East Providence City Council 5/5/26

- Good evening, welcome to the East Providence City Council meeting of May 5th, 2026. Madam Clerk, would you please call the role of the council? - Councilman Fogarty. - Councilman Lawson. - Yeah. - Council Vice President Rigo. - Yeah. - Councilwoman Souza. - Yeah. - Council President Rodgers. - Here, the record show we have a quorum. Councilman Fogarty is on his way here. Please rise

for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all. MR. SULLICITOR, I UNDERSTAND WE DON'T NEED AN EXECUTIVE SESSION THIS EVENING? YES. JUST TO UPDATE THE COUNCIL, I GAVE YOU SOME INFORMATION THAT WAS IN YOUR PACKET BUT UNFORTUNATELY I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO TOUCH

BASE WITH THEIR ATTORNEY ON THIS FOR THE WOLF SCHOOL. IT'S ATTORNEY, WE'VE BEEN PLAYING PHONE TAG. I HOPE TO GET YOU SOME amendment to the lease agreement, which I don't think you'll find objectionable, but I wanted to get that language for you. So we do not need to go to executive session tonight. We'll put it on the next agenda. And it's just a transformer and dumpster, right? It's a transformer and dumpster,

correct. And transformer, it's like the square box. Correct. That we paint. Correct. Okay. Well, I don't know if you paint it, but you paint the city ones, but yes, it's yes. Yeah. Those are when people hear trans. Correct. Okay. - Okay, thank you.

- We need to modify the lease though, 'cause the lease says we're parking only.

I just want to put provisions in there that they have to remove it if they ever vacate the premises, that kind of thing. So we just haven't been able to work out the language. - You get the big bucks. - Okay, we'll do that next meeting. Thank you. Madam Clerk, next item. Consent calendar for discussion and possible vote. One, council journal's regular meeting minutes, April 21st, 2026. B, letters, new address, 97

Burgess Avenue, East Providence, Rhode Island, 02914, map 016, block 11, parcel 006.00. It's your pleasure. - Motion to accept.

- Second. - Motion by Councilman Lawson to accept. Seconded by Councilwoman Souza. All in favor? - Aye. - Aye. Any opposed?

The ayes have that, four to zero. At this time, going to suspend the order of the docket due to some illness.

We always like to accommodate our staff. So I'd like to give the director an opportunity, thank him for being here, and have him give his report early on. So if you would turn, I don't know if it's the same number on the dockets that are in the audience, but for us to page seven under mayoral announcements, but we will go to, Madam Clerk, if you could read under item three, ITEMS FOR ANNOUNCEMENT DISCUSSION, JUST THE

FIRST BULLETED ITEM. UPDATE ON CITYWIDE SEWER INFRASTRUCTURE IMPROVEMENTS. THANK YOU.

DIRECTOR, YOU HAVE THE FLOOR. THANK YOU, COUNCIL PRESIDENT. SO I DO HAVE TWO MEMBERS FROM ARCADUS HERE TONIGHT, AMY and Bill Casey who will be assisting in this presentation. I do have some packets I'll hand out just to give the council a little bit of a rundown of some of the projects we've been working on over the last few years, some that are near completion, and one additional project that we will

likely see in the near future.

So as I mentioned, this presentation, We're just going to be going over a handful of projects that the city and Arcadis have been working on related to the sewer collection system and the wastewater pollution control facility. I'm going to hand it over to Amy Anderson and Bill Casey who are with Arcadis and they'll discuss the projects that we'll be discussing. If you can

just flip to the next slide. So today we're just going to go over a few of the projects. I'll go a little bit out of order just for the council's sake you are familiar with the concrete lining project so we will be discussing that on the status of that project and where we are with that before you tonight there's also a resolution for a change order for that project to essentially complete

complete and pay out the contractor for some additional work that was done during construction but this presentation will cover the sewer system rehabilitation project sort of citywide, a sewer improvement project on North Broadway. And then we will also discuss final clarifiers, an aeration tank, concrete restoration, which is a newer project that the council is

likely not familiar with at this point. So we'll provide you an update on that at the Water Pollution Control Facility. And Arcadis has been assisting the city with updating the water rules and regulations which will ultimately trigger at some point a an ordinance change in the near future and as part of that contract they're also assisting the city in updating all of our standard engineering details so when we go

out to bid we provide contractors or when when a contractor comes to us with you know projects we typically have standard set of details that we provide them so that everyone's consistent within construction. So I'm gonna turn it over to Amy and Bill and they can go through the projects.

- Thank you, Dan. - Next slide.

- Thank you guys for having us. I just wanted, I'm gonna start with the first two projects and then I'll pass it to Bill. What you have on the screen right now and in your packets is a citywide map with a bunch of red triangles. And I'm gonna get into the next couple of slides what those red triangles mean. But essentially those from a sanitary sewer pipe perspective, those are your most

critical or the worst pipes you have throughout the city. And as you can see, there's many, many of them. So the first project I'm gonna talk about is how we're gonna address all of those, but every single one of those red triangles is considered a critical failure. So let's start with this map. Next slide, please. Some background on how we got here. So overall, throughout the city, you have about 700,000 linear

feet of sanitary sewer. The city televised about 380,000 of that many years ago. It was done as part of Veolia's contract. We reviewed a majority of those pipes at a high level and then about 100,000 linear foot of that on a detailed level where we went back, reviewed those CCTV videos, which is essentially just a video of inside the sewer pipe to see its condition. About 90,000 linear feet of

that had what's called a grade four or grade five defect. So that could be a broken pipe, collapsed pipe, all sorts of things, but basically on a scale of one to five, five being the worst, one being the best, there were 90,000 linear feet of sewer line that had either grade four or grade five defects. That's an important thing to recognize as we go through all this. And then from that 90,000,

We said what are the absolute worst, must be done immediately, and we came up with 30,000 linear feet of what we call critically defective. That means in some instances the pipe is completely collapsed in major need of rehabilitation or repair. Next slide please. So these are some of the pictures that we found when we were re-watching those CCTV tapes that had been

done. So if you look at the picture all the way to the left, so that's a fractured pipe. That means the pipe is completely broken all the way through.

It has not collapsed yet, although this was about 10 years ago, so it very well could be at this point. So that is just hanging on, right? And then the pipe in the middle, that's completely broken as well. As you can see, pieces are missing. And then the picture all the way to the right, it's very hard to tell because it was dark, but there's a piece of that pipe that's completely

collapsed. So this is the state of your system right now. Next slide. And I always show this slide. So this is the City of East Providence. This is what happens when one of those sewer pipes collapses, and you don't realize that it's collapsed.

and then you get a void, then you get a sinkhole, and then somebody drives a milk truck or whatever that is, right, into the sinkhole. That's real, that does happen. It happens all prominent in New England all the time, but given the amount of defects you have, that's something that will continue to happen more and more. Next slide, please. So what we're doing about it and working with Dan and his team

is of that 30,000 linear feet that we called out, that critically defective, We put together some rehabilitation recommendations. We focused as much of it as we could on cured in place pipelining. So that's basically you put a pipe inside of a pipe. You rehabilitate using a trenchless method. You don't have to dig it up. and you put a felt liner in that pipe that's hardened, has structural properties like a pipe, so

you're essentially putting a brand new pipe inside of your old pipe. So we feel, based on what we reviewed for those original CCTV, that we can do that for about 25,000 of the 30,000 linear feet. We can do that cured in place pipe repair. There are several locations where we do have to dig up, meaning the pipe is so collapsed you could never put a pipe inside of a pipe. A whole

portion that needs to be reinspected. We just couldn't tell the video quality, old, fuzzy.

And then several other locations where we don't need to necessarily line the entire pipe segment from manhole to manhole, but a portion of it. So those are called cured-in-place spot repairs. What's great about this project, so from our standpoint, we are almost through design of this rehabilitation project and ready to go to construction when the city's ready.

However, Dan and his team have been able to secure a $1.5 million Congressional delegated fund to help complete this project. So once all of that gets worked through, we'll be able to get this to construction. Next slide. So another project that we have that was identified throughout this project is called the North Broadway Sewer Improvements. And we've been talking about this project for about, for many years

now. But this is North Broadway. You have about 1,000 linear feet of 15-inch sewer that is mostly collapsed at this point. If you look at the video, you can see the sanitary sewer flow just completely disappear. You've got your collapsed pipe. So that is in pretty big need of getting replaced as well so we've been putting together

plans and specifications to get that project to construction as well and lumped into that project would be a couple of more sewer replacements one on Woodard and one on Fenner that have similar needs to also get replaced next slide

So this just shows we are, that's the cover sheet of our plans, of our drawing set. So we're pretty far along with that project as well, just to give you an update on that. So once we get that project finalized and we're ready to go, we'll get this one to construction. - Thank you for having us. I'm gonna just talk a little bit about the Water Pollution Control Facility. A couple of

years ago, there were eight structures that were really identified as having severe corrosion of the concrete. That was primarily due to age in hydrogen sulfide gas, which kind of breaks down concrete. And those are just the general. If we go to the next slide, it's an overview there. But the red boxes are the eight structures that exhibited signs. And you can look at the photos there a little bit. You

can see the aggregate from the concrete and just the concrete just being deteriorating in a great state. so over the last couple of years so this went through design it was bid oh gosh at least two two and a half years ago we've been working with uh the contractor out there to just finish up this project the next couple of slides really kind of showing a little bit of a before

and after if you will it's kind of a iterative process if you could go to the next slide of you know identifying with the concrete is dewatering the structure it's kind of the first step pressure washing all the old concrete and bad concrete which is on the left hand side away you're replacing any steel aggregate any steel rebar that is in the concrete building back it with mortar and then what

you see on the right is the finished coat of two-part epoxy basically a surface an impenetrable surface that is going to protect the concrete for the next 20 25 years in the future and so here is just one example of the headworks which sees the harshest flow. You go through to the next slide, and it'll just go through each individual structure. Here is the splitter structure, which is just

coming out of the headworks. You see heavy corrosion on some of the gates in there. And on the right-hand side, you've got a worker putting that epoxy layer. The next couple are very similar to here. If you go to the next slide, it just kind of shows you the state of affairs after, gosh, I guess the point was probably around 1950. almost over 70 years of wear and tear on our facility and being able to do

a functioning, stable condition. Next slide, please. And plus everything kind of looks a little bit better when it's at the tail end. And that's really where we are here. This is the end of the line. There is a resolution to appropriate monies for that final change order tonight. Go to the next slide. And this one was particularly bad. This is a splitter structure for aeration tanks, and that's really

a one fairly deep structure. You can see this heavy, they spent quite a bit of time in there. - Sure. So just to add, Bill's been doing a great job, but resolution you have before you, this is a perfect example of what ultimately we couldn't see or what Arcadis couldn't see during inspection. So you can see the rod on that. I think it's probably a gate rod. That was

not visible to the eye. we were able to dewater. So as we were in construction, we started to see a lot of these conditions that unfortunately we couldn't see during inspection prior to design. So a lot of the, or all of the change order amount that you'd be approving tonight, or hopefully approving tonight, would be to cover things like this, these items that were ultimately we weren't able to see, but

are integral to the operations of the treatment plant, and ultimately without them would cause significant stress to the operation. So this ultimately-- - And Dan, if I could interject, I wanted to make a point of saying this is why these studies are so valuable because oftentimes we have, we're asked to vote on a change order for a project And this is a clear example

of how that evolves. By doing things like this, we find out all the problems. You don't always know. I mean, we've got decades of experience problems underground that we, until we started to do this now. And luckily you, thankfully in the mayor's office, we've been able to get grant funding, government funding for a good chunk of, of all of this. And this,

a major structure set. - Apologies. So I was just saying that this was kind of a major operation to get to this particular structure here where you really had to bypass flow for really the four variation tanks. Throughout this project, and we know there are a lot of defects that we're working on, have there been any reports of neighborhoods experiencing backups with sewage and sewer

problems? I know that's what we're going to avoid. Have we avoided that pretty much to this point? I know there's a couple of cases here and there, but... Relative to this project, there were no sewer backups, right?

We're we're bypassing the plant, but there certainly are sewer backups that occur throughout the city. You know, it's not on a regular basis, but it certainly does happen mainly due to rack build up or tree roots in a line. We've had in the time I've been here, very few collapsed pipe situations that have caused significant backups. And ultimately, that's what we're trying to avoid, right? want to be able

to do this prior to having that occur. Thank you. Well, this kind of concludes the construction portion, if you will. If you go to the next slide, please. So as one project wraps up, there's another one on the horizon. This particular project is also looking at the structures there, the three circles at the top. Those are your secondary clarifiers. Two of them were constructed

in '73 and the other one in 1994. And the four circle grouping, those are the aeration tanks and those are constructed in 1951. Each one of those tankage has a diameter of over 100 feet in diameter, so a good distance across this room for certain here. These tanks being of a certain age and seeing many, many freeze thaw cycles over time and being of course right along

the The ocean there has exhibited signs of having cracking and having weeping and having just the general wear and tear on a structure that can be 70 plus years old.

Are these the tanks that we've been dealing with the caps covering? That's separate. No, so those are the primaries. And recently, I think in the last year or so, those were covered.

Those were covered, okay. Thank you. So this being in the design, and really it's a... a concrete rehabilitation type of project where concrete would be repaired and protective coatings would be placed on here we had just submitted a 60 design to the city as that's currently on if we go to the next slide i think you can see a little bit bigger picture of this is the

outside of one of the aeration tanks and you can see kind of the general condition you can see some exterior cracking We did a preliminary inspection, internal inspection, external inspection of one of the aeration tanks and one of the secondary clarifiers back at the end of 2015. Speak a little closer. Sorry. That's okay. So we did a preliminary inspection back at the end

of 2025. This particular tank, although it looks to be in pretty rough shape, is actually pretty structurally sound, which is good. The exterior does need some cleaning up and protective coatings on it. The inside was similar with some spot repairs. And this is one of the four tanks that are out there. And if we go to the next one is the secondary clarifier. And here is really where you are seeing a

lot of some signs of weeping. And that's really an item that has been troubling for the plant. They've done point repairs over time. And really it's to the point where a more comprehensive solution needs to be had. here so at this for these tanks there would be an internal coating epoxy base to last that 20 25 years and then a just a protective coating the outside just to help prevent it against the weather go to the

next slide and then as dan indicated we are doing a few other smaller projects one being the Revisions to the water regulations just to bring it to make sure everything's up to snuff with the awwa standards the american water work association standards And then also taking a hard look at the construction details that go out to contractors and we've got a draft of Both of those in the

city for review as well. So I think the next slide is just kind of a next steps here and a lot of it is you know, some of it is wrapping up the construction project and the other one is advancing the design of the plant. And the rehabilitation job is basically securing the funding for both North Broadway and the rehabilitation work.

So really the next steps and those would be great for construction. - Thank you, questions from the council? - Yes, I do. - Council Vice President. - I represent Ward 1 and do I assume or not assume There's probably over 250 streets or 250 sinkholes in my ward. Do I assume that all those sinkholes are caused by possible sewer issues? Or, I mean, obviously, excuse me, there

could be other situations. Because I'm noticing where a lot of the dots, you know, where a lot of the dots are on, you know, in Ward 1 is... consistent with roads and roads being an issue? I think that's certainly excuse me a difficult question to answer you know relative to where the sinkholes are and the likelihood of it is probably slim I mean if you have

a sinkhole that if you have a sewer collapse you probably already would have seen the road collapse so it may be related to something different but if you certainly want to send me A message regarding some of the locations that you're concerned with.

We can certainly look into those for you. Yeah, I was. I was the question too was part of that is, is this is this the start of having an issue? Some of these sinkholes happen in the pipe in and it certainly could be.

But there are there are a lot of other conditions that also might. yeah i mean you know be related to a sinkhole on a street it could be a gas main port compaction on a you know another utility that was installed you know installed in the road the more that the road is torn up by rhode island energy national grid causes that how what what is the timeline that or that we're

back to having pipes in great shape throughout the neighborhoods Citywide? - Well, one first. - Many, many years. - I mean, but citywide in general, yeah. - Many, many years. This is certainly a long process. Arcadis is a small portion of sort of a bigger goal of mine that I've been working on. We're certainly looking to address some of the worst situations first, that's most important. And

secondly, As you may know, we did go out to RFQ to essentially conduct a citywide sewer system evaluation survey. So we did metering throughout the city to determine where some of the highest inflow and infiltration issues are. So where there are likely issues with piping. And the goal now is to sort of prioritize the highest, the areas with highest issues. after

this sort of phase one is complete um but this is a very long process and i mean i was i was reading other words this could be up to up to 10 years yes all right that's right reading in other cities and then some of these you know major issues will certainly be addressed far sooner than that um but addressing the collection system as a whole uh will will take A

long time. And now, obviously, technology has changed drastically since these pipes were originally put in. What would be the shelf life of these new pipes that are going in? Of a liner? An epoxy liner? It's essentially a brand new pipe in the ground without having to dig up the road. So good for 40, 50, 60 years? yeah i would say about 50 years right yeah so not our

problem after that as soon as we get it down all right yeah that's what i was you know that's what i was hoping for with you know with the liners and you know obviously we started with this council looking for you know the betterment of this community and the city moving forward and to do something like this you know You know future councils 20 years from now don't really won't have to

worry about any of these issues that being addressed that should have been addressed by other councils like 10 and 15 years ago when you know when that you know Station down in Riverside was getting deplorable. It should never have gotten to that point Yeah, I think now we're spending more money on it than what we should have.

I - Right, yeah, and I think one thing to take from this presentation, particularly on the collection system side, or even on the treatment plant side, is that addressing these problems before they become emergencies is far more inexpensive than it is addressing a pipe collapse or an issue that might happen right now in this moment. It's gonna cost you tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to do a repair

on an emergency running 24/7 with an emergency contractor versus staying ahead of the game and trying to address these issues before they become problems, even worse problems.

Absolutely. Thank you, Councilman. Other questions? Councilman Lawson. Yeah, Dan, overall, what would you say the condition of? When did it go from sewer plant to wastewater treatment to water pollution control? Anyway, so this looks like it's not critical. It's more of proactive, preventive, the relining stuff. No, I think that what we're presenting to you today is certainly

critical. Okay. So my point is the word critical can trigger some people. Right.

Nobody should be freaking out that the sewer plant's going to start backing up into their homes, anything like that. Okay. The overall condition, other than this project, your lining of the sewer plant, is it barely healthy? We're going to get decades more. I think with, with future investment, we certainly will get decades more. And I think that

addressing a lot of the concerns on the collection system side will also assist in, in, you know, better energy savings at the treatment plant, less flow entering the treatment facility, you know, clean rainwater and additional inflow and infiltration. Addressing those concerns will also ultimately help us at the treatment plant as well. And what would you say our

capacity is? We got a lot of development happening. A lot of people get nervous.

They say, oh, it's going to overwhelm things. I'd like to give them facts. You're our expert. We last I heard we were at like 52, 60% capacity to maintain the city of this size. Yeah, I think right. I don't have that percent.

Okay. But when we're not close to capacity. No, for, for all the future development and the parcel, we essentially the city has to conduct what they call facilities plan to ultimately forecast, you know, flow into our system based on certain parcels. So the city has done that for, a lot of the empty parcels on the waterfront and areas that the city, even 10 years ago when it was conducted, intended on developing

those parcels at some point. So there is still enough capacity at the treatment plant to allow for that. And where is the cutoff? Like we got the Henderson Bridge was like 20 something acres. We're probably going to look to develop it. Where's the cutoff where they go to the Rumford facility as opposed to the Riverside? Yeah, so

it's pretty much everything north of Taunton Avenue. Okay. What's north goes to the Narragansett Bay facility and everything else comes down. It might be a little further south. It's probably closer to like the 195 line. Okay. It's kind of where the high point is in Kent Heights. Okay. So the other facility we don't maintain, correct? We do not, no. And we got no issues with that that we know of from the

way it's being maintained and managed? Yeah, no, I mean it's maintained and managed by NVC. We receive owner complaints every so often at any treatment plant would, and we've certainly worked to address those immediately with NVC. And this work's not going to affect the owner mitigation work that you've done? No, if anything, now that this project is

complete, I know there's still been complaints about odor, mainly because there still are doors open to process buildings where they're doing work. So ultimately... the odor should be significantly less. It is a treatment facility. I get that. So there will always be a little bit of odor, but we strive to have very little, if not any. Okay.

I will make sure when people hear critical, they don't freak out. Thank you, Dan.

Was it, Jess? So you got new lining, same volume coming through the new lining, which is inserted in the pipe that's broken. Inspections forward. to see any hot spots of some troubled areas with the camera system how often might that be so the city um as amy mentioned in the last contract with violia the 10-year contract violia was required to cctv inspect every single line in the city over the 10-year time

frame they did fall slightly short of that goal so they are working on addressing that at no no additional cost to the city now so that we can continue to work on some of these problem areas where we're conducting additional inspection work. - Yeah, preventative maintenance. That way you get some hotspots, you can replace it with a new lining as opposed to ripping up the whole new

lining you're putting in. - That's the intent, yeah. - Cool, thank you, great work. - Any other questions, council? Hearing none, thank you very much for the presentation and Dan, hope you're feeling better. Thank you, Ms. George, Mr. Casey, for being here. I appreciate it. I'm sure we'll hear more about this. Madam Clerk, if we could revert back to the regular order of the agenda, please. Sir, do you

want to just move the resolution up for approval and finish this topic? Why don't we just wait in that way if there's some more discussion with it. This way, I know there were... We can, if anyone want to move the... yeah all right good idea i i know at times i'm told i move things around too much i'm trying to um be adaptive so yeah see now we're

gonna so let's um go to page eight in the agenda if i if i could just mention i guess there is um i did confirm with um the city the city clerk andy um there is a memo there uh from myself um just Yes. Running through each of the change order requests with information.

I do have a set of 10 slides prepared in the event that there were any questions and you needed additional clarification on anything. But I think that Bill did a good job of sort of explaining. Can you email us the slides? i i can hand them to you now if you'd like yeah plus in the docket we had the uh i you know i printed out the thank you for the information thank you sir great work

thanks for keeping an eye on it i mean if anyone wants further presentation but i think we were pretty well explained the the importance of this and and the need to do this uh Director, this is in the amount of 551,000, set at 327.26 cents. That's the change order. This was prior appropriations, so this isn't a brand new expenditure, but if you want to summarize it. - Sure, so the slides you have in front of

you are essentially mirror images of some of the photos you've already seen. At the end of that presentation, the last page, there is a financial summary there sort of showing the total, you know, the original contract value, which was 3.85 million. And then subsequently you see three different change orders below that encompass, you know, several

different items or issues within you know the project during construction that we encountered or other items outside of the contract that we looked to address to ultimately repair it go into the tank and not have to go back in and Spend a lot of money on bypass you know at a later date so we found this to be the right opportunity to while the tank was down while the bypass was

active make a lot of the additional repairs that were necessary there were actually a handful of slide gates that were hadn't been operational for a long time and violia showed interest in trying to get those back up and running so when we had the opportunity uh we took we took that um to do it so you'll see you know a fair amount of uh A number of different change orders. There's actually

a credit change order for some bypass piping that we didn't need as much as we thought we did. Aeration tank, splitter box, there were some issues with some plugs that were deflated during construction that we had to address with the contractor. Gate and shaft operation, or operators under change order one. Additional cleaning of aeration tank piping, another perfect example of during construction, tank was

de-watered and we looked into one of the pipes that fed one of the aeration tanks and it was full of sludge. So we took the opportunity to clean that out to provide better capacity, better process and operation at the plant. So it's important to let people know when sometimes we're not familiar with the term change orders. It isn't just a frivolous, oh, let's

do something else while we can spend some money. It's the point of doing this work. We find other problems and we need to adapt, change, get it fixed now while we're there. So what would you say, what is the overall cost of So the overall cost of this project went to 4.4 million, just over 4.4 million. If you look at the change orders, the

largest change order amount was essentially additional concrete repair quantities. So as we mentioned, when the engineer comes out to do their inspections, they essentially make assumptions on wall loss, wall thicknesses. And in many cases-- the wall condition was far worse than what they anticipated. And you know, it's unfortunate, but because we had those unit bid prices in the contract, we were able to

continue this work to ensure that the contractor was able to restore these back to essentially new, back to where they were when they were first built. Thank you. So before us is, we're asking for permission. for this project to continue and this change order in the amount of $551,327.26. I'll entertain a motion. - Motion to approve. - Second. - Motion to approve by Councilman Lawson,

seconded by Councilman Fogarty. Further comment if-- - Yeah, I just wanted for the record. - Yes, Councilwoman. - For the public, these funds are coming from opera funds. So not coming from capital improvement or from our waste or water fund, infrastructure fund. The American Rescue Plan, ARPA, all good use of those funds. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it,

5-0. Thank you very much again for the presentation.

Adam Clark, you can continue.

Licenses for discussion and possible vote. Non-public hearing. One-day entertainment license. Braga Club Feast. 26 Teofilo Braga Way, East Providence, July 10th through the 12th, 26, 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. One-day entertainment license. Braga Club Fifth Dominga. Sacred Heart Church, 116118 Torton Avenue, East Providence, May 9th, 26, 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. One Day Special License, Backyard 5K, St. Brendan's Church, 60 Turner

Avenue, Riverside, July 25th, 5.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. One Day Special Block Party, City of East Providence, Crescent Park, May 16, 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM. One Day Alcohol License, Sacred Heart Church, 118 Torton Avenue, May 9, 6:00 PM to 12:00 AM. One Day Alcohol License, Three Day Event, Teofilo Braga Brotherhood, 26 Teofil Braga Way, july 10th through the 12th 6 p.m to 12 a.m one

day alcohol license holy ghost brotherhood of charity 59 brightridge avenue may 9th 1 p.m to 12 a.m new business mobile truck variety of foods robert courtier pcta goods eats and treats 41 fricker street providence wood island new business mobile truck soft pretzels gina pereira gigi's pretzels New Business Mobile Trucks, Savory and Sweets, Breonna Jones, Central Falls District, DBA, A Taste of Central Falls,

and New Business Mobile Truck Lemonade, Savannah Gouvier, Pretty in Pink, Providence, Rhode Island. So once again, you can see the summer season is...

upon us is there a motion to bundle items 1 through 11 as well is this all our fest festivals did they all get it not yet okay i'll make a motion to bundle second motion by councilman lawson seconded by councilwoman souza to bundle the items 1 through 11. all in favor aye aye any opposed - The ayes have it. Is there a motion to approve? - Make a motion to approve.

- Second. - Same motion, same second. Councilwoman Souza, all in favor? - Aye.

- Any opposed? The ayes have it. I think at this time, Mr. Solicitor, we will go to the one item listed as the show cause hearing, which is, let's get the page six on our, agenda if you want to summarize that at this point. - This is the subway at 1086 Willett Avenue. As you know, we had a short course hearing last meeting. They were defaulted as of that

meeting because they failed to appear. As a result of that, we sent them a letter delivered by our police department indicating that if they did not come compliant with their license by this meeting that we would be shutting them down. I believe someone in the audience is from Subway, so if you want to come up. My understanding is from the clerk's office that they did come and fulfill the proper applications out

and they do have, I think they have all the inspections. - Okay, before we proceed, if you could just give your name and address or your affiliation for the record. And just speak into that, Mike, thanks. Yeah, my name is Kayla Trowwood. On behalf of the Subway at Riverside, I am a partner of theirs in Providence Bagel, so I'm here to represent them for their Subway store today.

So I have all of the paperwork. We had the building inspection done today, so I don't have a printout of that, but everything went fine. The fire department, everything is passed, and I have that from May 4th, and he just, he... gave me like the letter for not showing up. They just took over that ownership and he didn't realize that he didn't get any other notice. I think it

was getting sent to the other, the previous owner. So I have the email here also with the health department coming out next week. Okay, so before you continue I want to just add and I appreciate you being here, but I'm going to vote in favor But I'm not thrilled that the owner still has not come before us He or she they and I'll ask the solicitor and the city clerk to verify this did receive many

notices and He knew about it, and he actually sends you as a friend here tonight, as I understand it. You're not legally affiliated with the business, is that correct?

Not with the subway. Not with the subway, right. So we have a friend of the owner coming before us. You know, that subway has some local workers, some good kids, some good people working there. I don't want to vote to shut them down.

It appears that the paperwork, although... several weeks or maybe some months months is late but i don't want to have the local workers suffer but um he should have well i'll leave it at that do you want to add anything so i again no offense to um your name again is No offense to Kayla, but we have documented sending certified letters to that address.

We had hand-delivered letters to that address. This is going on for at least six months, if not more. And he did come into the office on Friday of last week to the clerk's office to fill out the application. So we did have some limited contact, though I have never met him myself. It appears that after all this effort, and I have to compliment the clerk's office for following up and the city

clerk as well as Ms. Mello, it appears now that we are on the road.

I think we have all the information that we need. Subject to the clerk's approval.

The one piece I heard, something about the health department stuff isn't in yet. Do we have that? Did you have an inspection? Is that what you said? Are they coming in for an inspection? For next week, yep. Can we see that email, please, for verification? You can hand it to the solicitor. Because that could be critical. Health department with the food business, we would be liable if there are any problems. Does

that look okay, Mike? You can look at it, but yes, it looks like they're scheduling it. I'm sorry. Okay. Which is not always easy to get the health department to come out, as you know. Government is so efficient. That's why we've been after this for a year. Gotcha. So the city came and did their work. And the last, how are you? You good with what we're at so far? If we move

forward on this? You have a license. What's missing for your paperwork? Well, they still have to fill out the application. They have to pay for it. And then once all that is approved, then they come in and pay for the actual license. So technically right now their license has not been renewed. They don't have one.

all right all right so can we do a approval pending say in two weeks they come back and verify they get everything is that okay president we're not shutting them down but we are telling them we got to get this stuff done and i think the credit i'm sorry so thank you we appreciate you coming out here um before the council It's a friend of the owner. Again, I feel like we're

in the same place we were two weeks ago. So giving another two weeks to come into compliance, it sounds like the owner came in this Friday right before the council meeting to have a discussion. So they were on notice. two weeks prior, six months prior, for multiple months, what is the precedence that we are setting for those small and pop business owners who struggle through the bridge debacle

and costs rising for businesses to be able to function? SHORTAGE OF STAFF. I MEAN, OUR LOCAL MOM AND POPS STRUGGLE TO STAY IN BUSINESS AND THEY DO A REALLY GOOD JOB AT SERVING OUR COMMUNITY AND THEY ARE UP TO DATE AND ON TIME WITH ALL OF THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES IN THE CITY. I think it's ingenuous for this owner who has been notified multiple times and is a chain franchise to not be in

accordance, especially with the health department. So our city workers are phenomenal. So our building officials went out, our fire department went out in an effort to make sure that you guys were in compliance so that you could be operational. Um, So I give them a lot of credit for doing that too, because they've been waiting. But the

health department, one of the most important parts of a food industry, still has not booked an appointment. The owner has still not booked an appointment with the health department.

You're contacting them next week to have an appointment for them to possibly come out next week. or it might be a week from now. We don't know what that date, it's undetermined when they're coming out. So we could be in a position two weeks from now that the health department still hasn't been there and done their inspection, not being able to still issue a license. So where does the line end? So

my support for two weeks is I don't want anybody showing up to work tomorrow and say, sorry. you don't have a job right now. And I understand that, but that's not the city council or any city officials fault. No, but some of those people are residents and I understand that. I feel bad too. I agree with your sentiment a thousand percent, but I'm going to go with Bob on this that, you

know, there's people, this is their livelihood that, Two weeks, we let them know either your boss is going to get it together or you should start looking now. One thing I'm confused at, I thought you said the appointment with the health department was made by the health department. But now I'm hearing that it's the owner who is going to make the appointment. Do we have an appointment? With the health department? Or

are we asking for one? No, so he got a response back from the health department, and the person that was over there said, thanks for letting me know. They will call you sometime this week to schedule. They are usually booked out a week, so the inspection will most likely be next week. Thanks. Vanna? Vanna. Vanna White. Vanna who? Vanna. That's probably the worker from the Department of Health. Yeah, it's from the

Department of Health. I don't know. I mean, we've been a year with this and we now have a small food business without a health inspection. And the only reason I'm I would say a week, maybe because the health and the final paperwork is the last steps. Correct. So since the last time we talked, there has been some steps for it. Seems like everything but the health

department. Right. So that's my check. You have checks with you. You were telling me earlier you have checks. Yeah, they gave me a copy of the check with the Department of Health saying that they received payment on April 27th. And they sent me with the sales permit and they sent with the notice that they got in hand.

And then that was on April 22nd and they got all the rest of their stuff done since the 22nd when they were served this paper. Okay. And you said it's new owner? He just bought this and when did he buy it? His retail sales permit is from 7-125 to 6-3026. Okay. Apparently, based upon what we've learned from the clerk's office, the previous

owner actually applied or paid for the license, unbeknownst that we had a new owner.

So we didn't know that there was a transfer. Because usually you would get a new license. Transfer, yeah. It's not even a transfer. It's actually a new license for vacillating because you can't transfer those. We weren't aware of that. I think initially she was getting the notices. But then she indicated to us who the new owner was.

And I believe the clerk's office was sending it. So I will tell you that I am not happy that it's taken us about a year to get this done.

I WILL SAY THAT AS OF THE LAST MEETING, WHEN A VISIT BY THE POLICE DEPARTMENT, THAT THERE HAS BEEN MOVEMENT IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, INCLUDING GETTING THE INSPECTIONS THAT LOCALLY THAT WE NEEDED TO GET DONE. THE BUREAUCRACY WITH THE RELAIN DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, I CAN'T SPEAK TO THAT, BUT THAT IS REQUIREMENT OF THE LICENSE. AM I CONCERNED

ABOUT IT? NOT NECESSARILY. It seems that we're making progress. But I will tell you that I am also not happy that after all repeated letters and repeated emails and working with the clerk's office, I have yet to see the owner of this business.

So I think the message is probably getting delivered. And I'm sorry, you have to be the deliverer of the message. But I... Go ahead. If it's the option to move this for two weeks, the show calls... And please tell your buddy he needs to come. We've already had a show course hearing. He's had an opportunity and he's been defaulted on that. He did not appear and we defaulted him on that. This

is now just a compliance issue. Technically, we could shut them down today if we wanted to. But that is your option. And I understand the competing... I get it.

You are in between a rock and a hard place, not because anything that this council has done, it really bores on the applicant. The question is of all the businesses in the city that we've had, and we've had to chase a few, he's not the only one, but this is the one we've, we've had to chase the most. Um, and, um, so that's where we are. You are the licensing board. Technically

they are operating without a license. I am a little bit more pleased that they have inspections that they need. Um, - And I would, frankly, I think we need to look at this ordinance because I think at some point we're gonna have to, when you get this far, not only not maybe get the license, but there should be some fines attached to it. But right now we don't have that ability. -

And we have the ability legally to pull a license. So if we vote tonight and then in two weeks they don't have it, we have the ability. - You absolutely have that ability to pull the license. - So I'll make a motion that we do approve. with a two-week check-in that everything's completed and please let them know if in two weeks these ain't signed off we're gonna close it down we have

to and if it wasn't for the workers and the livelihood in this economy i'd probably be voting to close it down right now so please convey that sentiment i will and i will make sure that it is him here yes and not me i second that motion further further discussion we have a motion by councilman lawson seconded by councilman fogarty madam clerk why don't you call the role please

on this councilman fogarty aye councilman lawson aye council vice president rego councilwoman sousa aye Council President Roderick. Aye. So the motion passes for the last time. We'll give them two weeks. I don't want to sound like the man in Washington. Two weeks, two weeks, two weeks. Taco Tuesday.

This is it for us. Two weeks. Did you get that message across to him?

Yeah, I will make sure that I do. Thank you. I really want to protect those young workers. That's why I'm voting the way I did. And I thank the Councilwoman for her concerns, but we're being flexible as we can. Thank you for being here.

Madam Clerk, could you revert back to the agenda? I haven't confused you by now. Public comment, Sam Archer. Just name and address for the record. Just push that button there. Thank you.

Sam Archer, 184 Walnut Street. Welcome. Thank you. I wanted to thank Council President Rodericks and Vice President Rigo for swiftly introducing this resolution adopting the Safe Streets and Roads for All Safety Action Plan. I think it's really wonderful and I hope we see it pass later tonight. And part of the resolution is is a commitment to achieving

zero roadway fatalities by 2045. I don't think that's an impossible goal for East Providence, and I'm very glad to see it there. So I hope that you'll pass this later on this evening, and thanks again. - Thank you, and we can discuss it at that time later. Anyone else? Thank you. - Thank you. - Did other people sign up yet in the public?

No? Thank you. Yeah, we'll wait for that. We have another presentation. We'll wait a little bit for that. No one else has signed up. We'll continue. Thank you. Appointments? APPOINTMENT OF JULIE HARRINGTON TO THE CITY COUNCIL CAROUSEL COMMISSION. THIS IS A FOUR-YEAR TERM. 5-5-26 TO 5-6-20-30. COUNCILMAN FOGARTY. YES. WONDERFUL PERSON IN THE COMMUNITY. I MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE. SECOND. MOTION BY COUNCILMAN FOGARTY.

SECOND BY COUNCILMAN SUSAR. COUNCILMAN LAWSON. ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. ANY OPPOSED? THE AYES HAVE IT. THANK YOU. JULIE, GET YOUR COWBOY BOOTS ON FOR THURSDAY NIGHT. - You're gonna lead the line, Danson. - Thank you. - Congratulations, thank you for your time, good luck. Tracy's gonna put you to work right away. - That's it. - Next item. - Council members, number one,

SAGE Environmental Inc's Public Meeting Notice, Metacarpic Property LLC, regarding objectives of environmental cleanup scheduled for May 12th, 2026, At 6:00 PM at the city council changes, Councilwoman Susan. Yes, Councilwoman. Thank you. So again, I just wanted to put the public on notice that there will be a public hearing held here at City Hall in the council chambers on May

12th at six o'clock regarding the SAGE environmental findings and procedures. They do ask that anybody in the public who wants to submit any comments in regards to this project can reach Ms. Hannah Mitchell at Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. I will be posting that contact information on online and the Facebook website for the council and it is and should be in the

post the next couple of weeks also. So again, if you're interested, you're a budding resident, you have concerns, please come out to voice your concerns and to hear what is the plan moving forward for that property. And thank you. And that will be live streamed, is it, in the plans, I think?

Yes. Okay. So I'm away on a business already prearranged engagement, so I will be on a live Zoom for the meeting. Thank you.

Next item. - Number two, update on Gatekeeper School Bus Stop-On Violation Enforcement Program. Council President Rodericks. - So at this point, this issue has basically been solved. It's kind of a moot point, not much to get into tonight. I was concerned, as all of us were, that we'd gone some eight months before this program, although installed and ready to go before

the enactment. process was beginning but pretty much a couple of days after we put this on the agenda the police department indicated that it is now working and they are getting the enforcement's and so it's it's working I'm certainly not going to try to stop that and delay this into another school year so I think it's pretty much an issue of I did speak often with school

committee chair David Lewis who agreed with me on this issue and was equally concerned. He is here tonight. I don't know if you want to add anything.

I think at this point we're pretty well set unless there is an extenuating circumstance the council wants to bring up, you're welcome to come forward. But this is just for an update for information at this point. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your help with this and all those. We did have a question earlier from the audience. Mike, did you get that signature page? Is that the contract

page, the signature? I believe that's the contract. So that... So for the person who asked, that were the signatories on that contract. The question was, why didn't the city have a signature on the contract? It was only the chief of police and the school department, Sandy Fran, and solicitor said, because technically it's within the purview of the

school department, that's why there's no city official. That was my understanding of the whole process. I haven't read the statutes yet. BUT I BELIEVE THE STATUTE SAYS IT HAS TO BE APPROVED BY THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE AND THE GFH POLICE. THAT'S WHY THERE'S NO SIGNATURE OF THE CITY. THE GFH POLICE IS AN AGENT OF THE CITY. SO THAT IS THE CITY SIGNATURE. I JUST WANT TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS THAT RESIDENTS ASK. VERY

GOOD. NEXT ITEM. NUMBER 3, REQUEST FOR UPDATE REGARDING OLDHAM SCHOOL ON BULLOCK POINT. COUNCILMAN LAWSON. SO, ANDRE, I GOT THREE REQUESTS FOR UPDATES. Oldham, Sabin Point and the Crescent Park project. If you would like to update the public. Good evening members of the City Council. Councilman Lawson, I do have an update for you on Oldham. Thank you. So the administration has met with the developer,

but a final plan is yet to be determined on that. We have deliberated on this topic extensively. But if you want to add it to the next council meeting agenda, we can. And what's the conversation with the developer? You're still trying to push housing on it. No, we want a small business incubator or workforce development.

OK, and we can put an art center in there. We can open it up for the community. There's so many positive things and I'm willing to work with you guys. It's just public. They don't want to see eight apartment buildings. They, they don't, they love the character of Riverside. We have plenty of places to add housing, plenty.

We had the Christine apartments. We could have added there, but they went with the commercial development. Oldham is very special for Riverside. That's why we're going back and forth like this. I'm ready to work with you guys to get that building open. Um, We've already got a member of the rec department that's in Riverside, half a year.

You know, she manages the carousel and the programming at the park. We can use her to help out programming there. There's so much use. And you do have a community willing to chip in and help out. So that's why I'm pushing. So I will keep up on it. We don't want to give up any control of the property because once you do that, it can just go anywhere. So... Thank you for

the update. I appreciate it. The next one was the saving point. The stormwater pipe, I know we voted for the change order and stuff. Is there an update on when that's going to start? And the reason I'm bringing this up is the swings, Dan said they're unusable. And we're going on two years now. Those kids haven't had something. So that's why I'm kind of pushing on this as well for the kids

in Riverside. So I appreciate the item. The work on this is scheduled to begin in July. That's the latest update I have. And on the kayak launch, we're hopefully seeing that completed this month. Okay. Thank you for that. And my last one was just the where we at with the Crescent Park project. So I did give an update on this at the last council meeting. I apologize for being ill.

It's all right. Thanks. The latest information is that we're going to begin construction sometime in late May. So we'll keep you posted on that. Will that affect programming? We have various events throughout the summer. Is there consideration to minimize the disruption of the programming throughout? I understand it needs to be done. They're going to have to fence

off areas and stuff. But is there a plan to minimize the impact on the programming program? Tracy explained all that last time, the last council meeting. We're working closely with her and have exchanged the plans so that she's informed and that there's limited interruption to the programming. Okay. I appreciate that. I received no info.

I apologize for missing the meeting, but I didn't receive any email, no update, nothing, except for they just gave one from the carousel commission. So. So May is going to begin and for everybody it's going it's not the concession stand it's the event tent and the the storage office space building. Did they give you a general idea of completion and the reason I ask is in September we hold

a fundraiser a food and wine pairing. We've rented tents in the past this past year we had to go to the Bright Ridge Club. Is there any TALK ABOUT WHEN THE EVENT TENT WILL BE COMPLETED? CAN WE THINK MAYBE BY SEPTEMBER? BECAUSE IT'S JUST A PAD. WE'RE HOPING FOR THE END OF THE SEASON THAT IT WOULD BE COMPLETED. OKAY. THANK YOU.

APPRECIATE IT. THANK YOU. NEXT ITEM. NUMBER 5, CITY PERMIT FEES FOR RENOVATIONS OF HOMES AND BUSINESSES. COUNCIL VICE PRESIDENT RIGO. THANK YOU.

This has been brought up because we're having a lot of new and remodeled homes being done, excuse me, in the first ward and getting calls. Mike, could you explain what they need licenses for and what they do not need any permits, I should say? for renovating houses and everything.

People are confused as if they need it for windows, which I told them yes. It's just that a lot of new people have moved in in the past year or two, and other cities and towns might not have the same policies that we had, so people are confused. so thank you thank you for the question um as you know the need for building permit is controlled both by local

ordinance and by the state building code so i might not be giving might not hit all the points because i'm not as familiar with the state building code but under ordinances you're required for building permit for New structures, repairs, or alterations. So obviously if you're replacing windows, that's an alteration. You need a building permit for that

so that triggers inspections. Something like a paint job usually doesn't. That's just really just a paint job. But anything that you're building or new structural additions for houses, new roofs, anything any kind of electrical work that might be doing if you're updating your electrical system, plumbing system as well. So, you know, again, that's, you know,

a very broad, if they have any specific questions, I really would ask that they call our building official, but that, that those permits issue is issued through that. Yeah.

One of them, well, two of these phone calls originated from people who are basically flippers coming into the neighborhoods and, and, just going through the house and i told the person the same thing that calls zoning or building because the gentleman one gentleman and one woman who called me on these issues said to me there's no you know sign in in the windows so obviously if there's nothing there i said and

then i said well you got a call and they're like well we don't want to call well - Right. - Nobody wants to be the bad neighbor, but you know, so. - It is not the obligation of the person who either owns or is doing the renovations to pull the permit. obviously not everybody does that i think that everyone recognizes that not everyone follows the law um to pull the permit to

the extent that we are that anyone knows of a construction project or something that they believe requires a permit we do encourage them to call the building officials they could do so now not honestly and then they'll send out an inspection and i know in some cases we have you know stop work put place stop work orders on the property until such time as they get the permit And the permit helps

us in two ways. One, it ensures that we know what's going on at the property, number one. But number two, it also triggers an inspection to make sure what's done at the property is done correctly. Obviously, if you have an electrical permit, you want to make sure that it's done, plumbing, whatnot. But from a broader city perspective, it also triggers if it adds value to the house, right? And so that would

trigger maybe a re-evaluation of an assessment. Say you're adding on a deck or a new bathroom or something like that, you'd pull a permit and you'd triggered inspection and then when the revaluation cycle comes along or for that year, there might be an adjustment. And I think frankly that's why people don't pull the permit 'cause they're afraid

of that adjustment. But that's state law. So it's a voluntary program. We expect everyone to follow the law. But if anybody's aware that there's construction going on in their neighborhood that they think there's no permit pulled, First thing, they can just call the office and say, hey, address 255 Main Street. Is there a permit being pulled? And

if there isn't, we'll probably ask for more information as to what they think is going on. And we will send out an inspector. We have done so in the past. Thank you. If I could, through the chair. Yes, Councilwoman. Just as a note, anybody who's concerned about the issue that the Vice President brought up with work being done and not permitting, you can go on the city website and look up the

property and see if there is a permit taken out on that property to verify whether there was or isn't, in case it isn't printed out and stuck on their window. Thank you. Next item. Number seven, ripped a bike to work month flyer.

Council Vice President Rego. Thank you, Madam Clerk. My good friend Jim Vinson, and who should be familiar with people here in the city of East Providence, as he was a one-time employee here, here has gone on to work in many positions with the state of Rhode Island, reached out to me and it goes along with something that's been part of my first campaign

in 2022, talking about bikes and pollution and making this city very user-friendly and also a Trying to cut down on the carbon footprint and pollution's always been something near and dear to me that we should stop so that we can live here on Mother Earth for years to come and not be in smog like L.A. or any other metropolitan area. So here's the first, excuse me. My allergy is kicking in. So it's No

Pollute Commute, Bike to Work from May 1st to May 31st, 2026. Stop by Ripter's Celebration Stations. There's one coming up here in East Providence a week from Wednesday from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. at the East Bay Bike Path entrance at 29 Warren Avenue, East Providence. It's a great way to take advantage of this to get on Ripter and don't use your car if you

can to get into Providence if you work along a bus route, which obviously is a story for another day that we need more bus routes.

Yeah. And then to go along with this also, we have the photo ID bus pass. Ripter's customer service regularly travels to rural and urban communities throughout the state to provide reduced bus fares to qualified seniors and individuals with disabilities. Look out for these locations where you will be processing photo IDs. So again, take advantage of that. There's

a couple in our area. Well, on 528, there's one, again, right here in East Providence at the East Providence Senior Center, Waterman Avenue from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., It's very, again, here's an opportunity to get your bus ID, and we can remind people again at the next council meeting. But again, this is a great, especially with the price of gas,

we all know what that's like. Here's another avenue for seniors and seniors.

on people with disabilities to be able to ride rip the thank you mr president thank you sir good information next item number eight capital improvement budget balance and outstanding projects purchases councilwoman souza thank you um andre do we have any updates on the budget

I just want to say thank you for forwarding the December to March finance report.

I know it had been some months since the council had been provided with those.

If we could get those set back on to a regular basis, monthly basis, that would be greatly appreciated. If you could bring us up to speed. Oh, yeah. One of the items that you have here is the fiscal year 2025 end of budget report. that came out in October. That was before my time. Um, so I going to locate that and get that over to you guys. So, uh, apologies for that.

I think it just got lost in the transition. Um, and in terms of the other monthly reports, I will be sending those all to you every time I get them, uh, moving forward. So I appreciate your patience on that. Um, as for the other item that you have, um, we have several ongoing projects do you have any specific project in mind that you would like some more details on sure yes thank

you so one um well one i wanted to see what the current balance is for the capital improvement budget i know this council last APPROVING THE BUDGET FOR 2026 APPROVED A SUM, NOT NECESSARILY ALLOCATING INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS TO BE COMPLETED OR PURCHASES. WE'VE BEEN KIND OF DOING THEM THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. SO WHAT IS LEFT IN THE ALLOCATED FUNDS FOR THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT AND

THEN WHAT WAS LEFT FROM THE PREVIOUS YEAR. SO OVERALL A TOTAL OF $1,000 AMOUNT IN OUR CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT BUDGET -- I MEAN, FUND, WHAT DO WE HAVE SITTING THERE CURRENTLY AND HOW MUCH IS CURRENTLY ALLOCATED TO A PROJECT? AND THEN -- SORRY. I DID NOTICE, AND JUST CORRECT ME IF IT'S AN INCORRECT TOTAL, LEFT UNALLOCATED OPERA FUNDS IS 2.7 MILLION, IF YOU CAN JUST CLARIFY THAT NUMBER FOR

ME. SO THAT'S UNENCUMBERED. I WILL GET THAT NUMBER FOR YOU. We were obligated to obligate those funds by the end of the year. So they're obligated to use from-- They're unencumbered. They're obligated, but maybe not spent. Not spent, correct. I just want to let you know, based upon another city that I represent, there's a concern that if that money is not spent by October, there will be a penalty,

and the money will be swept back by the federal government. We did properly obligate them. So I just want to make-- - Thank you, I misspoke on that. So really what hasn't been spent out of the allocated opera funds? Is it the 2.7 or less or more? - I think we're gonna need to do like a presentation on that at the next council meeting 'cause-- - All right, that's fine. - There's

a lot of projects and a lot of figures, so-- - Yeah, and I don't want to put you on the spot. So yeah, that would be great if we could put that to the next council meeting. THAT WOULD BE -- AND IF WE COULD HAVE GLENDA THERE, TOO. YOU'RE ALL SET. YOU CAN -- CHECK HER AVAILABILITY. YEAH, ABSOLUTELY. OF COURSE. OF COURSE. WE CAN GIVE AN UPDATE AT THE NEXT COUNCILMEN. YES, COUNCILMEN, QUESTION? ANDRE, I'VE RECEIVED

ABOUT THREE OR FOUR PHONE CALLS IN THE LAST COUPLE OF DAYS WITH THE ECONOMY AS IT IS. are asking me when the tax bill's coming out because they want to obviously budget their finances everything is going up from insurance to uh that you know their escrow accounts will play into this and everything and they just want to budget their uh finances so do we have a date

yet from sarah when these tax bills will be going out well well the bills have to go out at the rate they want yeah they want to know what they've been late they want them earlier than better that's i'm asking for the date yeah so vice president that wasn't on the items oh it wasn't i'm just saying if you can find out i can look into that yeah i just got these

phone calls in the last couple of days and when councilwoman souza had this this is just an issue uh you know i'll let i'll get that over to you obviously the rate and you know uh when they would come out especially uh this year that's all I didn't expect you, that was, if you could help me with that issue. - All right, we'll look into that. Thank you.

- Thank you everyone. Next item. - Number 10, Charter Commission Recommendations Council Review Schedule, Council President Rodgers, Council Vice President Rigo. - So as we approach the time when we would have to make some decisions on anything that might go on a ballot. We just want to talk about the schedule. I really think that, and I know Council, Vice

President Rigo had some communication with the Secretary of State's office, the staff there, on what is the timeline. And when we consider we have a council that is going We'll have at least two new members and potentially all new members with an election. It might be best to just have the next council decide what, if anything, they're going to do. I'm receiving zero phone calls from the general public about this.

charter issues, it's so fresh still from recently having been changed. Some things we fixed by ordinance anyway. So basically that was just a explanation of scheduling. And I think Council, Vice President, what was the date that if this Council were to do something, we'd have to move?

We would have to move by July because then the process would have to be that the canvassing authority has to okay them, then the questions have to go to the Secretary of State and to the Board of Elections. And I know as a former chair of that Board of Elections, the last thing you want is these questions and everything coming in late. I concur with you in regards to the next council. We reviewed them a year

and a half ago, and there was no excitement. Again, I've received zero phone calls here. And I also, when this process started, I was the one saying, you know what, this former government, it should be like 10 years before we look at things to do it right when it get out of the box probably wasn't isn't the right thing to do if you look at the

state constitution and having a constitutional convention and it's 10 years so i think if it gets moved to the next council hopefully the three of us who are running you know, could be part of it, or it could be a whole new five-new-person council. We don't know. So I think, and that would be in that 10-year window.

You give this new experience that we call mayor, council, former government, the right things and to tweak it. But to have this come right off the gate that we inherited from the past council who didn't have a lot of time because let's face it, COVID came and we were being governed by all sorts of state of emergency rules. It hasn't played out. So I concur with you, Mr. President,

about waiting for the next council that's seated to pick up the torch to move this forward. I disagree. I will be putting forward some questions asking that we vote on them to put on the ballot. So you said by July? By July.

Okay. I will have it. What I think should be adjusted. No, I get it.

It's not fair to... But we're talking eight years. There are some things that can be tweaked. We're not talking about a complete rewrite. So I will be utilizing my power to put forward a vote for some ballot questions to change the charter.

Not major changes, but there are some tweaks. The Charter Commission that was voted on, they gave us a list of some things. A lot of it was minor adjustments and wording and stuff like that. So I think we should respect them and at least discuss what they put forward. We did it two years ago and a year and a half ago and nothing happened. You vote on a charter in an election,

charter changes. They presented it to us. We had a meeting and nothing happened. And we haven't had an election since. We did have an election. Yeah. Okay. I get where you're coming from. I'm not going to kick the can down the road. I will be putting some forward, but I understand where you guys are coming from. Thank you. All right. Next item. Number 11, illegal dumping at the

intersection of new road and Pawtucket Avenue council, vice president Regal. Thank you, madam clerk. Um, This, you know, as a typical Rhode Islander and as a person who grew up in Rumford my whole life, to get people familiarized where this is, this is the old Fram building on the left-hand side. It's become a real nuisance to the people who live on Campbell Avenue. Shame on

these people who have no respect for their neighbors. They just dump people.

And it's become an issue where they call me, we get the mayor's office involved, and DPW comes up and has to clean this property. Mike, is there any way... We as a city and our DPW, it's costing us, it's taking time away from the DPW work, it's parks department to be doing jobs at parks and other jobs throughout the city. Is there any way of we forcing or finding this property owner

that he has to maintain his property? It's no different than we as taxpayers and residents have to maintain our property. So under the code, both the minimum housing code and maybe even our local ordinances, property owners do have to keep their property clean and tidy, even if it's vacant. So I'm I don't know if this person has been cited, but what we have to do is cite the

property owner for not cleaning up his property or his or her property, and then we can bring them into court. And then if we have a known cost that it costs us to clean, we could seek to either reimbursement for those costs or put a lien on the property. But I'll find out, and I'll talk to Andre tomorrow, whether or not they've been cited or not. I don't remember. I know it's

been a problem in the past. I mean, I... I haven't caught, I don't think I've copied you on this. I know I've copied out. So you have my, you have the pictures that have been forwarded to him that I forward to you, right? Andre on this issue. Yeah. Just vice president Rigo.

Have you been sending over a good amount of emails? So I got to dig in, find it, but I'll check on that and get back to you. Well, yeah, I mean, that's part of, you know, that's one of the, you know, that's one of the issues and I'll say thank you to you, uh, All the yard debris and the trash was picked up

today in Ward 1 after some of the area being delayed. So I thank you for taking my 35 phone calls. Thank you for being on top of it. I try to be on all the time. So as soon as somebody calls me, I call you. So we'll take care of it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next item. Public hearings, audience for second and or final passes for discussion and possible vote.

Number one in ordinance and amendment of chapter 18 of the revised ordinances of the city of East Providence, Rhode Island 1998 as amended entitled vehicles and traffic adding section 18 just 318 entitled parking of unregistered vehicles Council President Rodgers Council Vice President Rigo So this is a public hearing for council discussion. First, this very simply just eliminates

parking of abandoned or junk vehicles on streets or any city property. It's a QUALITY OF LIFE ISSUE IN THE CITY AS I SEE IT AND AS RESIDENTS CALL US, IF THERE'S AN ABANDONED VEHICLE OR AN UNREGISTERED VEHICLE, THEN IT WOULD APPLY.

IT DOESN'T APPLY TO SOMEONE WORKING ON A VEHICLE IN THEIR YARD, BUT IT'S ON CITY STREETS. - Kind of simple language. Is there comments from the council before we open it up? Okay, one second.

We just have to, yep. So this is a public hearing. Is there anyone here tonight that wishes to speak on this one way or another? - Council President, this is just an update of the law to allow it to be more conformance with We're on general law regarding unregistered vehicles. So under our current ordinances, if you have an unregistered vehicle on the street, we'd have to tag it for so many days.

This eliminates that. We could, because it's a local violation, which was the second ordinance, the old pass, we'll be able to remove it pretty promptly. So that's quicker. And we did find there were a lot of complaints about this. And we were kind of, the police department asked for this review and we came up with a solution.

So. - Very good, I'll ask one last time for anyone here would like to comment for or against this hearing. Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. We had a motion by Councilman Fogarty. - Second. - Seconded by Councilman Sousa. All in favor?

- Aye. - Any opposed? The ayes have it. Thank you. Next item. Number two in an ordinance in amendment of chapter 10 of the revised ordinances of the city of East Province, Rhode Island 1998 as amended entitled nuisances amending subsection C of section 10-29 entitled removal notice to owner. Councilman Fogarty?

Yes, Councilman Fogarty. I think we've talked about it pretty much same thing.

The second part of that vehicles a violation, local violation. So it is Same discussion, no, nothing else. Anyone else here that wants to add to this discussion? Seeing none, we'll close that hearing. Motion was made by Councilman Fogarty. Seconded by Councilman Fogarty. Any opposed? The ayes have. Thank you. New business, Mayor Communications, Director of Policy and Constituent Services, Andre Herrera.

Welcome again and I would just ask you to basically read the headings of all of these without going into all of unless there is something critical that you need to bring forward. Of course. We have a couple reappointments requiring council confirmation. the reappointment of Gary Pascoe to the Zoning Board of Review for a five-year term effective January 4th, 2025 through January 3rd,

2030. Motion to approve. Second. Motion to approve by Councilman Lawson, seconded by Councilwoman Souza. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. Next, we have the reappointment of Michael Beaupart-Long to the Zoning Board of Review for a five-year term effective June 3rd, 2025 through June 2nd, 2030.

Motion to approve. Second. Motion to approve. Council Vice President Rigo, seconded by Councilwoman Souza. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. Thank you. Next.

Next, we have the appointment of Brenda Lee Lister to the Zoning Board of Review for a five-year term effective June 5th, 2024 through June 4th, 2029. Motion to approve. Motion Councilman, Council Vice President Rigo to approve. Sarah, second. Second. Second, Councilman Fogarty. Approved.

All in favor? Any discussion? Yeah, we can say all in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Nay. Nay. I believe there were three to two, but let's adapt it to a roll call vote. Please read the roll call. Councilman Fogarty? Aye. Councilman Lawson? Nay. Council Vice President Rigo? Aye. Councilwoman Souza? Nay. Council President Rodericks. Aye. The motion passes 3-2. Thank you. Next item. Appointment,

reappointment not requiring council confirmation. There are none. And for items for announcement and discussion, our DPW director gave the update on the citywide sewer infrastructure improvements. Yes. And then I'm going to read these proclamations, the titles of them, because we have 15 of them. But these are all in May, and we're going to the city's proclaiming Small Business Week in the city of East

Providence, EDS and HSD Awareness Month in the city, World Lupus Day, National Skilled Nursing Care Week, Jewish American Heritage Month, National Public Works Week, ALS Awareness Month, Mental Health Awareness Month, National Police Week, National Peace Officers Memorial Day, Teacher Appreciation Week, National Emergency Medical Services Week, Asian American and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month,

Municipal Clerks Week, National Military Appreciation Month, and Older Adults Month in the City of East Providence.

so may is a busy busy month i'm i'm part of that older what was that older american adults i'm in that club it's also the birthday of your solicitor so i'm hoping for a proclamation about that don't wait too long for that did your birthday today no i said at the end of the month - We'll have a-- - Don't all run out and get a cake. Thank you for that, we

appreciate it. And those are serious events, many of us try to get to as many of those as possible and we appreciate, I mean for people involved specifically, it means a lot to them and we appreciate the city doing that. - Thank you, Council President. - Thank you. - Especially for municipal clerks. - Especially the municipal clerks.

You may continue, Madam Municipal Clerk. Reports of other city officials. Number one, Capital Pace Organization of Rhode Island versus Savoy Few in her capacity as state tax assessor for the city of East Providence.

I'm sure you probably read some of the articles that were in the paper about this. I just wanted to give the council an update. In my law school days, you would have had to read the case and I would have asked you some questions about it, but I'm not going to do that because I don't know if everyone read it. But in short... We did read it. Thank you. I appreciate that.

In short, we've been in a legal litigation with PACE since they moved to the city about their payment of taxes. They claimed an exemption under a statute that dates back to 1876, believe it or not, and they were given that exemption in the city of Providence. When they moved here, they basically said, "Hey, I was given this in Providence. "You need to recognize it here." And working with the tax assessor, we

looked through it and had them submit a formal application, and based upon that application and our reading of the statute, we didn't believe that they applied. As was their right, they filed the case in Superior Court, which they lost, Superior Court indicated that the statute didn't apply to them, the exemption didn't apply to them. They appealed that,

which was their right to the Supreme Court. It took us four years to get there, basically. And we argued, I think I argued this in January, excuse me, before the holidays of last year, and the Supreme Court in the last month came out with a decision indicating that the city's position was correct. Even though it deals with PACE, had they been successful in their appeal, we believe that it could have been

applied to for-profit and non-profit nursing homes as well. Not only the city, but across the state. So it was a good result, obviously. I don't know who's Mike. Andre, maybe you could have IT this week. Look, we've been having this issue at the last couple of meetings. There's one Mike here somewhere that's But in any event, I just, I'm sorry, it's an update and I appreciate the council's support in getting

this through. Again, it was a long battle, but we did win and basically we protected the ability of this organization and other organizations that like that they would be subject to taxation. And as you know, because you deal with people who come to this council all the time asking for exemptions, every exemption that you give means that the rest of the taxpayers have to make up that difference. And this was a

significant amount of revenue. So that's all I have to say. And I will say that Page was very professional during the whole process. Their lawyers were excellent. So I've been on losing sides. It's not always good to, it's always better to win, but I also know what it is to feel like to lose. So, but anyway, I just want to give you that update. Thank you for your diligence with that. Next

item. Resolutions for discussion and possible vote. Number one, resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into a contract with the better group. for planning and engineering services associated with the safe streets and roads for all supplemental action plan for the Six Corners area. Council President Rodericks and Council Vice President Rigo. So by utilization of a $100,000 grant program, the Department

of Transportation through the Safe Streets Act, this is again more funding that will help the city with the planning and engineering services related to self- Safe streets and the supplemental action plan for the entire Six Corners area. Again, a good utilization of some grant funding. The city is seeking to enter into the contract with the better group for $117,000. There is an in-kind expense of $6,250 and

about 18, not about, but exactly $18,750 in cash. So it's a win-win, we think, for the city. Any comments or is there a motion? I make a motion. Motion by Council Vice President Rigo to approve the resolution. I'm seconding it just to bring it to a vote. Okay, seconded by Councilman Lawson. Any further discussion? Madam Clerk, sounds like you might want to call

the roll on this. Councilman Fogarty? Nay. councilman lawson nay council vice president rego councilwoman tusa nay council president rodericks aye so the safe streets motion fails uh two to three thank you next item number two resolution adopting the east providence safe streets and roads for all safety action plan council president rogers and council vice president rego

i'll make a motion to approve second motion councilman lawson to approve councilwoman sousa seconds all in favor aye aye any opposed the eyes have it thank you next item e introduction of ordinances for discussion and possible vote number one in ordinance and amendment of chapter 18 of the revised ordinances of the city of east providence fort island 1998 amending chapter 18 article

14 entitled bicycles to include the regulation of electric bikes and enforcement provisions for staying. Council President Rodericks. - So this is brought back before us and just in my opinion, a quick summary. The only intent here is to protect the parks and the public property and follow state laws and you certainly have the right Drive your electric bicycle into a parking lot. Well, let's use one field as an

example, say the Kent Field Project, or it could be Pierce Field. So you drive in, you go to the parking lot. And you park your bike. We don't want you driving around the tennis courts, which has happened through the years, ruining the asphalt or doing wheelies on the grass, ruining the ball fields. You have every right to do everything else that's legal. That's how I see it. Any other comments?

Motion approved. before you do that i just i just looked at the typo section 18-427 so we don't have to do this again um can we just it says accepted designated parking areas it says exception can we just cross out the tion so ion so it should be accept in designated parking areas not exception with that change i still make a motion to approve as amended as amended thank you Second. Motion

to approve as amended by Councilman Fogarty. And Mike, can you just... Hang on. Seconded by Councilwoman Sousa as amended. Discussion on the vote? Yes, sir. Can you just give us the crib notes? Because last time we were against it because it was so onerous. So we went from confiscation and we're going to sell it and all that.

If you ride an e-bike outside of the parking lot area in our city park...

and you get caught, it is a first offense, $100 fine. Correct. Second offense is $200. Correct. And then it goes on and on for multiple effects. Third offense would be $500 and a temporary empowerment of the bike at third offense. So we took away the draconian measure. Correct. And we just did a thing. Okay. I attended that meeting. It was a great meeting. It was very good. And all parties. I had

a busy afternoon picking up my wife at the airport. Wonderful hour and a half ride back to run from TF Green. But I meant to bring the article. I printed it out for the Boston Globe yesterday. Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts, they are taking the first in the nation approach dealing with all these motorbikes for safety. I mean, pedestrians are getting hit. People on bikes

are getting hit and what's the difference? I mean people who are you know use who a bicycle who are on a real traditional bike again run over and What's the difference between? 25 miles an hour and 30 triple-a has a good study as far as the cause of injuries and if you remember right Mopeds in the state around in most places you have

to be 16 to use and some of these new bikes can get up to the speed of a of a moped so i i hope that rhode island will look at what massachusetts is doing and has a law that protects you know people who are out walking people out on traditional bikes you see the bike path you know there's avid bike riders as the gentleman who came up

and spoke to us before So we got to, I'm not against the bikes, but there's got to be enforcements moving forward from the state level, not just from us. So we had the motion in second, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. Five, zero. For first passage. Thank you. Next meeting probably?

We have to advertise, so it might be two meetings from now. Anything else?

Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. Motion, Councilman Rigo to adjourn.

Second, Councilman Bogarty. All in favor? Aye.