you you you you you you you you All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right, we all set. All right, good evening everyone. The time is now seven o'clock and tonight is our regularly scheduled town council meeting. Today's day is April 21st, 2025. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right and before we begin I do want to extend on behalf of the Narragansett town council, we are deeply saddened by the passing of the honorable Senate President Dominic Regirio. His steadfast dedication to public service, unwavering leadership and commitment to the public has left an enduring legacy. May his contributions never be forgotten and may he rest in peace. Please take a moment of silence in his memory. Thank you. So we have a few different presentations this evening. So first off, we have the strengthening local blood donation efforts from the Rhode Island Blood Center presented by Heather Hughes, Robin Heimer. Good evening. Thank you. Well, thank you. How are you? Good. So thank you for having me. The main reason I'm here is I think you're a properly well-made professor. One of your fellow town employees, Joe Harvey, has his son, Easton, who is eight years old, was recently diagnosed with leukemia while on vacation back in February. The blood drive flyers are going to go up around the community, and if I may, I am gonna read what the father wrote about his son, Eastern. So it says while on a trip to Texas during school vacation, Eastern fell ill. At Texas Children's Hospital, he was diagnosed with T.Cell acute lymphocytic leukemia, better known as ALL. Eastern and his family were in Texas for close to a month while he received several blood transfusions and underwent many procedures. He was clear to fly back to Rhode Island on March 13th, since then, Eastern has been receiving nearly daily treatments at Hasbro Children's Hospital. So we are doing a blood drive in his honor. A week from Friday on May 2nd, from 10 to 4 p.m. at the Clark Center. So what I'm going to review this evening is just some basic information about supporting blood drives and giving. So why give? I just talked about Easton. Sadly, on any given day in Rhode Island, there are a lot of children in need of blood transfusions as well as a lot of adults. Any of you who have known someone who's battled a blood cancer, you know what I'm talking about. And the two things go hand in hand, blood transfusions in chemotherapy. If the blood is not there, if the blood counts aren't where they need to be, then the individual can't get their chemotherapy. Blood transfusions give patients strength to get through their treatment and they give hope to the families that their loved ones will survive their diagnosis. So just some background information for those of you. I know there are many of you here in this room who have given blood in the past, and I thank you so much for that incredible support. What I ask of you is to please encourage your family, friends, and colleagues to give blood. We have struggled significantly since the pandemic. These are just some national and local statistics. Every two seconds, someone in the US needs a blood transfusion. Here in Little World Island, 250 donations are needed every day to meet the needs of patients at local hospitals. Blood can only come from us. It cannot be manufactured and blood components have a short shelf life. That is why there is always a need for blood donations. So leadership support for those of you who work for the town and have department meetings, please bring this up at your department meetings, encourage your staff to donate at this upcoming drive again a week from Friday on May 2. At that meeting, ask people if they've ever donated before. There are so many people who are afraid to donate. They think it's gonna hurt. They think it's gonna be a terrible experience. To have a colleague share their experience of giving blood, I think we'll go a long way to encouraging other people to donate. To have a good experience, it's very important to prepare your body. You want to be well hydrated and you wanna eat before you give blood. A lot of times people think it's like having blood work done and you should fast, that is not the case. You want to eat well hydrated and you want to eat before you give blood. A lot of times people think it's like having blood work done and you should fast. That is not the case. You want to eat before giving blood. For women, I always recommend take a multivitamin with iron or have a nice steak or hamburger in the days leading up to the blood donation so that your iron levels are nice and high. And then the other thing on the flip side is if you've ever known someone who's needed blood, share those experiences. It's important that we educate one another so that we can motivate ourselves to get out and make the time to give blood. So again, I already touched on this. People worry about not feeling well afterwards. Maybe they're remembering the last time they gave blood when they were in high school or college when most people don't prepare their bodies necessarily the way they should. So again, if you haven't done it before, have some faith in all of us that it's going to be it's easier than you think. It doesn't hurt. Think about those that you're helping, but it is important again to hydrate, eat, and as I mentioned for women taking, you know, a multivitamin or eating iron-rich foods, the process does take about an hour, but the donation itself is only five to ten minutes. So some common misconceptions that I hear all the time, and I've been doing this for a while, a lot of times people think that if they take medications, they cannot give blood. When in fact, most medications are perfectly fine. So whether it's cholesterol medication, blood pressure, if you're diabetic, you can give blood. If you are not sure, please call our medical hotline and you will get a live person. If you get our recording, they'll get back to you in a very reasonable amount of time. Tattoo's in piercings. Just again, good for people to know. As long as you've got your tattoo or piercing at a licensed facility, and it has healed, you are fine to donate. If you did not get it at a licensed facility, and it's over three months, you can still, you can now give blood. Tick-borne illnesses, a lot of confusion around that, whether it be Lyme's disease or Babesiosis, as long as you are no longer taking an antibiotic in your symptom free, you can now give blood. All right, so that kind of wraps it up. Let's see. How do we sign up to? All right, so he's going to bring up the flyer. As I mentioned earlier, the blood drive is happening a week from Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Clark Center. If you'd like to make an appointment to donate, you can call the blood center. You can scan the QR code on this flyer. You can go to our website, put in the zip code for an air gantset and this will pop up. And then you can just pick what time you want to donate. We are hoping for a very large turnout, so please help me spread the word and encourage people to come out. And this is a beautiful way to show the family that we care about Easton's well-being. And this will help him be cured of this cancer. Thank you. Are there any questions? Thank you so much for being here and for presenting this very important issue and bringing awareness to it. I myself donate every three months, and it's really, it's a wonderful tree. The best people working at the blood center, and it always feels great to give back to the community as well and I highly recommend anyone even if it's your first time. It's not that scary of an experience. This is a really wonderful opportunity to give back to the community and support some of our own residents at the same time. And I believe Jim, if did you want to say a few words? No, I just had a question. I know I've been to the blood drives. Thanks for having it. It's great. Sometimes when you travel some places, they ask you questions, and then all of a sudden you can't give the blood. Is that on the website up to date? I would recommend calling that medical hotline if you've traveled in the past year. Usually its country is where malaria is an issue. Other than that, not so much of an issue. We have been some changes since the pandemic. The FDA went back and reviewed a variety of deferrals from the past. The big one is if you lived in England during the late 90s, early 2000s, that has been lifted if there was a concern around mad cow disease. So that's one thing that is good for people to be aware of. But the best thing is to even give a call if it has to do with travel. Thank you for bringing that up. Thank you. Anyone else? I have any questions or comments? Well, thank you so much for being here and we do wanna extend our thoughts and and prayers to the Harvey family Please continue to send your thoughts and prayers their way. They are worth more than you know Next on the presentation list we have safe streets for all presented by Eric Wise Good evening Good. And thank you for having us. My name is Eric Weiss. I'm with the consulting firm, called Bowman. And we've been working with Narragansett town staff for about a year to create a roadway safety action plan for the town. I could probably talk about two hours about the process, but we squeeze it down to about 10 minutes, and then we can do some Q&A if you wish. I'll touch very briefly on each of these points, but I won't belabor any of them in respect for everybody's time. Safe Streets for All is a federal grant program out of US DOT. It has as its overarching goal to reduce and ultimately eliminate roadway fatalities in serious injuries. For Narragans it's more specifically that goal remains, but another piece of what makes is important for Narragansett's more specifically, that goal remains, but another piece of what makes us important for Narragansett is having the safety action plan, which we'll be delivering within the next couple of weeks, also makes the town of Narragansett eligible to apply for implementation funds so that all the recommendations being made in the safety action plan would then be funded. So the background here in Rhode Island is that RIPTA was the applicant to US DOT for these funds. The grant was awarded in 2023. It was a $5 million planning grant award. It was the biggest planning grant of that entire cycle nationwide. RIPTA then invited all Rhode Island municipalities to participate. Ultimately, 31 decided to join the effort, as you can see here on this, including Narragansett. We worked with an MVP collection of Narragansett staff as you can see here. Jill and Steve from Planning and Public Works, Patty from the police department, Sergeant Kerns, Captain Sutton had been involved as well before he retired and Captain Tutel from the fire department and more recently Jill's assistant Ryan in the planning department, all of whom were really excellent to work with. There were three of us from Bowman involved like the point out Randy here who's the principal author of the plan. He's also an arrogant resident, which is very helpful, has been very helpful. And so he's here to help address any questions that you might have. Every safety action plan has eight mandatory components. I won't spend time going over all eight of these, but we'll focus on just a couple in respect everybody's time here. One important piece is the safety analysis. That's analyzing the crash data. Every crash that is reported to the police then gets reported to the state police and RIDOT goes into a database and if you ask very, very nicely, RIDOT will give you the data and then you can perform your statistical analyses or any other sort of analysis. The data set that we used covered five years from January 1, 2019 to the very end of 2023. There were three types of analysis. The first is baseline crash analysis, which essentially is just looking at the raw numbers and finding ways to present those numbers in ways that are easily digested. The database itself, if you were to print it out at standard size, it would be like the size of, you know, 10 bed sheets stitched together. Nobody's going to look at that. But if we take that data and turn it into a heat map, like the one you're looking at here, that's a lot easier to digest and a lot easier to share with the public and have everybody understand. So, for instance, this map here is a heat map showing where fatal and injury crashes happened in Narragansett during that five-year time span for all modes of travel. So that's cars, it's pedestrians, it's bicycles, everybody using the roadways. And here's an example of the same sort of heat map, but only looking at crashes, leading to injury or serious injury or fatality to pedestrians and bicyclists. Another type of analysis we did is called the high risk network. This is an interesting one. For this, we looked at crashes statewide and broke down where are crashes happening? What are the characteristics of the roadways? What are the posted speed limits? How wide are these roads? How many lanes do these roads have? What's the context of land use along these roads? Is it industrial, commercial, residential? And then by doing that analysis, we're able to be proactive about what types of roadways are more likely to have crashes. So instead of simply responding to crashes, we can make recommendations that will prevent crashes from happening in the first place. So that's what we're looking at here for now against it, the high risk network, and this is for, again, all modes of travel. And this is the high risk network only for cyclists and walkers. In short-hand, you might see the term VRU, which stands for Vulnerable Road User. That's just short-hand for bicyclists and pedestrians. The third type of analysis that we conducted is called high injury network, which is essentially a combination of the baseline crash analysis, real data, combined with the high risk network analysis to give us a map showing where we need to pay attention, both reactively as you see in red because that's where crashes are happening, plus proactively as you see in green so we can get ahead of potential problems before they lead to fatal or serious injury crashes. And This is the same, but only for vulnerable road users. So Marigancet is sort of middle of the pack as compared to the rest of Rhode Island in terms of fatal and injury crashes. I want to point out that crashes where there was property damage only are not part of this analysis. That's not what Safe Streets for All is interested in. This program is only interested in reducing injuries and fatalities. That outlier you see in the middle there is Block Island where the per capita injury and fatality rate is much higher. I suspect that if we were to take July and August out of the data set, Block Island would be just as much, you know, pretty steady with the rest of the state. You'd probably say the same thing about Narragansett as well. Here's another way to present data from Narragansett, and also pointing out why we have this focus on vulnerable road users rather than looking at road users as a whole. If you look at the motor vehicle crash rate, at the top and the amount of injuries that result versus basically doubling injuries and fatalities for bicycles and pedestrians, that's why the program puts a particular focus on bicyclists and pedestrians. That's why the program puts a particular focus on bicyclists and pedestrians. Because when there's a crash involving a pedestrian or bicyclist, those individuals are much more likely to suffer severe injury or to die. Another example of how we can take raw data and put it in a form that is easy to digest and communicate specific information. So for instance here we can see in the darker blue that most crashes are happening in the afternoon and early evening hours. I by breaking it down by time of day and day of week and late conditions, we're able to perhaps give a focus to day of week and time of day so that we can make recommendations specific to say the sun is getting low in the late afternoon or it's a lot of commuters and we can address the higher crash rates in those ways. Public engagement was an important part of our effort. We tabled at two events in town, one at the farmers market, and then at Gansett Days. We also conducted a series of stakeholder interviews. And there was a survey issued statewide. And one of the questions was, please add your zip code. So we were able to determine which surveys were being filled out by Narragans it residents. Another important piece was looking at equity. So we took survey data and from that, we were able to create maps showing where folks with lower income tend to live in town. Another equity map that we prepared was showing where there are more folks living in zero car households by having that information. We can then know where more folks are likely to be walking, whether it's walking for walking to get to the bus or walking to work, it helps us to determine where we need to focus our attentions. Another one of the eight mandatory sections of the Safety Action Plan focuses on policy and process. And so we did make policy recommendations for these five portions of municipal government leadership, meaning your town manager and town council. Of course, public works planning in the police department and then also recommendations related to education, which is mostly about using the town's website and social media to communicate helpful information that will help ease or improve traffic safety. I won't expect anybody to be able to read this, but I did want to add to show the number of locations. We ended up identifying and making recommendations for quite a few and all noted on the map here. I think it was a total of 26 locations. And for each of those locations, we made recommendations based on what USDOT calls proven countermeasures. These are 28 interventions that are proven to reduce crashes. So I put four examples here over on the right. So for instance, improving crosswalk visibility is proven to reduce injury crashes by up to 40%. These tend to be low expense crosswalk visibility improvements. Simply by doubling the width of the edge line on the road can lead to a crash reduction of up to 37%. So there are a total of 28 of these proven countermeasures and this was the basis of the recommendations we made for the locations in Narragounts. So here's one of the locations just to drill down a little bit. Boone Street at Congdon, where the market is. For each of the 26 locations across the town, we made observations, took photographs, made measurements, and then determined what the countermeasures should be in order to improve safety at that location. So in the safety action plan, each of the locations has these observations and countermeasures listed. Along with, not here on the slide, but along with approximated cost to implement those countermeasures. So we are not quite complete. There are just a few more steps. We are almost done finalizing the state de-action plan. We're waiting on some final comments from RIPTA and RIDOT and statewide planning after we get those final comments and spruce up the plan with some nice springtime photos will be able to present the task force that we've been working with and the town with a final safety action plan. As I mentioned earlier, having the safety action plan makes the town eligible to apply for implementation grants. The window for this year's implementation grant round is open to June 26th. And we're glad that our timing as such that the town will be eligible to apply. There will be one final round of Safe Streets for all implementation grants in a year from now, the 2026 round. And that's what we've got. Excellent. Thank you so much for the very thorough presentation and I'm you know I think I can speak I'm half for the council that we're very much looking forward to reviewing the report and all of the recommendations that you've provided It was it was humbling and also frightening to see a lot of the hotspots on the map So you know definitely want to do everything that we can to make sure that we're addressing public safety every way that we can. My hope, of course, from where I'm sitting is that we do get the report sooner rather than later. Now that we know it's coming, now I really want to see it because we're right on the cusp of budget season. We are actually in the midst of budget season. And in order for us to really be able to address a lot of the issues that we're going to find in the report to better plan out for at least the upcoming year, even if the report's not complete, if you're able to provide us with a breakdown of approximate costs, that would be a great start for us. So the task force we've been working with led by Jill has the most recent draft. And that can be shared with you. And we have every expectation that we're going to get our final comments back from the state within a week or so and we'll be able to provide a final version. And one additional request is that if the town does intend to apply in this grant round for an implementation grant, the town will need to adopt this plan in order to be eligible. It's not just about having it in hand, it's about officially adopting the plan. So that's something that would need to happen before the application is submitted to USDOT. Thank you. You bet. Any other Councillors have any questions or comments? Nope. Excellent. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. All right, I know we're at 730, but we do have one more presentation. And I think it's probably, I think it's probably gonna be pretty quick, right? Yeah, so we'll get through the next presentation, and then that's the employee shuttle plan, Narragansett Chamber of Commerce, presented by Peg Ferdette, executive director. Good evening. Hi, good evening, nice to see everybody. I've got my two bodyguards here. We've been dealing with obviously with parking and moving people around for a great deal of time. And so last year, obviously, things came to a real head. But prior to that, some of your prior council members and now these, a few of you here, have really kind of embraced what else can we do to handle the parking problem, move things around a little better in the town and so on and so forth. So from a chamber standpoint, we did pull all the businesses together, queried people, had meetings and really kind of got a pulse of what everyone was dealing with. And there was some interest in trying to find a way to at least do their part to move their employees at least out of certain parking facilities or parking spaces. So that's sort of the background to where we are today. So with Jim's help in Donna, they've picked up the ball from the last council and we've looked at this again. And we've had two businesses stand up and really take a leadership role. So we've got Brad Marso here from the Cedar in Steel Hospitality representing Surfshack and Boone Street Market and of course you probably know Bob Leonard from the Coast Guard House and I'm calling these two guys our anchors because they've taken a leadership position in really sort of saying okay okay, what can we do to do our part? So we have created a plan where we will be, and we call it really a summer parking relief plan because that's what it is. And their employees will be utilizing the middle school and that's where the parking is going to take place for their employees. Employees and then school buses will be in a regular schedule that will be bringing the employees to their particular places of business. But if any other businesses in town along the peer route wish to partake in this, their employees can use them as well. Use the parking and the buses as well. So that's sort of the background of it. Obviously, a lot of restaurants and other businesses will be along the route. And again, they're welcome to use it. These guys have stepped forward and said, we're going to take the lead on it and try it. And they're going to keep track of who gets on the bus and off the bus so that we can have data that is usable for 2026. There will be assessments along the way as to whether or not this is a good idea. Does it work? Is it a trial error? Yes it is. And you got to start somewhere so this is where we're We're starting. So anyway, I'll turn it over to these guys now to sort of give you what you'd like to send. I'm talking more about how we just cost and how we're going about to. Yeah, and from a cost standpoint, this is part of their forte. So this is nothing to do with the town. They will be picking up the bill for the buses, for the bus drivers. I really need to thank Peter Cummings from the school department who really helped spearhead this again. Again, he was involved several years ago. He revived it. The bus people are in it and have been very, very cooperative in trying to come up with a schedule that makes sense, basis the employees, the shifts that are involved and so on. So this is independent of the town. But of course, something that hopefully will help the town and alleviate some of the parking issues that we see during our season. Any comments? No, I think she covered it great. Well, Jim, do you want to start off with questions or comments? I feel like Peggy are like somebody from Washington with a couple of bodyguards. That's what I feel like. So good. it was something I campaigned on to try to help with the parking in the summertime and I reached out to Peg. I wasn't aware that they had a pilot program last year. So we kind of, you know, piggybacked off of that. We had a couple meetings. Donna went to see that she's out of liaison with the school committee and he was overwhelmingly supportive and Jim also from the town and then we you know peg sent out letters to all the different business owners and you know the two big guys kind of You know stepped up to the plate. I figure they're the busiest two people who they are So that makes sense that they would do that and I think that other people will Join up. I think last time they did it. It started too early. It was like In May sometime they did the pilot program and people just not thinking about summer. So hopefully I think they're gonna start it right after school ends. Yeah, we're gonna start at 621 and there'll be no breaks right through September 1st. And that was part of the learning from last year. We sort of did a test run. We can't do a test run for one or two weekends and call it make a call on it, especially something such with a new concept for a lot of people, employees and so on. We think at the end of the day, the employees are going to love this. Why? A, they can get to work on time. They're not running in the rain in the heat. Panicking over where they they're gonna park, running into all kinds of problems. So again, we're going for it. It's probably gonna be lightly used in the beginning. The buses and bus drivers know that as we gear up during the season, you know, it'll probably get a lot busier, but we're not gonna have any breaks. We're just going for it full more. And I think by the location changing from the elementary school to the middle school is a good idea because there's a lot of things going on there in the summer with baseball and community center and all of that. I think it'll just make it smoother. So good luck. Thank you. Thank you for the support. And thank these guys. Yeah. Really, they've taken a very strong leadership position that I think should be really respected amongst the town. So great. I just have a few questions, if you don't mind. What other businesses were reached out to in town? I'm surprised that it's just the two of you up here with that support you'd think that this would be a great opportunity that other businesses in town would jump at. So it was just surprised. I agree. I agree. So every business in the pier, Boone Street and South Pier and Narragansett Avenue were involved. So one thing that we all know is when you don't, you know, when you start a new program, you don't go too big too fast. We knew where the major problem was, especially last year in the peer area. So every business was included. Whether they were chamber members or not, was irrelevant. All businesses were invited to show up at meetings, to express their opinions, to stay on topic, you know, and to participate in this. So I think it's just something new. Some people think they have their parking all set. They, it worked for them last year. They have other alternatives perhaps, but we're hopeful that in time, people will see that this works. As it does in so many other communities throughout really the whole country, New England, ski areas, other beach areas, the Cape, you see employees getting on buses all the time to go to work. So it will take time. It's new, but I think the time has come. We've got people that stood up and we've got everybody lined up, so we're very hopeful that others embrace this with us. So, and just another follow up. And I apologize if I missed it. Did you mention that this was gonna be exclusive to employees or if I was like a guest coming into town couldn't find parking, somehow through the grapevine I found out about this shuttle service. Could I park at the middle school and hop on the bus to get there? This is going to be exclusive to employees for right now. We just want to get this off the ground. As we said, this is a pilot. I think last year, one of the problems was tried to be everything to everyone. Guests were included. It didn't really work out. Getting that out as a whole new piece is more insurance that's involved when you have guests. We want to just really get this started for employees. Get them parking in a designated area. See how that works first. It'd be great to expand it to that. But for now we're very early want to focus on the pilot piece. And the key word I just want to pull out from what you just said. Did you say you mentioned insurance because that was going to be my next question was who's going to be liable for the insurance. These are school buses already covered by the town. Okay so the town is covering the liability. Just as they do. And then my. Yep. And then my last question is, what are the hours in which this is going to run? Because I assume there's different shifts at the two different businesses. You have three sets of hours right now, really just an opening for the AM shift. These are approximately going to find two in these over the next week or two. 9 AM to noon, be the first 3 to 6 p.m. about 10 p.m. to one in the morning. Okay. Thank you. Any other Councillors have any questions? Mr. Colonies, Mr. Torrelli? No questions, but thank you for all the hard work that went into this and looking forward to seeing you implemented. Thank you. Thank you for the support. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Now for the sake of time, Jim, I'm going to ask you, is your uptake quick? All right. So we'll do the town managers update and then we'll start our public hearing. Good evening, members of the council. Those who are watching this evening from home and those who are here today, a few updates for the week as the council president stated. I'll follow up to that flags that all town facilities will be flown at half staff in honor of Rhode Island Senate President Dominic Regario and they will remain at that level until his internment. Staff and I continue to tweak the budget and respond to Council inquiries regarding said budget. The second public hearing on the budget is scheduled for Monday May May 5th at the regular town council meeting. The first reading will be May 19th and the second reading and adoption will be June 2nd. And our answer police, Lieutenant Dancery's retired last week, leaving another vacancy in the department. We now have six vacancies. We also have recruits lined up for those positions. Five will be scheduled to attend the August Academy. Now a River Dredging update. The town engineer and myself, the Doons Club, and the engineering firm, met last week to discuss the final draft of the permit that would be submitted. The Autobahn Society, which is in a butter to that area, has submitted their comments to be included and incorporated into the document. The Doons Club will be submitting their comments soon. The permit application will then be signed by all three parties, be the town, the Doons Club, and the Autobahn. And for author advice that the application should be submitted by the end of the month, pending the Doons Club's input, and according to the engineering firm, the issuance of the permit will take approximately at least six months, but would be valid for three years. Once the permit is issued, an RFP will be issued, and the preferred vendor will be referred to the town council for approval, contingent upon funding. Our update is more information becomes available, and we do continue to seek funding sources for this project. Thank you. And I would like to also thank Peg Brad and Bob for the efforts with the transportation for the summer. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions for Jim? All righty. So we'll actually know what, let's approve the minutes real quick, and then we'll start the public hearing. So is there a motion to approve the minutes as presented items B1 and B2? Prove. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 4-0. Thank you. And now we're going, so what we're going to do is unless somebody raises their hand to tell me that you're going to be here only for open forum that you have no, that you can't wait until after the public hearing. Is there anyone here who only wants to speak during open forum and then leave immediately after? Okay, so if everyone is okay, we'll let the gentleman speak and then we'll go right into public hearing and then we'll continue the open forum afterwards. Thank you. Please state your name and address. Good evening, my name is Peter Boytono. I live on Salt Pier Road. I'm going to go to the committee. Please state your name and address. My name is Peter Boy Tunnel. I'm here to talk about the conditions of the roads and arrogance. I spoke with Councilman Durk and the other day and it was good enough to be turned my phone call. I'm concerned because the upkeep is pretty bad. We have too many arteries coming into the town. We have a salt pair road and wood roof road and they need a lot of work. They did a little work on salt pair road last year. Pot and partial didn't finish it up. They started and it's been let go for years. It really is. I'm going to retire planning officials from the city of Providence and we're now at different projects, but the other road too, but the pet peeve with me is I'm on these roads all the time. It's a little street called beach street. I don't know if you know where beach street is. It's a little street between the gazebo and aqua blue. And that street, that's the main artery coming into the town, where the downtown, all the vitality is. That's an absolute disgrace. That little street is less than one tenth of a mile. I measured it off and it has not been repaved, and I don't know how many years I can never remember. And if I'm a visitor coming here for the summer, first time and I walked down, I'm like, they can't even pave the street, you're walking to the beach. I mean, that's the hot of the downtown right there. That's the pet peeve, but as far as the maintenance of the roads is a lot to work to be done. And the councilman and I talked about it and it's a really major construction that hasn't, it's been let go for years. And there has to be a program put into face, evidently, we had a sound in a model in our department. If you fail to plan, plan to fail. And the plan has not been worked on. So I just wanted to bring that to the attention. But if we can get that little, there was one tenth of a mile done. That little street, beach street. I'm pretty sure it's a town street councilman. I don't think it's a state road. Just before that done before the summer. They were doing potholes the other day. They were potholing it again. They were potholing wooded rove I said to the guy, I was going to the post office, I said to the guy, more paroles, when you guys are going to do it, no answer. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you for your time. Thank you Mr. President could I just yes just Make a few comments. Sure after the speak Beach and Woodruff are both state roads that section of the bridge and beach is also the state road We have notified the state repeatedly about it and yet we still help out in Phillip Hotholes when we can with town vehicles, but those are state roads. And- Oh, sorry, go ahead. And South Pier Road, it connects two state arteries, point you to the road and ocean road. That is currently in the STIP program, scheduled date not certain yet for the state traffic improvement plan that road has been on that plan for a while and That would provide funds to the town Possibly through a subrecipient agreement or the state would do it under the Stip program by themselves That has not been resolved yet, but we continue to maintain the road with patchwork and smoothly get over because the next move was a full reconstruction, major reconstruction. Thank you. Thanks, Jim. So it was funny. I was going to ask you to put the South Pier Road explanation that you gave to me on the town managers you put for next week. So maybe you could do that because that is very, that's a big question to people. And it was interesting to hear the explanation of why that's, you know, sometimes the explanation is good. And so, and then that gentleman, I think he was talking about next to the post office. Was he also talking about Woodruff? He mentioned Woodruff, correct? Yes. Oh, okay. All right, because he didn't mention that to me. But okay, let's- I'll reiterate it the next- Yeah, because people don't get that. The state owns the road that's like right there. You know, it's funny how that happens. We'll notify them again. Is there like a website or resource that the town residents could use to, I know there is to see where their town streets are in the list of projects that need to be covered in the approximate time in which they're going to be addressed. But is there like a similar resource that the state provides? They do through RIDOT. I don't know exactly what website they use for it, but they can have direct contact with us through our system online or just contact my office directly. Okay. Thank you so much. So as indicated before we will continue open forum after the public hearing. So with that being said, is there a motion to hold a public hearing on April 21st, 2025, on an ordinance and amendment of Appendix A of the Code of Ordinances of the Town of an Air Gianns and the Rhode Island entitled Zoning. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes for zero. Thank you. Ah. And good evening. Didn't you have to invite you up? You knew we were great. Good evening, everyone. Thank you. And good evening. Didn't you have to invite you up? Great to see you again. Thank you. Likewise. As mentioned, this is a continuation of a public hearing that was opened on February 18th. Oh, sure. My name is Jill Savo, Director of Planning. So on February 18th, there was a public hearing opened of which there was a good, good, good lengthy and I think productive discussion on the ordinance in front of you, the drafted ordinance from the planning board. And at that public hearing, it was requested of myself to go back and answer a question. Specifically that question was, did the council, the last council remove the basements from the FAR calculation and are we meaning this council putting sellers into the calculation? So I did provide a to you a memo at that time. Make sure I pull it out here. And it's also been included very conveniently in our binders. Really appreciate the offer. Yeah, sure. Correct. So I wanna just go through that. I don't have my memo in front of me, but I can certainly go through it because I put notes together for it. So essentially what that memo did was it tried to break down for you to clarify the following things. Number one, the current state law, excluding the basements from FAR. So we did provide that in the memo. The definition of basement in state law. The definition of cellar in state law. When FAR was established in the town of New York against it for the entire zone, not break water village. And that was done in chapter 1087. That was June 21, 2021. And what specifically was included and excluded in that definition. So for example, in this case, I think what this council is interested is that both basements and sellers by related definition that met a certain for to ceiling height were included in FAR. And then when that changed, so as was mentioned at the last public hearing, the planning board at the time, it was originally proposed in 2021, so they were gonna come back in a year, they were gonna take a look at it in a year and see how it was working. And they did just that. And they came back again in October 17, 2022, the town council approved some changes, which was in chapter 1100. And then I included what specifically had changed. So it was highlighted in your memo and it was specifically the exemption of areas below the floodplain and garages for storage and parking. So I also iterated in that memo that the, I tried to explain that the purpose in the intent of the drafted ordinance was to comply with the state law only, that it wasn't intended to revise any portion or portions of the town ordinance that related to FAR not required by the state. So it wasn't intended to make any changes that weren't already approved by a town council that weren't mandated by the state law changes in 2024. And that memo was sent to you on August 21st. So that's my update. Please let me know if you have questions. Thank you. And thank you and the planning board for the extensive reviews and materials that you've provided the council for review. It's very easy to navigate when you know that the first thing on the top of the list is immediately what we're talking about right now. Would you mind just providing the council and the public with just a general background of the timeline of addressing this review to align with the state law? We do mean when we started. When you first started the process. We started absolutely. So, as mentioned at the 18th, February 18th meeting, in 2023, when the state law changed, the state gave six month notice. So the laws didn't take effect until January of 2024. In the 2024 legislative session, when the state law changes took effect, they went effect immediately, effective upon passage at the state law. So the planning department and the planning board were prepared for that. We could sort of see that in the drafts that it would be effective upon passage. So the planning board was ready with a draft of the planning staff, got ready with a draft ordinance that we put forward to the planning board to address those changes that were going to occur. That was reviewed by the planning board to believe in July, I think it was July 16th, if I'm correct, the original review. And it was put forward to the town council for scheduling of public hearing in August. So less than eight weeks after the passage at the state level, we had a drafted ordinance before the council. That, go ahead. Oh, no, go ahead. So that scheduling was removed from the docket. It was made it to the docket, but then was removed in open session. During that time, a couple of things changed. There was some internal litigation, things like that. And it was put back to the planning board. And also, as I mentioned before, the time frame for which the council could then pick it up again had expired. There are time frames on when things are posted to the council and time frames and reviewing them. So there was that as well. So the advice at the time was to send it back to the planning board and we did that when we went back in the December meeting and the revised memo came out to this council on December 26th. And as you know with the necessary timeframes to advertise for your public hearing, the earliest available meeting we could schedule was the February 18th meeting. Thank you. I appreciate that. Because it does help to align with timelines and with all of the different, you know, recommended proposed amendment changes, you know, the hearings, the workshops, community feedback. We want to make sure that we're getting all our ducks in our row as much as possible here. So I appreciate you sharing that with us Councillor Durk, and do you have any questions to get this conversation going? Yeah, I have some but I'm gonna wait and postpone but somebody else talk I talked extensively in the last Okay, well if you don't mind Yeah, can I ask you a question? Sure, because I I do know that and while you're up here, one of the reasons why we continued this at the last time we held this public hearing was because you wanted a clarification on sellers and basements. So I just didn't know if, and maybe that's part of what you're wanting to wait for, was the definition that was provided, was that sufficient for you? It's sufficient that there's two definitions, but I don't think that we're following what the basic law is that basements should not be included in FAR. So I don't know why we have to create a new definition when we don't have a seller definition now and go to seller in the state definition for convenience sake. Okay. So I do, I've looked up many definitions of seller. They're all over the place. But basement seems to be the common definition of something that's underneath your house. Cellar seems to be like confusing with like wine cellar and root cellar and be grandmother cellar and things like that. But basements, generally what this generation uses to call the lower level of a house. So, you know, in my mind, a basement, a cellar, a crawl space, unfinished lower portion of a house should not be included in a floor at all. So that's my, you know, how I get around to doing that. I can talk about it. And I have some other questions on ADUs as as well Jill. But that's how I feel. I appreciate you answering that. And I do want to just make sure that we're addressing this and what's being proposed here correctly because there are a lot of moving parts going on at the same time and it is unfortunate but at the same time we do want to try to articulate as clear as possible because I myself am a little confused. As we're addressing the different variations of FAR as presented in here, there's a separate series of amendments that have been proposed to the Planning Board for review, which are going to be addressed and handled separately. So I just just try and do align myself with an understanding here. If things are being addressed here, but then later on address differently, are there any issues with that? I'm just trying to think about process here and what makes sense. The answer is it depends. It depends on what amendments if any are made this evening and how those could conflict with potential amendments made I believe the first, maybe the first week of May when we're also addressing FAR. So we don't want to create a conflict with ourselves with a potential amendment to our zoning ordinances this evening and conflict with what may be taken up the first week of May. So my suggestion we can take the public comment tonight. We can get input from the council to see what you folks would like to do with respect to this issue. And maybe at that juncture, we'll best be able to see if what direction the council wants to go on the far issue, if that will conflict what will be before you come the first week of May. Thank you. Can I ask a question? Yes. So the only problem with that, Nick, is if it kind of forces us to have another go-around, like, if we, like, say, for instance, if we voted up or down on the basement seller issue this evening, then that said and done if it's not a substantive change, I guess, in this, you know, hearing or whatever. And then it allows us to do what, you know, what it doesn't keep our hands tied or whatever, or at least it gets something done. It gets this thing's been around since, the previous town council, it's been around since Mike Deluca, you know what I mean? It's been around, so I don't know why. Evidently, the previous council didn't want to deal with it, or maybe because the ADU pot wasn't passed at the state level. That's all I can think of. But I mean if it's the council's wishes to deal with it tonight, obviously you have to recommend if if that's okay or not. And then maybe we just deliberate on it and talk about it until we get to a point where we even know what we're gonna do. Because I certainly don't know what we're gonna do before we do it. And that's actually part of the reason why I'm bringing this up because we need to make sure that the process is as clear as possible because to be frank, I don't know if a lot of people at home or even in the audience is understanding this process as well. I think, in my opinion, we should address the matter at hand as it is here because we do continue to take up a lot of your time. And we do continue to take up a lot of your time. And we do want to be mindful of all of our resources that we have in town. If we can get this off the books, we can address the proposed amendments separately starting on May 5th when we schedule out the plan for review. Is that okay? With you? Yeah, no, that's what I think. I think that's what you said too. Yeah, no, that's just reiterating it. So, it's a very confusing audience. Yes. Yes. Councillors, colonies and Tori, all right? Any questions or comments before we open it up to the public? I just want to say that I'm a lot of this. I'm a lot of this. It's really section one that I have questions about or having a hard time grasping some of the things. I don't understand why sellers' basements are involved in far in general. I mean, I've talked to the solicitor about this, I've talked to several people about this and I'm just not getting a clear sense of why they're even involved in far frankly. So really section one is the big issue for me. The rest of that is pretty straightforward. Councillor Tarioli, I'm fine with selling this matter tonight. I don't necessarily have an issue with the definitions of basement and cellar as they're laid out here. Thank you. So with that, we might call you back up later. Well, actually, can I ask a couple of questions before she sits down because we're talking about the whole audience, right? We're talking about the proposed changes that have been addressed. Yeah, I just, you know, Jill, I just wanted to know with the ADUs because this is like, you know, this starts with ADU and then the basement thing is down at the bottom, but it's not, the basement's not just part of the ADU, the ADUs by itself, right? Yes, there are multiple changes in 2024. This is one draft that came to you that touches on the multiple changes that occurred. So the basement and seller definition for FAR the ADU changes that's in here There's the definition for manufactured homes. Right. So The basement would with the basement actually With the basement go through the whole ordinance like and would it affect ADUs as well? And the reason I asked was at the home show last weekend, and there was a 600 foot ADU who was built inside the home show. Perfectly suitable for a person to live in. It's only 600's Griffey, and the guy recommended that it would be put on a basement, you know, so you could access the plumbing and all that. You couldn't really do it on a slab. So he recommended a basement. Now, so would, if this thing passed, would the basement be considered far as far as an ADU? No, basements were stricken in 2024 and they're no longer considered part of the FAR. So, the state is not a state. The state is not a state. The state is not a state. The state is not a state. The state is not a state. The state is not a state. The state is not a state. The state is not a state. The state is not a state. The state is not a state. The state is not a state. The state is not a feet high Our six foot. Where did you get six? Where did six foot 11 come from? Sure. That was right and I think we have the benefit of having the Building official here, but that was in discussions that the seven foot threshold was the determining threshold of living area So anything under seven feet wouldn't be a living area. I believe there are some caveats to that but We didn't take those caveats into consideration. So because seven feet is The number that the planning board chose ultimately. So anything under seven seven feet wouldn't necessarily be considered living area But the state law is any part of a basement The state laws basement. Yeah, so yeah and Again, not seller it was discussed on the floor on April 30th and it didn't go anywhere. And by the floor, I mean at the general assembly. Right. Could that have been because the legislative never thought that somebody would come up with a different definition? Well, it could have been. It was brought to their attention that the definition of seller was right below the definition of basement. So 0.5 is the definition of seller and I think 6 is the definition of, I mean, basement and 6 is the definition of seller. It was brought to their attention. I think it was discussed that it would be worked out at the Senate level and it was never worked out. And then my next question is under ADUs, the affordable pot, you know how you took out special use permit and put in P's. What is the underlined of the P mean? It means it's the new text. So anything new is underlined anything. Yeah. Okay. And then. Okay. That's all I have now. Thanks. Thank you so much. And I will also just read that the recommendations as presented here fourth were passed by the Planning Board 50, Mr. Brady, Dr. O'Neill, Mr. Brunetto, Mr. Friday, and Mr. Calhann. with the first one. Planning board 5 0 Mr Brady Dr. Niel Mr. Brinetto Mr. Friday and Mr. Calhan. With that being said, we will open up the floor to public comment. Who would like to start us off? Mr. I was going to be concerned if I didn't see anyone raise their hand. Good evening. Something to say. Oh, um, do we need to, oh, go ahead, sorry. Oh, I do. Stephen Ferrandi, Stephen with a VST, VEN last name Ferrandi, F-E-R-R, A-N-D-I, 44, Sylvan Road, and Eric Hansett. Thank you, Council Members and Board. I have some concerns with a few items in this, this zoning amendments or state zoning amendments. I know there's been a lot of the talk about definition of the family, but the only thing that's really changed here is the three unrelated went to one per bedroom moving it to five. So, and that was heavily, and I mean heavily, lobbied and advocated by the rental industries, mainly in Narragansett. I mean, I went to all the hearings, and it was most people from Narragansett, and even though this is is gonna change the complete state law, there was also some lawsuits. And I believe they're still going on at this point. This one went to the planning job, the zoning judge, which was Judge Lamphier, and originally he stated that the town's unrelated ordinance was unconstitutional and vague. Now there's been some change from that. I'm not sure if it's where it is. I believe he said, I believe they were the town or someone was trying to get him to vacate that statement. But I think what it basically did was put the states unrelated on it's kind of in a tizzy in a way where it was very unclear and vague. That's how we voted. So I just want to make sure if we go through with this legally, where do we stand with the current lawsuit? Is the town appealing it now? We haven't heard anything. Are they going to let it stand? Did the judge vacate this lawsuit? And everything's back to square one. But the town still has an outstanding lawsuit about unrelated. And it was against the town. It wasn't the town's issue. It was someone didn't want the unrelated because they were caught with more than, you know, we were enforcing the ordinances at the time. They brought up the evidence and it went to the court. So at this point, if we're not on solid ground, I know there's a lot of talk about all kinds of wall lawsuits and everything else. But if we are not on solid ground on the unrelated ordinance through the state, and this change actually was started in 2023, making the one per bedroom, I'm sorry, making the three unrelated to one per bedroom up to a maximum of five in 2023. It didn't get passed in. There was wall lobbying done in the past in 2024. That was well before any lawsuits, we even came about with this. It was after that in the summer of last year, 2024. So my point would be that if there's any scintiller of evidence or any scintiller of the point of that being an issue with the town or not being correct with the state's law, we're relying on the state's law. If the law isn't completely correct with all lawsuits, and if it is, then what happened to make it that way with the lawsuits? Why are we appealing this? Is the state clear of that lawsuit? So that's my point on that, and that's very important for the town. And I know what's going to happen in the future is our three college student ordinances is going to get very unclear to a lot of realtors that have been telling me to say, well, we have the five unrelated now. So now there's going to be five per student. You're going to be here in that in the upcoming meeting. So, you know, I just don't think this is ready at the point. I think it's still unclear with this. I realize it's state past this. Two weeks, less than a month later, you know, our town had brought it up. And I think that's what happened. The last council wasn't too sure about it. That's why nothing went forward with this. And there was in the middle of the lawsuits. I mean, we were trying to do the right thing. So let's try to do the right thing all along the way here. Let's not try to skip any steps. I notice a different set of solicitors. They may have other opinions, but this is very critical to what's happening in arrogance. So I just wish that if you need a pause on it, take the pause or whatever you have to do to kind of clear it up. That's my point. And the second one about the basement and the cellar, I don't know if this clear things up, not specifically for Mr. Durkin or not. But I believe, and maybe the building aspect that can clear it up, I believe you need a certain minimum ceiling height to make it a habitable room, no matter what it is. First floor, second floor, or a basement. So if you're gonna fix up a basement and it's less than I believe you have to have six foot, seven foot heights, I believe, to be habitable. So that's why that habitable portion and the basement. Most people don't have basements in this town. I realize it's wet, you know, there's a lot of water here. So if it's seven feet according to the bog zoning, the potential is there to be livable. So they'd rather see you be livable. If you're going to call livable, it's livable. If you don't put the bedrooms in, then you're able to put them in because it's livable. That's what the 7 foot height goes for. So I think that's where, so if that comes out, okay, if the guy's got a 7 foot basement, that comes out of the equation, equation, and he's got a 10,000 square foot lot. Then he can build a 3,100 square foot house under the current zoning and still have that and still have a potential for the basement. So what happens when he puts, he's not supposed to build on a basement. So that's why I think it clears it up with, hopefully that clears up the basement. And the cellar thing was thrown in by the state. That was nothing to do. The state had all the hands all over that. I think what happened was they wanted the potential of some of the cellars or a basement, whatever you wanna call it, to be livable and buildable. But if you don't have the seven foot ceiling, It's not livable anyway. Maybe if you can get Wayne up here, if you don't ask him, maybe he knows that. So that might clarify at least that point up. But as far as the unrelated, and this unrelated law has been codified, it's going to the village of Belter of the United States Supreme Court. I don't know where it talks about that anymore. I was back in the 80s or the 90s. And that was held valid. Now the state wants to come along and throw one per bedroom. That's a little bit different than unrelated. So I think there's a little distinction there. And I think that has to be worked out before you really go forward with this. I appreciate my time. Thank you, Council. Thank you, Mr. Frandy. Oops. Who's next? Yes, please come forward. And good evening. Good evening. Hi. Please raise your rating. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Franklin Marinelli, F-R-E-N-K-L-I-N-M-A-R-I-N-E-L-L-I, and my address is 265 Bonapoint Road. Good evening. I'd like to express my strong support proposed amendments to the station to see the station. I'm going to go to the station to see the station. I'm going to go to the station to see the station. I'm going to go to the station to see the station. I'm going to go to the station. I'm going to go to the station. I'm going to go to the station. I'm going to go to the station. I'm going to go to the station. preserving it for many years. He became a very active member of the Bonnet Shores Fire District and was instrumental in the purchase of Kelly Beach for the Fire District, preserving it for public use by local Bonnet residents to this day. My grandmother was served as the president of the Bonnet Shores Women's Club. My father and mother built a house in Bonnet in 1971 when I was four. And over the years, my extended family and friends at both houses in Bonnet creating a large, a tight-knit group. Bonded is truly a special place, place. It is literally my favorite place in the world. years my extended family and friends at bought houses and bought it creating a large but tight-knit group. Botted is truly a special place, place. It is literally my favorite place in the world. Of course I eventually wanted to buy a house with my own and by 2004 I had saved enough money and found a small house. The first call that I made when I found that house was to this town hall to find out what the building codes and rules were. what I found out, I found it enormously encouraging. For a future improvement in the house, and I decided to go ahead and buy it. Living in the house for 21 years has had its challenges. The living area and basement are not internally connected. Also, every time we have to do everything downstairs, we have to go outside the house and back in, even in the winter. The house is very small, there's one bathroom and a chair between three adjacent small bedrooms, no sewers, no garage, the house is aging, et cetera, et cetera. By late 2023, I got married, my wife and I had fallen, my wife had fallen in love with Bonnet as well, and we saved up enough money to finally rebuild the house. Our designer drew up plans, but the day she arrived to show them to us, she said, unfortunately, you're not going to be able to build this. The town council had recently made local building codes that additional 15% more stringent in response to state laws attempting to loosen these codes. She told we narrowed gancet as historically really, really difficult to build them. So we decided to wait and hope for change. And then the election last November happened, and then was suddenly some hope. This is my story, but I know that there are many others like us who have been extremely frustrated with the restrictions on building a narrow-gance in. The current FAR and heart-scape limitations create non-reasonable and unnecessary restrictions to living area, houses that are beautiful, preserve their neighborhoods characters. Our character are appropriate for their lot size and respect setbacks and other neighborly considerations can be built without these limitations in place. This has already happened to many other coastal communities in Rhode Island. I'm not trying to build a hotel in a small neighborhood. I'm not trying to block anyone's view, and I'm not an out of state or who doesn't appreciate the special thing we have here in Narragansett. I just want a more comfortable house to retire in. The current building codes, the current building code restrictions especially on far and hard-scape coverage have made it impossible for us to do this as well as many others. For every person wants to build of course there's 10 people who want to maintain the status quo but to them I'd say imagine if If you were someone like me that lived your whole life waited and saved your entire adult life to build, maybe you'd think differently. I appreciate your attention and urge you to please vote for, yes, on the proposed zoning changes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else from the public wish to speak. All righty. Thank you. Good evening. I do. Jill Lawler, L.A.W., L-E-R, 63, Sarah Soda Avenue. Thank you. Good evening. So what we heard tonight was a clarification by Ms. Sabo from a hearing that this has continued from. And the question that seemed was the biggest question was from Mr. Durkin clarifying a basement from a seller. And I appreciate the council president addressing this initially because it seemed like this is why this was being slowed down. Now Miss Sabo came and she spoke very clearly about the fact that on the April 30th that the state house actually said that a seller, a basement, I'm sorry, a stricken from having actual living space. And it makes you think, sorry Mr. Jerrick, but that's why you want to push us through tonight. You want to change the definition to be a seller so you can have additional space. We heard from the attorney, our zoning attorney, that because far as being discussed again on May 5th when you have another public hearing, that what he advised was to listen to everyone here tonight, and then to hold off on making any types of votes tonight. Seems pretty good to me because you're going to be voting on this again, the far, on the 5th of May. I'm not quite sure what Mr. Durkin wants to push this through so fast tonight and not take the time to be able to allow the town to hear again what Ms. Sabah had said and let your colleagues listen again as well as have everybody else is going to be here on May 5th. There are not that many people here tonight to speak on it. I don't think anybody really thought this was happening. Not to mention this came out on a Thursday night right before a long weekend with holidays. So there's a lot here. you're trying to be transparent. So hold off, listen to your slister, hold off on this, don't vote on it on a first reading tonight. And then bring this back in May 5th and talk about the FAR again. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else from the public who wants to speak? All right, seeing none? Wayne, would you mind coming up for a quick second just to ask a clarifying question? Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. That's up to you. I think because you work for the town, right? Yeah. Or I'll just state my name. William Pimentel, the building official for the town. Now our Ganset. Thank you. Now a question that was presented earlier was the height limitations for sellers and or basements. Would you mind being able to provide us with some clarity and the public a response on that? Absolutely, thank you. So the definition of basement is portion, any portion of the building that is underground, if it's less than half of its clear height. So if you have an eight foot basement ceiling and four feet or less of it is below ground, then it's considered a basement. An example of that would be a raised ranch where half of it's below ground and the lower level half of it's above ground. A cellar is when you have half a more of that eight feet below the ground. In that case, it's considered a cellar. So most houses, if you have a ranch house, if you have a colonial house, and you have those small little bulkhead windows that show and everything else is below grade, that would be considered a cellar. Cellars are not exempt from the fire, only basement. So technically, only raised ranches would be exempt from the fire based upon the state law definitions. Thank you so much. Anyone else have any questions or comments for Wayne? Wailies up here. Wayne what happens to people who have built basements permitted and built basements on their own on weekends with their families and not really living area, but just extra maybe sleeping area for summer guests or whatever, you know, like stuff that happens in our cancer, you know, over the years. They're going to be all, would they be all, like prohibited, more or less or? So if there's any habitable living space that's in that basement area, number one, it would have to be at least seven feet in height for it to qualify under the building code as habitable space. But if there is any in a basement, first I'll talk about it legally if there was something built in there legally, then that would count towards the far. If something was built illegally and then we find out about it, we would either have them remove it or they would have to go through the process of permitting and also determine whether or not that additional living space would exceed the far which would then trigger some zoning variance requirements as well. So basically like how it's a meta-tuxet, you got 1,000 square feet, and somebody has finished baseband or some workshop down there with a bedroom and a cooler and maybe a lot of people putting kitchens back in the 60s in their basement without thinking they needed a permit to do that. They would come in and ask for a permit to extend part of their house and they'd have to disclose they have a basement and they probably couldn't go to step two right because 2,000 square feet on a 60 by 100 lot is pretty much, eats up your, yeah, they would probably be over the far. So that living space would certainly count towards the far, but if the ceiling height is above 6'11, the entire basement would count towards the far regardless of whether it's vacant and not used at all, it would still count. So I think, listening to one of those, Jill, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think one of the planning board meetings, they said there's 8,400, some standard lots in American sense when they were, you know, so 8,400 people are affected at least by this, right? And then, you know, it's important for the public to know that far doesn't exist on all lots, but they only exist on the small lots, which makes it so much harder for people to retire on their own lot. You know, it's like not everybody can just go by another house and buy a big a lot to buy a build a bigger house. They dreams ought to expand their house and you know, when they have some extra money, but they can't do it, you know, because of what we've put into place to fight out of stateers or whatever it is then. Yeah, I mean, I've equated similar to when a house is put on the market, the living area of the house is what is advertised as the size of the house, not the basement. Right. So if living, if basements that are not finished were a part of the equation, they probably should not count towards the far. They should be exempt from the far unless they are finished or they want to be finished then we would include them in the calculation. So would it be easier like if we just eliminated basements and sellers from the far calculations? Yeah based on the current definitions which I think the state kind of messed up, it would probably be prudent to just exempt both of them. Thank you. And again, I know we're going to be revisiting all of this again, which is why it's been shared tonight, the desire by some residents to continue this. And I mean, in full transparency, that is going to be my wish as well. Because I do think that there's a lot of layers here that are going to need to be addressed. I'm not in favor of rushing the process. But I do have one more question for you as well. And I'm sorry, if I'm taking up so much air time before you guys. Can you just clarify the number of instances or issues that have been brought to your desk as a result of sellers and basins being included in FAR? Yeah, after the FAR was introduced in the rest of the town a few years ago, I did get calls and some concerns complaints from residents that they were not able to put an addition on their house because basements which over six foot 11 were counting towards the far. So it automatically put them over the limit. And at that point, you know, the town was holding a pretty strong position on granting any type of variances so they wouldn't even bother to submit their applications knowing that they would probably get denied. But I did get a good number of calls and concerns about the fact that the basements put them over the far. So people, again, just to reiterate, if you already had an existing from, say, like a 1970s house and you had a basement over that height, there would be issues potentially about just adding on or developing and updating the house today's standards. That's correct and that would be regardless of whether or not the basement remained vacant, whether you just had your washer and dryer down there and the rest of it was used for storage, that was considered living space. Okay, thank you. And I know I'm gonna ask you to come back to future meetings as well, just hope you're ready. Councillor Collinies, do you have any questions or comments? Just a quick question. Would you be able to detail the criteria of living space? Living space we consider it habitable space which would be areas for living, sleeping, or preparing food such as a kitchen. More to my point, you'd said seven feet is the minimum threshold. That is what the code, that's the minimum height for in the building code to be considered habitable space. Then could you explain some of those other metrics that go into defining living space? Anything under that would not be. There are exemptions for bathrooms and hallways, which can be less than that. There's also exemptions in the code for basements under beams, under ductwork, but that's more for non-habitable space. But seven feet is pretty much the cutoff threshold as to what constitutes habitable space or not. That's really the only indicator. Yes. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Councillor Connelly's any questions? I just wanted to read this one more time so I have this straight. When selling a house we don't count the basements or sellers as living space. Even if they are living space they probably would count it. But if they're not living spaces and they're just selling. Yeah, I've never seen typically you know, typically 3000 square feet house would be 3000 square feet of living space, which would be habitable space. Right. Which begs the question that I have about concluding them in far as well. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks, really appreciate your time. Is there anyone here who hasn't spoken who would like to speak, who hasn't done so already? I think I just contradicted myself. Please come forward. Joseph JOSEPH, Volte VOLPE, 21 Harbor Island Road, and Narragans. I had my niece and my niece over yesterday. She just moved here or to New York Kingstown, right on the border of North Kingstown, and Narragansett. And she lives with a mom, and they were telling me, she's having a tough time affording or saving up the money to buy a house, obviously, in Narragansk or anywhere in Washington County. And her mom was telling her how they're renovating their basement or actually it's not a basement, it's over the garage, they're renovating a space over the garage. So that she can live comfortably and modestly until she can save up money for a house. It's an example that I think some of the younger people in this generation are going to have to do in order for the house. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, firemen, that are handy that can renovate something, and then use that income to a affordable house. It also provides housing for a younger, smaller family. So in the gentleman from Bonnet mentioned his story. The fireman, my niece, her mom, when she gets older, there's a lot of elderly that can't afford places. My point is, and it's a mantra that's been coming up a lot of meetings. Not everything is about Mr. Durkin. Not everything is about the fact that he did very well from self and real estate. And I appreciate some of the comments. I'm a resident, and I sit with the residents. But to focus on one person and forget about the 8,200 lots or the gentleman from Bonnet or the kids that are having trouble finding housing, the elderly that are going to have trouble finding housing, I think is misguided. I think we have to look at the big picture. There's a lot of people that are involved in these decisions we make with zoning. I two attended three of the four zoning meetings, which is educational and very enlightening. There's a lot of things we can do. But I'm just getting sick and tired of hearing everything being revolved around that one comment and my fear is that we're not looking at the big picture and looking up some of the opportunities for everybody else that's involved. So I think these accessory dwelling units are a wonderful thing. I think they're going to provide opportunities. And I think anything that we can look at that is legal and not going outside the far that does provide these opportunities is something we should do and I guess guess let's just stop focusing on one thing and look at the picture. That makes sense. All right, thank you for your time. Thank you. Anyone else from the public who should speak? Mrs. Onferlo. So help me, God. Paul's on Trillo, PAUL, ZON, FRI, LLO, seven winward circle. I find myself in the rare agreement with Mr. Volpe. We do have to look at the big picture because what we're looking at is all the corner cases here, really. And there's a saying when the facts aren't behind you, you argue for emotion, right? And everybody's talking about the sob stories and, oh, what do we really think an ADU is gonna end up doing? And I think Mr. Durkins' response was really telling or whatever, the outer stators. To not acknowledge we've got a massive problem here, and zoning is going to open this town up to unbelievable destruction. Houses are going to be knocked down. I saw a house, it was about $600,000 on the market, really small ranch, big lot. For that $600,000 a developer can buy it, put two duplexes up to ADUs and have a revenue stream of around $100,000 a year. That's the big picture. The big picture is any zoning relaxing that's going to be done is going to be used to drive more money because for folks who live here, it's about, oh oh we love it. I love that everybody has to tell they're bonafides like I've been here I have good intention. Do you really know where you live? Do you really know what's going to happen here? And Mr. Durkins the largest landowner in the town absolutely should be the focus of these discussions because he's not even acknowledging that we don't have a problem. And capital finds away money flows to where it's going to be made. You know a few years ago somebody was selling the house next door to me and they told me I asked who you're selling it to. goes, well, I spoke to one guy from Australia. It's like Australia. He said, yeah, I spoke to a guy from Australia. I said, oh, was it shrimp on the Barbie, good day mate. You know, crocodile Dundee, he goes, no, he was an investor. And he said, I don't even have to see the house or ever come to Narragansett. I just want to know what the financials and the cash flow is. So seller, basement, we know any expansion is going to end up in the big picture. Any expansion or loosening of the building code in the big picture is going to drive more investment into this town. You look down the street. It's not going to look like houses anymore. It's going to look like a bunch of duplexes. And we see, I mean, the story is wonderful. Well, we love it here. Investors see how much money can I make per square foot? How much money can I make per square foot in the house? How much can I build on the lot? That's all they care about, just like that guy from Australia. So yes, we are trying to protect from people that just want to invest in this town and make money. And there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with capitalism, but there are places to make money and places not to make money. And who pays the price? We're going to pay the price. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else from the public wish to speak during this hearing? Who hasn't done so already? Okay. Seeing none, I will turn it back to the council for open discussion. So, as far as where I stand, I understand that there was an extensive number of proposed amendments that were sent to the Planning Board for review. I am actually, I have their response here in this giant binder. And I am sympathetic to whoever had to print and put all of this together for us, but I appreciate all of the efforts that were put together as, and also the extensive amount time that the planning board and Jill worked on to put this review together for us. So very much look forward to reviewing all of the recommendations that are in here and to also give a sound by and a reminder to everyone. And again, this will include the Council for Conversation I promise. But I do want to take a moment to remind everyone that May 5th will be the hearing for the 14 amendments that were proposed because we're required as interpreted and the solicitor can correct me if I'm wrong. We are required to open the public hearing for those extensive number of amendments within a 65 day time frame from the point in which we sent it to the planning board for review. So the planning board was given 45 days for review and we have 20 days, just 20 days, to open the public hearing. That is why I am explaining this to you now, that on May 5th, I don't want there to be too high of expectations because we also have the budget hearing, the town's budget hearing scheduled that night as well. So that is two very large public hearings and we do have to buy law or rule we have to get through that the town's budget hearing on May 5th. It is my intention to encourage the council to support a continuance of the public hearing once it is opened on May 5th so that the town, the council, the planning board in collaboration with the council hopefully will thoroughly review and vet and hold an extensive number of public hearings to get through all of the amendments that were sent to the planning board. So there is no timeline for which the town council has to close the public hearing, but at the point in time in which we decide to close the public hearing, we then have, I believe, what is it, 45 or 65 days to make a determination? 45 days. So I just want to let you all know that the public hearing for the 14 amendments on May 5th, we're not, we're not going to be addressing all 14 amendments. It's probably going to be mostly scheduling out and communicating additionally what it is that we're going to be doing in the process in which we're going to review, just like the planning board did on the first day of their review. So with that being. I would like to thank you for your time. I would like to thank you for your time. and I thought I would like to settle it tonight. I'm not sure if we can get in the way that we're going to get in the way that we're going to get in the way that we're going to get in the way that we're going to get in the way that we're going to get in the way that we're going to get in the way that we're going to get in the way that we're going to get in the way that we're going to get in the way that we're going to expect additional changes from the state. I realize that this is 2024 changes that we are just now getting around to. When would we expect 2025 changes to be revealed to us, drafted and before us that we might be able to enact it? Slash does 24 changes need to be on the books before 25 changes can be read and enacted. Okay, that was a lot. Yes. So there are 11 right now, 11, we anticipate a few more, proposed changes coming from the General Assembly. We won't know what comes out of the wash until the end of June. So from there, to be honest, Councilor Torielde, we haven't spent a lot of time in our office looking at the General Assembly changes because we've been focusing on the 14 amendments. So that's the next thing on my personal calendar is to get through those 2025 and see what changes now as I have been following them since February There's nothing There might be a couple of minor changes to ADU, but I don't think anything that dramatically affects the drafted ordinance That's in front of you today meaning there's no additional changes that I'm aware of for household definitions or manufactured housing or any of the other. The development plan review, which is part of this change. When we could have something when the planning division, my department, could have something to the planning board and they could have something to you, really all depends on what the scope of those changes are. So we were, we could see the writing on the wall last year, we had a different, a little bit about different staff configuration last year, we didn't have, we're missing someone. So we were able to move a little faster, just different things. So I wouldn't want to promise to you, August, but we would do our very best to have something to you for those 2025 changes, presuming they are effective upon passage by late summer. And do these... That's pending, by the way, that's pending anything else that comes down the pipe. Understood there. Do the 24 changes need to be codified and on the books for 25 changes to be codified and adopted? They don't have to be. No. They're already, the town is already adhering to the Stale Law. As I mentioned last time, we are already adhering to the Stale as I mentioned last time we are already adhering to the state law so we're not the reason why it's helpful is because an applicant one of the complaints that I've heard and I'm sure Mr. Pimentel can agree with this is people don't know where to look because some of the changes are in our municodes some of them are in form, which haven't been brought into the municode yet. And some of them, like this 2024 legislation, you have to go to the state to find out what the rule is. So when we can incorporate it into our local zoning ordinance, it's one less stop an applicant has to make in order to find out what the regulation is. Thank you. I'm actually one more question. Would it be your recommendation that we pass this tonight? I think that the vast majority of the draft in front of you does not seem disputed amongst the four of you. There are, there's potential that the, some of it, particularly with the FAR may change again after May 5th, but I, you know, it could cross that bridge when you get to it. All right. No more questions. Thank you. Councillor Colleany's any questions? Oh, sorry. I just want to ask this, Senator. I don't. Did you recommend continuing this? I don't remember. No, you were. I think my famous lawyer phrase was it depends when I was asked earlier. So to follow up on that, it depends on what the desire of the council would be this evening and trying to quickly envision what may come up in the first week of May to see if there's a conflict there. So some input from the council would be helpful and I just cleared that with Mr. Callahan as well. So if we did vote on this tonight and like I again like section one I have some issues with and then we got to far in the next public hearing we could probably deal with those issues then right. Right if you're going to continue this matter tonight you'd have to do it to a date certain to keep that public hearing open. Theoretically, you could continue to a date or expect to address far. Not that you know that right now, but it's up to you really. I'm sorry. Can I ask Councillorertekin. Yes. Till Jason. So by delaying this, delays people from securing permits for ADUs. Or does it hamper people to move ahead with ADUs in any way? I don't think that was addressed when I was here anyway. Was that discussed? No. I think the only issue that might come up is whether ADUs are counted towards far. That makes sense. Would if you propose an ADU on your lot, does far include the ADU in the primary residence? Or is it just the primary residence? So I think that's a question that's being asked too. That's one of the questions I think I asked you the other day. Like if somebody wants to build an ADU, an ADU is an accessory structure, right? So if an ADU is a certain amount of square feet, do certain setbacks kick in that I've got to prevent somebody from building an ADU? Well, ADU's are by right uncertain lots, certain areas. And accessory structures have certain setbacks, which apply to ADU's. The thing that differentiates Narragansett is the far has limitations. So the question I think that you should answer, because it's going to come up with Wayne down the line, and he's not going to answer this, does FAR apply to the residents and the ADU or just the residents? And since they're by right, according to state law and some respects, in some certain instances, I mean, I think you'd probably lean towards excluding an ADU from FAR. but that's a decision I think you have to make. It's not addressed in state law. Yeah. So, like Jill said, it seems like there's consensus on a part of this ordinance. And because we have so many ordinances in front of us, I mean, it just seems like can we get some of it past? You know, like there's a lot of stuff here. And it's been sitting around since 2024. And we're not going to finish with this stuff until, where it's not an in May, we, we'll be up for reelection by the time this stuff, you know, they pass this stuff at lightning speed and we're doing that like turtle speed and I'd like to just, you know, and it's not for my benefit, it's just for people's benefit to just do their business and it just seems like there's delay, delay, delay, you know? And I don't know. I'll go with whatever you guys want to do. But I think we could, if we can't pass it all tonight, and agree on all of it tonight. Jim, can I ask you a question? Section one is the only issue that I have a product. Do you have other problems with the slides?'t have any other problems except far Basements and sellers and what's bases and what's yeah, can you just elaborate on what's specifically in far just so that Just the general public can and I can understand what specific issues in far. I mean, I know what I mean That's for a different night. Yeah, I know. I mean, I don't mind telling you. No, that's fine. I just if it's preventing you from Well, this is this is as far as basements to go with you know, so I mean as far as far goes that's gonna be address one of the nights after me a through right? but I think you know, there can be some negotiation on far, but I don't think there should be negotiation on basements and sellers and crossbases with far. So we can— Sorry. But that we can, I guess if that's— you know, if that's going to break up the vote then we should. No, I mean, this is just a general consensus gathering of feedback. So if your desire is to move it forward for first reading. And except tonight then that's where you stand. I just want to get a general see where your head's at. Councillor Collinies and Councillor Torriol, if you wouldn't mind providing your feedback if your desire would be an apologize Councillor Torriol, I believe you already said it. But can you reiterate your desire on whether or not you wish to continue this or if you would prefer to vote on this tonight. I would like to vote on it tonight. Okay. Just looking at it real quick, it does say the computation of gross floor. Hold on, I'm sorry. So presently basements are included in far. With sellers not being a part of it. Because that's living space. Please. Okay. Okay, so the way you're looking at it if you're on page two. Yep. Okay so you see the strikeout of basements and the addition of seller. So the state law in 2024 has already removed the computation of basements from FAR. That is what the town is currently following. The word seller was in place because the town, the town in 2021 included both basements and sellers. And so, basement was removed and seller was replaced with it because the state didn't remove the requirement for seller only basement and the planning board was only contemplating the changes the mandated changes from 2024 they weren't going above or beyond or outside of that realm and making any other determinations on any other portions of the ordinance related to FAR so that's what you see so basement So basement has already been removed at the state level. We are trying to, the intention with the planning boards draft was to clean it up to show that basement has been removed. Okay. Don't hate me for this one. Cellars not included or they are. Cellar right now is drafted is included. And that's what you see on page two. That sellers are portions thereof, finished or unfinished, shall be counted. Because they always were counted. They were always originally counted. And the planning board wasn't making any decisions on any other portion of FAR, other than what the state was mandating, which was the removal of basements. Why was finished status consideration? One more time. Finishing status, what finished or unfinished? Why was that given consideration and added specifically? Originally, I believe the original consideration was because anything unfinished could be finished if it met the ceiling height. Understood. Thank you. So Councillor Torialde with the feedback, I'm just trying to develop a consensus here because I don't want to call a vote and then have it not go forward after we've closed the public hearing if we decide to close the public hearing. There are two council members who wish to put this up for a vote. I have expressed my desire to continue it. What is your where do you stand on this? I think we should proceed with the vote. All. All right. Well, the consensus being that we will move forward with the vote this evening. Is there a motion to close the public hearing? This is a first reading, right? No, this is to accept. It's a motion to introduce, read, pass, and accept. Oh. Oh, it's a first reading, excuse me. But we don't close it, right? Do I? Right. If you're going to make any, unless you're going to pass it or deny it in full, you should talk about any changes you might want to make during the public hearing before you close. So I'm not sure which way you're going right now. There's what the content is. So that was something we should address. So if any changes are being proposed, and this is where that's why I was recommending continuance. It's because I know that there's going to be additional comments and issues that get addressed during the 14 amendment hearings that we're likely to have. But again, I also know that this is another added layer to it. So my question is if there were issues or changes that were going to be proposed by any one on the council here, would the hearing then have to get continued in order to address the recommended changes? Right. What I think we should do if you have amendments to the text that he should let us know us in Miss Able, what those are, then we can draft those up for the next meeting, the public hearing, whatever meeting you said it to, that public hearing would be set at a certain date, and then you can have those tax amendments in writing, so they're available. But if we close the public hearing, it's to what you can't do that. We don't. If you close the public hearing now, you have to vote on it as it's written. That's what my understanding is. Okay. So can I suggest something to Alex? Yeah. So I don't, you know, I can count. So I'm just figuring, you know, I'm a little confused then. I think that it was mentioned earlier that we could pass nine tens of this and eliminate basements and sellers as related to FAR and continue that portion to a date certain and at least we know going into May 8th something that we don't need to talk about or we can still talk about it I guess guess, if the... I'm not sure about that. I don't think there's any work around that. Since it's already been advertised, we would have to talk about it one way or another. Yeah. By understanding what you're saying about the stream line. You know what I'm trying to say? If it's the council's wishes to move part of it forward, we just need direction, I guess, as far as that goes without messing things up. And we can leave out basements and it's weird how things are located in this. So I don't... So I guess to clean up what Jim is asking here is if the amendment is to the proposed amendment is to remove sellers and basements from the inclusion of FAR at this time, can the hearing still be closed and then voted upon as written or does it need to be amended and then continued and then discussed again, but the irony here is we're going to be discussing that same topic anyway, and an upcoming hearing, starting May 5th anyway. I think we'd prefer that just for safety sake, that it stays open to give us a chance to get it down in writing. That's the safer way to do it, I think. Otherwise we're kind of in half in, half out. I don't know exactly where we'd be. Yep. OK. So with that feedback now, does anyone on the council have any second thoughts or opinions on the matter? Or do you still wish to move forward with the vote this evening? So that's a complicated thing, even more. If we were to recommend, like Jim said, that we wanted sellers and basements removed from this, we could make the recommendation right now and then continue. Yes, we'd prefer that you, any recommendations that you have a consensus on that you think as a group or individually you'd want us to consider it. We can get that in writing into you in advance of the next meeting. It'll be posting the agenda and then you guys can hopefully take a look and say this is what we want. If it's not what you want, we can do it again. But we hope to have that clarity tonight. So, I mean, I can make a motion and see where it goes. And then, unless anyone else, like you guys have any other follow-up questions before Jim makes his motion. If we were to proceed with that course of action, would we need to continue this hearing? Yeah, we make it make a motion to amend the text. Be seconded. Discuss that. And then continue hearing after that decision. Whatever it is. To a date certain. Correct. What would the advertising window need to be for that? Slesh, would we need to advertise? You wouldn't have to, basically, keeping the public hearing open. Got it. I'm going to have to do that. I'm going to do that. What would the advertising window need to be for that? Slesh would we need to advertise? You wouldn't have to, basically, keeping the public hearing open. Got it. Okay. What would the advertising window need to be for that? Slesh, would we need to advertise? You wouldn't have to, basically, keeping the public hearing open. Got it. All right, Councillor Dirkman. Make a motion to pass the audience as written. I mean, as written minus basements and cellas as they relate to far. I'm trying to process that way you're saying here. You're trying to propose a motion to pass this as written minus. Basements in cellars as they relate to far. Okay. Is there a second to have them work on the amendments and then once we have it certain vote on and all at once. Versus peace mailing it out. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm up for anything. Yeah, I guess my confusion is with the proposed motion is the and I understand where you're coming from but striking basements and sellers from the consideration. I believe we would still need to continue the hearing to address that. But I think what you're saying is you're recommending that those be stricken from far. I don't think you need to make a motion on that. That's just your recommendation. Unless you're recommending that we vote on this. Well, the reason I was making that motion was so we could pass the rest of this ordinance and that portion would be left out. And I believe if I'm understanding. But they're recommending not to do that. Well, yeah. I mean, from what I've gathered is because it's a significant text change and removal, that it would just be more advisable to make that recommendation now., if it's the consensus of the council, then that can be removed and then at a later time in which we're addressing far and this at the same time, same evening, hopefully, we can then vote on it that evening potentially. You know, we could close that hearing and then vote on it that evening or vote on it at the next council meeting. That's great. I mean, you can do what you want to do, but we prefer to do it in one swoop rather than pieces tonight and a piece later on if that's possible. Okay. Well, that's... I guess we do the whole thing. So Councillor Dirkian has proposed his recommendation. I've proposed my recommendation. Where do you both stand on this? I would prefer to follow the solicitors' recommendation. I'd like to do it at once as opposed to peace-melling it out. I would as well like to propose the amendments that Councillor Jirkin is actually asking for. And then have those remain. Are you in consensus or agreement I should say about the proposed changes that Councillor Dirkken has made about removing both seller and basement from consideration of FAR in the definition? Yes. Okay. Are there any additional proposed changes at this time with what we're reviewing here that you would like to make? Biring in mind that we will still be continuing a thorough review of FAR at a later time. No. Councillor Holland, is there anything else? Out of this time. Oh, sorry. Okay. Thank you. So then my, the general consensus of the council would be to continue it to a date certain and then my question for you, Sarah, would be to what dates do we have available? Everything seems to be taking up time so fast. So I did just look it up. Currently we only have over the summer months if that's what we're looking for. We only have one public hearing that's scheduled, that's the July 21st Police Street Market review. So any other meetings, even that one if you chose to. I mean, hopefully based on your discussion tonight, this one would not be extraordinarily long. I don't think, I hope not. I mean, it's been what an hour tonight. This one would not be extraordinarily long. I don't think I hope not. I mean, it's been what an hour tonight. So if we've had the direction, you basically understand what you want. We understand what you want. That next hearing date shouldn't be too lengthy. I hope that's my guess. And I guess my question back to you would be we don't have to close the 14 amendment hearing before being able to move forward with the vote on this. No. Okay. So then my recommendation then would be where are we the 21st? I would recommend consideration on May 19th if that works. That way we ideally address this issue and possibly continuing the discussion of FAR with another public hearing should that one be continued as well. So that means we'll probably end up putting far on from a 8 because if we didn't, right? You mean the 19th? No, the first meeting. Well, May 5th, we have to open it anyway. So we would just open it and if the council decides, I'm proposing that we discuss far as well as this on the 19th. 19th, yeah. Okay. Because this is a big issue that a lot of people in the public have been concerned about and invoiced their opinions on both sides and a lot of extensive amount of time has been dedicated to a review of this as well. So that would be my proposal. Do you guys agree with that? Or do you think June 2nd, June 19th? I'm sorry, May 19th. Make a motion for May 19th. Mr. Chair, I want to have a question. I noticed you're working with wanting to do this. I'm starting a party day motion that would draw that motion to make this thing. I'll withdraw my motion. No. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. And the motion could be May 19th. So as a motion to continue the meeting, continue the hearing, excuse me, to May 19th. Second. Any additional discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes for zero. I think that is the end of our public hearing. Excellent. Thank you. We don't close it. Yeah. All right. So now we are on the open forum portion of our meeting. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to speak on any items that are not on the agenda this evening? Please be honest. I'm still hand-leafed on a list. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, please start with those who have signed up by apologies. Thank you. John Handley. And please state your name and address and three minutes will be allotted. Thank you. John Hanley, 10-row-low-strive. Whenever I speak publicly, I try to be absolutely certain that my arguments are very futile and based on 100% fact. At the last council meeting, there was a cuffuffle where I immediately defended my right to speak over the unlawful attempt by the town of Tournament to keep me quiet. President Menzi is allowed me to speak. At that time, I was 100 percent certain that the public hearing could be delayed should the council choose to do so. However, I made a mistake. I was surprised and embarrassed against somewhat panicking with a 20-cal again stated that the scheduling was statutory, which completely disrupted the foundation of my upcoming argument. After I had pushed so hard to speak, I was now uncertain of a key fact. Where did I get the impression the council had additional kind of a scheduling of public hearing? I have heard a planning board meeting of March 18th at about 57 minutes in, with Towner 20 Salitro stated emphatically in with certainty that based on state law, quote, at that juncture the time clock for the town council starts, they didn't have to hold a public hearing over 65 days. End of quote. That juncture was when the council received a planning board's response. At the last planning board meeting, then at the last council meeting, I asked it to any solicitor who chairman great if he stood by his previous statement. The response was purely legalese, essentially saying that it didn't matter, a press of integrity that responded, I made a mistake. On a separate note, let's go back to the last council meeting where there were two public hearings. Seven people testified no one was sworn in. To summarize, the Attorney Calean was wrong to attempt to deny me by right to speak. Two, I was incorrect in my original fact finding, luckily I quit it in time. From now on, I will rely on primary source material. Three, a 20-semitral refuses to acknowledge an obvious mistake. And four, a 20-caliant allows public hearing testimony without swearing in witnesses. Two takeaways. If the council is so concerned about minimizing lawsuits against the town, I would consider different legal counsel. Clearly both public hearings most likely would be considered null and void should someone wish to pursue legal action against the town. Personally, I will not be seeking legal advice from those law firms who present the town. I will be sticking with Judge Jody. Thank you. Anyone else from the public wish to speak? Mr. Maranello, you are on the list. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry about that. OK, thank you. Oh, thank you. Forget there's a list, too. Thank you. Oh, thank you. I forget there's a list too. Thank you. It's a long meeting. Good afternoon. Good evening. Jill Lawler. Sarah Sout Avenue. I have a quick question. I know that you may or may not answer the question, but just a statement for the short-term rental ordinance, Mr. Durkin, did recuse himself and I respect you for that. And you actually did leave the room when the discussion happened. So my question is as far as the 14 amendments that are becoming up in May 5th, even as well as as the the the 80 years we spoke about tonight, do you intend to recuse yourself on those decisions and also leave the chamber when the discussion takes place? I'll leave that to you to answer. I don't have to answer that. You don't have to answer that. You don't have to answer that. You don't have to answer. Thank you. But if your intention is not to, council president, I would ask that you do ask the State Ethics Commission for their vowing in on that. Because, you know, and I hear from Mr. Volby, and I do agree with them, there is a larger issue here, but ultimately for all the laws and all the votes in town, it's the five of you. And we can't hide from the fact that when Mr. Durkin is making his vote, he does have a lot of opportunity to make financial gain. So just with that, appreciate the question and answer. Thank you. Thank you. Next person on the list is Lenny Guglielmi. Let's call for Lenny. Nope. Alright. Anyone else? Jim? Okay. Anyone else from the public was to speak who has not done so already for open form? Thank you. Okay. On to the rest of our meeting. On to consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve as presented consent agenda items D1, D2, D3, D4 and D5? So moved. Second. Any discussion? All those in favour? Aye. Councillor Dirkian. Aye. Thank you. Sorry. Nope, that's all right. Any opposed? Motion passes for zero. Next on to new business from the police department. Is there a motion to approve the police department's request to hire one probationary patrol officer? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Anyone from the public? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes for zero. On to the Parks and Rec Department. Is there a motion to approve a new five-year use agreement between Nairganc and Youth Sports in the Parks and Recreation Department, beginning July 1st, 2025 and ending June 30th, 2030, and authorize the town manager to sign the agreement. So Mo, second. Discussion? Anyone from the council have any questions or comments? Anyone from the public? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes for zero. Next, is there a motion to approve a request from the Narragansett Parks and Recreation Department to sponsor with a Narragansett Lions Club in hosting a blood drive and stake fry? Okay. I am now on Friday, May 2, 2025, between the hours of 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. subject to state and local regulations. So moved. Second. Who second to that? Thank you. Right. Any discussion? I will just make a comment that I've really appreciated the Rhode Island Blood Center coming out to provide us with that presentation earlier this evening. And again, recommend anyone from the public if you have the time to show your support for this wonderful family and need as well as your community. They're very much in need of blood donations, especially this time of year. And that will be May 2nd at Clark Road from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Any discussion from the public? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Sorry. Any opposed? Motion passes for zero. Onto public works. Is there a motion to adopt a proclamation recognizing Arbor Day 2025 and the importance of trees and narrow-gances? So I'm going to second. Discussion. Now I don't have the physical copy in front of me so I will read it as written if that works. Okay. So the proclamation reads a town of of Narragclamation reads, a town of Narragansett 2025, Arbor Day Proclamation, whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation and the world, and whereas trees can be a solution to combating climate change by reducing the erosion of our precious topsoil by wind and water, lowering our heating costs, moderating the temperature, cleaning the air, producing oxygen and providing habitat for wildlife, and whereas trees are a renewable resource giving us paper wood for our homes, fuel for our fires and countless other wood products, and whereas trees in our town increase property values enhance the economic vitality of business areas and beautify our community and whereas trees wherever they are planted are a source of joy and spiritual renewal now therefore the town council of the town of Narragansett does hereby proclaim April 25th, 2025, as Arbor Day and the town of Narragansett in urges all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day and support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands. Dated the 21st day of April 2025. So there is a motion to adopt on the floor. Any comments or questions from the council? Anyone from the public? Seeing none, all those in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes for zero. Next. So I have a question since we voted to continue this, do I remove this from the agenda now or do we vote on this to continue? How does that work? I'm just asking our solicitors for guidance on this. Item H1 from Community Development. I think your best bet is probably to move that May 19th. Do I need a cast of vote or can I just say I want to move that to May 19th? I think it would be good if it would. Is there a motion to move item H1, a motion to introduce, read, pass, and accept as a first reading in ordinance and amendment of appendix A of the code of ordinances of the town of Narragance of Rhode Island and title zoning to amend text in compliance with the state statute changes from 2024 to May 19th. So moved. Second. Discussion. Anyone from the public? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes for zero. Thank you. Also from community development, is there a motion to discuss the alteration of freshwater wetlands at zero marble road? Is that a typo or is that actually zero? It's on built. Oh, thank you. road, thank you. And authorize staff to submit a letter of objection to C.R.M.C. Somo. Is there a second? Second. Discussion. I welcome anyone who wants to come forward. Thank you. Not anyone. I knew you were ready to speak on it. Thank you for being here. Members of the council, I am John Gower. He an attorney representing approximately 35 neighbors of Star Drive, Star Drive West. The model, Mobile Road is a private, undeveloped road, which is before the CRMC. Your Conservation Commission has issued a strong recommendation to deny the recommendation based upon evidence and testimony from Save the Bay and the Narrow River Preservation Association. We would strongly suggest you follow their recommendations and recommend to CRMC that they deny the application. Excuse me. We have also argued strenuously that the application should not even be before CRMC because it includes. Most of the alterations are in a private road, which is not a public road, and they have not asked the abutters who actually own that road to join the application. So our contention is that the application is not properly before the CRMC. We have made that abundantly clear in our comments to CRMC and will continue to stress that point before CRMC. For environmental reasons, for legal reasons, we would suggest and ask you to follow the recommendation of the Narragansett Conservation Commission and and formally object to the proposed application before the CRMC. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else from the public wish to speak on this? I thought I saw someone. Please say your name and address. And My name is John Jay Karnie and I am one of the butters that live Right next to marble road there like Jimmy you were there years ago You saw that it's full of water. Yeah, I look that you look that yeah, you saw it's a ver pool. I built my house right next to it. I had to move my house 10 feet further away from it to be with it outside of them 100 feet from the wetlands, considered at the time. Now, sudden, we're still going to fill it in. We're going to build a road there. It makes no sense to me. And then they want to put the water closer to my house. I mean, I have enough trouble with the water. I don't need more water coming at me. I ask you guys to really accept this. Thank you. Anyone else from the public? We speak on this? Yes, please come forward. Good evening. Good evening. Please state your name and address. Patricia Federico, Nine Wilson Drive. Thank you. Mary Anson. Thanks for the opportunity to speak to this. We have a beautiful town with open space, wetlands, waterways, fresh and salt water, and all very important for the health of our environment and our community. As residents, board members and council members, sorry, I'm a very proud member of our Conservation Commission. As residents, board members and council members, I believe it's our job to protect and conserve the natural beauty and well-being of this town. Unfortunately, not every lot is a developable lot, and I'm asking you to support the Conservation Commission's objection of the alteration of freshwater wetlands at zero marble road and submit a letter of objection to CRMC. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else from the public or should speak on this matter? All right. Anyone from the council have any other comments? Has this been before the planning board and the zoning board or hasn't even gone there yet? It was before the zoning board in 2023 And it was, there was a couple of variances they needed and I think that did pass was approved. But it's still still going to see him see for future approval. That's correct. If that's incorrect then please correct. So Mr. Calean is correct. It did go before the zoning board in 2023. At that point in time, the town had already lost its local regulation. Its ability to locally regulate freshwater wetlands. And their proposed infill was in the right of way. It wasn't on the lot. So the only relief that was sought at that time, and it should have been part of your package that decision. You can see both the planning board was not supportive of the infill. They made that statement twice, I believe. And the zoning board as well. But the only relief that was being sought at the time was the road frontage variance. In other words, they needed relief to be able to, the ordinance 25.1 says that you have to improve the road improve the road for the length of your property and they couldn't do that because there's a wetland in that road. So they received relief just to not complete the road for the entire length of the property. Any other questions or comments? So why is it before the council? Is it because the Conservation Commission is? Yes, they asked the town council to make a recommendation based on their or based on that. So in lieu of the municipality, being able to locally regulate the state, either DEM or CERMC, in this case, DEM, the alternative plan was that when projects came through them, they would submit the application to the local municipality and give those, you know, respective boards, whatever it might be. This happens often with doc applications or things like that aquaculture that goes to the Harbor Management Commission. This, not this council, not made up of these folks, but previous councils have seen request for letters of objection from the Harbor Management Commission before. So in this case, this application went to CEREMC. It was provided from the Harbor Management Commission before. So in this case, this application went to CIRM-C. It was provided from the state to the town for the opportunity to comment. And it went before our Conservation Commission and they are asking you, they did comment. They put that in a letter to you and they're asking you to formally object. They are a board appointed by you. And Jill was there any other option for the person to build on the lot besides going through mobile road is there another road that's available to them or is it just landlocked by so that landlocked by the only access to that road, a lot is, Maapa Road? The lot sits on marble road. Right. Yeah, so I don't know. I mean, I remember looking at that piece of property, that was pretty wet. But, it's hard to say somebody, I don't know. I'm surprised we're the ones that actually say yes or no on that, but I guess we're just saying it. It's being recommended to come to us. More authority coming from the council. And I do appreciate, Jill, for all of the resources that you provided on this item. It did help to provide a lot of clarity for all the background and the property itself. So, thank you very much. So I guess they- The chairman of the conservation commission here as well, Ryan Fonday, he needs to speak to someone who's at the meeting. Excellent. So, if they're going to, like, maybe they need to amend their application or something like that, I don't know. I don't know. I'm sure that. Well, I guess from a process perspective, should we recommend a recommend objection here? And then it goes to the CRMC. They can choose to ignore our objection. I don't know why they would do that, but crazier things have happened. If the CRMC decides to go forward with our recommendation of objection, what then would happen after that? So correct, so both things can happen. And that has happened before, in fact. This board has recommended, has formally objected to a project which has then later been approved. And conversely, this board has formally objected to a project through CIRM-C for aquaculture and for docs which has been, you know, what it does is it puts the applicant in a position where they revise their project to make their project approvable. So, likely that would, hopefully that would be the outcome in this case that the project could be, could be, presuming it could be revised to be approvable. Excellent. Ultimately though, this board does, or this council does not make that decision, it does go to CREMC. It is an application before them and not before you. Right. Thank you. Really appreciate their clarity. So just to add on to that, this is just a recommendation to say an objection letter. So it's no way, just because I've been learning so much about zoning in ordinances. No way does it affect that H792 bill? Do you know what I'm talking about? There can be no local regulation of coastal wetlands and things of that nature. No, this is different. This is actually the state starting their legislative party. It's all right. Make sure. Councillor Toriale, any questions or comments? Just looking at the information packet provided to us, I don't think they really have a case here. I believe the stipulation is that you have to have 100 foot buffer on their application and in the site map they have a 50 foot buffer. So I mean, just on technicalities right there, it's invalid in my eyes. Just with proximity to the wetland. Yeah. So you would be in support of the objection? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Anyone from the public who hasn't done so already on this? And for me, they had me at Save the Bay in RPA and the Conservation Commission was a nice touch on top because really, really appreciate their, everything that they do for preservation protection of our wildlife and air against it. If this is something that they're objecting to and recommending that we do as well, I say we get behind them and do the same. So unless anyone has any other comments or questions, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes for zero. Thank you. On to the engineering department. Is there a motion to refer the request from Michael Vickers in regard to Platte D. Lot 163, 141 Boone Street for waiver of the sewer policy to the sewer policy committee for review? Motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. Discussion. I don't think this is a motion to approve. No, it's not to approve. I'm sorry, thank you. It's a motion to refer to the floor. Thank you. Thank you. So I will withdraw that motion and I will re-read. Is there a motion to refer the request from Michael Vickers in regard to Platt D. Lot 163, 141 Boone Street for waiver of the sewer policy to the sewer policy committee for review? Motion to refer. Second. Thank you. Discussion. This is a standard process to go to the sewer policy committee for review at which time the sewer policy committee will review. This motion and then that decision will come back to the town council at a later time for us to vote on, based on that recommendation. Is anyone from the public wish to speak on this matter? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes for zero. On to the finance department. Is there a motion to award the bid for printing and mailing services to the lowest responsive bidder? Lineage connect at their quoted bid prices for a three year period ending April 21st, 2028. Motion to approve. Second. Discussion. Any discussion from the council or questions? Anyone from the Seeing none all those in favor. Hi any opposed motion passes for zero Onto the town council item K1 Is there a motion to discuss and take action regarding unrented units at the town beach. Somebody wanna go? Motion to discuss. Second. Discussion. So Councillor Dirk in this is your item. So I will let you have the floor. So I guess I put this on. I was just thinking that the number of lockers the number of lockers that are at the South Pavilion have remained in a like a unrented stage unless something happened in the last week or so. And I thought that we would discuss that. I don't have any fog on conclusions or anything like that. I want to do, but I just thought as a business person, I wouldn't want to see my houses rented without unrented without not doing anything about it. So my thoughts have been numerous because it's been a week or so. It's been like a couple months actually since I last asked for the last update. The last update I thought was 18. But now it's like 36 or 32 with three in front of it. Actually, can we have Michelle come up just to answer a few questions if that's all right with you? Yeah, that'd probably be best. Is that okay, Jim? No, we just want to make sure that right now is we got to have two hundred. I apologize, Michelle. There are two hundred and eighteen units in the South of the million. Two hundred and eighteen units. And there are lockers and there are thirty- are currently on rent and it sets about 15%. 32. And those are revenue would be about $12,840. That'll be the exact amount. I'm sorry, can you repeat that? Sorry. $12,840. The units $420 a piece. That would go stay with the beach in the enterprise account. Correct. And the policies that govern those have been approved by the REC advisory board and the council. So that's why it's said, I'll play that. Right. So, OK, thank you for that. So I thought that I always felt bad for the people that got knocked off the list, you know, that were there for years. And I'm perfectly fine. It being a resident beach. I don't have problems with that. I'm glad we do non-resident beach passes and all of that stuff. But if there's gonna be empty lockers, I think that we should possibly have a deadline for an arrogance of residents to commit to those lockers if the people can't afford them, and that's the reason, then maybe we have some kind of payment plan or whatever. But if they just don't want them for some reason, then I think we should be allowing people from out of town to be able to rent those lockers at the same price or an additional price or whatever it is. I know we had a locker there at one time, I don't even know if it was in the north or south Pavilion, but we gave it up because it was just as easy to bring the chairs and stuff to the beach for us. I don't know. So I certainly don't want, and I would never even think about doing that, knock it out residents of the town to pay the taxes and all that stuff. But I think that there should be a date and like if for some reason this council council decided to go along with this idea, I think that this should be not a permanent like type. Like we don't just give a non, I don't know if it needs to be the same past that we used to sell but It could be available on May 1st For next year and the year after if the next council decides to go along with this idea But I would think there's 32 people out there somewhere that would like to get a beach locker in our danceantz beach. So that's all I have to say. You would suggest that if that were to happen, it would just be for that season and that season. Correct. And then it would also be, we wouldn't have to discuss it for the next season. It would be a rule, you know, of some sort that, you know, it would be easy for the beach people to adhere by. They wouldn't question it. I think that May 1st is probably a good rule. I mean, it's not a bad, it's probably a little late, I think, in the planning process, maybe it should be April 15th or something. But, and then the other thing is, I thought about it a lot, maybe the list should be the ones that had, I don't know if we still have a list to tell you the truth of the people that got knocked out, but I've heard some people have been there 25 years, had the same locker, you know, it's like, so maybe the ones that had it the least would clear the leak, if this whole alive, I don't even know, you know what I mean? Like they would clear the list first. I think we'd almost be there. Well, I think you may, I think you make up some really valid points and just to reiterate what you've already mentioned is it's not, you're not recommending that this be opened up to non-residents right off the bat. That residents have the opportunity. We just don't want to see money left on the table. Yeah, I mean 12,000s, 12,000, whatever you put it in. And that could go to, well, it's the Beach Enterprise Fund. So I have to go towards the beach. And everything within the Beach enterprise fund. But my question, unless you have something to comment, jib, in speaking with Jim about this the other day, and it's my understanding that Jim's proposal would be to aggressively try to get the ones that we have sold but have a deadline and then have them offered to other people as well for one year and then if it happens again next year, we do the same policy if the council adopted it. That was my understanding. Yeah. And I think just alone speaking about this at a council meeting, it's probably going to be enough with creating the social media that's already probably happening. Might be enough to get some people that kind of just were sleeping at the wheel to come in and get their locker. I would like to know if it was a financial issue, if there was something that the town could do to make that happen where they're still secured, but I haven't heard that. So, and I believe it's $400, right? $420. $420, and it's a four by, and it's a four by four locker. And that about right? It's like a half a locker, I guess, right? The North Beach has the full locker, right? Yes, yeah. So that's all I have to say. I think my question is, over the last five years, I mean, I used to work at the town beach. I think I've been very vocal about that. And there was always a mixed bag of how many people would come and go, especially using the lockers at the South Pavilion. But I never fully grasped just how many were actually purchased for the season. It was very difficult to understand that. So I guess my general question would be over the last three to five years or so, or maybe if we want to start with just last season, how many were not rented? Well, I can say now there's 32 for this year, currently. I don't know of the top of my head last year. OK. All were rented last year. Same cost. A few months this year. Let's ask. OK. Cheaper last year. Do we know what the rate was last year? Sorry. So in 2024 rate increased from 350 to 420. 660 the $600 to $700 was the non-resident rate for that was sunset in the 2024 season. Okay. For the same lockers we're talking about. And I do apologize. Did we have any cap on the non-resident lockers at any point in time or was it first come first serve when we rented the lockers and stuff? We've got the VCs for a round to three pcs to get a good description. And if they rented for one season, they would automatically be reconsidered next season. Okay, thank you. One more question, Michelle, I know you're good at numbers and this might be tough, but so you don't have to, you don't, it's okay. It's simple. In 2024, when we're all the lock is spoken for. The last few years back from people that they didn't want to release anymore, we assumed to get everything that I don't really do when I want to first come to. So is it made for say that last year by March 1st they were all rented and deposits received? Correct. Is that March or May? March 1st payment is always due because we need that leeway of time to be able to put the packages together, print all the beach passes, etc. So it's a it's almost a month later to share that the 32 are still available. Correct. And if you recall, so last year we had 68 non-residents that were sunsetted for obviously the upcoming year. Now also keep in mind there were also several residents and taxpayers that decided not to release as well. So each year, on average, we usually release between 8 to 15 in lockers. Again, these are the South Pavilion Lockers. The reason behind that is, like you said previously, kids get older, they start bringing their own stuff and there's not the need for the locker. Right now we're seeing more of an older group of people, grandparents that are leasing the lockers, they're watching their grandchildren during the summer months, and they are choosing to get the locker because of its storage capabilities. This is interesting. So, the more you ask, the more you. So yeah, so so much first is the deadline date and last year they were all rented but 68 of them were non-residents. Correct. My recommendation to just to be equitable about this would be to I don't believe there's a fairway in which we can, with 32 left go and say to the 68, we're going to pick you 32. I would like for there to possibly be a way that they got first consideration. But I don't know how to equitably do that considering we can't give the fair Privilege to all So then with that being said We'd again and this being what it sounds like a unique situation In this time this season and there is no waiting list for South Pabain Law. Correct, that has been exhausted. Okay. So, yeah. I mean, that's what we need. No, yeah, go ahead, sir. Yeah, so, so, the non-resident passes only available to people from South Kingston, or is it non-residents from anywhere in the world? So, the 60 non-residents that we had in 2024 were from all over the state of Rhode Island. Cranston, Cumberland, Lincoln. So it's the state of Rhode Island? Yes, sir. And it just happens a lot of them are from South Kingston. I'm sorry, I don't have the numbers on that. Yeah, I always thought it was South Kingston for some reason. And while you're here and the topic of conversation is lockers and there might be a lot of people who tune into this part of the discussion, maybe not. But I think it's just worth reiterating for the council as well as the general public, what comes with the locker rental each season? Sure. So the locker is $420. It comes with four beach passes and one seasonal parking pass. That parking pass is good for either the south lot or the north parking lot. Part of that package as well is two of your passes, two of the beach passes, may be transferable beach passes, which means they don't have a picture on them and they can be used by your family and friends, people that come and visit, and it provides those people daily access to the beach as well as the locker use, because they'll have that locker number on their pass. So, and that's been one of the big draws of having a locker and even a changing room, because two of your passes may be transferable. So again, not having to put a person's face on that pass allows that pass to be used by a number of different people throughout the season. And this is again, just for point of clarity, the non-resident beach pass transferable in any shape or form is that available for this upcoming season? It is not. Okay, thank you. So my I guess my follow-up question would be is if we did open this up to non- residents, would we have to change the policy to then allow non- residents the opportunity to purchase to be able to come on to the beach. Well, so if you were to, if we were to open it up and again the question is how do we do that fairly and equitably with the 68 people that we told that could no longer lease for this upcoming season. So that in itself is a quandary that we create for ourselves. That is not 32. Correct, at 68. So that's one issue. If you were to decide to open it up and release those lockers to non-residents, again, they would be afforded the same privilege of passes. Again, they would get four beach passes. Their parking pass, however, would require them to park in the south lot because that's a previous policy we have in place. They have a special nomenclature on their pass that says N-R-S, non-resident south. So they're required to park in the south lot. But that package would also provide them two picture beach passes and then they could get the two transferable peach passes just like the resident lockers. So the same past structure just you got to park in the South lot. Thank you. This definitely sounds like something that I think we'd want to put in place for next year. May I? In agreement with that? I mean, I just thought it doesn't sound like we're going to sell the 32 passes, so just do it now if we can, but if we can't do it now, does it take? I mean, can you do it? Well, I think we're pushing it out. I'm not sure anybody here got my mass email alerting the members in the community in our recreation database that we do still have lockers available So we are pushing it out. I do expect we will release more Again, it's just people are coming off of the holiday weekend Kids are back, you know, you know, they're back in college. They they're back, you know, you know from having spring break at home. So I do expect we will release more because again, $420, I don't think it's a financial burden. I think it's just people, a lot of people maybe don't realize what the lockers offer. So again, as we push it out, I do expect we will. Will we release all 32? I'm not sure, but we'll certainly try. When you say release, just again, for a point of clarity, because I know actually, why don't you just clarify? Sure, so again, we would release the release. Yes, the 32 lockers. So again, yes, I'm sorry. so when people lease for the summer again they're just leasing for the summer they don't own the change you they don't own the locker they're leasing so we would release the 32 well I mean I think it'd be good to do this year but if we're're gonna do it next year, then we make a pot of the policy when we discuss that in November or whatever I guess. I don't know. It could be a good test. I mean, when the beach opens, if they're still there, we could. Absolutely. I would try to sell them past Fourth of July if we can. Oh, okay. So what is the beach open? It opens Memorial Day weekend. Right. And it's early this year. So the 23rd, 24th, 25th, I believe. Then we're close for four days. And then we're open full time on Saturday, May 30th. Also, if I could suggest to the council, this kind of policy change regarding possibly releasing open lockers to non-residents. Maybe this is something I I could redirect at the council's request back to the Recreation Advice Report. Kind of put it off, take it off your shoulders. Yeah. By the way, and I appreciate that recommendation. And you know, again, it's your emotion, Jim, so I'll let you follow up with any comments on that. My proposal would be if the council decides to send it back to the Recreational Advisory Board for consideration would be, you know, I do have a question on timeline. And again, I'm all in favor for a review, but I also know that we don't have a luxury of time right before the beach season starts. And because we're looking at, where are we, April 21st, I don't think we should be looking at May 1st as the date. I think we should give, in my opinion, the residents until June 1st would be my proposal. That way it's through Memorial Day weekend, and it's our easy number to let people know. And at which point in time, if there is a substantial number of lockers that have not been rented, then we would consider renting to non-residents. That's where I would be standing on that. Do you have a first-use file on me? I could certainly place it on the agenda for the next record advisory board meeting. Excellent. When is that? Sorry. I'm asking you all the questions. I'm sorry, it's just in May. Yes, I believe the second week in May, I'm sorry I don't have the date in front of me. OK. So if it's the second week in May. So it's the, it'll be the Monday after the first council meeting. Thank you. You're welcome. So that works. So does anyone else have any questions for Michelle? I know we've exhausted her with so many or I have. So thank you so much. You're welcome. Really appreciate your time. Thanks, Michelle. So then my question is for the council before opening up the forum for comment to the public know, as it's written here, motion to discuss and take action. I just, and the recommend, it's recommended to discuss and blank. So I'm just trying to figure out if we say, actually I'm just trying to figure out how to go forward with this item. And refer to the Reconvizary Board? That's the action. So we can, the action could be that we are recommending a policy change for review. I think you just refer it back to the advisory board based on the discussion. That makes sense. Okay. And just to reiterate who are recreational advisory board members on a council. Councilor Colleys, thank you. So you'll make sure that this gets added as well as Michelle. Perfect. Alright, so I don't believe we have to vote on anything since we it. Or do we have to vote in favor of sending that to the recreational advisory? Let's vote on referring this to the recreational advisory board. Oh, public comment. Thank you. It's late. Yes, please come forward. Thank you for the reminder. Good evening. My name is Mike McLaughlin. I'm a resident of the town of South Kingston. I held a beach locker pass for the past 28 years. We were informed approximately five years ago that the non-residents would be grandfathered in to be able to keep using those passes. I know the council has changed that. It was sort of let down when they chose to do so after they said grandfathered in. I know they had made some changes to the cabanas and they removed non-residents from there and that's when the decision was made. I'm just asking you that in your recommendations and your consideration that you look at the people who held those lockers the longest period of time and make that selection accordingly. Thank you. You're welcome. Anyone else from the public was to speak? All right. So there's a motion to refer this to the Recreational Advisory Board at their next meeting. Huh? No, not yet. Well, okay. I will make the motion to refer back to the recognize report changes to the town beach policy regarding lockers subject to discussion that occurred this evening. Excellent that works. Anyone want to move that motion since I can't move that motion. I'll move it. Thank you. Mr. Durkin would you like to second it? Second. Thank you. Any other discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes for zero. Final item on the agenda is our motion to discuss the creation to discuss the creation of the Narragansett 250th Commission. So moved. Second. Discussion. So it was brought to our attention that we are celebrating 250 years of history in the state of Rhode Island and it has been recommended that each city and town in the state of Rhode Island create a 250 commission in order to promote our state's history, our nation's history and provide all sorts of different ways in which we can help to celebrate and bring attention to that historic moment in our time. So I reached out to Lauren Fogarty, who is the program coordinator for Rhode Island 250, inquiring about what a makeup of that committee would traditionally look like in other cities and towns in the state of Rhode Island. And I will read her reply. And she states, while we don't have a standardized committee structure, as each town typically tailors, its approach based on local resources and community dynamics, I'm happy to offer a few suggestions for potential members or appointments to consider. And these include a representative from the Towns Parks and Recreation Department, a contact from the local school district or school committee member, a representative from the Narragansett Historical Society, a representative from the South County Museum, a representative from the Narragansett Lions Club, a representative from the Narragansett Chamber of Commerce, community volunteers passionate about local history and civic engagement, as well as a member or two from the town council. So I am all in favor of creating a committee, and again, this a discussion item. It is not a vote to create this committee tonight. I did want to put it on the agenda. Honestly to give us more time to see what a committee would look like. And I did get that response in time. So I would like to know where the council stands on this. And then hopefully if the consensus is that you're in favor of the creation of this committee that we can have this on the next town council agenda for first reading. I would be in favor of the creating the committee. Excellent. I too would be in favor of it. So much substance.. Talk to me at this time of night. Councillor Tariyade. I three would be in favor. Okay. It's a good idea. 250 years is a very significant chunk of time and we need to in this particular day and age we need to think about what our founding fathers found with this nation on. And let's draw some awareness and respect and patriotism towards that thought. I also think it's a great opportunity for the town to come together and celebrate, you know, our nation's history, as well as celebrating our own history here in Narragansett. There's so much history that goes unrecognized or forgotten. There's a lot of stories to tell. Jim, you're living proof of history here in the town. So there's, again, there's a lot of ways in which we can come together as a community to support the resources, services, the town provides. I think it's a great opportunity for the town to become educated on the types of resources and services that we provide here in town, but also incoming families to learn about a lot of the different recreational opportunities, the schools, our museums, you know, our beaches, you know, all of these beautiful resources at our doorstep that I think we take a lot for granted. But it's also a way for Narragans to recognize our nation's history, as well as for our town to be recognized at the state level as well because, you know, we are, we are forced to be reckoned with here and I think again this is a great opportunity to celebrate in that nature. So hopefully I'll get this on the town council agenda at the next meeting. We'll create that and we'll figure out how to designate different representatives from the community to that committee. Alex, is there a time frame for the festivities or is it, it's not even the time frame as a minipick? Well, as it's my understanding is that next year is the 250th. We are behind. This was actually recommended to the previous council who did not take this up. I don't know if it was just lost in translation, but they did reach back out to us in hopes of creating this committee. Not only are there several other cities and towns in the state including, you know, ones that have an extensive amount of history like Newport and Bristol Providence who have are well ahead of already developing a committee like this. They've also appointed a portion of their budget to these committees. Some of them are really substantial. Others are $500. So I think this definitely is an opportunity for us to explore ways in which we can promote our nation's history and celebrate that as well as reaching out to our local businesses and see if there are ways in which they can come together to support these initiatives as well. So there's no time frame. No time frame for this year, but I do believe the more that we follow up with directly to the Rhode Island 250 Commission I can have that actually a timeline for the next meeting but I think the idea is that this would be planned this year and rolled out next year. Yeah. Cool. Anyone from the public wish to comment on that? All right, seeing none. And that was just a discussion item. Is there a motion to retire to executive session of the town council in accordance with the Rhode Island General Laws 42-46-4 and 42-46-582 to discuss and act on litigation or reasonably anticipated litigation. Pry ex-lighthouse in property tax. Oh, sorry. We need a roll call vote. Sorry about that. First and second, though, please. First and second, I apologize. For move to a executive section. Councillor Dirkin moves. Second. Colleagues. All those in favor, roll vote, and then do a roll call vote. Aye. Councillor Toria, excuse me. Councillor Colleannies. Aye. Councillor Menzies votes aye. Councillor Dirkken. Aye. Councillor Vignale absent motion passes for zero. Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you All set. Excellent. So the council has returned from executive session and there were two votes carried at executive session. Emotion to seal the minutes of the April 21st executive session which passed for zero and emotion to exit and reconvene into open session which also passed for zero. Is there a motion to adjourn at 1026 PM p.m. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes, 3.0.