thought as I hear some of the information tonight.

Thank you, Mr. Allen. Ms. Hitchin.

Thank you. Attorney Sision, can you explain how you're going to be still working on the draft complaint, yet working with Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns and the Rhode Island APA legislative committee? committee on um work i think we've we discussed working in over the summer on maybe rolling back some of the zoning and subdivision legislation that has passed over the last couple years i just want to get your reaction to how you'll be working on a complaint and working with other communities on looking at all the legislation that has passed over the last couple years

I think that's a great, great point. So the complaint is essentially done. So I don't want to, you know, what I'm suggesting is that we don't need to do much on that front. That, that will be, you know, circulated both to the cities and towns and to the league and the planners as a component of that conversation. I think we're all sort of still re, you know, recovering from the legislative session to some extent, but I think you're right. We have agreed and the league has agreed to sort of drive those efforts. So I think we'll have an ad hoc group meeting at some point in July and August to have that conversation. But I don't think that's a particularly heavy lift at that point. And I think we can come back to this council at least at the end of July or August and give an update on that portion of it.

Thank you.

That makes sense.

Could I ask a question, Ms. Hitchens? How often does that committee meet? Is that a regular thing or once a month or? The planners.

The APA legislative committee meets every other Thursday.

Twice a month.

Thank you. Are there specific things that you're looking to change or?

Well, the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns met with the Rhode Island Legislative Committee co-chairs with Attorney Ciccione a couple weeks ago, and Mr. Rayner and I were on the call. Okay. And we talked about meeting over the summer and maybe instead of a formal complaint, working together to maybe look at all how we can not have a potential legal dispute. Was that how I interpreted that?

Yeah, look, I think we've said this from the get-go. No one wants to go into litigation. It's never a willing process. If the General Assembly, and especially given the new leadership in the General Assembly, if they're willing to consider something that comes in from both the cities and towns and the APA, I think that's a great opportunity, and I would never advise missing that opportunity to avoid going to court.

So we're looking at attacking it from multiple directions, and hopefully we'll get some change.

Correct.

Okay, that's all. I just...

I just have a question for Leah. So are you hopeful, Leah, that during the summer we can get some positive results by these groups meeting together? Do you think that our solicitors sending out that thing is going to be detrimental? Am I reading between the lines or what?

I thought the meeting that we had a couple weeks ago online with the Rhode Island APA legislative co-chairs, along with the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, was a good start. We did talk about meeting over the summer to collaborate, was a good start. I think it's probably gonna take a few, more than a few months, But the fact that we're all collaborating is a step in the right direction.

So I guess what I would say or ask is if you do go forward with sending it out, and it sounds like you're pretty close to that, that would something accompany that with reference to what's going on and what's being done collaboratively and what seems to be a positive feel? Just give the other side of... what's going on um i don't have any problem including any any type of you know delivery message that you think is appropriate i think that's a perfectly fine way to do it you know we don't need to come in guns right i guess that's what i i would hope to negotiate and listening to to lear and her positive nature on what's what's happening um maybe if we could

I can't speak for any other talents.

No, no, no, no. You're part of these meetings and you have a feel of other planners. And so I just would hate to sabotage anything.

So what I'm going to try and paraphrase what you're asking, but you're basically in the cover letter. of the potential complaint would be, we also encourage you to continue the legislative process and work with your planners, the legalities, the cities and towns, and your legislators to make changes into law without potentially having to go to court. I'm a big fan of both the CARA and the SEC.

Yeah, exactly. Something that's to show that there's collaboration also going on and positive stuff may be happening. So with especially a change in leadership, et cetera.

And who knows who's going to be in there come November?

I just had one other question or comment. Because cities don't have these issues, they've already met the 10% LMI requirements for the most part. So you're talking maybe half of the 39 communities. Does that pose a problem with your planners? I mean, do people from Providence, will they want to be involved in this group that's really a town issue more so than a city issue you know what i mean there's some um more um

There's a couple communities that are more developed that have reached the 10% and the changes have been now that they still have to meet the additional housing goals that have been modified. So they may be a little more receptive to joining in on, on some of these conversations that have like Baraville had already met the 10% and now they have additional housing goals to meet. Obviously, not all 39 communities are going to want to join in on this conversation, but we did have 12 similar comparative communities. There are going to be communities that are going to want to join in on the conversation.

I guess what I'm thinking is that do all these communities have to be involved? Can you just ask specific communities or just throw the question out there for people that have the same similar situation? It seems like it would be more productive to be working with people with like minds.

Right, and I think it's going to be the same 12 to 15 communities.

You do, okay. I have the impression you were involved in the whole association of 39 planners.

I am. I'm involved in the Rhode Island American Planning Association, and I deal with the legislative committee as well.

Okay. Thank you. I think it's also, to respond to your point, I think it's also very important to keep a focus on what this litigation, potential litigation is about. It's not just about... housing goals and the housing component of this. It's about the extent that the General Assembly can reach into towns and tell you how to build buildings and what your control is versus what their control is. So I think that applies to Providence and every other city and town in the state to some extent.

There may be more towns in tune with going to the planner League of Cities and Towns route, rather than the litigation route. Sorry, not loot. I don't know. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Fitzmaurice?

Larry Fitzmaurice, first of all, I have a substantially different view of things. First of all, I think that this is a lot more serious business than the council seems to think. I believe this is an existential event for the town of Portsmouth. We either get this right or Portsmouth turns into some other community. And we've lost the ability to control our planning for residential properties. That has to be emphasized. I think all of you know that, but maybe not everybody in the town understands that. But this is very serious business. I have, along with others, visited a number of different communities around the state. I've personally spoken to seven of them, and I've also attended some public forums on this. feeling of the citizens is very strongly in this matter and there are some serious issues relative to the citizens and we look to you as members of council to defend us and that is with the loss of the control at the planning level planning board and the zoning board We as citizens lose the opportunity to go in there and argue against some bad idea next door. Also, the council's lost control over the zoning code for residential properties. So we can't go see the ladies and gentlemen of this council and try and get it changed to deal with a problem in town. That's lost to us. And along with that is the ability to defend our property rights, because what we're left with in this situation is going to superior court. That takes, in a recent circumstance with our zoning board, took two years to get a solution, and it's not cheap. It's very expensive. So we are, as citizens, losing a lot of our ability to defend our property rights under the Fifth Amendment. And that's an issue, and that's an important issue here. In addition, we have talked to a number of these communities. I've said we have 11 other communities, 12 counting Portsmouth, and we have led them into this thing. We've asked them to join through the distribution of the resolution by this Portsmouth Council. And now we're going to start modifying how we're going to approach this. The details were in that resolution. And when I spoke to other councils, I was very careful to remain within the boundaries of that resolution because they keep asking questions, of course. And I would either say it's going to be collaboratively decided as a process. And if we're negotiating with the League of Cities and Towns and other organizations in the state, then that's a departure from what we told them we were going to do. So we should have solicited their collaborative agreement in this matter before we proceeded in that direction. And I will also point out that it's very unlikely that the League of Cities and Towns didn't know all about these laws that were being passed. There are now 60 of them. We've got a hard number now. And there isn't a chance of a snowflake in hell that the League didn't know all about this. They've got professional lobbyists that are in the assembly all the time. That's their job. So going to talk to them and finding a resolution of some of these things and negotiating our way through this isn't going to work. The other people that put this together is the Assembly, the leadership in the House put this together. We know that's a fact. the assembly, of course, has ended its fiscal, its assembly year, and they're not in session anymore. So, you know, we don't have the ability to go in there and get the law changed, even if somebody at the assembly wanted to do that. And I will tell you, I doubt very seriously if there is any. I want to remind everybody they had many opportunities to come to the several municipal governments in this state and say, we're going to do this and we would like to consult with you on the impact it's going to have on your water and your roads and your waste water treatment and a number of other things like watershed. But they didn't do any of that. They didn't tell anybody anything. That's an indication of where they're at. We're going to go and negotiate with people who don't want to negotiate. And, you know, this, this is a lot more serious business than you seem to think. So I've got other things I could say, but that's basically what I wanted to say. And, you know, it is, you know, if we're going to have people come out like, uh, like I've done, and certainly Mr. Gleason has done, and other members of council, and talk to these other councils and say, this is what we would like you to do, and then casually call them on the phone and say, hey, we changed the plan, we're going to have a serious problem. And I think that's what we already have. Let me finish, please.

But that wasn't the conversation. The conversation was to do all the above.

Yeah, well, when you go negotiate with a league of cities and towns and whoever else is left up at the assembly, that's what it signals to me that you're trying to avoid going to court, which you already talked about. That shows weakness in this matter. It's important to understand, again, how important this is to everybody. If we want to end up looking like Warren or South Providence, that's what we're going to get. If we don't intervene and change the trajectory that we are on, that's where we're headed. And the council needs to take it more seriously. Now, one of the other things that's happening is some of these communities are – looking at what we send them and they they've come to the conclusion that it's portsmouth's legal action and that we're asking them to help fund our legal action that's not what the what the resolution says but that's the impression that we're sending at least in part and that certainly is the impression that we sent to the charleston council So we need to be much more aggressive in our communication with the other councils in defining what it is we are trying to do, and above all, meet our requirements for a collaborative decision-making among all 12 of the communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Morris. Mr. Grebe?

Tom Grebe, 110 Thayer Drive. You know me as a financial person. This is really, as Mr. Morris has pointed out, is not a financial decision, although I've heard a lot of financial discussions tonight. A couple of things I want to talk to you about that. One is in another week, we're going to start a new fiscal year. The towns that we're talking to will have reinvigorated their contingency funds or whatever. Right now, they don't have those contingency funds or they've used them in many cases. And when they get those funds reinvigorated, we may see them much more willing to part with some of their money. The other thing is that this, we're talking maybe $100,000 if we funded everything on this. You have to understand what the cost to us is if this keeps going forward. It's all an infrastructure. It costs us, I believe, $21,000 and change to educate a child. 17 and a half of that comes from our local residents. If this goes through and we keep having developments like church community housing is putting on Sprague Street, we're going to have a lot more than five children added to what our plan, our one house, one lot plan expected for education. Six children extra is the $100,000 it would take to fully fund this. That's what you're looking at. And we're just talking about one development. And we're not talking about the traffic that is going to increase. And therefore, the police and other safety costs that we're going to have what we're gonna have to do for water infrastructure, et cetera. There's just a huge amount of costs if this keeps coming through in its full extent. If we can just pare down six children, you've paid for the cost. So it should not be a financial decision. This is a real, as Mr. Fitzmaurice said, an existential problem for us if we want to keep Portsmouth like it is today. Thank you.

Mr. Carseller.

Sal Carseller, 63 Leaps Road. You know, I spoke on this topic not too long ago, and I pointed out that it underserves the working middle class. Anybody working will never be able to get into one of these affordable LMI units. I said that based on calculations that I made. However, this month, Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council came out with an independent report. I encourage every one of you to look it up and read it. This is what it says. Rhode Island has spent $644 million on this LMI housing since 2021. It underserves the working and middle class for the exact reasons I said, there's not enough housing. $644 million produced 642 units. Does that sound like low income or affordable housing? The state spent $644 million taxpayer dollars since 2021 and has only produced 642 new rental units. This thing is a farce. They go on to explain how the money is being spent and what the problem is. What's not making them affordable is they're too concerned about making energy numbers, solar panels on roofs, green energy, green buildings. These are not affordable. The average cost to a home today because of these new regulations, this isn't just about affordable housing. We are being burdened and saddled by new mandates to our construction process to the tune of $150,000 for the average home. The average home today is going up $150,000 because of new mandates in construction costs. My son works for JPS as an architect. Today, if you were to still build a home using traditional building techniques like normal insulation, you would have to construct your exterior walls out of two-by-eight construction to meet the code today. I'm just going to end here. The main message is $644 million produced 642 units. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Carsella. Mr. Gleason?

Sadly, the addendum to that message is there will be more money in November proposed to spend on the same topic. Some of these places, the apartments, I believe, are like $528,000 is I think the average number they threw out. But let's go back to where we started here. I came before this council because The public doesn't like what we're doing to our town, especially like concentrating the LMI all in one spot. And I was looking for a pause. And, you know, Mr. Shikarsky has tightened up the rules that said you can't have a four to six month pause. You can have a two month pause. And what's that? Four meetings? We're going to solve the problem. So the injunction was mentioned by yourself. It seemed like a good route to go. And at this point, I would say we're looking at A parallel or triple path, if you want to include the planners as well, together with the league. I don't know where it's going to go. I think we should still pursue sending to the other towns what Joe has come up with. getting their input to see if it's they're going to pony up some money because that's the bottom line of the motion that was made here 20 000 from us six towns involved and a total of 35 000 before we can get to the next step so it still needs some time for all parties involved sadly so

Just an update, no motion tonight. I don't know. There's no motion needed. It was just an update as to where we're at. Again, we need to attack this thing on multiple fronts.

I think, too, that... I take Mr. Morris' comments seriously, but I do believe that one thing that could come out of this is that the league of cities and towns could actually be put on notice about what they, the process in which they used to get to where we are. And that was omitting a big step in communicating with municipalities. So I think, I guess I'm the eternal optimist and hope that maybe they see the light and they can be a big advocate going forward. That's my hope.

The league has its faults, but I don't think anything anybody, any municipality was going to do was going to stop Joseph Garchi's rule. And unfortunately, the way the state is set up, the speaker holds all the cards. Now that he's not the Speaker anymore, maybe we can make some changes. I think the biggest issue we have is the fact that a land attorney was the Speaker of the House, and he made a lot of changes to affect his friends. Unfortunately. New business. And the AFL-CIO. The whole money they put in their pocket. New business number six. Request implementation of several recommendations from the Ad Hoc Committee for solid waste. Ms. McDowell.

Thank you. We've already talked about many of the recommendations in a previous meeting. And I must say again, the Ad Hoc Committee spent a lot of time on many of these recommendations, talking about them, collecting data. And one of the things that the committee found was that we have all the data, it seems, but Culling it and putting it together so that it's in documents that are easily accessible and easily readable and can be understood easily is the challenge. And so many of these recommendations, which I hope either we do individually, vote on them, or collectively as one unit, but many of these recommendations talk about data collection and how important it is in coming to informed decisions. So I put this on the agenda, not because we haven't talked about it before, but to try to codify these recommendations these processes so that we can use them as a town so that going forward with any decisions that are going to be coming our way with trash, waste disposal, we can have them accessible to us in easily readable formats and concise and called. So that was the intention. I don't know. I think I would like to go through the recommendations and make a motion myself on these recommendations. If there's any questions on them, I'm hoping that Mr. Spadaro from Prudence Island is here to assist and other members of the ad hoc committee as well to give the rationale and the, meaning behind each of these.

I'd just like to make one comment. I think the biggest recommendation is number one, which is collecting data. I think until we collect the data, all the other recommendations don't really fit. So I think we should, me personally, take the time to get the data, whether that's the gate guard at Hedley doing a head count every time somebody comes in the door. Same thing at Prudence Island. And then take that data and work on the other recommendations that fit with that data. I don't think we make the recommendations to change things without the data to quantify those changes.

But each of these recommendations have specificity to them. You know, what kind of data we should be collecting. I guess, are we still collecting the traffic data for each of the operations?

Correct.

Okay.

Most of the data that she's asking for on here is already there. Our resource has all the reports, all the materials that are removed from all of the three enterprise funds. It's just countless hours of doing all these spreadsheets that we don't have the time to do. She wants everything put down. She's recommended everything, which I agree is great, but we don't have the time to do it. The transfer station guards don't have the time to do it. Right now, we are implementing the log of vehicles going in and out per hour, and our new waste diversion manager, Griffin, is compiling a spreadsheet for those But compiling all the Rhode Island resource reports into easily readable logs is a great idea. We just don't have the time to do that.

Do you see how that... Those charts are very beneficial though, having the three individual operations and looking at all the data in one place, how easy it is. And I guess I would just say that we have these reports and one day a month, we could work on that, no?

Agreed, but other things are going to fall off the scale when we do these things. I'm not going to hire another person just to do all this reporting.

Right. Our new diversion manager, that's not part of it.

He's doing spreadsheets now. He's doing reports. This is the time of year where picking up bins, dropping off bins, getting sign-ups. He's busy.

Oh, I'm not indicating that he's not. I just think that these kind of recommendations all are so essential. You know how long it took us to get information to make, even make these recommendations.

Exactly, how long it took you. So now you want one of our employees to do all that work, plus his original duties.

what we had to do is go to each sometimes different departments to get this. And so I'm just gonna give you a scenario. If we had this on an ongoing basis and kept up on an ongoing basis, I personally, I mean, John Spadaro has done this and he can make a change in this in matter of- And I'm sure John Spadaro spent many hours putting that information together, many hours.

So let me ask a question. So we get a PDF report from RYREC. Correct. Is it possible to request from them an Excel spreadsheet report? So there's less data entry.

We've already asked them to separate the accounts. Originally, everything was coming under one account, recycling rates and all that. They did split it up into three different enterprise funds, three different accounts. So we get all that. They just don't put it all on one sheet.

But they produce a PDF report of it. Is it possible to request of RYRAC to give it in an Excel spreadsheet format? okay we only see the pdf when we get it so that's at least easily more easily manipulated than a pdf because you're not having to do data entry you can copy a whole column and make some changes but i think what ms mcdowell is asking if i think what you're asking for is the data which we don't have and again if we don't have the data to make the comparisons and recommendations then why should we make recommendations tonight if we don't have the data?

We do have all the data. It comes in every month. She just wants it all compiled into one spreadsheet and all put together. It can be done. It's just a lot of work.

I'll look at recommendation number five. I think the Prudence Island Planning Commission can start their own yard waste composting area. I believe they probably already do it at Farnham Farm. My tongue has stopped working.

Just taking a look at recommendation five, I mean, it would be very helpful if there was an ad hoc committee with DPW, with people from Prudence Island to work on that, no?

Prudence Island has a very strong community out there and they already do a lot of these things if we're going to task tpw to start doing some of their other work we don't we don't have a composting farm here on winnicke island right i i believe they could go out to farnham farm and take a section of the farm and create a compost area right there's john

I think the DEM has to get involved when you do that kind of operation, if I'm not mistaken. Correct. DEM has to get involved.

It's not something you do every day. For DEM to work with people, though, I think there has to be a town component as part of that.

There's a gigantic composting business at Rhode Island Nurseries. That's the biggest one on the island. They're not part of a town. Go ahead, John.

So I can I can say that the that the comp there is some composting for the community garden at Farnam Farm, but that is not accepting yard waste from other members of the community. And so the recommendation number five was to be because we understand it is complicated. We understand the state regulations are complicated. We understand that that the work To maintain this to make sure that it is being monitored for illegal dumping all those things are complex other towns know how to do it and so recommendation number five was just to sort of pull together a group of people who could sort of comprehensively look at that and come up with the recommendation to the town council and with DPW's involvement to decide whether this is something that we could bring back to Prudence Island so that we're not paying $1,300 a load to bring yard waste off the island.

This hasn't been on a Prudence Island Planning Commission agenda, correct? Has not?

No, it has not. Okay.

So my recommendation would be the first thing we do is ask the citizens if they would want to be involved in this and if there's a positive response that they want to be involved in this or if they're perfectly happy with putting their stuff in a trailer to go up to Johnson. Because if we only have 25% buy-in, then it's not worth going forward with anything.

It's awfully hard to get a percentage of people who are in favor of it or not. I know that there was enough interest to have the Prince Island Planning Commission put together a working subgroup to work on this and all were in agreement that we should move forward and we were sort of shut down just by the nature of the state regulations and it was beyond what John Potter, What a small community group could do is is address the regulations and i'm sure. John Potter, Paul is is more than familiar with the complexity of those regulations that get more and more complex as as the amount of yard waste increases.

Okay. There's also many other recommendations on here, but I still believe most of it is data driven. If we don't, if we just started doing the counts at the two locations, I mean, Prudence Island transfer station hours, that's always been done by the planning commission with a survey out to the folks out there. If they want to limit the hours, that is entirely up to them.

Yeah, the traffic is one component of this data collection, just one component, which I think is important going forward for any kind of decisions that's going to be made. And that's why it has to be, I think, kept and kept appropriately and readable, et cetera. but these other recommendations are also specific to data that is collected and tried to put together. I have a hard time understanding how we can't not do this in order to make decisions going forward. I think this committee gave templates out that can be used to record that data, collect that data, and record it. And I don't know, I'm just not seeing what Paul is saying. John, can you weigh in on, once you establish this spreadsheet, when you get the RIRAC data, And is it hard to continue on using this spreadsheet?

It's not hard. It takes me, but of course I built the spreadsheet, so I know it pretty well. It takes about 10 minutes to update it every month. And frankly, I'm happy to continue updating it. There's one data point, though, that we don't have. And I think it's essential to have that data, and that is the compactor pressure readings so that we can start better understanding, particularly for the Prudence Island loads, why it is that while the capacity of those compactor containers is about 15 tons, we're regularly seeing an average of

about six tons going off.

Again, at the tune of $1,300 per load going off between Lawrence Waste and the ferry. And of course, the ferry's probably going to go up significantly. I just think that by looking at some of this data and being able to collect data across these multiple sources, again, which I'm happy to do, I think we can learn a lot and manage better what what the Prudence Island operations are. I'm not sure that those are gonna make a significant difference for Headley Street and certainly not curbside because of the way those operations work. But I think we can make significant cost savings in the operation of Prudence Island.

I don't agree on the significant. You're trying to cut one or two trips a year and add all this work.

But even to that, the density of the load and the weight of the load is determined by what is being thrown in there. If I take a bunch of tree trunks and throw it in there, it's going to be a lot heavier than if I throw in a bunch of leaves. Correct.

And the way the operation runs on prudence is we have to set up two ferry trips a month ahead of time, only at high tides. So we do that. If we don't need them, we cancel them. If the compact is close to full, That's when they go off. They're not always full, correct. But then if we wait until it's full, we have no way to put it. Their suggestions is two more roll-offs using the C&D. What if the C&D is full? then we have no way to put the trash. We already started putting the card.

We'd have to have a truck over there to, to jockey them around, to jockey them around.

We have to have manpower to when the compactor does come back to take those roll offs and get all that trash and recycle that's in, put them in the compactor now for saving a couple of trips a year. I don't believe that's getting anywhere.

I do have one question. In the work that this committee did, we did find some things that we can improve upon, correct? Correct. And which can be cost effective as well, correct? Correct. And this is just an extension, all of that. And John, as I'm just hearing right now, is willing to do that if he can get, I don't know what you need, John, to get the information outside of the RIRAC reports because there are other aspects that we went searching for information in order to get what we need from these recommendations. What would it take from this town to give you the information so that you can do the footwork, legwork for these data sheets?

When we're not against that, I know that.

Yeah. You did see that the work that the committee did saw some cost-effective measures that might not work, but it's worth a try, especially over prudence where, you know, we're not dealing with the population that we're dealing with. Now, for instance, I, John told me that we had a load that went off the Island recyclers that was rejected. I got nervous at first because I'm saying, we talked about taking cardboard and putting it into recycling bins. Is it because it was a change of operation that maybe created that? Because I looked at the past history, and you haven't had loads from Prudence Island being rejected. So I got nervous about that.

And last month we did start putting the cardboard in the recycling.

Right.

The rejected load was wet cardboard in the container. That cardboard container was there for almost a year before it needed to be hauled off. So that's why we agreed on that, that it should go into the recycling.

Yeah.

So that'll take care of the rejected loads and hopefully reduce a lot of the other stuff.

So you don't see another rejected load going because of the The change in operation, right? You think it was just as a result of the change, but it's not going to happen anymore.

Correct, because we are putting the cardboard in the recycling compactor.

Yeah, and you don't think we'll get rejected loads as a result of that. So I just got nervous that, you know, we talked about these changes, and now we did the sort of, I heard that the changes were being done, and now we're in trouble because we got rejected. No, definitely not.

So if I can just say the one piece of data that would be extraordinarily helpful is for the gate attendant, they're already collecting data of the traffic into the transfer station. If at the end of the day, when I presume they're compacting both the recyclables and the solid waste, if they could do just jot down on that same sheet, the pressure reading of the compactor, that would be extraordinarily helpful data to have. The only other data that I would need to be able to pull all this stuff together into a report that I think would be helpful would be to see on a monthly basis not only the spreadsheet that RIRAC sends that has the data sorted, which Gavin has been providing for me for the past couple months. Colby was doing it before that, and I assume Griffin will in the future. But the other two bits of data that are really helpful are the invoices from Lawrence Waste and the invoice from A&R. Maureen? Those are the data points from which everything can be put together into a single report that I think will improve the ability to actually manage what's going on there.

So is it possible to supply John with those things or not? Kayla, would that come from you? Pressure readings of the- No, not the pressure reading, the invoices and stuff, because we had to get them from Kalo. Is that something that- I could provide to you. You could do that on a monthly basis or something for John. Sure. Okay. John, you got that. And pressure. Is there a pressure?

It's waste is working on the gauges. They are currently inoperable. So they are working to get them up and running. And we will do that.

The pressures are inoperable.

Just the gauges themselves are not working correctly. They are working. They're not accurate at all. Um, As far as in doing it daily, do we need to do it daily or just when the container is going off?

Oh, I think when we talked about it, it was just when the container is going off, correct? Yes. John? John asked for it daily. Oh, you asked for it daily for the pressure readings?

The only issue with it not just being recorded, you know, at the end of each of the four days of the week that – that the Prudence Transfer Station operates is that there was a discussion of how we get the reading on the times that it's going off. Now, I suppose if Lawrence Waste is willing to take the reading before they take it off, that's great. We really only need it.

Because they're not compacted every single day either, John. They're only compacted when needed. We don't want to operate them more than they have to be.

Yeah, so just getting it before it heads off is fine.

Yeah, I thought that was what we had talked about, but I missed that you wanted it daily. But when it's going off would be very helpful, correct?

It would be more helpful if the pressure rate was consistent throughout the compacting of it rather than just at the very end. Because if you compact things slowly over time, you're going to compact more stuff into it than if you just try and shove everything all at once into a dumpster.

Yeah, but they would be, but the reading, I think, is what we're talking about.

If every time the, I'm assuming it's the attendant, pushes the button, he can record the data. But it's not every day. It's once a week or once a year.

So is that possible, Paul? Yes. Yeah, and then somebody can shoot that to John? Yes. That information as well?

You can do that.

Thank you.

That would be great.

So it's great that we've talked about them and it's great that we've agreed to do that. I guess we don't have to have specific motions to make sure that happens because we've discussed it and we're all in agreement or.

And I trust Paul that he's going to get the information.

Yeah, and Kayla, and that's all you need. And we can make a big headway. We can have a big headway into this data collection if we have those things. John?

Yes.

And then the composting, which I personally think is a very important idea, especially on Prudence Island. I do think that it would be great if our waste diversion manager was part of that for sure. I mean, I think it should be asked of us to do that. That's my personal opinion.

I will say that I would be happy to go ahead and start organizing those committees and make sure that Paul and Griffin and Gavin are all aware of what we're talking about and what we're doing if that's a reasonable starting point.

Can he do that?

He can do whatever he wants.

Well, I know, but it's very important that you, the council know what he's doing too. I think that's all. I give you a blessing.

He reports back. He runs it through the PIPC. He reports back to the council. He doesn't expend any money. That's going to cost the town any money. As long as he's doing data collection and information farming, then that's fine. I mean, I just don't, this list of recommendations, I don't think there's much to act on this evening in terms of making substantial changes until you have all the data.

Right. The main thing was being able to get the data and someone putting it together. And Paul has mentioned that it's going to be difficult for him. I just heard tonight that John is very willing to do that. As long as we can... get the data to him on a monthly basis, and that's part and parcel of people's job to get it to John. That will take care of many of the recommendations, and it'll give us information when we go to make any decisions going forward, I think. It'll give us a great deal of data that we can make informed decisions on. That's how I feel.

All those decisions are specifically based to prudence. There's other recommendations in here that lack of a better term I don't think we'd go over well specifically number 11 establishing a full returning curbside for all residents funded through the town budget and essentially closing the transfer station except for diversionary items we've been down that road before doesn't make people happy but I am all for getting it into the tax base

yeah and i am too but i'm also other towns i think have had the curbside and a a diversion place to such as a transfer station so i think both could work but it's just a recommendation to start really thinking and and and planning for something because it's closely down the road we're not far from putting it in the tax base. So we have to, I mean, we hear enough complaints from people that we have to be ready for this. That's all.

Agreed. You have your marching order, sir. Yes. Okay. John, you have your marching orders or you've, you've accepted orders that you've given yourself. Actually, you didn't, you weren't given any orders.

Yes. Happy to do it. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for taking this on. Appreciate it.

New business number seven requests approval of police memorandum agreement that changes the promotional structure.

We had a discussion on this, Mr. Raynor. Yeah, so we're asking for council approval of proposed memorandum of agreement between the town and the police union regarding promotional eligibility within the police department. This will reduce the minimum years of service for eligibility for promotion to detective inspector and sergeant. So the proposal has the support of both Chief Peters and the union. And the goal is simply to expand the pool of officers who are eligible to participate in these promotional processes. So currently officers must have four years of service within the Portsmouth Police Department to be eligible for those promotions. The proposed MOA would instead require a completion of probation and at least three years as a full-time law enforcement officer. And this does not automatically promote anyone and it does not change the promotional process. What it does is give the chief a larger pool of qualified candidates to consider when promotional opportunities arise. So we believe this will help with succession planning and provide additional flexibility in identifying future supervisors and investigators. And there's no financial impact associated with this agreement. Our Labor Council has vetted the MOA, and Chief Peters can provide greater context if desired. Any questions? Mr. Gleason?

No, just like to make a motion. Motion to approve the police memorandum of agreement.

Seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 6-0. Next up, new business number eight. We want to buy a brand new shiny fire truck for the low, low price of $950,000, Chief. It's a bargain. Yeah.

Good evening, council president, members of the council. So I am here to talk about a purchase of a new engine through the funds and the public safety capital improvement plan. I did write in my letter, the original proposal of this was planned for fiscal 28. We started about six months ago, formed the committee for both engine and ladder company, ladder purchases. I'll talk to you about that next month. But for now, the engine company had four different manufacturers involved. They came back to me with the pricing, but it's about a three-year build. So we really need to get this moving. I wanted it for next year. Well, we're not going to get it for three years. Of the three different manufacturers, the one that the committee liked, three participated, one elected not to be involved. Of the three different manufacturers, they selected E1. It was the best pricing and also had a great discount for paying up front, about $75,000 off if we pay up front. So that price came to $926,175. Compare that to the engine. we took delivery of a year ago, ordered three years before that, that was I think 580,000. Now they're nine and change. So what I would like to do, I'm asking you to approve, I should say the apparatus also bid through different cooperative bidding, even though we went out to three, we didn't have to advertise because this is on the Houston-Galveston Master Price Agreement, which is approved by the Rhode Island Attorney General. So we have a price right now of $926,000. I know there'll be a few extra things. In fact, myself, I talked to the manufacturer or the salesperson the other day to have an add-on. So I'd like to get your okay to spend up to $950,000 on this new engine and get it ordered and the build started.

Any questions for the chief?

Is this something you'll be running by the solicitor? I mean, when you get the final agreement to make sure that all the...

It's not something that we have typically done in the past.

Do you have any feelings about that?

It's a certain... It's a master price agreement purchase.

All right.

I don't want to say it's similar to buying a ream of paper, but... It's similar to buy an arena.

No, it's a major. It's a major purchase. You want to make sure that all the eyes are on the teaser.

My biggest concern is that we only have four manufacturers and the price has gone up way over the amount of inflation over the years.

Well, I don't know if you're aware. Last September, There was a congressional hearing, and they called three or four of the major manufacturers. One of the things that's happened is, as we see even in the mobile home parks and the marinas, they've been bought out by conglomerates. And now Providence just got on board and filed a suit. So has L.A., a couple other communities. They went before Congress. Congress wasn't happy. But that's what we have right now. The entire country, every fire department is in the same situation. The ladder truck is a four-year delay.

To answer Mr. Reid's question, I'd be happy to look at the purchase order contract, the MPA contract. has pricing built in or the vendor built in authority. But especially if there's a prepayment on this and it goes out years, I think that's probably some unique language that is worth putting eyes on just in case. What if it takes them five years? Then is that prepayment really still worth it?

um given the cost of the funds so typically in their wording they have enough in there to cover themselves oh absolutely i have no doubt active odd delay delay in production force majeure yeah all that good stuff yeah we've had this we've had them extended and read the writing yeah it's what we're told i just think i think it's just a question of whether you choose to do the prepayment and take the discount if it's if it's a risk you know that might be something to think about

Just two comments, Mr. President. You mentioned it's a three-year bill, but it's probably more like a three-year wait. I mean, we're just getting in the process, right? Correct. Everybody ahead of us. Correct. One thing. And just so everybody isn't shocked by that almost million-dollar price and how we're going to pay for it, you can tell us about the Public Safety Capital Improvement Plan, or maybe Mr. Rainer wants to expand on that. But that's why that plan was established. Sure.

That was established five years ago. Chief, correct me if I'm wrong. The whole idea is to purchase and fund these types of acquisitions in the fire department and also two police cars a year. It's funded through the ambulance revenue, a portion of which goes to the town and the remainder goes into this capital plan. And then, as discussed by previous councils, the idea is that the town would wean itself off of that revenue, so all the ambulance revenue would go into this capital safety plan. And as of December 30th, I think it's in the budget book, there was like $1.4 million in that account.

I can tell you right now, as of today, because we did purchase a medical rescue, there's $1,126,000 today. And we'll have this month's expenses and receipts coming in to add to that. But I would like to point out that one of the big things about this initial plan and doing it like this is If we hadn't have this plan going along for the last five years, I'd be before you right now asking for $926,000. And I'm only asking you for your approval to spend those funds that we already have. I know. We had an opportunity to purchase. We needed a brush truck. I found one used, a used pickup that was great shape. But you know, you're buying something new, you're going to buy it right now. It's having a budget process and waiting until January and submitting. It's something you can't take advantage of those type of things. So the plan has worked out very well. The only glitch is obviously the pricing has gone exponentially higher than what we had anticipated when it was put together. But we're moving along and it's worked out very well. Yeah.

Is there a motion to approve the purchase of a million-dollar fire truck?

$950,000 purchase. Up to $950,000. Around that magic number.

One other thing I know, the president doesn't like that, I know, in the past. But just as a point of reference, when I came to you for the EMS vehicle, I had some pricing and I asked to go up to, I'm looking for my P because I had it for you, Well, I asked to go up to, here it is. I asked for 70,000 and we were only in like the 60s. And if you remember that, I said, well, I'd like to have a little buffer. Total price that we spent on that vehicle is 54,000.

Good job. I remember getting two engines about 15 years ago for a million bucks. Not anymore. No. There's a motion and a second. All in favor? Who was the second? Mr. Cairo, sorry. Opposed? Motion passes six to zero. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Next up, we have correspondence. Is there anything on here that anybody would like to pull for the July 27th meeting?

Motion to receive and place on file.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 6-0. Future meetings. Our July 13th meeting has been canceled to give us our summer break. We'll be meeting on July 27th, August 11th, and August 24th. I would like everybody to have a wonderful 4th of July holiday. Celebrate our nation's 250th birthday that was started right here in Rhode Island. Motion to adjourn. So moved.