A look at Newport City Council members' priorities for the next two years
NEWPORT — The new City Council set its tone for the next two years as a workhorse, efficiency-focused council as it established a list of policy priorities at a workshop last Wednesday.
“This is a council that, first of all, is really willing to do the work to help advance a lot of these ideas and roll up our sleeves and really get into the policy-making aspect of what our responsibility is to work with city administration,” Mayor Xay Khamsyvoravong said.
The City Council convened for a workshop on Wednesday, absent Councilor Jeanne-Marie Napolitano, to see how the councilors' priorities align in order to team up and accomplish different policy goals.
Khamsyvoravong said this meeting was not meant to take the place of the city’s official strategic planning session, which happens in the summer, but rather is meant to get the council’s priorities in order early on.
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The councilors went one by one detailing where their priorities lie. The most common interests shared among councilors were making the council more efficient, increasing enforcement of city ordinances, and guiding the implementation of the North End Urban Plan.
The spreadsheet used by the councilors to outline their priorities can be viewed on the video for the meeting at the city’s Grancius website.
Here are some of the main priorities and takeaways from the evening:
City Council Efficiency and Effectiveness
Issues related to how the city council, and the city more broadly, could work more efficiently and be more effective was the most common talking point of the evening, with every councilor present giving at least one idea on how to improve the council’s workflow. This is also Khamsyvoravong’s main priority as mayor, he said.
“One of the first things I’ve learned though while being on the council is that while I have a bunch of priorities is that my first priority needs to be ensuring these wonderful councilors all can reach the full potential that they each have with the objectives they have at hand,” Khamsyvoravong said. “A lot of my bandwidth and time right now is spent figuring out how we can build partnerships across this council and how, when community partners do come to the table, I immediately triage them off to those councilors who are really willing to roll up their sleeves and work with them and invest the time necessary to move forward these objectives.”
He also mentioned establishing performance benchmarks and indicators to evaluate the city’s progress toward reaching certain goals.
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The ideas ranged from smaller goals, such as Councilor Angela McCalla’s suggestion to digitize council documents to reduce paper waste, to larger goals, such as establishing a Constituent Services Office within the city to handle feedback on issues residents bring up to the city, which Councilors David Carlin and Mark Aramli both suggested. Councilor Charlie Holder also suggested changing the way councilors write resolutions to include more concrete goals city administration can focus on.
There was also great interest among the councilors to invest more in working with state legislators and outside organizations to accomplish goals more efficiently. Councilor Lynn Underwood Ceglie suggested a possible need for an official lobbyist who could better convey the city’s needs to the members of the General Assembly.
“Certainly with our foray into regionalization, there seems to be some idea that we’re all rich down here by some of the people who are up in the General Assembly,” Ceglie said. “I think we need to do more work and perhaps hire a part-time lobbyist or something to be able to work for us and educate people up there about what it is we have down here.”
Traffic and Ordinance Enforcement
Five councilors said they wanted to see an increase in the Police Department’s ability to enforce traffic laws and noise ordinance violations. Carlin, Aramli and Holder considered these to be high on their list of priorities, calling the issue a matter of quality of life in the city.
Holder said the city could tackle this issue through the way it drafts ordinances and resolutions altogether by outlining where the issue is happening and what parameters the police can use to determine violations.
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“I understand there’s a broader picture for a lot of people,” Holder said. “Housing’s an issue. Climate change is an issue. I understand that there’s bigger perspectives than that. I think if we work underneath to get things done in a quicker, more expeditious way, I think work on those bigger picture items will make things a little bit easier to get done.”
Ceglie also listed lead abatement enforcement alongside traffic safety as her top priorities. She said she wants to see increased lead inspections to reduce the number of lead poisoning incidents the city sees every year.
The North End Urban Plan
As the councilor representing the First Ward, McCalla listed enforcement of the North End Urban Plan as one of her top priorities, alongside fixing flooding and issues from the Pell Bridge ramp realignment project. McCalla worked extensively with Grow Smart RI and Newport’s Local Advisory Group to develop a North End Equitable Development Strategy, a document that outlines ways the city can help make development in the North End more equitable and less harmful for the residents who currently live there. McCalla and the LAG also pushed to establish Community Benefits Agreements in the North End Urban Plan, which require developers to add resources to benefit the community alongside their projects in the North End.
She said she wants to see a North End Committee established to help guide the North End Urban Plan and its Community Benefits Agreements.
“This is an opportunity for the community to meet with developers, have an exchange and make some good changes, good changes that will enhance our community,” McCalla said.
Aramli, Ceglie, Holder and Khamsyvoravong all mentioned ensuring the North End Urban Plan’s success on some level as one of their priorities as well.
Revising the Zoning Code and Processes
As a part of the council’s overall goals to improve efficiency in city government, several councilors mentioned changing the zoning code and how the boards and commissions which enforce the code operate.
“More than 50% of buildable parcels in Newport are in a historic district,” Aramli said. “I’m told more than 80% of our parcels are nonconforming according to their local zone. What that means is if you want to repair your home, add to your home, modify your home, build a home, you're going through the city to get approval and what I’ve been told time and time again is it has become too hard for homeowners and property owners to repair, alter, improve or add on to their homes.”
Aramli suggested overhauling the boards and commissions, particularly the Historic District Commission, and the processes and ordinances they use to evaluate a project’s acceptability to make the process easier for property owners. Aramli himself had a housing project rejected by the Historic District Commission in March 2022, a process that began in June 2021.
Khamsyvorvong also said reforming the city’s zoning laws could help increase the city’s available housing stock.
The Pell Bridge Ramp Realignment Project
Several councilors mentioned the city should be more involved with the Pell Bridge Ramp Realignment Project, especially considering the newly increased traffic issues around the construction zone. McCalla suggested the council could use a liaison position to communicate between the R.I. Department of Transportation and the City Council for updates and feedback on issues that may arise during construction, especially as the weather gets warmer and construction increases.
“Up until this point, we’ve had very minimal contact with RIDOT and what I’m hearing from residents is that it’s very, super confusing, the maps are not easily understood, and there's a lot of change happening that people are not necessarily in the know about, and the council is not the exception,” McCalla said.
Both Holder and Aramli agreed with McCalla on the lack of communication between the city and RIDOT over this issue. Holder considers the current traffic situation and temporary barriers a safety hazard and Aramli, whose office sits right in front of the downtown Newport off-ramp, mentioned the flooding and other challenges North End residents have faced due to this project.
Increasing Revenue
While three councilors listed increasing revenue for the city of Newport as a priority, the topic is one Aramli campaigned heavily on and chose as one of his main issues to tackle. Aramli argued the city relies too much on property taxes to fund municipal services and does not receive enough tax revenue from the millions of tourists who visit each year.
“That money is out there,” Aramli said. “We’re not harvesting it. Other destination cities across the country certainly get more out of their hotel taxes than we do.”
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Aramli said a lot of these issues are with the tax code itself, which Newport would have to work with the state legislature to fix in the city’s favor.
In a similar vein, Carlin suggested the state should be receiving more payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT funds) for properties the city cannot tax itself. He said the city could work with Providence and Cranston, which also receive PILOT funding, through the League of RI Cities and Towns to potentially get hundreds of thousands of extra revenue.
Education
Decisions about the city’s school department are largely the responsibility of the Newport School Committee, which could explain why it fell further down the list of priorities than other topics. There were two councilors who shared goals related to education, however.
In reference to the construction of the new Rogers High School building, Carlin said the city should interact more with state legislators and the education department to fix what he sees as unfair funding practices. The state uses its "state share" formula, which is based on property values and the percentage of children between pre-kindergarten and sixth grade who meet the poverty criteria, to calculate how much each municipality should receive in state aid each fiscal year.
Carlin said while Newport’s property values are high, the percentage of students who need free or reduced lunch is also high, meaning the city deserves an increase in state aid to support its students.
“We need the type of money Central Falls gets, and the state of Rhode Island has it,” Carlin said.
Khamsyvoravong’s education goals, on the other hand, focused internally on the city’s relationship to the school committee. He said he would like to see a 10-year plan from the school department and referenced Gov. Dan McKee’s goal to see the state be on par with Massachusetts in education by 2030.
“I don’t want Newport to be on par by 2030, I want Newport to be leading the state and pulling up the average,” Khamsyvoravong said.
This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Newport City Council priorities includes focus on North End, education
