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 right. All set. Okay. Good evening, everyone. We're going to call to order the Narragansett town council regular meeting. Today is Monday, May 6, 2024. The time is 7 p.m. Please stand for the pledge of minutes. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes from the April 1st, 2024 regular meeting? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler, seconded by Councillor CoPEC, motion passes 5-0. Next we have a motion to extend the period of time for filing the minutes of the April 9th, 10th, 11th, 2024 budget work sessions. So moved, second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed. Motion. All in favor. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler. Seconded by Councillor CoPEC. Motion passes 5-0. Next up for announcements. Presentations. We have our town manager's update. Mr. Tierney. Good evening, council. Folks at home and folks who are here this evening. The May 20th meeting, we will have a presentation on the bike path, which is open to the public here in the chambers regarding police recruitment. We have three vacancies on the police department and only two remaining applicants in the process. The selection process is still not completed. The chief and his team are working diligently to recruit. But as you know, it remains difficult to entice qualified persons to choose a career in law enforcement these days. Some good news. The Dune Grass planting that took place at the beach a couple of weeks ago, Deb Copac was one of the participants along with Tom Hogan, our husband. It was incredible work done by the volunteers and saved the bay to plant the grasses in the dunes at the town beach. All the plants purchased for this project were planted by people from all over Rhode Island. And these are dead these are deadbs words to say and I believe that is very accurate. This is a testament to what a meaningful icon this beach is for Rhode Islanders. We'd like to recognize the work done by Wendley Ferguson, Katie Alves, Julie Lewis, and Eno Harrah, among others, and town staff that supported the efforts. The program was so well organized from providing equipment and moving folks from planting to removing litter from the dunes and the beach itself that the volunteers were delighted to have participated and we're delighted that they did it. The grass has already made the beach a much better place to look at and we make it more sustainable. Michelle Kershua, who has a family event this evening, would like to thank her for spearheading this project. And I hope Narrowganza continues to partner with Save the Bay to help mitigate the grow issues caused by sea rise, storms and erosion. They really did a great job, and we will hopefully reap the benefits for years to come, and we have very grateful for volunteers that did that. And we continue to try to improve the beach from the storm, and we'll be ready to open on schedule. We received a couple inquiries are at the Narrow River Study for the Dredging Project. We had an update last week on May 1st. We met with Fawth Engineering and we have now the okay to use the sand that would, if it is approved to Dredge in most of the areas to place it on the beach. They have several options that are going to present to the town council for what are the Dredging alternatives and potential costs and they still have one other phase that they want to complete which is a topography survey and from that they'll be able to determine what they can do depending upon what Dredging project is chosen if it is so chosen and how it will be distributed on the beach and what the effects might be. And that is about it for now. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, next we will move on to the open forum public comment portion of the meeting. Again, the comments of citizens addressing the council are neither adopted nor endorsed by the body but heard as requested. Now, public comment will not be taken on matters involving open litigation. And the rules are, you can sign in to speak. They're just signed in sheet at the back of the chambers. Please state your name and address when you come up to the podium. Speak only on topics not on the meeting agenda and there is a three-minute limit per speaker subject matter. And please be orderly and respectful. Mr. Tania, who's our first? The first speaker is Richard Van Damrish. Hi. So, if I was to say, oh, I'm just going back to the point where it really is. Thank you. And I guess only Susan might remember this. It doesn't seem that long ago, but I decided we wanted to do Narragansett 125, and I cried eight times. On the ninth time Chris Wilken said, I'd give up, we'll do it. And all of a sudden people came out of the woodwork for some spectacular shows. Now I'm trying to interest the town again, I'll say this again, in three major events. The most significant worldwide event that occurred in Rhode Island happened on the 1675 with the Holocaust performed on the Narragansits and the Wampanoics at the Great Swamp. Now that is now obviously in South Kingston, but the navigants it's marched from their encampments at Konachit Farm. We don't know when, but I would say some time in the late November, I'm hoping we can do a symbolic walk from Kanachit Farm to the Statue of Kanachit, which we have near the beach, and then perhaps a bus or some cars going to the great swamp. Now, this might inspire South Kingston to get more excited too. So this is something we can do. And we would get worldwide attention because the great swamp, massacre, holocaust, white, whatever you want to call it, is a world event. A second event is the 250th celebration of the only revolutionary war victory in Rhode Island, the capture of the HMS Cyren off the coast of Point Judith. The third is Lafayette's visit here on 624, 1780, when he stayed at the Robinson Farm, off Boston, that road on his way to meet the French Rochambot who had come from France to Newport, I urge us to get interested in this because this makes us stand out. We've got a tremendous history here and I urge people to maximize its here. I'm very pleased to be here. I'm very pleased to be here. I'm very pleased to be here. I'm very pleased to be here. I'm very pleased to be here. I'm very pleased to be here. I'm very pleased to be here. I'm very pleased to be here. I'm very pleased to be here. I'm very pleased to be here. I'm very pleased to be here. every street and every block of every street has different rules. I even noticed last year, I don't think this has changed when I was looking at it, there were different places that you were supposed to put your sticker on your car, depending on which street you were on. I mean, why? Why can't I see as I'll always look at the same spot on the car? It seems like right hand front fender is the right place, but I don't know. So where I'm coming from is I'm on Robinson Street. There's three blocks, this is relatively simple, just three blocks being described, but some it's parking permit required, and some it's more of a restricted parking, three hours parking, unless you have a, over I guess a residential pass, then it seems you can park overnight on the street. I still think it's overly restrictive. I don't like having to plan my social schedule around the parking ordinance. If I want to have people over, I've got to have them over after five. If I want to have somebody, and then I've got to kick them out if they're parking on the road, oh no, that three hour thing maybe doesn't even apply to me. I don't know, I'm confused by this whole thing. But I want to be able to have people over. I want to be able to have people park in front of my house, not on my lawn, which is probably the alternative some people will turn to. And that's how it was in the 90s when I lived here and it's not a good luck, let me tell you, it's not good, we don't want to go back. And when I have people come and work on my house, I want them to be able to knock at a ticket, to be able to park in front of my house and knock at a ticket. I mean, this all seems overly restrictive. Based on the fact that this is seasonal and it's 9 to 5, it seems like this is geared toward keeping people from parking on my street and walking to the beach. Nobody does that. I've been living in this house for over 20 years. Nobody does that. It's pretty far walk from Robinson to the beach. That's not what's going on. What's going on in my street is there are two VRBOs that have pretty big driveways but the people don't want to use the driveways because then they have to do the car shuffle. So we often have cars parked up and down both sides of the street for whatever is going on at these VRBOs, which are very large. They're like venues. They're not small, cute little apartments. They're big venues where they host big parties and weddings. So I'm not a big fan of what's going on here with the parking ordinance. I think it could be made a lot more simple in some ways. The sign on my street, I just noticed today, it says three-hour parking. But that's not what this says, so I don't know if the new signs aren't up yet. I don't know what's going on. And then I was looking at the fines and everything's 50 bucks except for handicap parking. If you park in a handicap spot, it starts at 100. To me, that just started at 250. But everything's going to take a look at these funds. Over time parking, 50. Okay, parking in prohibitive area, 50. I think that should be higher. Parking on a sideline of the RBO person has done this. I think that should be at least a hundred bucks. So I'm just asking for simplicity. Please let the residents get guest passes so that we don't have to have our social life totally around these darn parking ordinances. It's my house. Can I use it the way I want to use it? When I want to use it. Thank you. Thank you. Next. Winham's. I don't know if you need anything. Okay. I'm not here tonight to argue against the restrictions of duplexes that hindered the diversity and affordability of the town. I'm not here tonight to argue against how the parking regulations hurt residences and businesses. So I'm not here tonight to argue against a seven-day minimum rhetoric restriction that hurts businesses and residents. I'm not even here to argue against the three student ordinances that has already failed by driving up prices and residents out. Instead, I'd like to talk to you about the upcoming Memorial Day. Memorial Day is a day to remember those of the ultimate sacrifice to protect our great nation. An article in the New York Times dated 1915 describes the first word Ionder to die in the Revolutionary War. I'd like to read this to you. I've learned things about this town, even being here 70 years that have never known before. And it's really exciting to find out this stuff. And Mr. Van Gogh, Mr. Behind me, this historian and I guess it might know this. The Times, letter to the Times, it's the best to remember the deeds of the brave for every act of colonial heroism. Has a very choice place in the great and wonderful foundation of American Republic, for whomsoever gave a loaf of bread a cup of water to a soldier of that war, to the cause did something for the world and generations to come. But the soldier that lost his life of that war, to the cause did something for the world and generations to come. But the soldier that lost his life in that war gave all he had together with future useful for this of his life. Augustus Mumford, born in South Kingston July 7th, 1744, fell upon the battlefield at Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775. Mr. Bumpford was born upon his grandfather's farm. Now the estate of Governor Sprig and was raised there to man's estate, cultivating the green fields by the seaside, together with his father, his brother, Simon, Gideon, and Paul. He was married to Ruth Fry of East Greenwich, December 25th, 1773. He was the son of William and Anne Ray Monford. Why the special note of his death is made? He was the South Kingston born and raised in Narragansk, up here. He sold out his inheritance with the rest of his brothers, much knife, 1771 to Governor William Robinson. In those days when the Mumpford family occupied the fields, the broader Atlantic was there dashing in his blue billows upon the projecting rocks, just the same as it is now. And the long white level beach was there to be the playgrounds of the ties in the seagull. The shores were still rugged in many places with the primitive wood. These scenes so majestic and grand were then locked in the wild embrace of solitude. It has had been for countless centuries of the past, but in the soul of this brave young man was one of the germs of our national importance. To make a start to save the national life of our brave young townsman gave his life upon the first field of battle. When the do's as it were upon the grass or the sun scarce above the horizon of our national life. Now, Memorial Day, Augustus Mufford, I'll gus this month for mother and father. Mr. Haynes, just to let you know you're over 38 seconds, so you can just finish to spring. Let me say it with a berry. Okay. They're berry in a spring part. Okay. I was at the headstones today looking at them. He is the first person to die in the defense of our country from all the wars that we've had, that very, very first person. He charged up a bunker hill, and according to the reports he had his head blown off by a cannon. I don't know where his body is, but the bodies of his family are there. The headstones are there, the bodies aren't underneath them. Okay, the bodies are out left field of spring park. They move the headstones but they never move the bodies. But something even goes to our heritage or something, something should be done to recognize this. And I'm here because Mobile Day is coming up and I think it would be great to be able to do something even short notice just to recognize somebody from this town who's done been so important to this country. Thank you, Mr. Haynes. Next. There are no other names to sign down. Okay. The celebrator. Catherine celebrator, 48-year-olds caught. The company that did the 2020 10-year evaluation was North East, and that's now catalyst. That company also did the 2023 statistical revaluation. Now first, they never completed the whole evaluation in 2020 because it was during COVID, so they never went inside people's houses. So I stick it about this today. I'm wondering do we pay them the whole cost when they only did half the job? That said, so now here they come along and they do the 2023 Statistical Revaluation. Now we received our assessment. It's, I disagree with it, that would be an understatement, so I'm going to appeal it. To appeal it, you have to get some information together. So I ran all the sales in 2023 because that's supposedly what the new assessments are based on. And I have yet to find any house that coordinates with the sale coordinates with the assessment. Actually, just looking around the town, the assessments have gone up between 35% and 100%. I don't know how this could possibly happen in three years. It makes zero sense to me. So when catalyst came to the town and handed you these assessments, did anybody sit down with them and say, pull 100 houses, say, and do a comparison of what a house like that say sold for in 2023 as opposed to what it's assessed now. And I don't know. I, like an answer to that question, what I'll file in an app raw. So if somebody could give me that answer and email it to me, that would be nice. But I don't think we have pushed back enough. These assessments are so out of whack. And I know the tax rate is going to go down but there are other ramifications when you own a house that's over assessed and one of them is estate implications and that's why it's very important that someone's house which is the biggest value usually the biggest investment is proper. The assessment has to be proper, a proper number, because you could end up owing a lot of money to the Brown Division taxation if your house is over assessed. The other part of it is this. I don't know how people are gonna keep up with these tax bills. Everybody goes, oh, that's so cheap and arrogant. It actually is not cheap. We have 25% of the people in this town are 65 and older. A lot of them are on fixed incomes. The tax bill is going to go up. They're, I don't have their pension or Social Security or whatever one up also. I don't know how people, you people think that these people are going to pay the bills. I really don't. You really have to start pushing back and say when you hire a company and they just come at you with these numbers and there's no push back on the board. No questioning of them, I have to wonder what's going on. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else that didn't sign up that was just to speak before I move on to the consent agenda? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Do I have a motion to accept the consent agenda? So moved. Second. All in favor. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I by Councillor Copac, motion passes 5-0. For old business we do have a new item. It is a motion to approve an entertainment and holiday license application submitted by the market at GANSET Rail LLC doing business as Boone Street market, 145 Boone Street, Narragansett, Rhode Island, subject to state and local regulations. So moved. So again. Okay, so this is just coming back from us. There were some questions regarding just the times in comparison to other restaurants. And then this actually is the same. So it's nothing different from the new from Celeste. So there isn't really an issue with the difference and then didn't know if any other, I think council members wish to comment on it. So no, just we wanted to make sure it was fair with the surrounding establishment. So that's fine. So it's 11 o'clock. It's for both. Perfect. OK. I have just one comment. Council for ending? Yeah. I just want to make people aware of this. I read the new one. I guess it was a little, I was a little, I figured that we had all the seating capacity in before. And I guess the only number I saw was like 124. So right now there's actually with the inside, the back deck in the front deck, there's about 414 occupancy. So, and I don't think that was mentioned before. And we had come across the time and all. And I guess that's where it issued now. And am I concerned with the time and all and I guess that's where it's you now and Am I concerned with the entertainment and dancing and all as I thought it was almost gonna be like some sort of a block parties Insight and out and all that and I guess that's not the intent But if I don't know if the applicants attorney is here to speak at all So we'll let the applicants turning up When I when I when I saw the you know the amount, because everything else in the planning board, it doesn't mention full occupancy of that inside outside in the back deck. So that's doing it in that concern me. I realize. I don't have those numbers in front of me. I wasn't sure that was going to be an issue tonight. But I can tell you, I don't believe it's going to be a block style type of venue. There's I think in the summer, in the very back of the left-hand side patio, it's kind of an indoor outdoor stage. I say stage is a place for the musicians to stand. The music is controlled by speakers that are controlled by management, not by the not by the musician I think that's what was the testimony from last town council meeting when we're here for the liquor license so it won't be a block you know block party style venue okay thank you thank you thank you I think that's good anyone from the public wishing a comment on this agenda item? Mr. Vanger-Mish. Yes, I'd like to speak in favor of this because when the Narrow Cancer Urban Renewal Project renewal project started. The whole pause that this would extend out to Boone Street and the wonderful buildings past Boone Street. And that didn't work out. Our urban renewal was limited this, but Boosty is opening up. The Narragans of the Storacles, they had a wonderful Boostry, Bonanza, I guess, was a last year, last year, and anything we can do to expand Boostry into the shrunken urban renewal area makes this town so much more exciting, especially if you get into the cemetery where nobody buried there, where Joseph P. S. of peace as it was to be buried, one of the most truly spectacular, non-barriol cemeteries in the world. And that extends out from Boon Street. And this is how Navigance it will once again appeal to all sorts of people, including the residents, because we have so many trenches here that we don't know about. And Boone Street is truly a magnificent street. Look at the church, the railroad station, all these wonderful artistic shops. This is really a treasure and if we can draw people both ways from Boost Street into the urban area, if you want to call it an urban area. And this way, you're getting a lot more foot traffic and excitement. Thank you. Anyone else in the public was in a comment? I'll take the vote. Motion to approve. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawlor. Seconded by Councillor Copac, motion passes 5-0. Next step for new business, from the fire department. We have a motion to approve, change order number 2 with Ahoronian and Associates Incorporated for additional architectural engineering services for the point Judith Fire Station Improvements, renovation project and the amount of 90 thousand dollars so moved Thank you any discussion from the council. I Just had a question So that if I understand what's happening here is where utilizing Whatever this is whether this organization is. But my question is, are we going to have an owner's rep for this particular project as well, or are these people the owners rep for this project? We will address that as we get closer when it goes out to bid for the actual construction. But that won't be part of the bid, this first bit, right? Now, this is for the architecture and engineering service. What happened was we had the funding for phase one, we were going to do it to three phases and then we had the upper money available and then more of the infrastructure grant money funded by Opera. So we decided it would be best to do it all at once and save on mobilization and scheduling and speeding up the process at the cost of the macro. I just wasn't, I couldn't tell if that was included or not so that's what. and scheduling and speeding up the process at the course of the Macon Ress. I just wasn't, I couldn't tell if that was included or not. So that's what it's. And once we get to the selection of a, the council selects the vendor, the construction contract, that'll be coming forward as well. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Any other comments from the council? Anyone from the, oh, in Silverto? I am from the public. We have to start the public hearing in two minutes. The staff in Silver, 48 hours caught. This is a jump from $36,000 to $106,000. They initially did $36,000 for this architectural study. And now they're saying they want what, $70,000 for this architectural study. And now they're saying, they want what, $70,000 more. I have a problem with change orders. We hire companies that are well-known. They've been doing this work for years. And they can't seem to come up with the right amount that is appropriate. And I'm wondering, are they under bidding? And then figuring out, it's just come down down the line and up it later. And this is why I always say that contracts should go out. Bid should go out for a mount certain. This is a huge jump. It's not, you know, a few grand. May I counsel president of the Normal Interest? I was going to actually ask you. This is completely separate from the first bid. What happened is American Rescue Plan money became available nearly a million dollars to the town. This addition is for phase two and three of this services. Not phase one, which is approved. So that jump is for phase two and phase three to be included with phase one with the new money that became available that was not available when we were going to do it by phases. So it's apples and oranges. It's not the same product. You're the detachment's evident there, but thank you. Thank you. Okay, so all in favor? Hi. Hi. Motion by Council Lawler, Second by Councilor Copac, motion passes 5-0. The time is 7-30. We need to go to the public hearing portion of our meeting. I have a motion to open and hold a second public hearing on the proposed budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. So moved. Second. All in favour? Aye. All opposed. Motion by Council Law, our second by Councillor Cope, PAC motion passes 5-0. This time I will call up our finance director. Good evening, Council President Dresinski and Council members. As you said tonight is the second public hearing of the town managers proposed budget. I'm going to try to do this backwards again. Maybe it doesn't like me today. So these are the changes from the first public hearing. There was a $100,000 decrease in the school department's allocation, which would bring it down to 2.39%. There was a decrease of the land trust allocation. It was still at 75,000. We had done that for two years to make up for what they lost in ARPA during COVID. So it's back to the 50,000, which is normal. NRPA, they did not request what I had in the budget. It was $40 difference. And visiting nurses services did not put in a request. So that was deleted. Then we have additions. So as you've heard, community development got received the brick grant. So that was $52,500 match. So that was in this year's current budget, but they didn't use it yet. So we have to carry it to next year because the approval didn't come through to just recently. And they also received the approval for the SNAP grant, I believe I said it right. That's going to be an additional 56,500. You'll see that coming up in the future. They also requested an additional position to deal with the legislation and all the ordinance changes that are coming forward. That's just the salary. A tax assessor, an employee was added just in case of the tax structure changes. We don't know about yet. That's just the salary. The IT, they had some increases in software and the town clerk's office also had some increases in contracted services. As far as townwide, the benefits, medical and dental, the actual is $57,199 and that includes the savings of over $100,000 with the actual rates that came in but then adding in benefits for the two people. The 2FTEs added. So, I'm going to go ahead and just to recap, this is the pie chart that shows all the expenses and as you can see that it's under 10% for all cost equipment, supplies, materials, utilities, purchase service. I just wanted to reiterate that. 10% for all cost equipment, supplies, materials, utilities, purchase service. I just wanted to reiterate that. I don't understand, but we'll just keep playing. Okay. So far, the impact on taxes is, the proposed tax rate for the residential property is approximately $6.84 per thousand and commercial intangible rate is proposed at $9.24. Current rates are $9.31 in $12.57. Again, the decrease in the tax rate is due to the revows and the 4% maximum increase in the tax levy as presented. And the tax levy increases $2.3 million, which is 4% over the current year. Let's try it. There we go. Did it? It's a test. You got it? All right, thank you. I appreciate it. One, go forward one. Thank you. OK. So this again just shows the levy and the tax rate and the difference if we went with a 2%. Over the next few years we're losing about $3.8 million in growth and then if we go 4% we're beginning2.15 million in growth year over year. Okay, next. Thank you. I did this PowerPoint to kind of show the increases in the values and the decreases in the tax rates. So we have a 22 value,,700 home and that's the new value as of the last valuation. And we did that with three homes spread across the town, different areas. So you can see that the $614,200 home is now $900,600. And we did that with $614,200 home is now $960,000, well, $60,400. Do you get that part? You see, that was last year and then in this year with the ReVal, that's what they've gone up to actual. Again, just three homes, different parts of the town. So currently we're at a $9.31 tax rate. That's what the folks are paying for their tax bills. In 2025, with the 4% increase in the levy, the tax rate down to $6.84. Those are the values, the taxes that they'll be paying. And you can see the change from 24 into 25 next year. It's $272, $1,183, $850. And then with the homestead, you'll see the change year of two years is $245.57, $1,064.80, and $765.84. So you can see the change and the added expense to people with homesteads and without. And then it just goes to, I just went down to a 3% tax levy and a 2% tax levy in the changes that they the increases that they would be dealing with in 2025. Does that make sense? Too much? That makes sense. Thank you for getting that down. So considerations in this budget still are the additional FTEs, the GIS position, the zoning enforcement position and building inspection, the eight safer firefighters, which is the additional five months to carry them for a whole year next year. The two FTEs in rental registration, which is the additional five months to carry them for a whole year next year. The two FTEs in rental registration, the community development position, we just talked about it in the tax assessor position. There's also the community development match that's required to get those grants. It's about 400,000 in free funding from the state to get the match. So it's a brick grant carry forward of 452,500 and I need to add in the 56,500 for the SNEP grant award. So it's a total of 109 that I just we just found out about that recently. I do have a question. The two FTs for rental registration I thought the funding for that was going to come from the fees that we're charging. Yes it will. rental registration has its own funds but you still. So the fees would be considered revenue and just so there'd be a little bit more revenue than we would expect from that right right right right for rental registration and do you and do we know that there's that the that those dollars match or you know that the that the revenue is going to cover this if not right now it is okay right now it covers it and that includes that includes salaries and benefits? Correct. Okay thank you. You're welcome. Then we have the affordable housing bond issuance of $3 million that there's in discussion. There's the capital improvement plan projects of two million dollars a little over two million. We have the transfers, which is the school department. Again, we decreased that 100,000 and it's down to 2.39%. There's a slight library increase of a little over 16,000 in the transfer allocation. The request is in the library budget, but it is not in the general fund as recommended by the town manager. He would like to keep that level funded and we see what happens after their first year in the full building. So in our budget right now, it's level funded. Shouldn't, in that circumstance, I mean, if I remember correctly and I didn't look at this before this meeting, that the vast majority of that $16,000, if not all of it, was really about increases in salaries and benefits. And so if that's the case, which I think it is, that seems slightly inappropriate to me, it might be a little bit less because we have different, you know, because you have the real numbers for, you know, the healthcare. But it seems to me that it makes, you know, I mean, we didn't take any money away from any other department for the increases for those two things for salaries and benefits. So that's... I wouldn't know if it was all for salaries and benefits. So that's... I wouldn't know if it was all for salaries and benefits. There's many other things. There's also the... You can see it. Note. But when you look at the line, that's fine. I see it. So it's pretty obvious to me. But is it part of the operating budget with... So they have a new building more efficient and we don't know what the savings are gonna be on. But the staff is not changing. In fact, they level the staff. We didn't add anybody, even though the building's bigger, et cetera. So, I mean, I'd just like to maybe take another look at that. Chris, what is the current unfund balance there? Did they have a surplus? Currently, it's about a little over $600,000. Obviously, a lot of, almost 600. I don't have the exact number. It's 638,000 or something. So 600 of that will be going towards their project the capital project that will leave them with about 23 to 30 thousand dollars in fund balance going into 2025 Thank you It's yes, I'm wondering I don't know yeah, okay Okay. There's some additional requests in the special appropriations in the amount of $8,400 and $4. There was an increase in the contingency from $300,000 to $600,000 and that's less than 1% in the operating budget. The thought behind that is there's a lot of ARPA money coming out and matches and they may be retirements. So I thought it would be safer to have a little bit put away in the operating contingency account. There are the eight safer firefighters. So for the balance of 2025, which is five months, it's about a $425,000 cost. And for 2026, it would be an additional $610,000 approximately cost to keep them into 2026. Again, we're looking at the pension fund actuarial determined contributions to be quite high through 32, 33 and then they will be going down. There's a new experience we're doing this year that should be done around June or July. That brings us to actual and maybe recalculated at that point. There will be a reduction in debt service around 33 and 34 as well. There's discussion still about the tax classifications. There's a potential phase out of tangible taxes to some degree over several years that's still being discussed. Right now there's a cap for nowragansett at $12.57. There's also being, they're discussing the state is discussing a potential phase out of local meal and beverage taxes by January 1st, 2028. That's over a million dollars for us. That's huge. So also what's going on in the last few days. So we were looking at a $4.5 million bond. We're requesting a fund to increase that to $5 million. That would be a hundred and three thousand three hundred and fifty six increased to the budget for twenty twenty five. Can we repeat that, Chris? Yeah, it's a four point five million dollar. That's what we had initially agreed on. That was the road one for the road one. For the road in the front facade of the building. Correct. Okay. And we would like to increase that town. Manjaro would like to increase that to $5 million. And that is an increase in the front facade costs and then that's also we received a grant from the state and it's going to require a match 65% for the town hall elevator to help with the ADA compliance. Do you have anything? Our match is 65%? Yeah, yeah. Okay. help with the ADA compliance. Do you have anything? Our match is 65%. Yeah. Okay. The congressional in our mark. Go ahead. The congressional in our mark one that we applied for. It hasn't been awarded yet, but that's the numbers that they've given us at 6535 for the whole construction of the Interior Elevator here at Town Hall to get rid of a cattle car that constantly breaks down. And this would make it fully ADA compliant with the front facade when that's completed with the access. So, so is our, as our share, 65 or 35? 65. 65. 65, okay. But it's still a lot cheaper than paying for an elevator to replace this one, which has to be considerably, a lot of construction to get it done properly, because currently it's not fully compliant. Yeah. Chris, can I ask a question about that 4.5, yes. 5 million. Does that mean we have 18 million left over for the infrastructure for sidewalks for road bonds? Because I know we've been bonding since 2012 and there's a lot of money Behind it so I was just wondering is is that is that the balance of the bonds? It would be where we're issuing the 2.6 from the 2012 bond right? Yep, yep, and so it would be 2.4 from the new bond right which was awarded at 20 million. Right. So that would be 18 change yeah. 18 million left for roads because I just because I know we're going to be talking about bonds later and I just want to make sure that it's known that there is allocated money bonded 8.1 million 18.1 million right? The original was approximately 5 million towards infrastructure for the town and then 15 million towards roads. Correct. So it was not exact but. I just wanted to make sure that was still around. Yes. I think that is pretty much it. If you have questions, there's a lot of information up there. It came in at the last minute, so I had to squeeze that stuff in. I just had one more question on the special appropriations. It was, how did you determine that determine that it was 8,000 additional, but just curious what was the change in those special appropriations? I don't have it in front of me. It was a little, I don't have it in front of me. It's in the budget. You can see where it was in 2024 and what we have in 2025. It's, yeah, 8.4. I don't remember what the additional request was. I wasn't sure how it was based. What was the national? Just they requested. So yeah. So yeah. I think there were two of them. Yeah. Any other council members wishing to comment or have feedbacked? I see councilor Farandie. I have a question. How much of the,assigned fund balance going to the budget right now? As of June 30th, 2023, our unassigned fund balance is $13,334.756. Sorry. $13,334.756. Sorry. 13,334,756. Right. But how much is is any of that going to help fund the balance? For this budget, yes. For this budget, yes. Sorry. As presented tonight, it's $2,163,615. Okay. And, um. About 2.2. Last year, we were about a 3.4% increase on average for most taxes, I believe. the tax rate. The tax rate is about 2.2. Last year we were about 3.4% increase on average for most taxes I believe. So are we anywhere near that number now? I know you give like each. Try to give. It was about 3.47 for the tax rate. In the levy was a little close to 4% for the maximum tax levy, right? It's close to four. This year it's 4%, but the tax rate obviously, it has to go down because of the new valuations. So the tax rate is down 30%. So would, would an increase in the unassigned fund balance drop that increase? Say 100,000. Do you have it in your head? What 100,000 taking from that would be? 600,000 reduces fund balance by 1%. So if you took 600,000 away and put it in the next year's budget, is that what you're asking me? All these years. Well, 20, 25 budget. Yeah, yeah. 24. Yeah, no, not this year. We told it would reduce it. Right. We're at about right now. We're at 19.9% as of June 30th. Right? 20, 23. Yeah. Talking about the tax rate. What does it, what does it do with the tax increase? It does nothing. It the tax increase is whatever percent the council chooses to do. So it's 1, 2, 3, 4% increase of the levy. And then the tax rate is determined off what you do. The increase on the tax levy. If you assign fund balance to pay for some of the taxes, is that what you're saying? Right. But now it's at $2 million, $163,000. We're taking from the unassigned fund balance to help fund next year's taxes, correct? Right. Right. So who takes $600,000 is just, you have to tell me, what percent? Like, oh, OK, we're going to go 4% tax livery but 1% is going to be coming from fund balance or something to that effect. Yeah, you need a number of how much more been increased from the fund balance. Right. Suppose you added 400,000 to that. What would that do with the tax rate increase approximately? So that slide I gave at 3%, it would go down to from $6.84. It would go down to $6.78 at 3%. If you went down to 3% tax rate for the taxpayers and then the other percent you threw in 600,000 from fund balance. Let's say. Yeah. Yeah. So it goes down a little bit. Yeah. It goes down to, um, what, four or five, six cents. Okay. Thank you. Other questions? Yeah. Actually, it's, so it's 4% a year, but you're saying for the next five years. So that's really a 20% increase for anybody who lives in this town. And it'll be a little bit more than that five years. So that's really a 20% increase for anybody who lives in this town, and it'll be a little bit more than that, total, so like what, 21.6%. That's an awful lot. I mean, we're going to be talking about affordable housing later on today. And my concern with this is that we need to make sure that people who are living here are still living here three, four, five years from now That's an awful lot of of a tax increase So to kind of piggyback on to to Steve's question is You said we have about 13 million in on a sign fund balance right now correct So could we because I know we've done it before, take some of that money so we've overtaken from the taxpayer. We have surplus. So if we were to return that money to a portion that money to the taxpayer, we would be able to bring down the taxes so we don't have a 4% increase. We might have a 2% increase. What would that look like? How much money in the unassigned fund balance will we need to put there? I don't wanna see people leaving the town. But just declarifications if I recall. So, do we, does the town require a certain percentage of the fund balance? Cause I think that was one of the formulas. Yes, it's 10 to 16.6%. It would go down for 2024. We're looking at just below 16% potentially. It can't be exact until the end of the year. But to move a tax rate 1%, it's $550. But do that for the next five years, it adds up. Yeah, you don't have enough fun balance to do that. You don't. No. Do we have fun balance to do anything? Well, we do. We'll have 13 right now. They would, yeah, next year they would have to make up for it unless you didn't raise taxes again next year. The other option which is they would have to pay eventually. The other potential option is that we don't use the entire, you know, we don't use all the funding that we put in the budget this year and so we have excess that keeps that number in a relatively decent shape. I mean, that's what happens almost every year. Is that, you know, we do, we budget in a somewhat conservative manner. And so we often do have funds that we're not used. Correct. Just contingency is 300,000 alone. Right. Right. Right. So if we didn't use that, that's 300,000. So we're not that bad. Yeah, so, yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, I know, I know, Christine, that you, you know, you don't want to come in the app. You know, if you want to keep eight firefighters, you're not going to. Well, I mean, there's a lot of parts to this. I think that you've got to really think it through, but I think thinking it through in relation to what our undersigned fund balances is, I mean, I think it might be very worth thinking through putting some more of that money into the budget. And I think that that's what Steve and Jill are getting to. Yeah. I mean, just talking about the fact that the the town managers making recommendations, which I totally agree with We need to to fix this town hall building it's antiquated and that's gonna be more money to bond out I mean we at some point we have to stop with with all the bonds and That's what you will be saving right there. So if you go to the 3% If you do the tax payer at 3%, and put the other percent in use from fund balance, again about $586,000, that's what the difference would be. Right. So it goes from, so also part of it, having a fund balance is being able to do projects projects and you not having to go out to bond so that's one of the you know Benefits of having a fun balance to It's the other side of the story Yeah, and capital there was a lot of capital that as a cut this year That will be needed next year vehicles Vehicles, kind of some of those got pushed off one year. Some of it was split in half. Just kind of trying to keep money around for flexibility, you know, with all this ARP or money that's going to come out the last minute. And all these grants that are coming out that we can use for a match and keeping up with the growth of inflation. It's just scary 4% every single year for the next five years. That's just a scary number. Well, you're looking at till 2028. So what's that three years? Because you already did it once, so yeah. But I'm just remembering the slide that you had which was pretty scary to me which was like if we didn't read the taxes it would we would be heading on a trajectory to bankruptcy basically and that's kind of what we've been doing here after year is just not doing what we need to do. But if they're obviously, if there would be a mechanism to use that funding to decrease the taxes. And I also know that the finance committee is looking at a different type of a tax plan that could bring in more revenue tax and properties differently. So that's also something in the future. So levee is the levee? It's not going to bring in any additional funds. It would just bring in the funds differently. Correct. But the funds would still be 4% or 3% or 2% would still be the same. Sure. But I believe the state house is looking at actually classifying different resonances in neighborhoods, commercial and such. We could tax differently at that point in time. Right, but still 4% is an axle. So it doesn't, you just paint in different ways on different groups, but you're still at a 4% or 3% tax levy. You can't go over the 4% unless you get a waiver. Do you know over the last say, I don't know, 4, you might not know this and I will understand. But over the last 4 or 5 years, how our budget ended up each year in terms of what we had for unused assigned funds. In other words, surplus. It's okay if you don't know that answer, but it might be a good thing for us to know, because I think that becomes a trend. It's always data points. If we find that we're actually, because I mean, I do think we're, and I'm not, this is not critical. I do think we're conservative in the way that we budget. And so, which is a good thing. But the fact of the matter is, is that if we are always finding ourselves to be in a position when we have surplus, then we, it would be a lot easier and more comfortable to say that maybe we could use some of the assigned fund, the other signs fund to ease the, you know, to still get your 4% but ease it. The numbers on the taxpayer. I think that's the point everybody here is trying to make. Right. So you were looking for percentage of unassigned or how we ended the year. Both. Both. Okay. Sorry. All right. Yeah. I do not have those. no, I know you don't but I mean if we could have that that would be very Useful information for finalizing this budget Yeah, cuz we do we do have a number of people in town who are interested in doing short-term rentals Just so they can make enough money to pay for their taxes some of the older people in this town and we do have to protect them Any other Councillor Farrini? Yeah, I would just explore it. You know, even if it's not that much on a signed fund balance, it takes a little bit of the edge off that 4% 4% 4% every year. I realize it's not that we can't end up there. And I know we're playing catch up to the, you know, we're playing catch up to the, we've accelerated the payments to the employees for one case so we are getting there. Those are significantly coming along but I mean it's still a large number so I'm gonna agree me to it, you know, just 4% for the sake of it, 4%, I know we need it but there's anyway we can use a little bit more of the fund balance to take somebody at your fat. So you want to see like a 3% or? I would love 0% of King's John House. 3% 3 and a quarter maybe. I understand Chris, I was just oh four million dollars yeah okay what three percent or three three and a quarter something like that I mean it's that it's it's about four percent now or three point four four the screen and it's tough Chris I know the people at home there's no way they can read the font as well so if you could just read the number you're're referring to, that would be really helpful. Great. If I could see it. Yeah. Which one? You change the screens and then, Chris, you know, play with one. This is the one with the tax rate. The lovey effect is the one you want, isn't it? That was it. the tax rate, the levy effect is the one you want, isn't it? That was it. That's it right there. So those are your rates. So if you go to 3%, you can see what they're saving. It would go from somebody with a homestead, would go from $245 increase. They would go down to a $213 increase. If you went to a 2% tax levy increase to the tax payer, it would go down to $175.50. That would be an increase over last year. So if you took 600,000, it would bring the fund balance down 1%. If you took 1.2, bring it down 2%. So 600,000 would bring it down to 3%. About that. Yeah, about that. I mean, it's never exact about that. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good conversation. So we can go to the public if the council doesn't have any more comments anyone from the public question a comment that's still burdo. Catherine, celebrate 40 year olds caught. I'm going to keep this simple because these are quite a few numbers. Hang on. I think it would you raise your hand please. Do you suddenly swear that the testimony or vote to give will be true to the whole truth and nothing but the truth of the whole people. Thank you. Would you state your phone name please? Catherine celebrto C-E-L-E-B-E-R-T-O. Okay. We're going to try to keep it simple. It seems to be a $62 million budget, and $2 million is coming from our reserves. I object to taking money from the reserves. It's pretty much like, you know, you're running your household, and you're taking these ongoing expenses, and you're taking money from your bank account to fund ongoing expenses. You'll never get ahead doing something like that. If you make, say, you made $50,000 a year and you put $5,000 aside. But the next year you made $50,000 and you'll have $5,000 again. Next year, next year, next year. And that's what happens here. We bring in $60 million and we have, I don't know, $60 million or whatever in the bank. We shouldn't be drawing from that. We should be trying to build that up so that in the future when we have these big projects, we don't have to bond them out and pay interest. That's what you do. I mean, isn't this how people run their households? I hope so. I mean, budget for big expenses. You don't spend the money that's in the bank. I don't, you know, why we keep doing this, taking two million or four million down to what? To lower someone's tax bill of cup on your bucks, that is really not gonna make a big difference in the future, okay? What you have to do is spend a coin to your needs. If $60 million comes in, you spend $60 million. Hopefully spend less than $60 million. There's $2 million you have to take from reserves. You can find a lot of places that could come from. One is the school department, quite frankly. We're taking an over a hundred kids in Jamestown. Each one of those kids costs us about $7,000, okay? The taxpayers in Narragansett are paying to educate kids from Jamestown, which by the way has a higher per capita income level than we have. Why are we doing this? I know why we're doing this. We have this daycare slash preschool that we fund completely. The tax payers fund this. Every other city in town with a preschool, the state funds their preschool. I asked, right, I said, why aren't we getting any money? And they said, you never ask for it. So, now, again, it has never asked for any money from right to fund up preschool. Why would they? I mean, come on, you're just giving the money whatever they ask for. But that's not just the only thing. I'm sure there this plenty of places where spending could be readjusted. Do we have a high of that grant person, part time grant person? Did we, do we, do we have a part time grant writer? No. I mean, we need a part time grant writer. Let's face it. That we need somebody who's going to go out there and find money for us. And I think there are things we should be doing that we're not doing, but especially not spending money you have to be, which is in the bank that's so called unrestricted account, to me is money in the bank. I don't think we should spend it. I don't think you should juggle a budget around to save somebody a couple hundred bucks. It doesn't make any real sense. Thank you. Thank you, anyone else from the public? Was she in the comment? So yes, that is what happened to our fund balance that we had. We have a fund balance policy for other funds. So actually could be something that we look at having a fund balance policy for this line item budget. I don't know why I don't budget so anyone else wishing to speak before we do final comments. Mr. Haynes. It's a public hearing on just supporting or opposing making comments no questions. We have to get sworn in. Would you raise your right there? Do you see a third H.A.M. No. I have to get sworn in. Yes. Would you raise your hand? Please. Do you have a third? H-A-M-E-S? Thirty-what-avenoon, Eric. I just noticed. Excuse me. I have to swear you in. Oh. Do you soundly swear that the testimony no vote to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the schools. My only question on that is I don't know where that slide is. There was two questions ahead on that. And keep going keep going keep going. It's there someplace. We will pass it. No? No? Go back. What, there you go. Bingo. It's just a very round number. I know you can't direct the school department as to what cuts are necessary. But did that 100,000 just come out of the air or was it a specific thing that somebody was interested in or objection to? Anybody have any questions, the answers to that? We're not answering questions for, this is just like whether you support the budget or not, it's not a question and answer session for the public. Well, I guess the next one you can't answer is N-R-P-A. Can you tell me what that stands for? Yeah, never a river preservation association. I just want to make sure there's another organization that's got those same numbers. Oh, yeah, no, it's near river preservation. Should I just think going on there there's another organization that's got those same letters. Oh, yeah, no. It's near a river present. Should I be going on there? Okay, thank you. That was my two questions. But you can't tell me if the 100,000 just be out of midair or there were specific things. I'm sure there were specific things, so thank you. Okay, so then any final thoughts from the council before we close the public hearing? Councillor Copic, okay. I do want to make sure that so as options for professional services, I know many municipalities are now getting lobbies and lobby firms to represent their interests And I think there's a lot going on for legislators, legislatively from the General Assembly that does impact municipalities. So I just want to make sure that we do for the next council if the council would like to engage in lobbying services. I want to make sure there's a line item for that and anything that we can do for any recreational opportunities for the town. So that would be for fun balance too. So with that, seeing no more questions or actually no more discussion from the council, do I have a motion to close the public hearing? So moved. Second. Paul in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler. Seconded by Councillor Copac motion passes 5-0. Thank you for your service. Thanks. It's too bad today. All right. So we are moving back to the meeting agenda for the Parks and Recreation Department. We have a motion to approve the sponsorship agreement with Bank Newport as per attached for the 2024 Rhode Island Philharmonic concert sponsorship. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? Anyone from the public? All in favor. Aye. All opposed. Motion by council lawler. Seconded by councilor Copac. Motion passes 5-0. Next we have a motion to award the bid for beach dumpster services to the lowest bidder. Narragansett rubbish removal at their quoted bid prices of $34,600 for year one, $36,330 for year two, and their quoted prices for additional dumpsters and emergency pickup services for a two-year period. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? Anyone from the public? Ms. Celebrato. Alberto. Catherine Selberto, 48, who owns Narragansett, Rubbish removal? Is it Mr. Briarly or is it a town employee? That and if it's a town employee, I object to it. It does Mr. Briarly. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else from the public? to it. It is Mr. Brierley. No, can't. Thank you. Anyone else from the public? All right. All in favor? Aye. I'll oppose motion by Councillor Lawler. Seconded by Councillor Copac. Motion passes 5-0. Next up from the Community Development Department. We have a motion to approve the amended contract with Fuss and O'Neill for additional services related to the foddering farm causeway concept study for $210,000 and authorize the town manager to sign the agreement after review by the solicitor. So moved. Second. Mr. Terri, I'm gonna have you, can you give some of the background on this one because this one has come up in the public apparently. Sure this this project started back in community development in 2018 when the Nature Conservity Trust approached the town regarding water quality and fish habitat project in Long Cove. The Haber Island Improvement Association approached the town regarding the concerns about the causeway flooding as well. For the ingress and egress to the island, approximately 350 dwellings on the island. The town assesses and the issue, and we discussed it at meetings and has mitigation plan updates. Several causeways are identified in town that are at risk for vulnerabilities from flooding. And also there's the issues with the water egress and back and forth. It's all clogged up in a lot of the natural growth is dying in that area. We received a brick grant from the Feds in 2022 and we have another award from SNAP in 2024. So it's the whole cost of the pro-croakers of about 440,000 and we'll be getting about 332,000 in full federal funding on it. We are seeking a grant opportunity to address the water quality issues in Long Cove as well as the flooding and marsh mitigation in that area. It's been a project that's been going out for a long time, anyone knows in town. That road is serious risk of being cut off and the nature around it may be affected as well with the plant, the vegetation dying. Yeah, there are 350 residences on Harbour Rhineland that the causeway leads to. There have been issues with emergency vehicles being able to come into during storm school buses as well. So it's an important project. Thank you for clarification. Anyone from the council wishing to comment? Everum, when can we see some results? Like is it a year down the road as far as some results? I'm sorry? I said about a year down the road as far as when we see some results on the grant, the whole study and the recommendations. But it's been in process for a while. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else from the council? Anyone from the public? Miss Alberto. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, anyone else from the council? Anyone from the public? Miss Elberto? Catherine, celebrate her 48th court. First ever would all do respect. I don't think you should be talking about this. You should live on Haber Island. Maybe somebody else could have taken the lead. The other thing is this, it's great that we're gonna get all this money to fund the study, but how much is this going to cost in the end? You need Sue as on Harbor Island, and I'm concerned about spending maybe millions and millions of dollars on restricted account to raise the road when you need sewers, you need sewers, you need the drains cleaned, you need the invasive vegetation taken out, all of those things would help the flooding. But I'm just concerned that I'd rather see the money go toward a sewer project than this. I know it's a six one half a dozen of the other but you know this is going to be another bond that's my question. I hope not. Bye. Thank you. Anyone else from the public? Okay. All in favour? Aye. All opposed? Motion by Councillor Lec Lawler, Second by Councillor Coupac. Motion passes 5-0. Next we have a motion to introduce, read, pass, and accept as a first reading an ordinance an amendment of appendix A of the code of ordinances of the town of Narragansett, Rhode Island, entitled Zoning to Amend Tables and Text in Section 6 and 12, regulating two family and multi-family dwellings. Some moved. Second. Okay, any discussion from the council? Multi-family, yeah. Councillor, that's a weird one. I had some questions. It's the first reading, correct? So I don't know how much you can ask me to mic. There's about 6,000 properties in the town between our 10, our 10A and our 20. Is that accurate? I don't have the full number, Mike, you had that? Oh, man. Only because I'm just assuming, you know, I'm looking at this ordinance and I'm trying to think of why we need it. It's kind of thinking way down the road and if this 6,000 lots, I would assume I presume that half of them are wet because they would have already been built on. So I'm just wondering if that's a reality or a false narrative. I don't know. But prohibiting bothers me, so I want to kind of make sure I really understand, you know, the properties and what the intent is are there applicants for duplexes at this point? Is there any interest in that or is there zero applicants? I'm struggling and I do want to talk about the affordable housing aspect of the duplex. Yes. Mr. Terney, is it okay if we ask Mr. Deluga some questions just because this is the first reading. Mike's got the highlight version of this. Yeah, okay. Thanks, Mr. Deluga. Yes. We did a lot of number crunching before we even gave thoughts of writing this ordinance. And so I'll read you a few excerpts out of the staff report that came to you. It was actually a report signed by the cleaning board chair. Approximately 45% of the lots in the R10 and R10A zone, are substandard lots, and over 86% of the lots in R10 are not large enough for duplexes by right as of December of 2023. So that's under the old regulations. Let me digress just a moment. Under the old regulations we allowed single family homes and two family homes and virtually all of our zones except for the R80. To build the two family home you needed a little bit wider lot in the R10 you needed an extra 50 feet of width and you needed an extra 10,000 square feet of land. In the R20 you needed an extra 50 feet of width and an extra 10,000 square feet of land. So instead of a 20,000 square foot lot you need a 30,000 square foot lot. And the R10 instead of a 10,000 square foot lot you needed a 20,000 square foot lot. So we were putting in a proportionality component, and it had been there since 1991, and it worked quite well. When the bill number 6059 was passed last year, it took away the allowance for the town to regulate the light area. And Olin said was that if a record lot was equal to or larger than 50% of the lights around it in the 200 foot radius, it could be built upon. We have the problem lies is that we have numerous neighborhoods and you folks probably know them as well as I do, that were plated many years ago. And they were plated with 40 wide lots, 50 wide lots. There are some areas that were plated with 20-foot wide lots. and with the loss of our ability to regulate the size of the lot as a standard for determination of whether something could be a buildable lot or not a buildable lot, we identified these thousands of lots that have substandard lots of record as Councilman Bonanno states, some of them are in the wetlands, but many, many, many of them are not. Many of them are in the neighborhoods, we all know is high density neighborhoods. They're a side yard of many people who own properties, and they are vacant lots that are just not built apart. Combined, there are more than 6,000 lots in the R10 and R20 alone that were not large enough in December of 23 to build the duplex by right. What I presented to you last time in my hearing was a statement that we felt very uncomfortable with the planning board, felt very uncomfortable having this lot area standard being ripped away from us and knowing that our ordinance stated, and not every ordinance is like this, but our ordinance stated, in two families homes that were allowed by right, just as one family homes are allowed by right in those zones, our 10, our 10A, our 20, our 40. Previously, you had a lot of area requirement. The state bill that got passed last year takes away the lot of area requirement. So we're saying if the lot of area requirement is taken away, we have the great potential to have houses built on substandard lots of single families as well as two family homes. The planning board acknowledges is not what you can say about a single family home on a substandard lot. The law is the law. So the acknowledge that they accept it and they were not with this regular proposal suggesting that that be regulated. But when you go to two family houses and you consider them on substandard lots, not standard sized lots, substandard lots of record, that was where they were concerned about the density increase and the prospect of real estate investors from not around here, buying up properties left in very sight unseen and pulling building permits. So as I mentioned to you at hearing, it sounds counterintuitive to suggest that two family homes are not appropriate in the higher density zones. What we are doing and what we've suggested is that two-fueling homes ought to be allowable in the high density zones under certain circumstances. When every regularity component is taken away, and in fact, and I presented that to you also, on a substantive lot of record, the setbacks are reduced by the amount that the lot is substandard. The coverage is increased by the amount of the lot that is substandard, excuse me. So we were very, very concerned that while single family homes are going to happen on these substandard lots and should be accepted, two family homes is essentially a bridge too far. And that was why we felt as though for the time being, unless and until the state law has changed and gives us back the authority to regulate the land area associated with two family homes, we have to take that away. That's really what we're saying. Thank you. So I apologize, but I feel like it's coming fast. This prohibiting duplex is so I want to make sure I understand it. I know we've had a public hearing, but it seems really fast. I mean, we're still in the middle of short-term rentals. So I just want to say that, like, let's just slow down a minute. But what about the compromise for affordable housing? The development of a duplex, could it be deed restricted so that we help for affordable housing? You will elaborate a little bit on how that could benefit people that are struggling with housing? Yeah. As you know, if you take a look at the last page of the ordinance, I'm struggling to find it at the moment, if you look at the last page of the ordinance, we state in the ordinance that two family homeless will be allowable on an R40 into our 80 zones by special use permit. We do set forth a land area, 100,000 square feet in the R80, 60,000 square feet in the R40. But we also set forth requirements that the setbacks in building coverage will not be changed. And that's how you get a set of special use permit in those two zones. But we also then add a paragraph at the end that states if the applicant provides a deed restriction, or land we used for stricken at least one of the dwelling units per lot, in the case of a two family home, to affordable housing for a period of 30 years, these standards may be waived by the building official or the planning board depending upon which method they are coming in for approval. Might not change the route but they'd have to go to get a special variance. They'd have to apply. It's not just a natural happening, right? They'd have to go to get the relief. They would, procedurally, if it was a single lot, it was going just to the building official. And they showed a deed restriction that they were ready to put on record. I believe the building official would be able to just issue the permit. Is that a solid yes? Yes. That's as close to a yes as I can give knowing that I don't have to go out and have to build the inspector. In terms of the planning board who might feel a little more comfortable with, if they were looking at say a development plan review or a land development plan of multiple houses that they, that an individual wanted to build as duplexes and they were, they were being asked to approve duplex development and the deed restriction were brought forward. They could issue an approval with conditions that that deed restriction go on record before any of those house lots are sold. Okay and then I did ask a question but are these common do we have anybody in the wings waiting to build to do flex? Are they permit? I mean do people come in? Is that something that we have like 150 waiting in the wings or? No of course we don't but that's because as you said this came fast and furious. I feel like Ross skis like that's happening. Today is May, May, May 6th. Last year we were working under the regulations I described to you and June 27th last year everything changed and then in September 27th they gave us guidance as to how to write out ordinances. We were given three months to write the ordinances. So when you talk about things coming fast and furious, they sure did. Once we got past all that and put all the regulations on the books that you folks agreed to, we went back and we saw what some of these ramifications could be, and we felt as though we needed to act quickly. So my apologies for it's seeming as though it's much faster than we'd like to have it. However we do know that with the passage of the law, Bill 6.059 from last year, and the initiation of January 1st, 2024. That allowance was available and ready for to be used by any development. We felt as though we needed to close the loophole and hope and encourage the general assembly to make a change in that one. And Mike, I believe the number, either you or Jill read to us, there are 99 substandard lots in the North and the Andalloon. I don't have those numbers in front of me. But I do know that we have a chart of that. And as far as infrastructure, we wouldn't even have the ability to be able to hook them into our sewer and the media. Well, I could defer to Mr. Gerhard on that, but I do know that we do lease space in the West Mall and sewage treatment plant from the University of Rhode Island because we don't own enough of that sewage treatment plant for the North End and the center part of town. So that's the other part of the problem. But so yeah, and we're reacting to this because it came to us quick from the state house with many, many changes. So like not bad on you, thank you. And for your planning department for all the work you've done to try to help us regulate our town. Well, thank you. And it was the planning board made a great effort and the staff also did phenomenal work. So we'll just make a comment. Thank you. Any other comments? I'm just going to see if Councillor CoPEC would like to comment. Okay. Councillor Ferrandi. So I just do want to make, this legislation does come really quick fast and furious and it's coming from the state house and it's under the guise of affordable housing and there's never any stipulations for housing affordable housing. So my issue is with that. So when these bills are being touted for affordable housing but yet they have no measures to have that as a successful end result. It's really concerning to us as a town. Not because we don't want affordable housing in this town, it's because we don't have the sewer, water, infrastructure to support just all of a sudden this happening. So I believe that we were mischaracterized and I did watch the coverage of our planning board chair. And I thought it was very, very un... One sided and it took snippets and it painted this narrative of us wanting to stop any affordable housing from happening a near against and that's the furthest thing from the truth is the furthest thing from us having issues with duplexes. I grew up in a duplex and a protecta grew up in the three generation household. No problems with it. It's just when you it's like a right and then I can already foresee, we do have issues with investors and property owners and people wanting to run short-term businesses. And this is just an opportunity to have two places to rent just outright. So again, I take offense to the narrative that's out there, and it's being spread by, you know, individuals on, you know, close to us here as well. And it's not true. And I really applaud and appreciate the efforts of the planning board and then just the stop gap measures. Because this is a stop gap measure. When we talked about inclusionary zoning, it's not that we didn't want to accept it. It was the way it was written. So we asked for an amendment, and that's all we were asking from the state, state, from the general assembly, and it seems like it's happening. And so we're accepting of it, but when we're being characterized as not wanting to do anything because we're elitist. That's the furthest thing from the truth. And I want that to be on record because that is very, very disturbing to me as somebody who has run on affordable housing. And if I may just piggyback on your comment, Councillor Presiden, I just want to remind all that that phraseology I just read to you about waiving the requirements for affordable housing is text we added. It is not in mandated to us in the state law. Interesting. So, Rex, see, there you go. So we are working on ways to help with affordable housing in our own efforts with also protecting our infrastructure and our water, our sewer. I mean, we have water bands every year, every summer, year round, like you can't water anything, we have to not be. It's, I think people don't understand that. I think individuals who are making these laws don't understand that community is different, and we're not all created equal, we're not cookie cutter. We have different needs, we have ways of dealing with things in different fashions. We all want the same result. We want to see more affordable housing. We want to see more people living here a year around. We want to see people being able to afford homes here. And again, as the planning board added that, that really great edit to, it's not a mandate, but that's the stipulation, but yeah, I appreciate that, so thank you. I just wanted to say thank you as well. I'm not for the ordinance, I don't like prohibiting duplexes, so I'm not for it, but I thank the planning board and you like for your work on it. And I just like to deal with the policies that are happening now, this feels like it's so far away from where we are. Any other comments? And council comments? All right, Ann, one from the public. Miss Elaberto. Catherine, celebrate, oh, 40, eight, oh, it's cut. First, I'd like to say something. This over's a lot of talk about how peer residents don't want affordable housing and in fact all the freestanding affordable housing is in the peer fifth avenue Compton Street mansion third street this is where all the freestanding affordable housing is as well as water's edge in the two elderly complexes. So, I mean, we really have a lot of affordable housing and that's fine with me. But a year or so ago before these changes in the general assembly, I filed an app, and I asked how many vacant lots were in town of 5,000 square feet or more. And there are 800 vacant lots in this town of 5,000 square feet or more that are potentially developed. They're all available now. Let's face it. And the general assembly also unmerged lots, I believe, that's something else they did. And again, I say the same thing. It's all under the guise of affordable housing. But no one, if someone now by right can build a duplex on a 5,000 square foot lot, unless you put limits on that, nobody is going to build an affordable housing. Nobody. And I'll, you find me, somebody who will build an affordable house on a 5,000 square foot lot without a mandate, sometime a condition for mandate, to take you both to all of you to Spain, because that's not going to happen to this town. We know that. So therefore you have to put limits. And the only way we can do this right now is by is taking away the by right part of this. And still the zoning board can can wave can give variances. And that's that's a concern. We have a zoning board, which I always say never saw a variance it didn't like, and there has to be some kind of control there also. But this is not doing what we're doing now is not going to affect affordable housing. If you were to put some kind of a mandate on this where somebody could build on our substandard lot, if again one unit was to be affordable one is not, then that's I'm not sure how you're going to do that tell you the truth, but we can't just allow anything now because they'll just be wholesale duplex building for investment purposes. And I don't think anybody's so naive that they don't believe that, thank you. Thank you. I agree all the legislations that's coming forward is designed for builders and developers. And then if there were stipulations such as making, if it's a year round, or affordable housing, then that would be different and that's kind of the conversation that we would have just like again when we revisit it. So I hope there are going to be amendments to the legislation that is being touted as affordable housing legislation. Ms. Bush, I see your hand up. I have read about that bill and I was astounded that the state could just take our power Ms. Bush, I see your hand up. I have read about that bill and I was astounded that the state could just take our power away as a town. And like you, I've been maligned in the past and called, you know, terrible things because I was not for over development. I don't like to see this town destroyed. I don't like to see every square inch of land developed. I don't like to see every square inch of land developed. I don't like to see loss of trees and greens based. I don't like to see the stormwater runoff issues that we have in basements flooding like they've never flooded before. We just, we're built out really. The land just can't handle more. So, but my question is between this horrific bill and what I just saw the finance director talk about the potential loss of the revenue taxes. I guess I'm curious what kind of, you mentioned before the potential of having a part-time lobbyist. I would just like to know that we're being represented, that somebody's keeping an eye on what's going on in the state house and speaking up for us whether that's through a municipal association or lawyers or lobbyists. I feel like somebody needs to look out for our interests. We're getting steamrolled down here. Thank you. We do have the League of Cities and Towns that represent us but they are representing every municipality and it is bills get introduced left and right and I think they're up to like 23 or 24 hundred bills that were introduced and need to be monitored. And again, we do have members of the council and other members from the town that go and do testify. So I just want to make that known. Okay. Any other comments? If not, I will take the vote. All in favour? Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay. Motion by Councillor Loller. Seconded by Councillor Copac. Motion passes. is for one. Next up from the engineering department we have a motion to approve, ratify and confirm, change order number nine with E. W. Burman incorporated for the more elunctions Memorial Library renovation project in the amount of $1,46 Second. Any discussion from the council? Anyone from the public? Just the always questions, Jim, is the money available in their account? It is a library donation account and professional services through the bond. And this may be the last change out of construction for this portion of the project. Yeah, it's good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone from the public? I'm sorry, Councillor Fauranty, were you? No. Okay, sorry. Anyone from the public? All in favour? I opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler, second by Councillor Copac, motion passes 5-0. Next we have a motion to approve the purchase of a replacement pump for waste waters, Gally pump station from New England Environmental Equipment, incorporated in the amount of $19,086. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? Anyone from the public? All in favour? Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler. Seconded by Councillor Copac. Motion passes 5-0. Next from the finance department. We have a motion to read, pass and adopt as a second reading for an ordinance and amendment of chapter 70 of the code of ordinance of the town of Narragansett, Rhode Island entitled taxation and finance specifically section 70-1a entitled list of readable property. So moved. Second. Okay, this is just that minor edit. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler. Second by Councillor Copic. Motion passes 5-0. Next from the building and zoning department, we have a motion to read, pass and adopt as a second reading an ordinance and amendments of chapter 14 of the code of ordinances of the town of Narragansett entitled businesses, specifically Article 16 entitled rental dwellings, reordering Article 17 solicitations and adding a new Article 17 entitled short term rentals. So moved. Second. This is a second reading, but I will, if the council members have any final thoughts or comments on this, Councillor Covec. Indeed. I actually think that we should always be able to do this at a second reading, but we just do. That's not relevant here. So there were three things that I had concerns about in this ordinance. And I am in favor of most of this ordinance, I think it's imperative that we have some sort of regulation for short-term rentals and by and large, most of this is, you know, we've made some changes, but in most of this I think makes a great deal of sense. But there are two things, three things that I have a concern. One is based on all of the testimony that we heard in the, well, the two times that we did the first reading. It seems to me that we could take a look at the notion and revise this to include off-season shorter term rentals. And when I say shorter term, I'm saying either three or four days during the periods between, and my thinking would be the period between October 1st and May 1st. A lot of what we heard from people who live in town and have rental properties in town made a case that there's a need for it. We don't have a ton of hotels in this town and there's a need for support for people who have family who come in on holidays. You know, we do have a lot of students here, but we all, I mean, even if the students weren't living in Narragansett parents who come for various and sundry events would probably need to find a place to stay. And this is, you know, this is one of those kinds of places. One of the concerns that we've had with people who use shorter term than seven days during the summer period is that there's a lot of activity outside that can be disruptive to the residents. We do have a tremendous amount of rental property in our residential areas. And in the winter time, late fall, early spring, chances are most activities would not take place outside. So I would really like to consider this and consider adjusting it. I think it makes some great sense and it also is very supportive of all of our small business folks here in town for the period when we're not that busy the way that we are in the summer. So that's the first thing. The second one is we had, and I don't know how many people this affects, but we do have some people in this town who rent out on occasion just rooms in their house. And I think, Evan, I had a conversation about this and I guess this could be considered a boarding house, but I don't think that's exactly what some folks were looking for. You know, they have a single room, they want to lower in a bathroom, whatever on the sweet room. For some short periods of time in the year, whatever, and the owner is present on the premises. I don't think we address that issue either. I think on an owner occupied home is not necessarily a boarding house, but it seems to me that it makes some sense to allow for that kind of rental as well. And the last thing, which is probably the smallest of them all, but I find it weird, is section 14 by 49D, the residential character item, where there's this strange group of items about that I just, I mean mean I really don't understand what they mean and I think if we took the items out the the statement itself would work just fine. I don't know how we would enforce something like somebody complaining about glare or vibration or odors those things just strike me as really weird. And I think it's just, I mean, I'm all for specificity, I'm all for defined language, but I don't think that that adds anything to this ordinance, it seems very strange. We have had recently a few emails from other people asking for the specifics of how some of these things will work. I don't think that's really our purview, but I think that we need to make sure that we're responding to people as much as possible who want to know what's going to happen once this ordinance is passed. I don't know if there's a way to make any adjustments to the ordinance in the second reading. So I need to know the answer to that question. I believe I've already inquired about this. Any, any, even minor edits would have to go back to a first reading and I'm just gonna confirm that with our solicitor. That's correct. Any modifications? We'll set it back to the first reading. Thank you, Deb. Okay. Okay. Councillor Ferrandi, any comments? No comment. Councillor Lawler. Mark or Jim, could you please comment to the owner occupied in accessory dwelling component of the short-term rental. You did not accessory dwelling is that I was referring to. But there is, okay. Do you have an error because you were listening to this? if someone has an accelerate dwelling at their house, actual, they living there and there is a separate room in a bathroom and a kitchen, so separate dwelling. Is that included in the short term rental ordinance? If it's an ADU and it meets all the requirements for a space to be habitable, it would be available for rent. Okay, and so in the same thing as owner occupied. That is loud. Okay. Thank you. I mean, as Deb mentioned, it's not necessarily boarding house, but there are rules for rooming houses. Right. Which get to how the house is laid out, what the bathroom situation is, and the kitchen situation. But those are exempt boarding house, rooming house, or exempt from these restrictions. But ADUs would be fully rentable. Okay. So they could, someone who had a, I'm sorry, I don't always get the language right, a rooming house, I guess would be the one that I was referring to. They could rent as any way they want. So that was the clarification I did get from our building official. And it does stay in the ordinance under section 14-543C of the short term rental ordinance. Ruming houses would be exempt from the regulations. And I think we're just referring to one of the speakers that came in who was a widow and who rented her room out. So what she describes would fall under that exemption. I mean, there are, I mean, people have to be first or are restrictions and requirements for rooming house. You can't just declare your house or rooming house or requirements of that. Correct. Okay. But I don't. requirements for that. Correct. Okay. But do we have any, does anybody have any idea how many rooming houses we have in there? Yes, it. Identified as such. Because I suspect there's more unidentified ones than identified ones. Just like all the branchless in town. Yeah, I don't think anyone has that number at the top of their head, but we can definitely get the number two. Councillor Coupic. Okay. So, Councillor Sillin-Barrano? I said the last time that regulation is important for the short term rentals, but I didn't really love this process. I mean, we never met with the assisto, the email, Cranicus, but we never really listened to the stakeholders, so I object a little bit to how this evolved, but I'm gonna tell you what I don't like about it tonight, and I guess we can't change it. I have a similar list to you, Deb, actually, that residential character was really hard for me to understand older, clear. I thought it was really a paragraph that should have just been eliminated. So I had an issue with that. I had owner occupied. If you live in the home, you should be able to rent it to somebody you're in now. So I have no issue with that. I think we should accept that. Allowing the short, shorter periods of time, I've had so many people say to me, you know, we want to come from Memorial Day weekend. There's no way to stay. Why can't they do shorter terms? And I think the states actually looking at three or four days, I totally support that. May the October give the opportunity for those people. They rent to people that are coming in to see a show or to come to an hour against it for a lot of reasons. They like that, that opportunity. So I think that this ordinance in front of us tonight lacks that and I have a lot of difficulty with the local representation and I'm not really even sure how that works. It sounds like you have to be a police for your property kind of thing and I don't know if market is familiar with this ordinance. The local representative would act as and in place of the owner. So if an owner is out of state or chooses not to be the one that is responsible for the property, if there's a complaint they would be notified and they would be responsible for either calling the police or calling their tenants and rectifying the situation. So I don't think anyone anticipates the local representative or an owner of getting into a situation where they're taking on police powers. But I was a landlord for many years in Erigancett and I had made it a point to let my neighbors know that if there's a problem call me and I will address it. So in that sense I was a local representative. And I got calls at two in the morning and I got up and I drove to the house and I told them to knock it off. It was normally loud noise or screaming or whatever the hell they were doing. So, and if it was something that I didn't want to deal with or couldn't deal with, I would call the police. So, I don't think this ordinance puts any police requirements, police power requirements on them, but it does make them aware of the situation and it requires them to go there and address it one way or another. Okay, thank you. So, those, I mean, I think it's in pretty good shape too, but I object to not having the things in that I just mentioned. A deb your list is very similar. I just have one extra. So if we can't make any edits or change it, I don't know those words, work around it. I don't really want to adopt an ordinance that we're going to try to work around our own ordinance. So I don't really see this being finished. So I would have to say that I can't support it unless we can make those amendments tonight. Okay, just to give some comments, some of the concerns that came up, which is why I wanted council members to address those concerns, because I think overall council members do support some sort of regulation of short term rentals, you know, and just to address the glare and the odor part of the ordinance, you know, when I did reach out to our building official, just to find out, like if we had some other ordinances. And it doesn't specifically address the glare, odor or vibration in general, but it does address some specific commercial industrial uses. So our building official states that there isn't specific zoning criteria, which we can use to determine a violation of those conditions. And then it's basically in the zoning table of use regulations. He did state that there's a statement in there that says any use which is noxious or offensive by reason of the commissioner of odor, dust, noise, smoke, heat, vibration, gas, fumes, or radiation, or which presents hazard to the public health and safety shall be prohibited. So again, it may not be specifically outlined in the ordinance, but that's something that we are working on having frequently asked questions, questions and answers, that will be posted and that will be addressed. So I don't have an issue with that staying in the ordinance. Again, there are issues with maybe the noise or ordinance in the ordinance. Any noise would be handled by police with the current noise ordinance. And then our building official didn't anticipate any new glare complaints as all of these properties are already rentals and complaints would have already been received. So it hasn't been an issue. And so this means like floodlights or things like that. So but that's in there, it's kind of standard language. We worked with a third party vendor who's an expert in short term rentals. And then, and again, order is one that is very subjective and maybe difficult to enforce, but when discussed about this portion of the ordinance, our building official said he had no problem keeping it as is. If we find we have any issues with enforcement at any of those items, we can make changes later that address it specifically. So it would be a specifically addressing an issue that comes up. We don't have every single answer or every single scenario. That's why you keep it general and then you have it there again. This isn't general. This is specific. Well, specific, but it does define. I mean, so there needs to be something to address. I feel it does. I mean, we didn't make this ordinance up. It's not the council didn't come here and make up an ordinance. We actually contracted a third party vendor who specializes in short-term rental ordinances. We dealt with outside legal counsel. We paid for those services. We actually had our solicitor work on it. So this was a process that we have been working on for a very long time. And it's come from 30 days, and then it came to no days limit, and it came to seven days limit. And the reason why, and I think everybody on this council knows where that seven day limit came from, and that was from the Affordable Housing Study that we actually had, and then it came, we had a final crane report, and it did suggest the seven day limit, seven day minimum as a way of helping with the issue of affordable housing issues in our town. So I think it's disingenuous if people here are saying that that's not a good number, or that's not, that it should be this one, that what I'm saying is that I think, you know, a rental or landlord can set the price like an off-season rate where it makes it desirable for somebody, okay, and maybe whatever the rate would be like a three-day rental would be a week long. And you know what, to me, I see the opposite side of that where it could actually help our economy and Bring in people who are like okay I wasn't planning on staying for a week But this is a great opportunity. I have this great rates for a week on the offseason I'm gonna make a week long trip out of this or I'll just stay a few days or whatever But they people will you know if if people need the rental and it's priced right. And from what I'm hearing is that off season, it's like the three day rental or weekend rental. But this recommendation came from the planning board. It came for the transancy. You don't want strangers coming in and out of your neighborhood. So the seven day limit is that. And it's also making it more less desirable. And I'm telling you, these ordinances do work because I had a friend from college who contacted me because knew we were working on ordinances. Speaking about buying a second home, a second property. Oh, I want to buy a second home, but I don't know if it will work economically because I hear that there's limits on the rentals, limit on the permits. It's not going to be financially feasible, so I probably won't be doing it because if it's not a guaranteed income. So that's the intent of the short-term rental ordinance. It's part of the process to make housing more affordable here. So it's one of the key issues that we were addressing. We already addressed the three student that was part of it. We did the bulk zoning, and this is the short-term rental ordinance. That we talked about, and that we've worked on with experts. So I don't see what the issue is. I think if it is a business, and we're calling it short-term rental businesses, and then we've had emails, we're, oh, I bought this as a business. So it's not somebody for living here year round. We want to see those people here. We want to prevent friends of mine who want to buy a house and make an investment and just be able to rent it out and then do short term rentals. We want to have somebody buy it, live here year round, be part of the community. Because again, here we are getting accused of not wanting housing affordable people year round or housing affordability, but we are. These are mechanisms that we're doing so that it does help with affordability. And that came from the crane report. So we hired a consultant to help us with this issue. We paid good money for it, and then you get the final report. So what I wanna do is start shipping away at those recommendations, and the seven day minimum was a recommendation. So that's why it was included, and that's why I think this ordinance is good as is, and we do have business owners, and they'll figure out a way. Like it is, it's a week long, and I feel that we will stimulate the economy because people may stay. So I see the opposite side of it. I see the other side and so with that those are my comments and I just I know that we are not always going to agree on everything. But when we hire consultants to do reports and we get the results and then I think it's just continually kicking the can down the road it's the definition of insanity you know doing the same thing over and over and getting another report getting another consultant I don't like the results and then you know expecting different results we have data we have information we act on it and that's what we're doing and that's what this ordinance is and And so with that, I've, you know, all the council members have been allowed to, or just, you know, have their comments on record because I, again, I think we all want the same thing. We want more housing affordability here. So I just, why I thought it was important that the council members discuss what issues they had with it. But again, it's been a long process and I feel it's ready to go as is. Any issues that we come up with from the enforcement piece of it with odors or whatnot, we can address it at a later point. But for now, I think it's the second reading. So I will take a vote. So all in favor? Can I say, Eva, I think you've done a great job with bringing this through. And I think the point that you're making tonight is a really important part. Caranicus is a company we hired who deals with short-term rental issues and ordinances all around the country. So they know the problems. They know what has worked discussing and went not to. So that is a key component of it. We have 23% of the short-term rentals in the state in this town. And I know we've received emails from individuals who they do call themselves a business owner is in town that do own these hotels and neighborhoods. And they like to remind us that they potentially like to sue. But I'm waiting for the first neighborhood to sue us by saying to us, hey, how come you're not protecting our rights? Town council, why are you allowing commercial businesses to happen in my residential neighborhood? Because that's the other part of the story, and I agree with you, Eva. And that needs to be told, and hopefully, we'll be telling that story tonight. Could I say one more thing? Sure. The first thing I want to say is that the person who first, you know, discussed the idea of seven-day rentals was me. And that was in our meeting in October of 2022. So I just want to make that point I've never had an issue with that concept ever. I also was the person who brought granicus to the table. So I had met with them and I actually introduced you to them ever. And I think that that was, I think, Granakist did a very, very, very good job. I think it is time to do this, but I like to do things sort of right from the beginning, and I feel like, Susan made the point that we probably should have had a discussion amongst the town council, which we have to do in public, just to work through a couple of these issues. That didn't happen, and, you know, that's what led me to say what I had to say today, and I think it's as legitimate as any other thing. I applaud the work that's been done here. I think that this is the right, I think we're on the right track, but I do think there are some things that could have been done better. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Take the vote. All in favor. Aye. All opposed. Nay. I'm going to abstain again. Sorry. Okay. Motion by Council Law. Their second by Councilor Copic. Motion passes three with one nay and one abstention. Next from the town's clerk office, we have a motion to approve a holiday license application submitted by Ocean State Pickleball LLC, doing business as Ocean State Pickleball Club, 360 South Pier Road, Narragansett Road Islands subject to state and local regulations. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? No more from the public. All in favor. Aye. Aye. I opposed. Motion by council lawler, second by councilor Kofek. Motion passes 5-0. Next, we have a motion to approve a holiday license for traveling Gypsy Incorporated, doing businesses traveling Gypsy 36-Pierre Market Place, and they're against Rhode Island subject to state and local regulations. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? Anyone from the public? All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by council lawler, second by council, co-pec motion passes 5-0. Next we have a motion to approve a holiday license for traveling Gypsy Incorporated, doing business as Shell boutique located at 32A, peer marketplace, Narragansett, Rhode Island, subject to state and local regulations. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? Anyone from the public? All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by council lawler, second by Councilor Copac, motion passes 5-0. Next, we have a motion to approve a holiday license application for traveling Gypsy Incorporated doing business as special T-shop located at 38A, peer marketplace, Narragansett, Rhode Island, subject to state and local regulations. So moved. Second. Any discussion with the council? Anymore from the public? All in favor. Aye. All opposed. Motion by council lawler, second by councilor Copac motion passes 5-0. Next we have a motion to appoint one individual to the Narragance at Housing Authority for a term to expire on April 30th, 2029. So moved. Second. What I'd like to do is continue this. There are, I was, something was brought to my attention earlier, like a couple hours, a few hours before we started and I just, we just needed to address some issues with this one. So I'd like to make a motion to continue this agenda item. So moved. Second. Fall in favor I all opposed motion by council lawler second my councilor Copac motion passes 5 0 Next we have a motion to appoint William Osborne to the Galilee Advisory Committee to fill in un expired term that expires on November 1st 2026. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? Anyone from the public? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed. Motion by council lawler. Second by councilor Copic. Motion passes 5-0. Lastly, we have motion to pass a resolution requesting the general Assembly approval of legislation for the issuance of $3 million bonds for affordable housing in the town of Naregaansett. So moved. Second. Okay, so this is being brought back. We just we did have. It was continued. We had a work session which would have which should have happened initially. So the process should have been followed. So it has come back. We had the work session. It was informative. It was public, which is the way it should have happened to begin with. We were able to get questions answered. And so it's coming back on for discussion. We can discuss it as a council and then go to the public. Councilor Suleimanano. I mean, I think we all spoke about it last time. It's a motion on to send it up to the general assembly. So the voters of Narraganskik can make their decision. It would be on the ballot. So voters, people could vote. So tonight is really not about forecasting the future budget because so many things rely, I don't know who's going to be on the council. What's the rate? What's OPEP going to be like, this is just an opportunity to say, could you vote for this? Yes, it could sit there. You could spend the money. You could do nothing with it. So don't get it, again, let's not get ahead of ourselves. It's basically so the voters can make the decision that's all we're asking for tonight to go to the general assembly for the power to put it on the ballot. Any other council members? I have a question. So is the committee coming back to us with a recommendation about more specifics? I know last time we met Mike said that they could meet with their department and come back to us with some more specifics on what you're talking about doing. I believe not. No. Because that's some, I mean, Deb just mentioned something, you know, her talk about the short-term rental, like wanting to have specifics, you know, detailed explanations. And that's the one thing for me here that's lacking. I understand that we want to have it go to the voters and have them vote, but it's really important that the voters know what they're voting for. What I mean by that, in this bill, will it be a bond for workforce housing? Will it be a bond for elderly housing? How about veterans housing or handicapped housing? be for a not profit, will be for developer. Those are really important things because if we don't include the specifics, we'll end up having people voting for something that they didn't think they were voting for, and that will become problematic. And then ultimately, if we do push it forward without those specifics, it won't be the voters deciding what we're going to be doing. It'll be whoever is sitting on the town council at the time that will be approving that build of the affordable housing, whatever that might be. So I was hoping that you guys are going to come back with some specifics saying it's going to be for workforce housing or for elderly housing and half of it will be aimed for rental, the other part for purchase, but there's nothing more. Well, I'll repeat what I said at the last meeting. So the $3 million is going to be for the following. It's going to be to purchase or acquire land. It's going to be to purchase larger parcels or the infill lots that the crane report speaks to. Grants for first time home buyers for affordable housing, down payment assistance, grants loans for preservation and rehabilitation so people can stay in their houses that they're living in. So again, grants and loans for nonprofits. There's a plan, but we are so far, this is, we're talking about the next budget and the next possibility. So those were the buckets of ideas that are in the bond act that are with this for the general assembly. So that's as planned as we can be for right now. Tonight I heard a lot of speculation on things is not anything written in stone. Again, another council comes, they can decide their priorities, roads, affordable housing. We don't know what's gonna happen in the future But that's what the plan is right now if the three million dollars is approved by the voters Those are the ways that they're gonna use the money. So it's a huge bucket of things Susan That's what I'm saying is that that I would like for the voters to understand more about Specifics like what would the plan be that That's so many different things that it could be. And so any person that walks into the voting booth that day might think they're voting for one or the other, but then in actuality when it comes time to fruition to have the project happen, it might not be what they voted for, what they thought they voted for. We just saw this not long ago with the bond question for the library, a lot of people, including me, who voted for it, thought I was voting for the old site, not the IGA building. So I think that we need to be really specific with what we're talking about, so the voters can vote and get what they think they're voting for. Yeah, so I appreciate that. And again, the bondsman writes the language, so it's general, but specific. So if we say one I do something and something we have that ability to be a little flexible so this is about as scripted as it can be to support affordable housing so I guess the question is do you support affordable housing? Somehow I know you're going to say that and I think the question's asking about financial and in specifics doesn't doesn't mean that you don't support affordable housing. I want to vote for this. I want to vote for some type of affordable housing, but I want to know what I'm voting for. I want to know what my vote is doing so that the ballot comes in November that I know what the town is going to be voting for. This is not telling me what I'm voting for. If you came tonight, Susan, if you said that you wanted to go ahead and put a bond out for workforce housing and have a portion of the beat, be whatever it might be. But what is considered work for us? But it's considered so much stuff in there. It's just my point. $3 million, yeah. Councillor Farni. Thank you, Eva. I'm going to take a little bit of different tack. The way I'm looking at this situation is that, you know, the onish shouldn't be just on Narragansett to, you know, fund the affordable housing. I get it. It's going to the voters and all that sort of stuff. But there's some new developments actually in the state house now where Governor McKee is trying to get a funding formula similar to the school funding formula for affordable housing for every city in town to take part in. So, you know, certainly they bear some responsibility of the affordable housing crisis with the mandate of 10% and they've been asking a lot of these towns to come up to speed. And I think, I mean, I think it's worth it for us to also work with our state delegation, Cal Macinty, Representative Tansy and others to try to work and see if we can get a bill or get something in the legislation to get the state to fund some of this. I mean the schools could not be without a school funding formula. And I think looking at minimum of about a hundred million dollars to put into a fund where we could get a share of that and we might not have to do this particular bond. So I think some of the new developments that I'm looking at and I'm not so, you know, I realize it's all of affordable housing. I did ask the bond councilor. I said, how many other towns are actually, you know, doing their own bond for this? And he did quite a few towns. He said maybe about half the state. And he said, I didn't have any. I guess he had one in Jamestown that wanted to do a bond. And then it was decided because of the financial situation, it wouldn't be, I guess, conducive for them to have it. I think the town manager pulled it. Providence had done one in 2020, I believe, a 21. So I think of it a little more of a holistic approach to it. So who's on my thoughts on it? Thank you. So again, I didn't have an issue with voters deciding on this. I wanted to make sure process was followed, which meant that it was gonna be vetted out and be publicly, you know, if there were questions would be answered. I think we do put it out for the voters to decide, at least we know whether they want the bond or not. If it gets voter approval, the next town council, they don't have to take out the bond, they can cancel bond, they can use the general fund for it. If they don't want to take out the bond, they can cancel bond, they can use the general fund for it. If they don't want to pay taxes on it, but I think the important piece is to allow the voters to decide whether they want to spend our tax payer money or our funds for helping the affordable housing issue that we have all throughout the state and in our town. So again, the reason this came back from the last time was because it needed to be vetted. And it has been so I support it. As we said, we have a fun balance and if the voters decide that we want to contribute to it, then we can work with the next council can figure it out and we can work with finance and I thought it was important to have what the cost would be for having a bond and I think that's out there and we know and then when we put it out on the ballot it will be the information will be provided so that our residents and the voters are educated on what this actually is. So I will support it. You mentioned, we did receive that email from Finance Day about what the bond would actually cost at 10, 15, and 20 years. And I believe Christine is at 15 years, is $825,000, $825. $825. What a bond is that you pay interest on a bond. No, understand, but just putting it out there. Right. Because we just went through a meeting where we're talking about a 4% increase over, we're talking about more, the town hall actually increasing the bond for the town hall property itself. So just putting it out there that we're spending a lot on. You're saying that's really just kind of putting the cart before the horse. I think what Susan said and whatever it makes, tremendous sense, we are simply asking a question and looking for the answer and what we do with that is what the next council will do. I will support that. I understand your point, but we're not being specific. We're not really, we're not, we were just saying, hey, here are a bunch of different things, but it was specific, I'd be voted for it. Okay, I'll go to the public anyone from wishing to comment on this from the public. Miss Elibardo. Catherine, celebrator, 48, or else court. Now, $3 million, now you're going to make a gent in the amount of affordable housing we have to build in this town. That's number one. Number two, if we're going to take any money from you, we're going to restrict the account. It seems to me it should be for this reason, not true fill a gap because we're overspending our what's coming in. But I do agree with on this law that it's not specific enough. It allows the year's going to bond $3 million and the next town council, we don't know what their attitude is going to be, may decide to give that $3 million to a private developer. And I don't want to see that happen, frankly. I don't think we need more condos for affordable housing. I think we need rental housing. We seriously need rental housing in this town, affordable rental housing. And this is not specific enough. You're asking the voters to pretty much agree to put a $3 million bond and let the next town council decide how it's going to be spent. And that's really not a good idea. I think that if you would amend the language a bit to make sure it was going to be for say rental housing, family housing, that type of thing. It would be much better than this. And the other thing is this. There's supposed to be so much money out there. I thought I could actually put aside all this money for affordable housing. And why aren't we going after any of it? Why aren't we trying to get grants? I just, you know, we're not doing the legwork. We should be looking at all ways to get money. But again, I don't think three millions enough, and I would even go for ten million if it was specific. Specific. And you have to first decide what we really need in this town with type of affordable housing. Then you set aside a figure and then you let the voters decide. They have to know exactly what they're voting on. Thank you. Thanks. And I think the Affordable Housing Trust Collarity has individuals with skill sets that know how to address that issue. Anyone else from the public, Mr. Edwards? Good evening, Madam President, members of the council. I will be very brief. I know it's late. Nick Edwards, 36, Crest Avenue, Narragance, and most of the chair of the Narragance and Affordable Housing Trust Collaborative. So I just want to say that I don't know at this point. You have the full support of the Narragansett Affordable Housing Collaborative Trust when it comes to this. Just a few reminders for the people at home. We're asking for a town council resolution in support so the general assembly can introduce this and then it goes on the ballot in November for the entire, all the voters in Narragansett to decide. We've had a work session, we've had a lot of conversations in our committee about this. And I think this is a great moment tonight that this looks like it has the votes to pass. And I just want to publicly thank the members of the council who support this tonight. I think as councilwoman Sissleney Benano mentioned, we do have a plan. We want to, you know, see what's out there we've set up before, but you know, we also want to create incentives for first time home buyers, establish grants, and Councilwoman Lauer had a great idea of some incentives to convert homes to year-round rentals. And I just think this is a very good step in the right direction, and again, I appreciate the support. And I think, again, we'll let the voters decide, see what happens, but again, I would encourage everyone to come to the Affordable Housing Collaborative Trust, provide your ideas, provide your proposals and we're more than happy to work with you. But again, thank you to the members of this council. This has been a busy process, a busy session and we really appreciate your support of this tonight. So thank you, thank you, Eva. Anyone else from the public? Where we take the vote. All right, all in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed favour? Aye. All opposed? Abstain. Abstain. Okay. So we motion by Councillor Lawler, second by Councillor Copec. Motion passes with three and two abstentions. Okay. So with that we just have, do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. All in favour? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler, second? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by council lawler, second by councilor Copac motion passes 5-0. Good night everyone.