[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:00] Freshman, coffee, tea, snack, I'll help yourself over on the table to the left, or you're right, depending on how you look in.
[0:08] That was so generous of you, Charlie. So it was generous of you.
[0:13] That's the end of our budget.
[0:26] I bought a lot of tickets.
[0:30] That's right. Good morning everybody. Good morning everybody.
[0:39] Thank you so much for joining us today on Saturday, please storm Saturday.
[0:46] This has always been a really good get together and discussion with our state legislators
[0:54] where we can kind of set out what we are, what we plan and hope to go to the gardener
[0:59] from the upcoming legislative session.
[1:02] So, before we get started, I want to go around and introduce who we have here today.
[1:08] I'll start out our table over here. We have Senator Don Oyer, Representative District 13.
[1:13] Senator Lou Deparma, Representative District 12, Representative Lauren Carson.
[1:18] I'm a fighting 75th.
[1:21] And Martin Habney, representing the District 73.
[1:24] So, thank you all so much for being here this morning.
[1:27] and look forward to have a great discussion.
[1:30] We do have our council here today.
[1:37] Unfortunately, council calling could not be here today.
[1:39] We do do family commitments, but we have the rest.
[1:42] We have Stephanie Spice, Alan Pinnock,
[1:44] Side Comce Vorobong, Gina Palatano, Lynn Segley,
[1:48] and myself, and we also have our city manager,
[1:51] Colin Kennedy, where we're in the back.
[1:53] my career low deputy city manager, city solicitor,
[1:56] Chris Bion, a wonderful city clerk,
[2:00] Laura Swiss, thanks for coming here this morning, Laura.
[2:02] And then we have Peter Batista, who's representing
[2:06] from our lobby in front of him.
[2:08] So we will get some public input as we go along as well.
[2:12] But we want to kind of get through some of these topics first.
[2:16] We have a general outline of some of the things we want
[2:19] to hit today.
[2:20] In these outlines, I didn't get too specific
[2:23] into many of the questions that were put forward by the council counselors, because we would
[2:28] be here till four o'clock or so. But we do have a lot of robust conversations and questions
[2:36] to hit and a lot of topics to hit. So if there is something that does come up, as to the counselors
[2:45] feel free to ask any questions same with our legislative team in case there is something that
[2:51] not be on here that we want to hit. There are a couple things that are very kind of just
[2:59] gaining speed right now. I know that we're going to start off with a legislation. For instance,
[3:04] the bill that Senator, I'm sorry, Representative Carson, just put through recently about the
[3:10] Berthing Center, so we'll be hitting on that as well. But what I'd like to start off with is
[3:19] start off with our school regionalization since that's been a major topic with new port
[3:24] and middle town as well. And during our conversations with middle town, one of the things
[3:32] is how are we going to attack it from a legislative standpoint, if we do end up going
[3:37] through the whole process. So I like to start off on that note and then we can kind of
[3:44] go off on any kind of education, or use
[3:48] directives that anyone wants to talk about as well.
[4:00] So one quick question, and I'll start with
[4:03] any one of the reps going to answer.
[4:06] For when we get to a legislative
[4:08] legislation part of regionalization,
[4:12] I know it back in 2022, we have one of the original
[4:16] forms, where do we stand on that as far as
[4:20] What is still, what is still active on that regionalization?
[4:24] I mean on the regionalization legislation,
[4:26] or do we have to do a completely new legislative ask?
[4:34] Is that the put the question on the ballot?
[4:35] Yeah, we have to do it again.
[4:38] So there's nothing that's from the previous.
[4:40] Not that I know of.
[4:41] I mean we'd have to create a whole new question on a whole new year
[4:44] with whatever language you want.
[4:46] I mean we can pull up the old bill, right?
[4:48] And would you guys have and mimic that to some extent?
[4:52] because that was a pretty well written bill from what I remember.
[4:55] And then we'll pass it,
[4:57] we'll go through municipal government in the house,
[4:59] and then it'll all on the ballot,
[5:01] with a resolution in advance.
[5:04] We foresee any issues from the state level
[5:09] where because we've done it before
[5:10] and it has failed at the municipal level,
[5:13] let alone go through.
[5:16] With a resolution, we generally just go with what the municipalities want.
[5:20] I mean, you know, if you've decided,
[5:21] if you've added it, you've asked for it, you've voted on it.
[5:24] We're not going to challenge that.
[5:29] Any more fancy counseling?
[5:32] I'm in relation.
[5:33] Actually, could I.
[5:35] Thanks, Mr. Mayor.
[5:37] We'll just to just a flag on that.
[5:39] There was discussions when that resolution went through previously.
[5:44] There's certain assumptions that get made.
[5:46] I think from the city about reimbursement and I will admit that I have not.
[5:51] followed every twist in turn of the recent conversation, so I'm not sure whether that's that,
[5:56] but I will say that there is another education funding conversation that is before the assembly,
[6:04] and so the reimbursement rates, like that all ties in to the whole education funding conversation.
[6:10] And so I know that when I put in that legislation a few years ago, there was an ask to kind of
[6:17] how to find certain reimbursement rates to ensure
[6:21] that that was going to follow through.
[6:24] And I will say that I have also heard from other regional
[6:26] as districts, frustrations about at what point
[6:31] do they get certain enhanced reimbursement rates.
[6:33] And so I think that reimbursement rate question
[6:39] could receive pushback.
[6:41] So I think that there's something that you're fortunate
[6:44] enough to be represented from the by the two finance chairs. So not to throw them under the
[6:51] bustle on this but I think that's that's the thing is don't make assumptions that certain
[6:56] reimbursement elements can be written into the statute and make it all the way across the finish line.
[7:02] So Dawn are you saying that talking about housing aid or other types of aid such as transportation?
[7:09] Well I think either and I know that the conversation gets a little bit convoluted
[7:13] But I think that there's, like, I think the broader general assembly is not going to want to see a
[7:22] regionalization resolution that is going to
[7:25] codify changes to the overall funding formula. That's what I'm saying.
[7:30] Okay, so let me say push back.
[7:34] When we did Rogers, we have fulfilled, I believe,
[7:39] everything to get the 52.5. So why would we get pushback now?
[7:50] I don't believe you would. I think we had, I'll say robust conversation in
[7:55] centred finance regarding the structure because when you say regionalization to
[7:59] folks they expect everything's coming together and not in one place but everything's
[8:04] being pushed together. As opposed to the structure you're looking at is
[8:08] and administrations coming together, right?
[8:14] The, what regards to the structure you're looking at
[8:17] is regionalizing the entire district.
[8:20] Schools are where they are, basically.
[8:22] Rogers is where it is, and it's to completion process,
[8:27] middle town with the middle high school.
[8:29] It's the Litz process, through completion,
[8:33] much further back than Rogers was,
[8:35] with regards to the upgrade to the middle town
[8:38] high school to be the elementary school, the lower school level, that will be in process
[8:43] after, but from the perspective of what was in the language before, in I've got which
[8:50] time it was now.
[8:51] But I think though the 2022 was having a integrating at the single school system level basically.
[9:03] But they re birth their perspective that remained consistent, that was there, but the folks
[9:09] were looking at it from perspective of that it was from what they're familiar with as
[9:14] a real leads to.
[9:20] I'm sorry, it's on it, but I know there's only a handful of people from the public, but
[9:26] if we can just keep our comments down, you will get a chance to come up and make comments,
[9:32] But as we go along, the little, the, the, the, the, the side comments snickering are, are not what we're going to have, okay? Thank you.
[9:40] So the, uh, when people are familiar with this,
[9:43] Terraho, they're familiar with the pot against that level where they have, basically,
[9:49] three leaders of district, they have the elementary.
[9:52] And both districts, and then they have a high school that's been integrated, so there's another leader at that level.
[9:57] This, this is a different structure. That's all. So for them, it's, it's what,
[10:00] and obviously Bristol Warren, that's what they've known from decades, because it hasn't
[10:04] happened in a long time to where we are now, that's all.
[10:08] And so from the regional, the regionalization,
[10:15] boom, this or what a regionalization that's in the statute that bends that to you forever
[10:19] about the 2% per grade, I believe, is the number, and I look that this probably two weeks ago again,
[10:25] that's been statute for a long time.
[10:28] There's nothing in anybody's looking to change in that, so that expects to remain.
[10:33] When we had us, I'm sorry, when we had our discussion, our last meeting with Middletown and
[10:39] Ride was there. One of the things that they brought up was, regardless of that, and I'll use
[10:45] a transportation aspect, they said we could get $1.3 million. But that wasn't guaranteed because
[10:54] It could be a change in federal funding for that,
[10:59] or a budget change from the state level.
[11:04] I thank you.
[11:05] Transportation is separate.
[11:07] Looking at what the Senator Royer indicated,
[11:10] the Rhode Island Foundation put forward a proposal.
[11:14] A lot of work to go through and understand that appreciate
[11:19] what we do with that.
[11:21] Congress in Sicilian, your David Sicilian, CEO,
[11:24] they do some temporary work.
[11:25] We're going to figure out what we do
[11:27] that given the cost of that, but as it stands today, right?
[11:30] What anything from a federal side is basically on the table, nobody knows where it's going
[11:36] necessarily across the board, from the state perspective, we have control of that.
[11:40] What we do with that determines based on what we hear the Chairman, Abni and I here in
[11:45] committee, what the public breaks forward, et cetera.
[11:48] So there's something that I don't want to say are constant.
[11:51] Everything can change anywhere,
[11:57] right?
[11:57] Regionalization does take for the voters to decide in middle time a new part, but from Rhode Island general
[12:01] all perspective, those things can change, but they would get to take the act of bill being passed.
[12:08] But it seems unlikely that the statute would change for the two percent per grade.
[12:14] Correct. No, I've not seen any bill with regards to the two percent per grade.
[12:20] Regionalization bonus, I've not seen anything in anybody's bills,
[12:23] anybody put in, I look quickly, look through what's at finance yesterday, but anything can come in
[12:30] if I had to think about whether that changes or not, I don't think so. But then again, who knows what's
[12:34] going to, will somebody put something in between now and when the majority of our bills are bills
[12:41] in the center expected to be in by, in first, this should be, this should be,
[12:49] this should actually
[12:51] So we asked a question here.
[12:52] So Senator, that's a 2% bonus because of regionalization.
[12:56] Okay, because there is a bill on that.
[12:58] I spoke last night with one of my colleagues and she has a bill
[13:01] through raise it to 6%.
[13:03] And she tells me that there's a lot of enthusiasm for that,
[13:06] particularly in the western part of the state.
[13:08] That was just less.
[13:09] I heard greed.
[13:09] I'd got the bill last night at 9 o'clock and I just flagged it
[13:12] and I thought I would share it with you folks and I just looked at it.
[13:15] I hadn't even read it.
[13:15] And I was like, gee, we're meeting with him tomorrow.
[13:17] So, there's two things, there's six, and maybe associated with the, what the additional bonuses,
[13:24] because the initial bonus for regionalization is 2% the first year I believe, and the additional 1%
[13:29] citizen towns get too handle bringing things together, because it's a cost, right?
[13:34] Maybe, we know this in business, and then another year, 1%, Senator Figillag has had a bill for that for,
[13:38] I've been there 18 years to make it consistent.
[13:44] The 2% per grade is on housing aid, peace.
[13:48] I think the 6% more might be on the regionalization,
[13:51] because if you get 6% per grade,
[13:54] you realize, well, great.
[13:57] The state's going to give you one to back.
[14:00] You're going to pay nothing.
[14:01] One of the things that I'm sorry.
[14:04] One of the things that I've said in our meeting
[14:07] is that we can sculpt to this bill the way that we want, for instance, if we want to fully
[14:15] regionalize, and if we want, we can do whatever we want, essentially, so I just want to
[14:21] make sure that that was...
[14:22] Sure.
[14:23] Got any gore.
[14:23] Got any gore?
[14:24] Got any gore?
[14:25] Got any gore?
[14:25] Got any gore?
[14:30] Who sets the rates?
[14:33] Rates for which we, for the regionalization bonus or whatever?
[14:36] That's in statute.
[14:37] That's in what I want general law. 2% per grade.
[14:40] How does it come about? I mean, if it from the school authority talking to the legislators and the 2% per grade for the housing costs is in statute.
[14:56] So whatever your cost are, you'll get 2% more so for instance.
[15:01] The entire system was regionalized with somebody, right? The additional, and you regionalized all grades.
[15:10] 13 times 2 is another 26 percent. If you regionalized 9 and 4, 13, yeah. K through high school, you would have got another 26 percent on the reimbursement for Roger's high school, basically.
[15:24] But because there was a regionalization bonus is applied because it's a regionalized with anything.
[15:29] It's that the rate you got a 52 and a half.
[15:31] But going back to my show to the language about what you do, what you can do with regionalization,
[15:40] what the law says.
[15:42] There's certain things the law says about how it should be structured.
[15:45] Based on numbers of students, all those kinds of things in the government side of things.
[15:49] And I've shared this with the folks in Middletown and others, and I think I think I'd get a good plan back in 2022, with regards to shared leadership on the government side, a flop on another flop, an alternate on the finance side, and then go back the other way, that would bring what you'll be going through around general law for the regional school district, because that's not what's there now.
[16:14] It's the case where it provided makes sense.
[16:17] This is what I've said to the little time as well.
[16:19] It makes sense when I'm violating any other law,
[16:22] the general somebody's likely to move forward
[16:24] with allowing you to do that because I think to do.
[16:27] Right, it's not like the case where you can't do it
[16:29] because it's in the Constitution
[16:31] and you gotta go change the voters have to change that law.
[16:34] And also makes sense, so it's the right thing to do.
[16:37] So it helps with regards to what you think,
[16:39] what you said, I think your question is
[16:41] with regards to what the language could the language be,
[16:44] on visualization, it's up to what you, and little town wanted to be. But there's a reason.
[16:50] Mr. Chair.
[16:51] No, I just had a couple of questions. So if our ask is, say, 80% reimbursement. That's not guaranteed,
[16:59] because is that correct?
[17:01] You can't really ask for 80, but you can ask for everyone, whatever you want.
[17:05] Yes. Right. It's got to be guided by how you get there.
[17:10] Okay, and how does the, I guess the funding formula or special Ed funding play into any of this?
[17:18] It's separate. And we won't go through some of that.
[17:22] We've got there's some additional numbers.
[17:23] But that's all separate or just staying from this.
[17:26] Okay, thank you.
[17:28] You just clarify that because Rogers is getting 52.5% net because we have certain bonus points.
[17:37] Otherwise it starts out at 35.
[17:39] and then we get bonus points for doing extra environmental things and then on top of that is the 2%
[17:51] per grade that is in statute. Would be, would be correct. So that's how we get to the 80 percent
[17:59] is roughly fulfilling those enhancements and then the 2% by statute. Correct. Okay.
[18:08] That doesn't quite add up to 20, 80, but you could get there by there's another, whether you could get there or not, there's another piece that would have gotten the other 5% that's how you would have gotten to the eight to a half bite.
[18:23] One way to write.
[18:23] When we, but I just want to make sure that when we say the 80%, we have to fulfill things to get the 80%, but it's certainly doable, especially on a project like Rogers, because we fulfilled all of those enhancements.
[18:39] Correct.
[18:39] Thank you.
[18:40] The basis 35, some other school districts get a lot more because of other things that they
[18:45] have.
[18:48] Questions on the council?
[18:50] No, no.
[18:51] No, no.
[18:51] I have.
[18:52] That's calling.
[18:53] You want to come up.
[18:54] I know you.
[18:54] I have questions representing the school committee.
[18:59] Hi.
[19:00] Good morning, everybody.
[19:01] That's calling school committee.
[19:04] I just wanted to clarify a couple of lawyers that can't look at this as a fear
[19:13] full exercise. We've been talking about regionalization, right-picked at a 1990's. Not new
[19:21] information. It's time to move forward. I attended the Rhode Island Foundation event on Thursday
[19:29] and I talking about their proposed new funding formula. Newport is going to hurt a lot unless
[19:37] we do something creative outside of what we've been doing for all these years.
[19:43] Currently, as it stands, if this goes through, we would lose $7 million dollars, $7 million
[19:49] in our budget, because our property tax is so, we have such a large property tax with $10 billion
[19:57] or something.
[20:04] That's a bad news.
[20:06] The good news is we have the funding formula as proposed states that the state will start picking up things like special education, transportation, multi-language learner things, equities, equitable learning.
[20:24] That's the good news, we may even make money out of this because we spend so much in our budget on all of those things.
[20:31] We spend several million dollars on out of district placements with our children.
[20:36] Now, that's a really big heartling.
[20:37] We could get another child tomorrow or another million.
[20:41] So the state is, Rhode Island Foundation is realizing that those are costs that municipalities really can't afford.
[20:49] The money should be going in the classroom, educating the kids, that's where the money should be spent.
[20:54] So on that note, they talked a lot about consolidation and unifying our districts.
[21:00] It's an emotional subject.
[21:02] We can all agree on that.
[21:03] But if we don't do it, we're going to continue pulling money out of those classrooms.
[21:09] So if we do do it and consolidate and unify academically,
[21:17] Athletically, extracurricularly.
[21:19] We're helping our children prepare for this world that we all know is very complicated.
[21:25] So I really, really hope for you and all of your colleagues up in Providence.
[21:31] Read the document, get behind it, and all of you start thinking about the bonuses that will affect our children.
[21:39] Because if we don't start thinking outside of the box and getting past all of the scary stuff,
[21:44] We're not doing anybody any favors, especially the kids, thanks.
[21:50] Thank you.
[21:51] I've done.
[21:53] I just, I felt like I needed to clarify my comments.
[21:57] Which was not based off of emotion, but I think what part of the discussion,
[22:02] like discovered, is that there are different elements of the funding formula.
[22:06] And I just want to make sure that folks understand what your proposal,
[22:10] and I think this is what Senator DePama was indicating,
[22:13] is how your proposal is framed is actually what affects the reimbursement rate.
[22:19] So it's not something that you can just say we want 100% reimbursement, we want 80% reimbursement.
[22:25] You have to frame that within the statutory framework of the reimbursement.
[22:30] So that's what I was trying to clarify.
[22:32] And I do think that there's a lot of confusion about what elements go into that and what elements don't.
[22:37] So it really is just like a math problem and making sure that we're doing the math.
[22:42] and that's aligning with what the funding formula actually is.
[22:46] So, thank you.
[22:48] Yeah, I think one of the reasons why it was important to have
[22:52] ride in our last regionalization meeting with middle town was to try to get a little clarity
[22:58] to what those numbers are and they were very specific by saying these are not specific exact numbers.
[23:06] they can change, there's a lot of different reasons.
[23:13] Again, this is statute and the 2% per grade is in statute.
[23:20] It's all of the other things.
[23:22] This 35% is the base.
[23:25] So that's already taken care of, right?
[23:27] It's all that sort of squishy middle that we're worrying about,
[23:31] but we're not worried about the 2% per grade at this time.
[23:34] at this time.
[23:37] Mr. Chair.
[23:38] Yes, council.
[23:39] I appreciate the clarification.
[23:41] It's a lot of what's circulating throughout the community is we're going to get 80%.
[23:46] That is the asset is what we're going to get.
[23:48] So I appreciate the clarification on that.
[23:50] Is your mic on?
[23:52] It is.
[23:54] Just to confirm,
[23:56] what I would say is,
[23:57] the person said,
[23:59] the counselor is exactly said,
[24:02] it's in the raw.
[24:04] Mario from Ryder is phenomenal. He knows his stuff full. You call him up about something.
[24:12] Give me three seconds. Let me go verify it. What he's, you can take what he says here to the bank.
[24:18] So to speak with regards to what's there, but that's based on how the structure of
[24:24] Bringing two school systems together as a relates to Rhode Island General.
[24:31] Can I just mention the Rhode Island Foundation had recommended the East Bay area schools
[24:40] because Newport, Middletown, Portsmouth, Bristol, because of in their minds a higher income
[24:51] medium.
[24:53] And, you know, that I'm really surprised they would come out like that considering
[25:01] the problems in the issuance that the educators and the families have been facing in this
[25:09] area, if they need to balance this.
[25:15] Thomas Combs of Obama.
[25:17] That's entirely changed gears, but for a specific ask, learn through 65 program put forth by
[25:22] governor has been included in his budget. In Newport, it has been highly impactful. We saw
[25:29] that chronic abs and, uh, chronicly abs and students who participate in the program saw
[25:34] nearly 70% reduction in their, their chronic abs and Tism. Uh, it's integrated intentionally
[25:40] between our schools who are active partners in the program with our community partners who have
[25:44] gone above and beyond and providing their support. But to know, any consideration you can provide
[25:49] to continuing funding for that program.
[25:51] It's greatly appreciated.
[25:52] We have a resolution from last year.
[25:54] If necessary, we'll introduce another resolution,
[25:56] just voicing our support for that program.
[25:59] Good to know, thank you.
[26:01] Just my question.
[26:04] Just thinking about what Zy was just talking about.
[26:07] So it's been a line in school and out of school.
[26:09] And I have for multiple years.
[26:11] So traditional schooling doesn't work for all kids.
[26:15] So we have those kids that are in the shadows.
[26:17] that sometimes can fall through the cracks and some are programming and after school programming
[26:22] becomes really important to those kids in their success. So is there any conversation at all
[26:30] about sustaining funding for after school programming, some are programming, or any of those
[26:36] extra programs or initiatives that support kids and families?
[26:44] I think the counselor had it with
[26:47] to not has it for more than 365 perspective. I'd have to go, I went to the entire budget
[26:53] last Friday. We're now going through looking at the agencies and what they have in there. So
[26:57] over and above the more than 365, I'm not certain what additional there is in there. Do you think
[27:03] we could get that data on the 365 program? Yes, I want you to send that to us in case we need it.
[27:09] Yeah, we have a wonderful case study that was done and we can provide.
[27:13] Maybe at some point later, if we just talk general budget for the state perspective, I think
[27:19] it's, I think it'd be informative and enlightening, you may not.
[27:30] Okay.
[27:33] I'm actually, maybe this is a good time with jumping to that, Senator DePom, and then you
[27:35] want to talk about the state budget.
[27:38] Sure.
[27:39] The last Tuesday, we had a Senate briefing.
[27:43] We're providing the Senate briefing to the Senate on the impact of HR1.
[27:47] The HR1 is the official name for the one big beautiful bill act, which I won't use anymore, but it's HR1.
[27:55] There's a few critical pieces to HR1 that affects all of us,
[27:59] affects people in Newport, affects people in the entire state.
[28:02] Let me just put it in the context of HR1 over 10 years.
[28:09] And you can read this, I verified this metiplycisi, seeks to take one trillion dollars.
[28:16] One trillion.
[28:17] Why are I talking to billion anymore?
[28:18] One trillion on a Medicaid.
[28:21] One trillion on a Medicaid.
[28:22] We have a bunch of different things.
[28:23] We won't go into the details there.
[28:25] One trillion on a Medicaid.
[28:26] About upwards of 200 million out of a snap.
[28:30] So I'll blend all the nutrition assistance program from my known as food stamps.
[28:35] 200 million.
[28:37] That's country-wide.
[28:40] $1.2 billion, $1.2 trillion, $2 trillion out of it.
[28:45] At the same time, raises the debt, $4 trillion, by some it looked, and I look at it once
[28:51] in a while because if you want something to do when you're spare time and put something
[28:54] on your phone, go look at the national debt as it rises, virtually seconds by $100 to $1,000.
[29:01] It's at $38 trillion, okay, that backdrop at the macro level affects Rhode Island.
[29:07] There's really four areas, macroears that affect what I would have three, one is on the
[29:12] area of SNAP, supplemental Trish and Assistance Program, that could cost, and minimal cost
[29:16] what I would have on another $9 million for administrative costs, potentially upwards of 50 million
[29:24] dollars. Anyway, because of the error rate, not because of put aside all that people talking
[29:30] about fraud wasted abuse, that's not it, it's about underpaying or overpaying lieu we're
[29:36] that's what that is. And right now our error rates over 10% right now if it happened tomorrow
[29:41] we'd be paid required to pay $15 million more roughly. Some states tell you six from
[29:47] on to under six it's zero. If you're Alaska and you're able to get that carve out, they're at a
[29:52] 24% they would pay nothing for a few years. That's snap.
[30:00] Any, there's premium tax credit. What happened at the, with the government shutdown, then it went back, and the, there were about 40 something thousand folks in Rhode Island that will be impacted, or are impacted already right now.
[30:15] I think, in the January, it's the time frame for it, that to the tune of about $16 million costs that the individuals would have to bear,
[30:29] because that was coming from the advanced premium tax credit.
[30:33] We're looking to try and mitigate some of that, not all of that.
[30:37] So that's people that if you take somebody who's on
[30:41] Social Security, and that's all they get in Medicare, let's say.
[30:45] Well, security.
[30:47] And over $1180 a month, $1180 a month, this one person makes.
[30:52] Food, electricity, gas, heating, housing.
[30:58] Maybe they, oh, let's talk health insurance.
[31:02] Yeah. Yeah. One of those is going to give. So we need to figure out how do we help mitigate
[31:06] some of them. The third piece is on the Medicaid side of things. That's to the 200,
[31:13] 100 plus a million that, oh, by the way, the budget as proposed does nothing to them. Nothing.
[31:21] Nothing to them. You read, you read appendix B of the budget and you look at the chart for
[31:25] five-year deficit, you'll see that.
[31:28] So it's things like work requirement or community engagement.
[31:31] There's a pencil positive to that, I think, where there could be some nonprofit agencies
[31:36] that might be able to get some volunteer hours for some folks, but it's 80 hours per month.
[31:41] If you don't do that, you're off.
[31:43] We also have to do redetermination, eligibility, twice a year.
[31:47] We already do that for some things.
[31:49] From Medicaid, it's going to cost people, that's more money to do that.
[31:53] So in the backdrop of all this, we're looking at how do we address what's the government
[32:00] proposed and we start hearings on Thursday on the budget for the chairman will be starting
[32:04] on the House side.
[32:05] We have a race to the finish, if we get to the end of April, then we start meeting on a regular
[32:10] basis.
[32:10] But that's part of the things what we're looking at in the backdrop of all this.
[32:16] That's looming out there.
[32:17] The other piece that's not in the budget,
[32:19] that's not even in Pendict B on the five-year deficit
[32:24] is language we pass in the general assembly
[32:25] last year on primary care.
[32:27] We all know about the issues of somebody
[32:29] trying to find a primary care doctor.
[32:31] We put some things in the budget this year
[32:33] to help mitigate or humiliate some of that.
[32:37] But we also put in a formal comprehensive regular rate review
[32:42] on primary care.
[32:43] That was underway.
[32:45] It's underway now.
[32:46] It will not impact this budget because we don't have the facts of the data.
[32:49] Will we do something? I like to think we will, uh, almost like Wacomol,
[32:53] where first Wacomol will pop them all up and we'll hit that mole.
[32:56] But that's not going to come until next year. That's not in the budget either.
[33:00] And when we did health and human services, three years ago, or two years ago,
[33:05] that was that cost us, we did the whole thing. We put in $60 million dollars.
[33:08] We were getting it to get about $150, $160 million, or $70 from the federal government
[33:13] because it's a like a two to one three to one kind of match because of all the rates, it's not just 50%.
[33:18] We did L on one.
[33:20] I'm expecting the primary care, maybe because something is where you're done, not to quite.
[33:25] We'll be more, but we're already doing something there.
[33:28] That's not in the five year budget as well.
[33:30] So we need to factor all those things in as we put this bug together going forward.
[33:36] Just a day to put it.
[33:37] this chair. Um, you. Um, so I did, I brought up the the Cliff effect or the benefit
[33:44] with last year also. So is there any policy that any of you know of that's being put forward
[33:50] to help our families? Um, so they're not penalized for earning more income or trying to get
[33:57] themselves out of these situations that they're in? I'm not aware of any, but you bring up a
[34:05] It calls for excellent issue, but it's so big years ago, we had somebody doing analysis on it because
[34:10] Rhode Island does have a cliff and a bunch of different things.
[34:12] You get to that certain point and that benefit goes away.
[34:15] We don't have a sliding scale on the way down, right?
[34:19] There was a mom and new port 10 years ago, a son got to have a job in the summer, told
[34:25] the son, you cannot take that job, you cannot, you take that job, we lose our benefits.
[34:30] That's just ludicrous.
[34:31] So, we need, so part of that's on our side, we need potentially made CMS or some other things to give us leeway to do some of these things.
[34:39] We need to get to more of that that may manifest itself this year.
[34:43] I haven't seen any legislation but looking at doing all that and trying to have some kind of scale on the way down to zero as you get to a certain income was pretty sizable.
[34:55] We may have to do this in bite size chunks.
[34:57] I don't know any.
[35:00] Just in my other capacities, chair of the workforce board for the state right now, while there are many horrendous things that are coming through.
[35:06] Often this administration, one of them is looking specifically at how they mitigate the impact of the benefits cliff.
[35:11] So there are provisions to allow for us to continue providing supportive services for up to a year as an individual transitions into a new type of employment.
[35:20] It means we're productive. So that is one of the positive things that is on the horizon.
[35:24] It's not well-funded.
[35:25] It's not well-described yet, but it is very much a focus of the workforce board.
[35:28] All right.
[35:28] Thank you, Zen.
[35:33] Um, one of the issues I know that's being discussed at the state level, um, in Newport,
[35:40] we just, uh, last we were able to pass the cruise ship to be, that we got an increase on, uh,
[35:46] basically up to $20 a person, where they come on shore, not, um, the governor's now proposing
[35:53] to increase that to $30.
[35:59] What is, in any of you can answer this, what are your thoughts on this?
[36:03] I'm completely opposed to it.
[36:05] I'm completely opposed to it.
[36:07] It's going to raise, well, first of all, the money is dedicated to RIPTA.
[36:11] There's a tremendous need for RIPTA money.
[36:12] So it's not about RIPTA funding.
[36:14] It's about dipping into a revenue source that has traditionally belonged to the municipality.
[36:18] I'm completely opposed to it.
[36:20] It's only going to raise a million dollars.
[36:22] That's what I saw, unless the two finance chairs have different
[36:25] information. A million dollars in the entire budget is not a lot of money. I don't think,
[36:30] and to dip into a municipal revenue source as we did with the Taylor Swift X, I think is just
[36:35] really dangerous procedure. I'm going to argue against that for sure.
[36:42] Yeah, and I just, I also want to say, like, I know that the city spent a lot of time and was
[36:47] trying to be very thoughtful about how to approach that, looking at the market and what the region,
[36:53] the regional rates were because we also want to maintain that business, that business
[37:00] opportunity, and that economy that we have here. So I'm also opposed to it. It's
[37:07] it's unfortunate, an unfortunate piggyback on what I think was really good and thoughtful
[37:12] work by this council that I was happy to support. But I saw that proposal and thought it
[37:17] absurd, so I won't be supporting that.
[37:25] Yeah,
[37:40] please.
[37:40] Yeah.
[37:57] One nuance to note in one question.
[37:59] First is obviously the differential between a fee and a tax.
[38:02] That cruise ship fee was directly related to our needs to operate the harbor on the waterfront and offsetting those.
[38:08] It was not a general revenue raising tool as it was intended.
[38:13] So, if there's any technical aspect of that that's worth considering, we'd urge it to do that.
[38:17] The second is a more general framing question.
[38:20] At the local level, we are suffocating for revenues, as you know, well, property tasks is our primary tool.
[38:26] Some of these other fees that we have that we are very thankful for your assistance with,
[38:31] help alleviate that as well and we want to thank you obviously for your work as well in the hotel
[38:35] tax issue. But we try and be creative. You can see behind us right now. I think some of the
[38:40] administration's efforts on future creativity around new revenue sources but our experience
[38:45] last session and around things like the parking taxes we come up with a new idea whether it's
[38:49] the cruise ship would be increased or the parking tax and the state of here so look at and say
[38:54] that's a great idea. We're going to take that money and we're left short over and over again managing
[39:00] You know, continuous flow of unfunding mandates at the local level,
[39:03] fewer fewer resources in a constant encroachment by the state,
[39:07] the available revenue sources that we have.
[39:09] And so the top thing about that is that it hampers our appetite for creativity,
[39:15] for working on some of these issues at the local level,
[39:17] when our fear is that idea gets scooped every year.
[39:21] I just don't know if there's anything any of you can do to push back on that
[39:24] when those ideas come up, we're trying to keep staff thinking proactively here,
[39:28] but it makes it very difficult.
[39:30] It would be great if you guys considered a resolution to oppose that cruise fee, that would be very helpful.
[39:36] But I was with the speaker last night and had a conversation about it.
[39:40] I just think that stepping into a municipal source of revenue, it's our money.
[39:44] And it's not even raising a lot of money.
[39:46] Like if it was raising $20 million for RIPTA and they really need the money badly,
[39:51] you know, I'd look at it a little bit differently.
[39:52] It's only a million books.
[39:55] Do they charge the airlines and say, I wonder the same thing one?
[40:00] Do they?
[40:01] For landing fees?
[40:02] I wanted the same thing.
[40:05] So the only, trying to address a couple of them, also, have you looked at the airport stuff?
[40:09] They call a, um, in time at the fee.
[40:14] I've got this, it's three-letter, Akron McKettie.
[40:16] So every, the way cost them, uh, kept, uh, reasonable, long, uh,
[40:24] to be attractive to bring planes to Rhode Island
[40:28] is for a cost per employment, that's what it is.
[40:31] Cost per employment, meaning just like the cruise fee.
[40:33] Every person that gets on a plane
[40:35] and every person that gets off a plane,
[40:36] the airline pays a cost, pays a fee
[40:40] to the airport corporation for that.
[40:42] So they do have something similar
[40:44] and it's one of these they've been trying to keep reasonable.
[40:48] Not well, reasonable enough so that more planes
[40:50] will come here because at the end of the day,
[40:53] That's a cost, right, that more people come, the more they pay in and on.
[40:58] With regards to the, when I saw the piece in, I think in meeting with the director,
[41:08] at least the rant, I've got the head of the, head of rifter, excellent director there. I'm glad
[41:13] he's there. When he briefs us, I think it was about, wasn't even in the center of finance. It was
[41:20] the general briefing about the impact, I think it was a new port, I think, when they did
[41:25] it across the state, the impact of transportation they provide from the cruise ships.
[41:31] I've got, is it free, the, they rent bus week now, the ship that's buses, the ship that's
[41:40] charter buses there, all of them, but I thought that there was also some other transportation
[41:44] I was provided to places other than that, so I think there might be another piece of it.
[41:50] I concur the million dollars is this is a small piece of that
[41:55] Especially when you look at it in the context of other money being provided to ripped a this year what we did last year
[42:01] What will be provided?
[42:02] There are other ways to figure out how to get ripped out what they need as opposed to adding another $5 on this and as
[42:10] Peter indicated he's spot on when we looked at this in the past and in fact when
[42:15] This got raised, I think when I first got put in place,
[42:19] I got raised to $3.00, Gene will remember,
[42:22] you probably only wanted to counsel then,
[42:24] when two set of presidents, previous tree supply,
[42:26] the weed was there, we made it,
[42:28] I didn't say anything about age, I just said she's been here.
[42:30] If you can be young, I didn't go there.
[42:33] But it was the case where you needed to be 18 months out,
[42:36] because if you're looking to take a cruise today,
[42:39] it's, they've really got the costs.
[42:41] So if, if, if it was going to be done,
[42:44] It had to be something that was going to be done January of like 28.
[42:49] Yeah, there are other way, I'll just say it, there are other ways to get ripped of what they need.
[42:54] And I think the governor put money in there.
[42:57] Some of the things will change, I think, about the governor's put some stuff in it.
[43:00] It's got to go through the here, you know.
[43:02] So also cruise ships are booked two years in advance.
[43:08] So that really kind of sprues up the...
[43:14] The only, it's a good point to make, so somebody said, okay, just move it out two years
[43:19] there.
[43:20] So, we don't want that either.
[43:24] And then there's a couple other points from our side as a local side that we look at,
[43:30] you know, our hardware masses are here today to talk about it, but there's been a lot
[43:35] of work put in, as great as a tourist destination that new port is, we really don't allow
[43:41] cruise ships in the heart of the summer. So, adding this other V is going to for either
[43:47] force us to a, start bringing them in and June July August when we prefer to not want
[43:54] to not want another 5, 6,000 people coming in the town. I mean, we always want people in the
[44:01] town don't get me wrong, but that's not when we need it. We need it in the spring.
[44:09] We need
[44:10] the ships they're going to say well why are we going to go to a new point if you're basically
[44:14] but taxing us, taxing us, taxing us for doing this. So we try to find that balance with
[44:21] that industry and I think we've done a really good job at it. The other part of it is the state
[44:28] and RIPTA, they're taking lines away from Newport, they're trying to. So now they want to take
[44:37] our money that we're bringing in a new board, give it to RIP that's not even helping
[44:41] new board at all, and that's what I find more disturbing, I think, really than anything
[44:48] else.
[44:49] Uh, question, uh, so, okay, so now it's $20 and it would jump to $30, right?
[44:55] But a new board would still keep that $20.
[45:00] And dollars to us is a lot compared to the state.
[45:05] I think chairholder pointed this out to, I'm speaking on behalf of the Harbormaster.
[45:11] There are natural abs and flows in terms of demand for cruise ship appetite right now.
[45:16] We're seeing a slight long term decline in that demand. So increasing those fees will only further exacerbate that decline in demand.
[45:23] And we designed that increase in fees in large part to help us with taking the barriers for the party part of Paul Cat and Harbor Master building project.
[45:34] That was always dependent largely on cruise ship fees to some extent more in fees, but a big portion of that was cruise ship fees.
[45:40] So if that demand goes away, so does that funding source.
[45:43] But this is for all those reasons he is adamantly.
[45:48] And the fee was up to 10 each way.
[45:51] That means right, yeah.
[45:52] Maximum, you could make $9.99.
[45:55] You could make a five, six dollars.
[45:57] Whatever you choose.
[45:59] Just before we move on,
[46:00] just to talk about the additional aid to cities and towns.
[46:05] So we thank you to the equipment I have on folks.
[46:10] I know Sean Brown, the maintenance folks from Newport that came to testify on the hotel tax.
[46:15] That was a big deal.
[46:16] The chairman will tell you, there's a big deal, we have lots of conversation with regards to it,
[46:20] because if you think about the last time the hotel tax was changed, I'll go back.
[46:24] I think Gene was on the council, I'll just get it.
[46:27] No, it's been that additional 1% for a long time, a long time.
[46:34] That's significant amount of money, millions, for a new part, by the hotel tax.
[46:38] could basically it goes up 40 percent. If you think about the 1% and the other money from the 5%
[46:44] to 1% and the 1.25, it's a little more than 40 percent. That's a big deal. A little
[46:49] town as well. So thank you for bringing that forward Chairman and I we had many conversations with regards
[46:55] to how do we do this? And it has, we don't change local tax things in which we don't want to,
[47:04] right? You don't want to do that. But then again, the folks that are going to pay this,
[47:07] most more often than not are not from here, right?
[47:10] Some of our residents of constituents will pay this,
[47:12] the vast majority in paying one additional percent
[47:16] on a room that's $200 or $500 and some worth $1,000,
[47:24] it's money, but it's in the noise, compared to what they,
[47:27] what you might see in other cities and towns
[47:28] that we've all been to and have this and that.
[47:31] So that's a big addition to the coffers of the job.
[47:34] So thanks for supporting it.
[47:36] Thank you.
[47:39] So on this, I want to just take a quick opportunity for Chief John Lee, if you want to come up here for a moment.
[47:48] Coming in front of the council is a,
[47:55] some verb John Lee conveyance tax, if you will,
[48:00] in Newport that would discuss,
[48:07] taxing any sale of property over a certain amount of them out was going to be in order to
[48:13] help alleviate some resiliency and sustainability funding.
[48:17] So I want to give you a moment to talk about that a little bit, you know what?
[48:21] Yeah.
[48:21] Thank you very much for this opportunity and what we're going to talk about today is something
[48:26] that may have a multi-generational effect in the quality of life in Newport and our residents
[48:31] I like to also, the quick apology to the council because this is a concept we talked about
[48:36] two years ago, as a broad idea, we came back last year, for a little more meat to it.
[48:42] But we were tasked with, it was a little bit cumbersome, it could be streamlined a bit, and
[48:47] a team was put together that it hasn't been working, a team that Lauren Carson's on, Chris
[48:52] Bean is an wonderful job, Theresa Creen has taken the lead on it, and a variety of staff
[48:58] we're kind of working together to try to make this a little more appropriate a little bit
[49:02] more clear to understand. So, but by apology to the council is, I know this day is for you to
[49:07] present to the our legislative team what your goals are and now you're going to be hearing about
[49:11] something that may seem a little bit of a surprise. So, that's my intention is just to kind of
[49:16] give an overview of this whole idea is for you to bring your thoughts and wishes forward to the
[49:21] legislative team, but I'm here to describe a little bit about this about. So, the resilience of
[49:26] ability fund is the idea is to make us the city more resilient, more to enable us to
[49:34] combat the changing funding sources by the federal level. So we run for the slide. I think
[49:39] that'll probably go fairly smoothly. There's eight quick slides. I promise not to talk as
[49:44] much as I usually do. So if we could advance to the next slide, please.
[49:53] That's right.
[49:53] But we do awesome. I'm not afraid of a clicker.
[50:00] Yeah.
[50:10] And I'll admit right off the bat that done. If you're hearing this for the very first
[50:13] It could sound a little bit scary, but it's actually fairly simple process and it's not a burden on the average new port of this isn't a burden on whatsoever.
[50:23] So the resiliency and sustainability trust, what's the fund?
[50:27] It's a fund for sustained revenue source to help protect our coastlines and our properties against them forces and other nature.
[50:34] The creation of this fund is going to make us less dependent upon the uncertain revenue sources such as grants or federal funding.
[50:43] It's going to enable us to take charge of our own destiny in many ways to establish a fund dedicated for the protection of our coastline and tackling the many resiliency challenge we have like watershed issues in our neighborhoods.
[50:58] What this also does kind of like the cruise ship, the cruise ship, the barking fees, it's a predictable funding source.
[51:04] So, it's a source that we can look at to the future when we're making up a budget and we can forecast.
[51:09] This is the amount of money we expect to come in this year.
[51:11] This is the amount of money we can anticipate spending on some of these projects that we have.
[51:16] At the present time, uncertain funding for.
[51:20] And it's also something that could be bonded against in the future.
[51:24] These are just kind of the obvious impacts.
[51:26] Newport throughout the city, we're struggle with residential flooding.
[51:30] we have challenges with the ocean rise, we have challenges with rainwater, these pictures
[51:35] were taken two years ago in January at a storm that we had that affected us in such a
[51:41] way that it allowed us to go after to FEMA to get disaster reimbursement for such damages.
[51:48] So this type of storm can happen at any time. This one was two years ago affecting all portions
[51:53] of the city. Also areas that are coastline, it's not just our sea walls,
[51:59] But our attractions as well, so protecting, having a fund that we can protect the new port and our shoreline from a erosion will only protect our property values and our future as a tourist destination, which is a considerable revenue source for the state.
[52:19] The proposal is dedicated fund to identify, it's going to be a fee on property tax sales,
[52:28] the property tax affected by this are commercial properties, and residential properties
[52:32] who are not using the properties committed to use their properties as a long time residents,
[52:37] whether it's through rental or ownership.
[52:39] This fee does not apply to any of the items at home in Newport right now.
[52:42] And again, if you're buying a home and you're committed to make it your home for five years,
[52:49] if you qualify for the second tier tax system, you will not have to pay this rate at all.
[52:54] This is focused at the property sales that are either commercial or more recreational or investment related,
[53:02] not for properties that are purchased for long-term housing.
[53:10] This is a good tool. It's a one-time fee. It's not a forever fee. It's not the Taylor Swift tax.
[53:16] Not everybody's paying. It's a fee. It gets paid every year. It's a one-time fee if you're buying into this.
[53:21] If you're buying into coming to Newport, you'll be buying into a community that's dedicated to protect our property values and our coastline and our way of life.
[53:29] What's nice about this particular fee, it's scaled up, so it's property values go up the fee will go up every year.
[53:35] It creates a predictable bonding revenue source.
[53:39] What's not said in this size is this type of fee system has been used by
[53:44] block island and little counted before the years.
[53:47] Block island uses it for land preservation and open space.
[53:51] Little content uses it for agricultural needs to preserve that culture that they have.
[53:55] We've had the benefit of during our meetings.
[53:59] We had individuals like Senator Oyer came in, gave us some really good insights.
[54:02] We had Amy Land who was the town manager from New Shore and from Block Island and she gave us a wonderful insights on this and 40 years later Block Island finds themselves in a situation where they're
[54:15] They've pretty much solved their open space and they're coming up with new ways to use the monies that are coming in the funds that are coming in.
[54:21] So we think of this as a future investment in our future, our children's future, the future new port.
[54:27] Wonderful would it be 40 years from now to have a funding source where the thing in what yet we could use this for we've solved all of our problems
[54:33] We've said ahead of the game as far as resiliency goes and now we have an opportunity to do even more
[54:40] The projected revenue amounts so these numbers that we see here are based upon last year's
[54:47] Property sales for commercial properties and properties that don't qualify for the lower tier tax rate
[54:53] So you can see there's over $560 million worth of property sales.
[54:57] So what we're asking here, we're proposing and hopefully the council will ask for, is the opportunity
[55:04] to be enabled to do exactly what little content and the bulk island are doing.
[55:09] It's been enabled to charge up to 5%. Each of those communities annually take a look at their rate
[55:15] and they adjust it to their needs. Newport happens to have a very high need for this sort of work
[55:20] to be done these sort of projects,
[55:22] but each year you'd have the opportunity
[55:24] to just it up or just it down.
[55:26] So the ask is to be enabled up to 5%
[55:28] not particularly to go for the city to go right to 5%.
[55:32] But the numbers look like this at 560 plus million dollars.
[55:36] Obviously 1% is 5.6%, 3% is 16.8 million dollars.
[55:42] And if we went to the 5%, that's a 28 plus million dollar
[55:46] from a revenue source coming to the city in Newport
[55:49] that does not create an additional burden on the property tax rate, so that's a solid plus for this.
[55:57] Why it's targeted? Well, the higher commercial properties and the investment properties
[56:02] are higher in cost, so that'll naturally draw in more revenues results of their sales.
[56:09] The year-round owner occupied, I'm just going to underscore that. The owner home in Newport,
[56:13] and it's your home, this doesn't affect you. If you're buying a new port in your home,
[56:17] into a house in Newport, and you're committed to make it your home or somebody else's home,
[56:22] year round, this is not going to affect you. These are the folks that are buying homes as second homes,
[56:28] buying homes as recreational homes, buying homes as money sources, or buying commercial property.
[56:36] This project, as property rates go up, the round of revenue goes up. It's pretty clear and pretty
[56:47] as brief as we could.
[56:49] It's a long-term asset protection.
[56:51] The fundraising and the resiliency plan
[56:52] is actually infrastructure, investing
[56:54] in our infrastructure and investing
[56:55] in the property values for the city of Newport
[56:57] and keeping the burden on the residents lower.
[57:01] The convenience tax is market-based, it's targeted.
[57:03] It's a targeted way for the pay for this.
[57:06] And the reality of it and what is the cost of inaction
[57:09] is not a cost of more overall.
[57:10] But prompting me to get interested in this is two years ago
[57:14] when we had the, well, four years ago,
[57:16] We had a portion of the Cliff walk slide off.
[57:19] And the challenges have coming up with other funding
[57:22] source to take care of a problem that's
[57:24] right in our backyard, jumped right out to me.
[57:26] Two years ago, we had the challenges of the storm
[57:29] that we saw in the slides.
[57:32] The projects that we were ready to go on and funded for,
[57:35] we were able to move forward and get FEMA reimbursements.
[57:38] Projects that were not funded for,
[57:40] we're still working to get those FEMA reimbursements.
[57:43] But we had to wait for money to be set aside
[57:45] in the capital budget. So that whole process could fall outside of the period of performance
[57:50] that FEMA allows us to have to go after reimbursements. So having a fund like this would
[57:55] help us come up with a resource of dedicated fund to put aside for variety of uses, but
[58:03] a portion of that to be set aside for emergency functions. So it wouldn't have to tap into the
[58:07] rainy day fund. It would already be established in a resiliency fund. So that's kind of a
[58:14] I know it's a lot, and again, I apologize to the council members who may be here in this for the first time and not add a lot of time to look at this version of something we talked about last year.
[58:27] Thank you.
[58:29] Mr. Chair.
[58:30] Council.
[58:30] So I have a couple of questions.
[58:32] This won't prevent us from still going for federal funding or grants.
[58:37] This is just in addition to that, correct?
[58:39] 100% right and what it does do that's a positive is that the matching funds that we're now
[58:43] obligated to raise for these grants that come in it's going to give us a pool of money to have those
[58:48] matching funds already on it. Would this impact anybody who lives in a flood zone and their insurance
[58:54] would with that cause any issues? It's certainly won't cause any issues what it can
[59:00] the goal is to tackle these reoccurring resiliency problems. So by investing and protecting our
[59:08] lines for a different investing in redirecting the watershed from such as Elizabeth Brook
[59:13] isn't investment in protecting those properties. The connection between the insurance
[59:19] rate and having this fund, we're actively investing in right now. I've reached out to the
[59:26] Rhode Island Interlocal Trust to have their underwriters take a look at what benefits,
[59:31] potential insurance benefits, a community with plans such that this pit expect to receive.
[59:35] Okay. And would this deter anybody from selling their homes? How would this impact?
[59:42] Because I'm hearing a lot of scuttled about how it's going to impact the real estate industry?
[59:46] Yeah, it's a good point.
[59:47] And again, it's a new concept for a lot of folks.
[59:49] So it shouldn't be, it can be some miscommunication, some confusion.
[59:53] So this is like, I know the definition whether we call it a fear call.
[1:00:00] Tax, but this fee is will be applied to the purchaser of a property, not the seller of a property.
[1:00:09] That's like any, it's almost like a tax for a taxes paid by the buyer, not the seller.
[1:00:13] So it's the purchaser's obligation to pay this fee. So it would impact you if you were selling it, and it would impact you if you were buying a home and you wanted to make it, buying a house and you wanted to make it your home.
[1:00:23] And you committed to do that for the next five years.
[1:00:26] Mr. Councillor. Just out of fairness to our delegation that's here in the council with a pretty big agenda.
[1:00:32] I really appreciate the work that has gone into this.
[1:00:36] We have had no chance to vet this proposal as a council body.
[1:00:39] We have no supporting studies on this yet.
[1:00:41] We have no feedback in the community.
[1:00:44] And so I think this definitely merits that to have a consideration.
[1:00:47] But we have a very short period of time with our state legislators.
[1:00:50] I would respectfully ask that we table this for future discussion and move into the balance of our agenda.
[1:00:55] Could I ask that's one question?
[1:00:57] This would need legislative approval if the council passed.
[1:01:00] In absolutely, and that's what the, and again, I apologize for the short notice.
[1:01:04] During our discussions with our planning team,
[1:01:07] Senator Oyer brought up the timeline.
[1:01:10] If this were to get introduced this year, and the Senate timeline,
[1:01:14] there's a date and march that, if you back away from council approval and a resolution to support,
[1:01:20] all of a sudden we find ourselves in February and so the process got under way a little
[1:01:25] bit quickly.
[1:01:26] I agree 100% Council of the Crompsy Barvon, an opportunity for you to hear a little bit
[1:01:31] more about it.
[1:01:32] Has more questions, but the whole request here and the hopes to bring it forward today was
[1:01:38] it would require enabling legislation and support of our legislative team and honestly
[1:01:43] I'm not full and it'll be a bit of a battle to get it past some of the folks that may
[1:01:47] be, uh, staunchly against anything that affects real estate sales, uh, real after just
[1:01:53] convince them to show them the facts and maybe assure them that this will be an investment
[1:01:57] in property values, but I'd apologize for taking too much time.
[1:02:02] Thank you Chief.
[1:02:03] Maybe just a quick follow.
[1:02:04] I believe Senator Orger, I think I signed on to it on Tuesday or Thursday.
[1:02:09] She has legislation that would enable all cities and towns to create a, conveyance fee,
[1:02:17] convenience tax. No, the specifics of it. So, should be something you might want to look at, to see how does it
[1:02:22] part of it, to what you're looking at. So, great. Thank you, Tom. Thanks for this opportunity.
[1:02:27] Just to just to clarify, I don't think that was my legislation, but there are, I know that there are.
[1:02:31] Senator Gooh. Senator Gooh. Yeah, I think that was Senator Gooh's legislation.
[1:02:35] I'm sitting next to Senator Gooh, you're today, but I sit next to Senator Gooh in the Senate on the other side.
[1:02:40] So. Yes. Sorry, but. Thanks. Thanks.
[1:02:47] All right.
[1:02:50] We're going to move over to us community health.
[1:02:54] And I'll, we're going to start off.
[1:02:57] I want to give Lauren Carson opportunity to talk about the,
[1:03:02] the birthing center in the bill that you have introduced.
[1:03:05] Yesterday was maternal health day in the state of Rhode Island.
[1:03:08] And so I put in a resolution yesterday, and that's why I introduced my two bills just today.
[1:03:13] For folks that don't know, there is a growing organizing effort in the community.
[1:03:19] Actually, the chief is very involved in that.
[1:03:21] I'm grateful to him.
[1:03:23] And Senator Palma is very engaged in it, and we're meeting every Monday night.
[1:03:27] And we're trying to, and Steph and Zai.
[1:03:29] And we're trying to figure out how to harness the energy, the emotions, the political practicality,
[1:03:36] and the challenges in keeping the birthing center open.
[1:03:40] So I think that when I researched with, we have a small steering committee that meets every
[1:03:46] Monday night and we researched what Brown would have to do if they actually wanted to close
[1:03:51] the birthing center and there is statute for when a health institution closes a portion
[1:03:59] of their health service programs and what I put in this week was, way the statute currently
[1:04:06] reads, much of that work is done in the regulatory process.
[1:04:09] It's like, OK, if you're going to close A, B, and C, you got to do A, B, and C, but go over
[1:04:12] to health and make it happen over there.
[1:04:14] I mean, that's this sort of an abbreviated version of that.
[1:04:17] So what I did was I put in a bill that would put in statute that if you want to close a
[1:04:22] birthing center, you got to do a whole lot of things, including, as I say, bring them
[1:04:25] on this passport.
[1:04:26] I mean, they really have to look at five years of independent, audited financial data.
[1:04:30] They have to get equity questions.
[1:04:32] You have to look at Medicaid.
[1:04:32] you have to look at the capacity for other hospitals to absorb this transportation that would
[1:04:38] all be public. One of my concerns has been that this process with Brown has not been very
[1:04:43] public. After we went through the last summers fiasco with them, they kind of went dark. We do
[1:04:50] have the community advisory panel. They met once. They will meet four times between November and April
[1:05:00] 24th. I know that is my son's birthday. The second meeting I believe is this week coming.
[1:05:06] As you will know, those folks signed confidentiality agreements. So there's limited information that we're getting out of those meetings.
[1:05:13] The cap has a variety of people on it. Community members as well as health professionals and health administrators. That's all been made public.
[1:05:21] My sense of it is that this is going to come to a little bit of a head or it's going to get louder
[1:05:27] and more vocal somewhere between about March 15th and May when they finish their work, when the
[1:05:34] legislation is heard, when the community rises up, letters and meetings, you know, we don't have
[1:05:41] all of the strategy mapped out now, but there's the potential to meet with the president again.
[1:05:47] I know that members of the City Council have done that, meet with Brown again, those ideas
[1:05:52] are still kind of information.
[1:05:54] But I think the most important thing right now is to build on this community momentum.
[1:05:59] We've been able to bring in a wide variety of organizations that care about this.
[1:06:03] Thanks to Harp, we got the Hibernian Women.
[1:06:06] We have the NAACP.
[1:06:07] We have the League of Women voters.
[1:06:09] We have the SCIU.
[1:06:10] We have the AFLCIO.
[1:06:12] We have Planned Parenthood.
[1:06:13] These are all folks that are watching this.
[1:06:16] We're going to start a bi-weekly newsletter, which is starting about two weeks, which will be very abbreviated.
[1:06:21] You all will be on it, it'll just be this is what's happening. It's not going to clog your inbox.
[1:06:26] So, there's a lot going on here, I think, and there's a lot of enthusiasm.
[1:06:32] Newport partnership for families has stepped up. They're putting resources into this.
[1:06:36] They're going to work with the has to engage the north end, which I think is a critical part of this conversation.
[1:06:41] And I'm leaving that to the director over there, the two organizations that sort of their job and they're going to figure out, you know, because it's going to be practically impossible for women in the north end who are pregnant with a small child who start bleeding to get over to another hospital.
[1:06:59] That's just, there's going to be fatalities here.
[1:07:01] It's not going to work.
[1:07:02] So anyway, we haven't forgotten that population.
[1:07:05] I think it's really very important part of this effort.
[1:07:08] So it's moving quickly.
[1:07:11] And I'm very committed to it.
[1:07:14] I don't really know if we'll win this.
[1:07:19] I think that we have some inside tracks
[1:07:22] which stay at the hospital.
[1:07:24] I think that some weeks it's like,
[1:07:28] oh my goodness, they don't wanna shut it
[1:07:30] and some weeks we're not sure.
[1:07:32] So I'm not real sure what's gonna happen here.
[1:07:35] Um, Lauren, do they ever consider the impact of the physicians on the, you know, the OBGYNs
[1:07:45] on the island?
[1:07:46] I don't know if it's on or not.
[1:07:48] Um, if they, um, do they, because what, would we lose those doctors because that is really
[1:07:54] important?
[1:07:55] I mean, considering you have monthly visits at least.
[1:07:58] You'd have to go and you'd have to get to Providence for those monthly visits or wherever
[1:08:01] you go.
[1:08:02] The other issue is you may see that South County has opened up an office across the street from the hospital.
[1:08:09] I mean, clearly, business-wise, they see an opportunity to recruit patients to come from the Queen of Ireland to go over to South County Hospital,
[1:08:18] which is not good for our efforts.
[1:08:21] And they've bought full-page ads in what's up, nope.
[1:08:25] They have their own problems in South County Hospital.
[1:08:29] So there's a lot of moving parts to this thing, Lou, I don't know if you want to add things.
[1:08:33] I know that you have a lot to say on this also.
[1:08:37] The other data point, one spot on that.
[1:08:38] I've had conversations and continue as I had since the, this manifested itself last year with the,
[1:08:47] President CEO of Brown University Health and others at Health, Brown Health, just to impress upon him,
[1:08:52] fund him and then the importance of keeping the birthday center.
[1:08:56] They're listening, they're hearing, we're still awaiting, as Lauren said, what happens to your sooner than later?
[1:09:03] I think something's going to happen sooner rather than later, but I'm not aware of, I didn't sign an NDA.
[1:09:11] So I don't have any access to any data, but one light, but I'd like to believe that they're listening and hearing the importance of this, and I'll just make the right decision.
[1:09:20] Last thing, the Brown Budget starts October 1st, so they'll probably move into their budget
[1:09:27] cycle, probably March or April, so that's just a date to keep in mind.
[1:09:34] I just want to start by thanking a specifically representative Carson, Anacena de Pama,
[1:09:39] for all of the work that you've been putting in on this issue, well supported by Senator
[1:09:43] and Chairman Abni. What's very helpful to us right now is anything we can do to stress
[1:09:50] to brown health that the birthing center is not a service line to be looked at from a
[1:09:55] profit and loss perspective, but a foundational program. Newport hospital without the birthing
[1:10:01] center would be like dunked donuts without donuts, it would be like Amazon without books.
[1:10:05] We understand the profit and loss aspect of this, but this is a core part of why these
[1:10:11] community institutions enjoy things like tax exemption enjoy things like the partnership that they have with their public safety department.
[1:10:17] And we will be supportive of the legislation or at least we'll be asking the council to that you're putting in representative Carson.
[1:10:25] And if there's anything else that we can be doing at the state house more broadly speaking, the provision of primary care.
[1:10:31] I can't speak for the entire council, but I know in like conversations with my colleagues, this is something we as a body or very passionate about deeply.
[1:10:39] And we appreciate the opportunity to support the good work that you're doing at the State House office.
[1:10:42] Well, two comments.
[1:10:43] I think that the legislation will sort of force an open dialogue on this at the State House,
[1:10:49] because we're sitting here saying what is Brown doing.
[1:10:52] I did put in a second bill.
[1:10:55] And the right, the Department of Health received a five year grant from the federal government from
[1:11:00] and infant health care, and they're in the third year of that, and that's a program that's very
[1:11:07] interesting, looking at how effective is our maternal and infant health care in the state,
[1:11:13] how are low-income people service, what kind of training goes into the folks that work in
[1:11:18] birthing centers and pediatricians, and so I've put in a bill to make that permanent that we constantly
[1:11:23] monitor infant health care. So it's just another bill to start attack on, to have a second hearing
[1:11:28] on to really raise the issue of maternal health and infant health.
[1:11:31] So the two went in together this week.
[1:11:33] So what?
[1:11:34] Lauren, would it help if Council put forth a resolution
[1:11:37] and support of the bills that you're, okay?
[1:11:40] And then the other question that I have that is coming up in
[1:11:44] conversations with Brown Health is the reimbursement rates
[1:11:49] and how that's impacting losing certain programs.
[1:11:53] How does that play into things?
[1:11:55] Is that being worked on?
[1:11:58] Wait, like I said, there's a lot of moving parts to this thing.
[1:12:01] There's the emotionality on the ground.
[1:12:03] There's the historical commitment to the hospital.
[1:12:06] There's brown health and whatever they're doing and how they're making investments.
[1:12:10] There's the politics of legislative oversight.
[1:12:12] There's the big backdrop of Medicaid money that he spoke of.
[1:12:16] There's going to be their request for money.
[1:12:18] Like I said, it's going to really heat up, I would think, maybe Senator DePom, I can agree
[1:12:22] between after March 15th and to like the end of April.
[1:12:25] that's going to be the time that I think we really have to watch.
[1:12:28] I don't know what you think about that, Lou, we're doing.
[1:12:31] Yeah, your comment is actually exactly where I was, where I was going to comment because
[1:12:37] I think that this issue around the Burthing Center.
[1:12:41] And again, Kudos to Rup Carson for really helping elevate and use all of her experience
[1:12:46] to help drive this conversation.
[1:12:50] But this is Canary in the coal mine on healthcare issues.
[1:12:53] And, you know, I had been hearing rumblings since I've been in office about the efforts and
[1:13:00] desire to consolidate services, move certain services off the island.
[1:13:04] And, you know, like, size, you know, analogy, Newport Hospital was always looked at as a community
[1:13:12] health center.
[1:13:13] It wasn't looked at as a hospital.
[1:13:15] And that, you know, that has been the way that that facility has been approached and considered.
[1:13:22] Unfortunately, with the monopoly that exists in the healthcare industry, what they're looking
[1:13:28] at on their end and similar to Senator DePama, I have not signed an NDA and I have not looked
[1:13:34] at services, but I know how businesses work, right, and they look internally at efficiencies.
[1:13:39] And one of the things that's a handicap for us here in Rhode Island is so many of these things
[1:13:42] are based off of federal standards.
[1:13:44] So when you're looking at services and needs of services, the fact that Rhode Islanders are
[1:13:50] to crossing a bridge and with good reason because we want the services in our community, but then
[1:13:55] you have federal regulations and guidance that's developed around states that you do drive
[1:14:02] 30, 45 minutes for a doctor's appointment. I mean my parents live in Wisconsin and my mom goes
[1:14:08] to her cardiac care appointment 45 minutes away from her house. And so that's a standard around
[1:14:13] the country, but the reality is that doesn't work in Rhode Island and we all know that. But this
[1:14:18] is a canary in the coal mine issue and it has to do with the consolidation of services that they're all looking at the reimbursement rates.
[1:14:26] One of the things that I've been vocal about in the assembly is that that reimbursement rate process that we do in Rhode Island
[1:14:34] we're allergic to administrative law. And so we do not empower agencies to do things on a regular basis.
[1:14:43] Part of the reason we're behind on the reimbursement rates is because we have to pass the legislation
[1:14:48] Every time we want to change the reimbursement rates, and that's not easy even the easiest thing that you would think everyone would agree on
[1:14:56] takes years to get across the finish line, and so you know
[1:15:00] You know, to start doing a reimbursement rate assessment is like a two-year process. Meanwhile, our neighboring states do that by virtue of the administrative bodies that control those control and set those reimbursement rates.
[1:15:14] So, I believe that I would, I would like our administrative agencies to be able to do those studies and do those reimbursement rate settings.
[1:15:24] Of course, that has a state budget impact.
[1:15:26] And so my colleagues in the assembly may not agree with me on empowering the executive branch administration in that way.
[1:15:34] But that's part of the reason, the entire structure of how we set those reimbursement rates.
[1:15:39] In my opinion, is inherently flawed and puts us behind our neighboring states on a regular basis.
[1:15:46] So we've, we've, we've, we have been, though that being said, we have had a plan and there's kind of an ongoing rolling plan of addressing those reimbursement rates, a slew of which we did last year.
[1:15:55] I'm sure another set will be up for discussion this year.
[1:16:00] But again, this is a canary and a coal mine issue, and I think we all need to be concerned about the whole scope of community services offered at Newport Hospital
[1:16:08] and making sure that we're pressuring Brown Health
[1:16:11] to preserve those services on island.
[1:16:13] Yes, so I'm sorry.
[1:16:15] Those reimbursement rates issue.
[1:16:17] That is that is going to continue to cripple us in many ways,
[1:16:20] especially because our neighboring states are doing it
[1:16:24] vastly differently.
[1:16:28] And there's a quinnick island because we are on an island.
[1:16:31] Does that make us a little bit more unique than say other states
[1:16:35] at the national level?
[1:16:40] And fortunately, in that really with how the rules are laid out.
[1:16:45] Thank you.
[1:16:46] If we just talked about piggybacking out with Senator Oyer said on the fine and seek side of things,
[1:16:51] we got to where we did, where we had we.
[1:16:53] Down in the University of Health got to where they did, and I think they made this public.
[1:16:56] I know I have it somewhere.
[1:16:58] The New CEO came in, and they looked at their closet expenses, their budgets, that they've had over the last decade.
[1:17:06] it wasn't just one year and no one can operate that way. Nobody. But guess what? They did.
[1:17:14] Somebody comes in now and says, we need to do something about this. No, we don't like the
[1:17:19] it. What what they came up with doesn't operate. As a way we'll save not a lot of millions of dollars
[1:17:25] but every piece adds up to how do I close that gap and said it's because it's the dollars and
[1:17:30] cents issue period. The dollars and cents issue. Why is it a dollars and cents issue? But that's
[1:17:36] root cause at the very bottom. In Rhode Island, our, go back to reimbursement rates. I don't
[1:17:42] want to go through a long, funny out of, I was going to make sure we all understand
[1:17:45] that appreciate it, but as you said, counselor with regards to reimbursement rates and
[1:17:49] Senator Royer, there's really three set of payers. There may be four. The fourth one is very
[1:17:55] small. There's Medicaid, right? And get the report every month we have over, about a third of
[1:18:01] when there's one Medicaid, a third, over 300,000 people run Medicaid, 300,000, then we have
[1:18:09] the Medicare, and then we have private pay, private insurance, and we may have some people that
[1:18:14] aren't, they just pay the wrong, they don't have insurance. I like to think that's very small,
[1:18:18] but there's a portion of folks that don't want it to. Whatever they say, I'll just pay it on my own,
[1:18:24] comparison with Massachusetts, because we've never, ever, ever had a informal regular rate review
[1:18:30] want our rates on Medicaid period until two years ago on the health and service side and
[1:18:36] we've purposely broke them up.
[1:18:37] We purposely did, because we tried to do it all at once, it'd be spreading the pain
[1:18:40] of butter for a little bit for everybody and we wouldn't have got there.
[1:18:43] I think we addressed the health and services in fact in the governor's budget.
[1:18:46] I think we're going to do more than what he's recommended.
[1:18:48] He's recommended the rates.
[1:18:49] We do have to share and have the next year it's like, no, we need to do this and do it
[1:18:53] right.
[1:18:53] So we addressed the health and services side.
[1:18:56] Health care we did not.
[1:18:57] That's what we did last year. And we plugged the dice a little bit with regards to, we had a assessment fee that we all pay.
[1:19:06] And our insurance, it's going through Medicaid reimburse, approval now, $4 per month, every person who has insurance.
[1:19:13] That's helping us pay for some of the primary care stuff.
[1:19:15] But the challenge becomes Massachusetts has done it.
[1:19:19] Continually, as Senator Royer said, all the states do.
[1:19:21] So Medicaid's higher there.
[1:19:23] Medicare is a little higher there because it's region, and private pays a little less. So when Rhode Island, private insurance had to pick up the balance of some of this.
[1:19:33] That complicates the situation. Why did Brown agree to buy steward health in mass?
[1:19:38] And not, or anybody.
[1:19:40] State of Fathom, unbogger Williams, and we can't let them call us. We can't.
[1:19:43] The number of people that go there and the impact on the system would be catastrophic. Why did they do that?
[1:19:48] The state puts them money in and all by the way, the reimbursement rates are there.
[1:19:51] going back to the root cause of the issue, but I think it goes also the budgeting that was done
[1:19:57] over the last 10 years that Brown University Health or Life span has come home to Roost,
[1:20:03] but it's categorically a dollars and a sense issue. It shouldn't be, and we've got to make certain
[1:20:08] that this pressing center remains open, period, and move it forward. But it goes back to
[1:20:12] person or bates. Thank you. Do you? I'm sorry. Good. Sorry.
[1:20:18] For a representative of course, I'm just a real quick question.
[1:20:21] You talked a little bit about the guard rails in your bills that you put in prior to any facility being able to close.
[1:20:30] Is one of those guard rails in equity study? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Absolutely.
[1:20:35] I'm just curious, you know, we know about declining enrollment in the school, so there's declining birth rate as well.
[1:20:42] But we're going to be having no workers come and I think we're having more Navy personnel come.
[1:20:48] Do you think that that could have an impact on their decision to keep the birthing center open?
[1:20:53] So the letter I've written to them incorporated by 1800 folks coming between Noah and the Coast Guard.
[1:21:00] There's also a can't find an hour why have I said to give it to the John Fernandez when I met with him personally as well as Dr. Teddy.
[1:21:06] The agreement center to read when he was chair, so I should be able to find it if I can't, when he was chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
[1:21:15] And it's not the whole NDA, not the whole National Defense Authorization Act.
[1:21:18] But there was a piece in there that talked about partnerships between the military activities.
[1:21:22] And a categorically says in there, in the block, naval facilities in Newport would be arrived with Newport Hospital.
[1:21:32] then say specifically the birthday, as you said, you're going to be connected because
[1:21:36] the Naval Hospital is not there.
[1:21:37] It wasn't very, very longer as well as the new one did.
[1:21:41] You're going to help facilitate some of that.
[1:21:46] So those pieces are a part of it.
[1:21:48] Well, okay.
[1:21:49] We have our eye on that.
[1:21:50] You know, the steering committee that's doing this.
[1:21:52] And we've got a little pieces from low and a little piece from someone else.
[1:21:57] So we, and then someone knows a doctor over there.
[1:22:00] I, as I'm sitting here, I'm remembering that, you know, I'm going to make some calls over there.
[1:22:05] We haven't really coherently pieced together the message about what the exact relationship is between the Navy and the hospital and the impact.
[1:22:13] But you know, it is another variable in here.
[1:22:15] It's really right.
[1:22:16] The other thing I think is important is just our level of poverty and subsidized housing.
[1:22:23] We have people who don't have transportation.
[1:22:25] we have. So I think that all of that needs to be looked at as well. Thank you.
[1:22:31] Thank you. Don't say it.
[1:22:34] You know, I had a question. I didn't. Like, I, if we're moving on from the first, no, what
[1:22:40] I'll be like? Okay, I just really think it's important to talk a little bit about housing
[1:22:46] considering what council assembly was just saying. So I'm just wondering if what the state is doing
[1:22:53] the session to increase affordable housing and help cities prevent displacement.
[1:22:58] And then the second part of that is, is there any progress being made on eviction prevention
[1:23:07] and right to council when it comes to our residents who might be struggling and need support?
[1:23:15] There's been legislation introduced in that.
[1:23:19] I know that that has been reintroduced in the Senate.
[1:23:23] I believe companion bills in the House.
[1:23:26] I think there's questions about the funding source for that.
[1:23:30] And then I also think.
[1:23:32] I think there's been some, yeah, just some questions about that.
[1:23:37] And push back quite frankly from the landlords.
[1:23:39] Yes.
[1:23:40] Is there anything that we can do on our side to help?
[1:23:44] Yeah.
[1:23:45] I think anytime there's bills or issues that you support having a supportive resolution
[1:23:50] come from the council is, you know, that's very helpful as well as, you know, having folks reach
[1:23:57] out to us and let us know that you're supportive as well as having, you know, it's hard to
[1:24:03] track up to the state house, but obviously that's always ideal to, is to come and provide
[1:24:06] testimony.
[1:24:07] And even if you can't come up, providing written testimony is always helpful too.
[1:24:11] Oftentimes on issues like this, on many bills, we have thousands of bills every year,
[1:24:17] and some of them are really good issues that nobody weighs in on.
[1:24:22] We all get the emails too, so even if you can't make it up there, sending a quick note,
[1:24:26] it doesn't have to be long.
[1:24:28] Thank you.
[1:24:29] Mr. Chair.
[1:24:30] I have a couple of housing.
[1:24:32] Are we on the house?
[1:24:34] With the rising cost and energy rate, is there anything that is being done to bring more forms of energy to the island?
[1:24:44] More options?
[1:24:47] More options?
[1:24:49] Are you guys voting on the gas moratorium or did you vote on it?
[1:24:54] I mean, there's, there's a, there's a, I have many issues with the governor's budget and his,
[1:25:03] his, that elements that he's trying to do around energy are actually going to throttle the ability
[1:25:10] for us to get additional energy sources. He, he talked about it in his budget address. He talked
[1:25:17] about wanting to create a clean energy economy, but at the same time, his budget completely guts
[1:25:24] the Renewable Energy Standard, which is the thing that creates the Renewable Energy Market.
[1:25:30] And actually I was talking to Senator Palmo about this before we started, which is that
[1:25:35] Renewables are cheaper.
[1:25:36] So if we want cost-effective and reliable, we need a diversity of energy sources in the grid.
[1:25:44] And so that being said, I actually have legislation to try to address the cost issue and
[1:25:52] the legislation that I have is essentially to give the utility a budget and they have to do a
[1:26:01] basically they have to do their capital plan, it's their infrastructure, their infrastructure,
[1:26:07] docket every every couple of years, because of the aging infrastructure that infrastructure maintenance
[1:26:17] has skyrocketed and so but I put a bill in basically to give them a budget cap on what that is
[1:26:25] and the analogy that I use as I say if you told the construction company is guess what we have
[1:26:30] the worst roads and bridges in the world and we want them to be improved like oh they'll fix them
[1:26:36] they'll fix them and we want people to look for that bill right now the utility doesn't necessarily
[1:26:43] have a cap on what their proposal is that they put in front of the Public Utilities Commission
[1:26:49] for that infrastructure dot-it. They basically just have to justify it and then it's up to the
[1:26:57] PUC, the kind of reverse engineer and like poke holes in it. But what my bill does is essentially
[1:27:03] say, no, no, no, you can only increase your budget by a certain percentage every time you
[1:27:10] to introduce this bill, because what that does is it puts the owners back on the utility to really be smart and strategic about what infrastructure investments they're making.
[1:27:20] What are those critical upgrades that need to happen and what modernization features need to go in that to meet other policy goals.
[1:27:28] So that's one of the things that I think will help address that issue.
[1:27:33] And also I think continuing to push to make sure that the renewable energy projects aren't stopped in their tracks every other week by federal administration.
[1:27:47] Yeah.
[1:27:47] I'm glad you brought up energy because there are a lot of different moving parts in the budget on energy policy.
[1:27:54] We all know that, you know, energy is expensive and it's a priority for our constituents.
[1:28:02] I know for in the house there's a group of us trying to like figure out the total impact of this piece that the governor's recommended in that piece.
[1:28:09] I think we're going to hear a whole lot about it. I think that Senator Oyer is right.
[1:28:14] I think that we're going to hear a lot more about energy, energy policies over the next few months.
[1:28:19] And it's a matter of really, for me, and my colleagues in the House, it's a matter of dig it in and trying to like create a grid of how which I use kind of a curious word to use, but a grid of how all these programs in the governor's budget work and what the impact is going to be and then how we address that as to two chambers.
[1:28:41] Thank you.
[1:28:43] All right, I'll turn it over to some North End District Report.
[1:28:51] A couple of things. One is the transportation issues we're having.
[1:29:04] First I have to thank you for passing so quickly. This is going okay.
[1:29:10] The cell phone legislation last year. I was so happy that you were able to get it through
[1:29:18] one session. That was wonderful. And it's made a huge impact at our schools in our schools.
[1:29:25] We need to broaden the conversation about mental health with our K-12 population, not just here
[1:29:30] in Newport, but throughout the state. There's so many issues that are happening.
[1:29:34] I can speak to as happening in Newport. We've all heard about the violence that we had last fall.
[1:29:41] That's just a little piece of the underlying culture climate issues that student mental health
[1:29:47] is being affected in their acting out in that way. Our attendance has a lot to do with student engagement,
[1:29:56] and that is also connected to mental health.
[1:30:01] So, I guess my ask is what's going on at the State House to address funding and a broader conversation about K-12 mental health and kids don't vote.
[1:30:17] So, oftentimes that their voices are heard. So, I'm speaking for the children that we lost in 14 months to suicide to very young teenagers.
[1:30:29] I'm speaking to the children who are just disengaged from their learning.
[1:30:34] We have survey works, which is the ride, sort of, you know, survey appearance and students
[1:30:39] and teachers.
[1:30:40] And if you take the time to look through some of that data, you will see there's a tremendous
[1:30:45] amount of disengagement and a tremendous amount of issues with culture climate that affect
[1:30:50] learning.
[1:30:52] So is there anything going on at the state level in this session about funding more funding
[1:30:56] for mental health?
[1:30:59] So I'll talk to what has been done and I expect what will continue to do there's a program
[1:31:04] That's been very effective ninety percent effectiveness. I think in that neighborhood maybe ninety two
[1:31:09] Specifically, it's MRSS mobile response
[1:31:12] Stabilization services. I think I got that right or stabilization supports
[1:31:16] About five million dollars. We've put into that several years ago. We now need to figure out how to ensure we have a way that as well as something called
[1:31:23] B. H. Link, they sort of somewhat go together, but the mobile response stable support services as a means for schools.
[1:31:32] It's for children to call the various agencies that can do it and get there within the hour, not.
[1:31:38] Lou has an issue.
[1:31:39] We can see him in three days.
[1:31:42] This is funding that will help the local district have more connectivity with the local agencies.
[1:31:50] Because right now, I have found that that connectivity is severed.
[1:31:55] I would ask about, ask the school system about how many times they have called or contacted
[1:31:59] folks, which regards to the MRSS services and those are one of the areas as well.
[1:32:04] Those are pretty much, like I said, evidence-based, so this facts data and context about
[1:32:08] why they work, tides, family services, I think it's tides, family services, as well as
[1:32:15] family service over there.
[1:32:15] I want to bend the two that ran that pilot, and they are connected throughout the state.
[1:32:20] I think the city of Newport, the school system of Newport, probably, has been involved
[1:32:23] with them from what I know.
[1:32:25] The other piece is the certified community behavioral health centers.
[1:32:28] Chairman Ebene and I and others have been involved with that, put that in place, Chairman
[1:32:32] about two or three years ago.
[1:32:33] I think that, excuse me, I'm sorry, but I think that we have a lot of these agencies that
[1:32:37] are out there.
[1:32:38] I know that they're well funded.
[1:32:39] My concern is the connectivity to the local, I think they're there.
[1:32:43] the conversation that we have at a state level to engage our local LEA's more with these agencies
[1:32:50] because often they're siloed. Lots of funding is put in them, but I don't see that they're
[1:32:54] connecting to the... I think they are, but in the recent case of the CCBHC, there's eight of them.
[1:32:58] Maybe a lot more help in this. There's eight of them in the state. Most closest one is the
[1:33:03] New Park County Community Mental Health MRSS statewide. We'll take that back and maybe have the
[1:33:09] conversation with those agencies to make sure that the cities and towns are, that's the issue. That's what I'm hoping for.
[1:33:15] That's more just a broader conversation. We're all stakeholders in this. Our kids are suffering.
[1:33:21] The other thing is to share about made while I'm here.
[1:33:24] You're going to be talking about economic development on the agenda.
[1:33:28] So, you can tell that comes up.
[1:33:32] Okay, I just wanted to let everybody know and I would very much appreciate some helps in general assembly.
[1:33:41] The Newport City Council.
[1:33:44] Newport School Committee has voted unanimously to organize a workforce development advisory committee.
[1:33:52] So that's excited because our kids need to start being prepared, our K12 students need to be prepared for jobs that are right here right now.
[1:34:00] This Friday, our director of your tech at NAC, at Ron Beyond,
[1:34:07] that on had a virtual call with people from electric boat.
[1:34:11] Electric boat is desperate.
[1:34:15] I don't know what the writer is.
[1:34:16] They're just dying for more kids to apply for their
[1:34:19] apprenticeship program.
[1:34:22] We had a long lecture from a gentleman who's
[1:34:24] worked at EB for a very long time at our last school committee meeting,
[1:34:28] telling us, shame on us for not preparing
[1:34:30] more kids for work at EV.
[1:34:33] I guess, last year they had to recruit 700 of the state workers
[1:34:39] and this year it will be a thousand.
[1:34:41] So this is not just a new port issue.
[1:34:43] It's a statewide issue.
[1:34:44] We need to start talking earlier about
[1:34:47] career tech opportunities and EVs
[1:34:50] and no brainer because those contracts are for 30 years.
[1:34:53] Those submarine contracts are for 30 years.
[1:34:55] But we also have to start talking about
[1:34:57] are we preparing kids for the jobs?
[1:34:59] And I know side, we talked about this
[1:35:02] at the Governor's Workforce meeting.
[1:35:05] There are so many opportunities here in Rhode Island
[1:35:06] in the Blue Economy, in healthcare, in cyber.
[1:35:11] What are we doing as a state, as a state, general assembly,
[1:35:14] to start broadening that conversation.
[1:35:16] So it reaches into the LAs, to start talking about how we
[1:35:19] can do more to prepare our kids, the saucekills,
[1:35:23] showing up confidence.
[1:35:25] all the things that you need in adaptability, flexibility.
[1:35:29] What are we doing to talk to the kids about the opportunities that our state is desperate for workers?
[1:35:35] And then we have the hard skills, the academics, the basic reading, the basic math, the basic science.
[1:35:40] We're falling behind on all of that.
[1:35:41] So I'm just hoping that you as legislators can bring this message to your colleagues to say,
[1:35:47] we need to start focusing more on K-12.
[1:35:51] Thanks.
[1:35:51] Thank you.
[1:35:56] All right, so we'll go to just kind of turn the attention towards.
[1:36:03] I know we just discussed the economic and business development.
[1:36:05] I know Council on the Palatana wanted to bring up some state funding on the water and sewer issues.
[1:36:11] Start there.
[1:36:12] Okay, yes.
[1:36:13] Thank you.
[1:36:16] Newport for years has had a problem with funding for both the water and the sewer from the Rhode Island
[1:36:23] infrastructure bank, which actually can forgive loans and also perhaps forgive interest payments.
[1:36:34] Newport is asking the state to make an affordability a priority when creating infrastructure
[1:36:41] funding for compliance programs. We need grant support and principle forgiveness linked to the
[1:36:51] complete the required projects without making basic water and wastewater service too expensive
[1:36:58] for many residents. The lead service line replacement highlights this issue. Currently new
[1:37:06] port services not only new port but naval station new port, middle town and wholesale water
[1:37:14] to Portland. Newport has a high share of lower income household. However, the very high income household
[1:37:23] raised the medium, which hides the true number of lower income residents. Formal is based on
[1:37:31] medium income, do not show what many residents can truly afford. When affordability tests use
[1:37:39] the medium, projects may seem affordable on the paper, but not actually affordable to the people.
[1:37:48] This matters because the lead service line replacement is mandatory and tying them.
[1:37:54] The cost of the lead program by itself would make total water and wastewater bills too high
[1:38:01] for lower income household.
[1:38:06] This doesn't even include the other cost of the required infrastructure
[1:38:10] If nothing changes, service costs will make the rates go faster than the incomes can keep up.
[1:38:19] Newport has completed the Lev service line inventory, designed a full replacement program
[1:38:26] that includes private sidewalk, exploring PUC rates to allow Rhode Island infrastructure
[1:38:35] Thank low interest loans to move forward and actively managing rates to limit annual
[1:38:42] entry increases.
[1:38:46] Long-based solutions only spread the cost over time, they don't actually lower it.
[1:38:52] Eligibility rules based on medium income, overlooked communities like Newport.
[1:38:57] Pro-rated assistance doesn't address the fact that this is a system-wide program.
[1:39:05] Raising rates to recover costs puts the biggest burden on those least able to pay.
[1:39:12] For years, we have asked the state to consider us as a tier one, like the other larger cities across Rhode Island, and we're a tier three, and they keep denying us, but we have families here that are not going to be able to afford the increases that are required.
[1:39:39] to really provide the right source of water and wastewater treatment.
[1:39:46] And this goes over years.
[1:39:49] The director has been relentless in sending letters,
[1:39:54] which I have copies of to the state.
[1:39:57] And it just seems like they overlook the fact
[1:40:01] we have a lot of families living here.
[1:40:03] We've gone to a lot of changes over the year,
[1:40:05] particularly with the Airbnb coming in
[1:40:09] people, suddenly, our homes, our worst choice, what they were five years ago.
[1:40:17] So it really has created a problem, we really need their help, and we need your help
[1:40:23] to perhaps join us with the Rhode Island infrastructure bank and understanding why they
[1:40:33] will not change us so that we can access loans so we can access money from the Rhode Island
[1:40:40] infrastructure bank like other communities.
[1:40:44] The service we applied is throughout the island and after all these years I really don't
[1:40:49] understand.
[1:40:51] So, Councillor, when you say tier one versus tier three, what are those tiers?
[1:40:56] What are those tiers?
[1:40:57] I don't, I'm not familiar with it.
[1:40:58] Here one is the one that they accept for, if they put in for loan support and loan forgiveness,
[1:41:07] that they get higher rating on those ones, but they don't, for some reason they don't
[1:41:14] and the most important, the track that we want to start on is 405, which is actually the
[1:41:22] that has the most lower-income residents who could really, yeah, I mean, we've got to improve
[1:41:31] our water and our sewer, but there's a once that could least afford the increase it.
[1:41:38] Now, and we need to sell the states help with this.
[1:41:43] Is that how you're?
[1:41:46] I thought that the city had recently gotten an infrastructure grant as well as some federal funds
[1:41:52] around the web service line replacement, I know it's never enough, but I would be happy to work
[1:41:58] with you in the administration, because I think if we can identify points of failure in what
[1:42:05] the formula and assessment is that if that is going to require legislative tweaks, I'm happy
[1:42:11] to introduce that and help work with you to identify what those are and look at introducing
[1:42:16] any legislative fixes because I appreciate your point. So happy to work with you on it.
[1:42:25] You know, we just can't afford all the increases that are coming forward without some help from
[1:42:36] something like the Rhode Island and the structure bay. Yeah, I also, I think that I don't believe
[1:42:43] that are allowed to use the fees that we capture to replace lead lines.
[1:42:52] So that would have to come out of the general budget.
[1:42:58] So I think that's true.
[1:43:01] And so that makes it even harder for us to be able to fund these unfundable thoughts.
[1:43:12] Don't slide.
[1:43:13] We've invested heavily in our staff capacity here at the city to start to look at the route challenges we have with regards to affordability.
[1:43:21] Much of that comes down to the disconnect between the reality which ironically enough the federal government realizes in its classification of areas of the state of high levels of poverty and how the state is looking at it through its formulas.
[1:43:34] Newport is one of three communities in the state that qualify under HUD's distrust cities metrics.
[1:43:40] It's us central falls and when socket I don't think that's what most people think of when they think of newport.
[1:43:46] And I know that we're very thankful for our staff efforts to figure out what those formulas are that need to be tweaked and how to address them.
[1:43:53] But as you can see even from the most recent we were in report from the around foundation that gap between the perceived wealth levels in newport and the actual challenges that we have here on the ground.
[1:44:04] and we just appreciate any flags you have on that front.
[1:44:08] For areas where we could be focusing,
[1:44:09] we have the staff capacity to dig in to make that case.
[1:44:12] And as Councillor Paltano eloquently put it,
[1:44:16] we are very dedicated to advocating for former lake solutions
[1:44:19] that help support us beyond the windfalls of grant allocations
[1:44:22] for which we are very thankful but cannot rely on consistently.
[1:44:30] All right, so the next hour I just want to bring up
[1:44:33] and this again goes towards the north end where we're going to be looking
[1:44:36] for your help, especially at the state level, with our conversations with, especially the
[1:44:45] Department of Transportation as about one, the transportation issues that we have, the traffic
[1:44:54] issues that we have with animal calphus road due to the realignment.
[1:45:02] And also the landscaping plan that was supposed to happen as still has yet to happen in the north end.
[1:45:11] One of the things, so we went in front of the state traffic council a few weeks ago.
[1:45:17] And we need to have more conversations with the middle town as far as class 7 truck traffic through Animal Calpis, which is a highly residential area.
[1:45:27] I know Senator DePama, you set the letter in to the STC against new points request for traffic calming.
[1:45:38] So if you wouldn't mind just take a minute just to kind of explain that and do you have any ideas or steps we can take to work with middle town to try to find out a
[1:45:50] up with some sort of proposal, compromise, and how we can kind of mediate that kind of traffic
[1:45:56] through a residential area and the schools on air of Animal Calibus.
[1:45:59] So, did you just, did you just, the comment with regards to what the letter said?
[1:46:06] It was basically just a request, I don't know, having, in front of Facebook, they just read it.
[1:46:11] They SDC just read it just about that you were asking, you were in opposition to having
[1:46:19] the SEC, okay, the track of the coming measure,
[1:46:22] the animal campus, which were looking for a weight restriction
[1:46:27] on average, so that might, I can send the T effect.
[1:46:32] I think I got the letter in probably five minutes before they,
[1:46:38] you were about to finish conversation out of it.
[1:46:40] I had planned on doing it ahead of time,
[1:46:42] but those who hadn't read the report that came out by DOT last November,
[1:46:47] November 15th, I think it was last year. There was to pay the letter, but that was a whole bunch of stuff attached. One thing they indicated was they evaluated the
[1:46:59] I kicked these act were situation,
[1:47:02] neighborhood or whatever as being similar, meaning admiral kelp is to
[1:47:07] Connieton Highway. So
[1:47:09] Anybody knows me and I said it before and I'll say it here. I talk about facts, data, and context.
[1:47:15] So, in fact, it was just the opposite of your comment with regards to, I want to see the facts,
[1:47:21] data, and context of how they came up with the issue of, so it was an opposition to,
[1:47:27] okay, an opposition to what DOT was saying.
[1:47:31] You're saying, or an opposition to, or a request to, just the opposite.
[1:47:35] Okay, so the DOT came in, and basically said there's similar, so there's no reason to change anything
[1:47:42] thing between the two rows. My letter to them was two sentences. Please provide the fact
[1:47:50] stayed in context with regards to how you came up with that decision, because that's
[1:47:55] the decision basically said, we don't need to change anything because they're equivalent.
[1:48:01] The one basic thing between Adam McElfus and Coddington is not a single. Not a single resident
[1:48:13] I've lived here 43 years, I'm not from here, but I've lived here 43 years, but I've driven
[1:48:17] down Coddyton Highway quite a bit in the only houses that are on Coddyton Highway, are those
[1:48:23] that are up near West Main Road, and the back of the houses, and so they're on the back,
[1:48:27] the front, their entrance and driveways access to the house, because you know, access to
[1:48:31] the back.
[1:48:31] I think there's three, maybe four, where back of Newport, Bank Newport.
[1:48:36] So I said, I'd like to see how you came up with this decision of saying the requirement to say they can go both ways.
[1:48:44] So I must certain how you got the impression that it was against the request.
[1:48:49] It was, show us the data, how you made that decision.
[1:48:55] I'm very thankful you're here to clarify that and I suspected in a hearing that,
[1:48:59] fact that you are articulating is the case because the key differential that you always
[1:49:04] frame things on is context. And as presented by RIDOT, both routes go past schools. There's
[1:49:11] a big difference on the route up Admiral Kelfis, which has elementary school children crossing
[1:49:17] the street every day versus the other school campus on Coddington, which was CCRI. And
[1:49:25] at the end of the day, when you look at how that vote broke out, every particular safety
[1:49:29] official on the state traffic commission voted in favor of reports requests.
[1:49:35] One of the swinging pieces of evidence as presented by state DOT was your letter that they
[1:49:41] did not provide in full insight from saying that the Chairman Finance Committee and Senator
[1:49:46] for this district opposes new reports request, which I, you know, as I suspected, as
[1:49:52] over your view of articulated, is completely inaccurate as to what right where
[1:49:55] David was and what would be very helpful to us.
[1:49:58] I'll send you a comment that a determination was made that was heavily weighted by a
[1:50:02] misfortune of your letter would be a request.
[1:50:05] The state traffic commission, they reconsider their vote on this.
[1:50:08] They had one member that was missing that would have been the swing vote and I know you would
[1:50:12] be really appreciative if you would want to put in that request.
[1:50:15] I will send you the letter.
[1:50:17] Hopefully when I get home, I'll send it to you and I guess that was no more than two sentences.
[1:50:22] Because at the end of the day, I know what I know, which isn't much.
[1:50:26] And I know what I don't know.
[1:50:28] And what I don't know, I'm going to ask for the facts, the data,
[1:50:30] and the context.
[1:50:32] And I've even seen the videos of trucks that turn on to Admiral Kelfis,
[1:50:37] that either one hit the sign that's there, the metal sign that's there,
[1:50:41] or number two hit the utility pole.
[1:50:44] That's not, there's no utilities on it.
[1:50:45] But it's utility pole that supports or reinforces the guy wire
[1:50:50] And you can see it you can see the notches in here and I can say I don't fly by there all the time because I got a be careful
[1:50:57] I'm not gotten caught yet. I don't want to get caught by your speed camera. That's
[1:51:02] But no, I'll kidding aside. It's the case where any truck that
[1:51:07] And they were turned I wanted trucks I was turning down there. It was a truck with carrying cars, right?
[1:51:12] It's why anybody would turn down that road. I would go to absolutely after way. I know it's always about time and all that
[1:51:16] But it's the I will send you copies. I'll get it to the
[1:51:21] You'll have it, so you can see it, like I said, it was two cents, maybe one.
[1:51:27] I want to see the facts at the data in the context.
[1:51:30] And what I called out was the actual section, and it was on the bottom of the first page,
[1:51:35] 3rd to 4th paragraph that said, these neighborhoods are equivalent.
[1:51:40] And again, this is not like to put you on the spot by any means.
[1:51:46] But it's just a matter of, okay, we went up, yeah, but we went up there, we stayed our case.
[1:51:51] It was a two-two split boat. Unfortunately, it was one member not there.
[1:51:55] That could have swayed the boat one way or the other.
[1:51:57] But it's a matter of, okay, we went there, we know what happened.
[1:52:01] How do we move past that to continue to, you know, keep that fight in order to get that traffic situation clear?
[1:52:08] Because it's, I don't understand how it was a split boat, but that's, I have too much common sense, but
[1:52:16] What we want is I think a stronger input from our legislative team on this to talk to whether it's
[1:52:23] DOT or I don't know if you go right to the SDC as well or any other agency body that can be like
[1:52:30] yeah this is the way it should be because when you come off the bridge and you come all the way down
[1:52:35] and you get to Almakapas the science say truck go left on cutting and that is a industrial
[1:52:41] as opposed to adult health, which is a highly residential room.
[1:52:48] Yeah.
[1:52:50] Yeah.
[1:52:53] I moved.
[1:52:54] I moved.
[1:52:56] The main point was the class seven trucks, the 18 wheelers.
[1:53:01] They can't make that turn.
[1:53:03] By the way, just great.
[1:53:05] The having ruined this from having spent a lot of time with my colleagues on roadworks.
[1:53:08] class 8 in the barber, those that have a detachable cab, which is, is there a problem?
[1:53:17] The smaller trucks, you know, the bins and those sort of things, that was fine.
[1:53:22] But we've seen for ourselves so many different accidents, the pole, and they had explicitly stated the pole, is leaning.
[1:53:33] what is because it was hit. I think the biggest problem was that when we embarked on this,
[1:53:41] we didn't take into account Middletown and we should have spoke. Because in there I could
[1:53:48] say I represent both of you and I represent both of you and sometimes I'm going to be Oria sometimes
[1:53:52] against you or against both of whatever based on but the facts and the data and context have to
[1:54:03] say that that decision is right or wrong. So I'll be following up on the facts data in context.
[1:54:10] So just a suggestion to be thinking about even as this moves forward. One thing that would
[1:54:17] be to reduce a limited or restrict class eight vehicles from that road. I mean, anything with a
[1:54:21] debt taxable cab just like we did with regards to road works in the state polling plant.
[1:54:26] It's class eight and above. So some of the heaviest vehicles we don't
[1:54:34] I'm sure some of us have done this.
[1:54:36] I've been to that corner heading up the hill to turn, go across the road or to turn West
[1:54:40] up on to what's made and I'd backed up because nobody was in front of me and here comes
[1:54:45] this car cut.
[1:54:46] Huge truck.
[1:54:47] One other suggestion is I think this is easy to do is to move back that white line where people
[1:54:53] can go.
[1:54:53] That would help mitigate some of that.
[1:54:56] I think that could be done sooner than later.
[1:54:58] I'm not saying that's the answer, it's addressing a symptom, but it could help mitigate
[1:55:03] you're a millionaire, so I was going to hit that pole that transformers coming down.
[1:55:09] They had talked about doing some sort of mitigation measures there, but it's still not
[1:55:15] enough as to what's happening with all of the residences there.
[1:55:20] What would be the process for us to go through this again?
[1:55:24] We have to submit another resolution or what should we do?
[1:55:29] I don't know, I can find out.
[1:55:30] But clearly, the facts, the data, and the context have to tell.
[1:55:35] I would say it tells the story.
[1:55:37] We need to know what the story is, which regards to how they made the decision
[1:55:41] saying there were quite a one.
[1:55:42] So they can go either way.
[1:55:44] Missed.
[1:55:46] Sorry.
[1:55:46] I would just again reiterate, you are and have consistently been a strong,
[1:55:50] ration-based champion for our communities, that your word was misconstrued
[1:55:55] by a major state agency to sway decision ultimately against this
[1:56:00] community. I think I had that kind of. When it's intent was probably just to be a neutral
[1:56:04] fact finding exercise, I think it is a miscarriage of the legislative process here,
[1:56:09] of the rulemaking process, and I think deserves reconsideration or request from you for reconsideration
[1:56:15] of this issue given the use of your statement. I think that this would be much appreciated by this
[1:56:22] candidate. I will vote. I'll certainly look at it. Like I said, it needs to be, I will
[1:56:30] drive this by the facts data and context of the situation.
[1:56:36] This is before me. We talked
[1:56:38] about, and I think, constantly brought this up three years ago. But up two years ago,
[1:56:43] we brought it up again today. How did we put up, sort of, sort of sink a pin in the landscape
[1:56:49] of the North End. What? Where are we? What needs to happen? In fact, I spoke with the director
[1:56:54] already yesterday about some things. What needs to happen? This just gets us done.
[1:56:58] I can have information on that. Monday, there's a group of us meeting with the right
[1:57:03] dot about the landscape and plan. It has been, it's 10 o'clock. If you want to zoom,
[1:57:08] you're more than welcome to join it. It has been largely driven as everybody knows by
[1:57:12] I'm Warren Cronin and she's an open space commission.
[1:57:16] We have information in our hands, Scott Wheeler has it
[1:57:19] that RIDOT did have a plan.
[1:57:21] They did hire landscape architect.
[1:57:23] We have the documents that say RIDOT's going to do this.
[1:57:27] I understand for more rain, although she has told me
[1:57:31] that she believes they had the money to do it.
[1:57:33] And it's a high priority for the tourism community
[1:57:36] to welcome you into the city.
[1:57:37] It's a high priority for residents in the city to get that place.
[1:57:40] I also think that there was a walking tour done of that area.
[1:57:43] I think by the tree up in space commission with Lily Dick and there were like 40 trees that were dead.
[1:57:48] Well, I'm told. We wanted to get a meeting with RIDOT in November and we got it tomorrow.
[1:57:56] What I understand is they've hired a new architect, a new landscape architect.
[1:58:01] We were supposed to meet with them about three weeks ago, just after the holidays,
[1:58:05] and they asked, or maybe in December, and they asked us to postpone it until they could get the
[1:58:09] landscape architect in place. So Monday morning's question is, okay, what's the plan? Where is it?
[1:58:16] And when are you doing it? I mean, it's really not a complicated meeting. We're going to meet these
[1:58:20] new people, I guess, whoever they are, and have some more information on. Mayor, just to, I'll just say,
[1:58:29] haven't been around when the whole challenge was made, not with a red realignment with with Broadway.
[1:58:37] It's, this is similar situation with Broadway with regards to we're still figuring it out.
[1:58:43] Just tell us what you want, and we'll get it done.
[1:58:46] The challenge is if it's a moving target for whatever reason,
[1:58:50] not going to get done until someone says,
[1:58:53] we're good with it.
[1:58:54] Just let us know when you're good with it.
[1:58:56] We can help the four of us and others can help facilitate getting there.
[1:58:59] But until then, so if I call the director of ED,
[1:59:02] on my way home and said director,
[1:59:03] we need help on the landscape plan. I suspect he'll say to me, which plan is that? And I'll
[1:59:09] say you're right. I don't suggest let us know. I know we're kind of getting through
[1:59:17] end of the time as well.
[1:59:18] What's that?
[1:59:20] We still have my comment.
[1:59:22] I would like to make to back to Admiral Calpis Road.
[1:59:25] Yeah, absolutely.
[1:59:28] So thank you for confirming what some folks thought about your letter.
[1:59:34] The only thing I wanted to do was also you mentioned facts, data, and context.
[1:59:40] A lot of our residents from Admiral Calpis Road got up and went to testify at the
[1:59:47] up and give testimony. So I do think lived experience and community engagement also has to be
[1:59:53] part of the decision making when we're talking about things like health and safety and we keep
[2:00:12] So I just want to give each of the leaders, though, I just want to encourage that we continue listening to our residents who have put us in these positions.
[2:00:25] Thank you, Councillor.
[2:00:26] So I just want to give each legislators the chance to make some final comments for
[2:00:33] we and our meeting today.
[2:00:35] So I'll start with Senator Oyer, you don't mind?
[2:00:40] Thank you.
[2:00:41] I also, I just wanted to highlight one other piece of legislation that I'll probably work with
[2:00:47] administration and I'm doing an assessment on.
[2:00:50] It's a bill that I put in for a couple years real estate transfer on death deed, what it's trying to do is create a streamlined process to transfer real estate.
[2:01:01] Not everybody, as we were talking about the disparity, everyone talks about and thinks about the high value property owners, but we also know that there's a lot of families who've been here for a really long time.
[2:01:11] You know, who's, who's properties, you know, they, they may not have the means to hire attorneys and do full estate plans and trust and things like that.
[2:01:22] But it wouldn't just affect Newport. It would be statewide legislation. It's the uniform law commission recommends doing it.
[2:01:29] And it really is something that will help working class folks in addressing what happens to their primary home as after they pass away.
[2:01:38] And so I will work there, there's likely a minor budget impact, but I can work with the administration to make sure you will understand what that means on a local level.
[2:01:48] But I do think it is one of those just a really good, a really good initiative to help working class folks.
[2:01:54] So, but I'll side say, as all of the headlines have said, this is a tough budget year, as well as the pressures from the federal government.
[2:02:05] So, just continue to work with us and let us know what your needs are and look forward to continuing to work with y'all.
[2:02:11] Yeah, because that, that has an effect on a lot of new porters, especially with the new called the Taylor Swift tax.
[2:02:19] You know, if you inherit a house that was, now it's about, you know, it might be worth $6,000,000,
[2:02:25] and now it's about, yeah, a million just because of the property that's around it.
[2:02:28] And now you're paying that extra, that extra price.
[2:02:33] Senator Obama.
[2:02:38] The right.
[2:02:39] I'm going to read the right or two, and I'll forward two.
[2:02:40] is we waive. They're Mr. Raymond and Commission members. So as I said, two sentences. The first
[2:02:48] in the included memo, which is the memo from Sean Raymond, the following statement is made,
[2:02:53] in quotes, if class seven and above trucks are restricted to Admiral kelp's road, all the heavy traffic
[2:03:00] would be redirected to a roadway that also has some more risk factors, such as pedestrian and bicycle
[2:03:07] use. They have a separated bike path. Share use path, right? The element doesn't. A school
[2:03:19] CCRI, okay? In residential homes, along the route.
[2:03:25] On over there, on the road, though.
[2:03:28] Dr. Quote. Second statement. Second sense. Please, would you provide the list of comparative
[2:03:34] facts used to substantiate the aforementioned statement.
[2:03:39] They didn't say the second part.
[2:03:41] They didn't say the second part.
[2:03:43] Context is important.
[2:03:47] I know nothing other than looking at things from a fact-sated context perspective.
[2:03:52] We may not agree in the end on the solution, but we're going to agree on the fact-sated context.
[2:03:56] So we will verify that.
[2:03:58] Just be a reader.
[2:03:59] I'm going to mention earlier so you have your legislative champion here.
[2:04:04] and Rob is Peter.
[2:04:06] Peter has, like some others,
[2:04:08] he has a particular piece of marble,
[2:04:09] he gets to sit on, meaning one of the stairs.
[2:04:11] We don't have chairs for people to sit on.
[2:04:13] He's there, he's around.
[2:04:15] We know him, we know he represents you well.
[2:04:18] I would leverage Peter to the greatest exam possible,
[2:04:21] and also with Peter with the work
[2:04:23] with the league of cities and towns.
[2:04:25] So we talked earlier about the conveyance taxing.
[2:04:28] Like I said, not Senator or your but Senator Goose,
[2:04:30] it's taxing me, in the Senate.
[2:04:31] But the more you can do in leveraging, you may not be able to because they're going to say,
[2:04:36] yeah, no, we don't want to do that over here.
[2:04:39] The more you can do that with regards to the league on some things, the better it becomes
[2:04:45] because they're strength in numbers.
[2:04:48] And I said this to middle town, we had the legislative agenda with them in December.
[2:04:52] Myself and the delegation of Contributor and Meeting Monday night, hopefully we'll be able
[2:04:56] to get out from Monday night.
[2:04:57] I think that's the case.
[2:04:58] Maybe not.
[2:04:59] But same thing will occur there with regards to the league can bring together a comprehensive
[2:05:08] perspective of cities and towns.
[2:05:10] Cities have much different perspectives sometimes than towns, so they may not want to go on
[2:05:15] onto something, but I will represent to the greatest extent possible.
[2:05:21] And one last thing I mentioned from a budget perspective, there are not things that the governors
[2:05:26] included in this year's budget that we need to make certain we do include in preparation for the
[2:05:32] out years. So I won't go down a particular path of something but if there are revenues that are
[2:05:38] generated, the things that we do, they have to be done in context of what may manifest itself
[2:05:43] in 2027, 2028, 2029. I will never want to support something that solves a problem today and say,
[2:05:53] We'll look at that other thing tomorrow, knowing it's right on our doorstep with the caveat
[2:05:58] of some risk and opportunities and probability that it might be a way to adjust something,
[2:06:03] but it's got to be real. It can't be make believe. So there's going to be some hard decisions,
[2:06:07] but we know some challenges we have as we talk to all your primary care education, et cetera.
[2:06:16] The first comment that I want to make is I want to encourage the council to look at a resolution
[2:06:20] to support putting $5 million in the green bond for four
[2:06:23] atoms. I know that the trust had been working with DEM and the
[2:06:28] governor's office through last summer and there was the first
[2:06:32] goal they needed for you know basically maintaining the place.
[2:06:37] First it was 10 million then it was 5 million and I was told in the fall
[2:06:41] yes looking good it's in there then it was 2.5 million and now it's zero. So that
[2:06:45] has been completely cut out of the budget. I think that it's a high
[2:06:48] priority for this city. I think the money should go to DEM. I think the money should go to DEM
[2:06:54] because there are two different specific needs out there. The first need is around maintenance of the
[2:06:58] fort and the second is around some money that the the festival foundation needs to spend
[2:07:03] particularly on security. I spoke to them this week. They're very concerned about security,
[2:07:07] particularly in light of the Browns shooting. So if it goes to DEM, I think then they can distribute it
[2:07:12] between the two organizations and I've encouraged Paul Marshall to come before you and talk to you
[2:07:17] about this. I think it's really important. The second thing is that I kind of feel like
[2:07:22] it's an unusual year for Newport. We always have challenges, and we always have to really
[2:07:29] fight our way through the state processes. But I think that we're not getting the money for
[2:07:34] four to atoms. They're tapping into the cruise ship money, the Taylor Swift tax, which is laws
[2:07:40] tapping into property taxes. We have this education foundation, the Rhode Island Foundation funding
[2:07:46] for a meal a question and we have the birthing center.
[2:07:48] I mean, these are five things that are really compounding.
[2:07:51] I think life in Newport.
[2:07:53] And I'm going to really encourage the Council to stay very active
[2:07:57] and really work with Peter, work with us,
[2:08:00] pass some resolutions, give us the tools,
[2:08:03] and I think we'll be out there working on this stuff for you.
[2:08:07] Yeah. Thank you, Rhett.
[2:08:08] We have to let them go.
[2:08:11] Thank you very much.
[2:08:12] I first want to say that I agree with all my colleagues about Peter, who is a great advocate for what he does.
[2:08:22] I've done Peter years before he became an advocate here, so it's not just because he's from a new board, from other ways,
[2:08:29] because that's what help us in making our decisions.
[2:08:34] These kind of falling to me are good because it gives me a chance to really hear what those of us who live here on the ground
[2:08:42] have to go through. And it's not easy. You know, there's this dialogue that if anything is
[2:08:49] bad, I need more money and I don't have it. Let's go to the state to get it. Well, you know,
[2:08:55] I wish you were like that because it's all of a lot of problems, but it's not like that.
[2:09:00] So I'm just here to say that as I said, each 20 times, the more we see people from, in this case,
[2:09:11] newport, advocating for something, and then coming up and advocating is one thing to put in
[2:09:17] a bill or whatever you want to put in. You can put in on bigger those, but that's not what
[2:09:22] gets it seen on the floor and get it through the committees. So the committee process that the
[2:09:28] state does have is an important one for us here in town to think about attending, particularly
[2:09:35] when it's something that has to do with Newport, and I've seen some of us up there
[2:09:39] then. But there's always, there's always a person or a group who will see the same issue
[2:09:51] that we see differently. And unfortunately, in the house, I think incentive, they may have
[2:09:59] more representatives than we do.
[2:10:02] So I agree with the chairman that our asks have to be pretty tight, so that we can
[2:10:11] throughout our system make sure that something gets to a committee and gets to the floor.
[2:10:17] Many times things don't even get to the committee, or without that it's difficult for things
[2:10:23] to happen.
[2:10:23] So, you know, I don't say very much in these because I don't want to make a promise that I can't keep knowing that things change all of the time, all of the time they change.
[2:10:38] So, thank you for inviting me here every year here, but it gives me chance to say, hey, participate upstate. It's hard. I have to get in the car and drive upstate every day too.
[2:10:50] You know, and that's, it's just a 30-something miles away, but this is us.
[2:10:55] This is what we live in and how we do it, but just, but the absence of seeing a lot of us
[2:11:03] participate upstate is a reason that people don't know you and people know if people get to know
[2:11:09] you by interacting with you at those meetings. So, I take all of those, I learn.
[2:11:15] You know, we've got 75 members in the house and what, 38, 38 in the Senate, but to a lot of people that we have to go back and to convince that vote for me for support this for me.
[2:11:31] And I'll support something for you.
[2:11:33] I mean, that's where it happens.
[2:11:34] And that's where the advocates come in.
[2:11:37] So keep up to the good work.
[2:11:39] You got a lot of information today.
[2:11:41] But you got to remember we just got the governor's budget. I mean, we just got it. What I don't know what 10 days ago and and that's the first
[2:11:52] That's the document that I have to live by and
[2:11:55] Chairman de Plum and I spend a whole lot of time people probably think with brothers
[2:12:00] We spend a whole lot of time together
[2:12:02] Sifting through that we don't make this stuff up. That's what I'm saying
[2:12:07] So when you see something you don't like that is not really enough
[2:12:10] But through Peter and trust me, he knows how to walk into both of our offices because he does it all at a time
[2:12:17] And we and we get things down so I appreciate that. Thank you
[2:12:21] Any questions?
[2:12:23] Yes, can I just say something?
[2:12:24] There is a night among here that I just want to just
[2:12:28] Highlight the ripped a new port gateway visitor center concerns it was going on there. Yeah, well, uh, they
[2:12:35] You know, we appreciate what Ripped is done with this bus that is sponsored by Ripped and discovered new port, but, you know, they ripped a closes the restrooms at like noon so that the drivers can go to lunch.
[2:12:50] So there's no, there's, and then they're adding fees to the buses that are the tour buses, so it's just something that I would like to discuss with all of you more.
[2:13:03] And I think we need to get discovered new port in on the conversation too.
[2:13:08] Thank you.
[2:13:10] And we have a meeting with them with RIPTA.
[2:13:14] There's a we are going to talk about that in an executive session.
[2:13:17] On Wednesday and probably have more information.
[2:13:19] Right.
[2:13:21] Any other emails?
[2:13:23] Just want to say thank you.
[2:13:24] We know how busy you are.
[2:13:26] We know you're in the busy season.
[2:13:27] We know how hard you work for us.
[2:13:28] And your doors are quite literally always open.
[2:13:30] I stayed at the state, I wandered into the chairman's office, and we don't take that for granted.
[2:13:36] We also don't take for granted the work that you've done to have the positions you do with
[2:13:39] the leadership.
[2:13:40] We value that very much.
[2:13:42] Mayor, I also want to thank you for pulling this together.
[2:13:44] I know it's quite a bit of work on both you and Lisa from the team, the rest of the city's team.
[2:13:49] And also our partners from the schools who took time.
[2:13:51] I see Dr. Flowers is here.
[2:13:52] I see our superintendents.
[2:13:54] And of course, we have a scope and remember, Colin, we really appreciate your partnership
[2:13:58] and working with us on this and turning out on a Saturday morning for our next storm.
[2:14:04] Yeah, so again, thank you guys so much. It's always a pleasure to get to do this and
[2:14:10] there are a lot of things we didn't hit on and there's always going to be more things and we
[2:14:14] appreciate having the open communication and we'll continue to play in Peter. Thank you so much again
[2:14:19] for your huge help. And that's one of which I want to say if we can hope everyone gets through the
[2:14:26] snowstorm, impending snowstorm is as best as possible and we'll do this again soon, I hope.
[2:14:33] Thank you.
[2:14:34] Thank you.
[2:14:35] You're welcome.