Well, it's sort of a rite of passage for New Englanders, so I figured it was time to introduce Jack to the delightful gentian-root flavor of Moxie. He was, putting it mildly, unimpressed. I had prepped him by explaining that it was sort of like root beer. He made a very yucky face and said, "Dad. That tastes nothing like root beer."
One of the things I love about covering local politics is that you just never know when the tiniest of agenda items is going to erupt in a full-scale war. Tonight, it was the new Portsmouth Girls Softball dugouts at Glen Park that escalated to Missiles of October level, thanks to an intemperate remark by Tailgunner Gleason. But let me step back and make a cursory attempt at the 5Ws and an H.
With about 35 citizens in attendance, the Portsmouth Town Council ran through a diverse agenda in their two-hour meeting tonight, celebrating achievements, deliberating some items of concern, and hearing a strategic planning report from their Economic Development Committee (PEDC). That report, a phase-one cut at what Portsmouth is, and where we should be going, is so rich that I'll provide a followup post with more detail, but I'll say just one word here: Sewers. In one PEDC chart, a SWOT analysis, the committee identified this as the top, most urgent weakness the town faces.
But enough about our intractable problem. <cough sewer district cough > The meeting had its positive moments, with a celebration of Girl Scout Gold Award winner Hope Valloney (Yaay, Hope!) the achievement of Gary Crosby, who passed his certification as a planner (Yay, Gary!) and the retirement of firefighter David Harris (Yaay, David!) after 20 years. In a classy move, Dennis Canario urged Chief Lynch to work out a time for him to personally present Harris with a token of the Council's thanks. And I think we all share that thought — I feel safe, and feel like our son is safe, because of our great Police and Fire departments, and anyone who has served this town for that long deserves all of our thanks.
But happiness is a fleeting state at Council meetings, and as soon as they got into the appointment agenda, things got back to normal. The Council had voted to expand the membership of the Portsmouth Redevelopment Agency, in part because short-time member Alan Shers's reappointment had been bumped by Mary Ann Edwards. But instead of looking favorably on Sher's re-application, the council voted for a slate including "Magic Xylophone" Kesson, one explanation being that Shers was on other committees. Which he volunteered for when the Council failed to reappoint him to the PRA. Confused? That's okay, it's not a big deal. His skills are still being utilized. But for me, it just rubbed salt in the wound.
The Council then considered a mooring fee change, but deferred action until after a public hearing. "This is a smoke and mirrors processing fee," said Council President Dennis Canario. "[The citizens] deserve processing paperwork without a fee." And then, all hell broke loose.
The agenda item looked innocent: Softball field dugouts/Glen Park. But when Grace Kinnunen of the Glen Park Committee started to describe the backstory, things started to drift quickly. The nut of the issue seemed to be that the dugouts had been built 29 feet long, but some on the committee thought they were promised to be 14. "The committee didn't pick up on the length...it went through the whole process. We didn't clarify 'footprint.'" The Council, who also didn't see it coming, kept trying to understand the issue. Was it okay? "It's not totally okay," said Kinnunen.
Then Karen Menenzies, the Secretary of the Glen Park Association tore it open. "They agreed to 14 feet — they built 29 feet. That was just simply wrong. When we ask for a decision and they don't do what they are supposed to do."
That was all Tailgunner Gleason needed. "I thought that you were going to ask that they be removed, and I would have supported you on that. You're setting precedent. I think they did it deliberately. This is going to happen again."
John Hamilton, the Portsmouth Little League VP of Softball, was in the row behind me, getting visibly agitated. He tried to get the floor, but Canario cut him off by attempting to move the question. After some back and forth on Robert's Rules, they let him talk.
"We did not do it deliberately," said Hamilton, "We did exactly what we asked [the Council]." In their letter to the Council, dated 6 June 2006 which Hamilton provided, it clearly says, "The enclosed dugouts will only replace the perimeter of the chain link fence." Which was — you guessed it — 29 feet.
"I have a letter that I wrote and signed," said Hamilton. "I cannot stand being told I lied."
Tailgunner tried the Bush/WMD defense: "The information that was given to me was in black and white. If the information that was given to me was wrong..."
Former Town Solicitor Vernon Gorton, also a League official, put it plainly. "We didn't promise anything smaller," he said. "Listen to the [Council meeting] tape."
See why I love going to these meetings?
Then came the heartwrenching part of the evening. A group from Prudence Island came to plead their case before the Council for keeping their school. Canario made it clear that the Council was not going to interfere with the duly-elected School Committee's processes, but encouraged them to speak. And speak they did, from the heart.
"We feel so strongly," said Prudence Islander Kathy Holme, "We did everything the School Committee asked us to do to keep it open — maintenance, volunteer teachers, volunteer labor. We set up a working committee and came up with ideas, but we were never given an opportunity to present them." They talked about the PowerPoint deck they had put together, and Canario gave them ten minutes before the SC budget meeting Wednesday night to present that.
Islander Pat Rossi urged the Council, "I ask you as a Council to keep in mind our youngest residents. We are all one town, but there are certain things that don't make sense to do with your youngest residents." Like waking them up at 5am to put them on a boat, to be taken far away from their parents, for a ten-hour day.
Their hearing before the RI Dept of Ed is coming up at 10 am on May 22, and they will have another whack at the School Committee on Wednesday evening, which should be just as sad and agonizing as the last one. One correction: Bob Marshall from Prudence said that one of the School Committee members said 'he would probably get yelled at, but he was sure that the committee could find the 75K to keep the school open.' What Mr. Marshall is misremembering is that Jamie Heaney said he would probably get yelled at, but he thought that they could get money by asking for a 1% giveback on health insurance. As Vernon Gorton said, go listen to the tape. Personally, I hate the decision to close Prudence, but hanging your argument on something Jamie Heaney says...
And here's an interesting question. Did Pete "Cryptkeeper" McIntyre violate the open meetings law? [UPDATE: No, according to an attorney I spoke with who is familiar with RI Open Meetings law. Ignore this paragraph. -jm] Advertised on the agenda was an innocuous item that proposed moving up the day the Town Council gets their packet of meeting materials from Friday to Thursday. Amid some give and take, he amended that motion to include a completely separate requirement, that all agenda items have backup. I didn't get a chance to ask the Town Solicitor whether that was within the scope of the advertised item, which was quite specific: "Request to discuss changing agenda deadline for Town Council Meeting packets." If the PCC wants to play hardball with Open Meetings laws, I'm just as complaint-happy as Cheshire Kathy. Any lawyers out there?
There ensued some granstanding by Tailgunner Gleason, who insisted that the Planning Office Update be moved from the consent agenda so she could grill Robert Gilstein for ten minutes. The only useful thing that came out of that was that it gave Dennis Canario, my hero for the evening, the opportunity to instruct Gilstein to get the lights working on Park Ave. again. RIDOT was of the opinion that since they were going to put some additional lights in, they would just come once to fix the old ones, but Canario was firm. "Call them tomorrow," he said. For that, he gets immunity in the next challenge.
As I said, I have left the PEDC phase one report for a more substantive post, once I digest their materials. Tomorrow night, there is a workshop at CCRI Newport on roundabouts, as well as a School Committee meeting. And Wednesday, it will be all hands on deck (Parents, take note!) for the School Committee Budget (if you care about having warrant money for technology for your kids, please show up.)
In a nondescript office on East Main Road, so nearly invisible that their own board members have been known to miss the driveway, sits a sovereign second government within the town of Portsmouth: the Portsmouth Water and Fire District (PWFD). Exempt from taxes by fiat of the General Assembly that created it in 1952, this quasi-municipal agency has the powers of a government: seizing property, civil and criminal penalties, and, most importantly, taxation.
Check out the PWFD charter. They have a state-guaranteed monopoly (Section 5). They can dig up streets and lay pipe without the consent of the Town(9). Not using their water? They can come into your house and forcibly connect you (5a).
And although they sit within Portsmouth, their responsibility is not to the town, but rather their ratepayers, a subset of the population which does not include sections like Melville, Redwood Farms, and Prudence Island. A ratepayer-elected 7-member board sets water prices and taxes — and they have the power to tax at the same rate as the town — completely outside the controls of the Paiva-Weed law.
Do I have your attention? I thought so. Because this is not some kind of paranoid hit-piece about the PWFD. Rather, I'm suggesting that they are a model organization. For sewers in Portsmouth. Why? Let me explain.
While the town languishes under a budget cap, struggling to maintain the 8% reserve that keeps our bond rating, the PWFD is flush with cash: on a $2.5M annual budget, their most recent financial shows $1M in investments, a 40% reserve. That's not counting their $8M in infrastructure, that's one million in T-bills.
A government entity, in Rhode Island — in 2007 — with money in the bank? Hire these people to run the freaking state.
Of course, the model is not extensible that way. They are successful precisely because they are a narrowly-scoped public utility. They are able to sit down, each year, and do a cost of service analysis, figure out exactly the costs of transmitting the $800K of water they buy from Newport, and split that 80/20 between water rates and property taxes.
It's that dual revenue stream that makes this a perfect model for sewers, with their huge up-front cost. According to PWFD Manager Bill McGlinn, tax revenue was critical in bootstrapping the District during the early years, before water sales could support the enterprise. But now, he said, "We've got the tax rate pared down to a point that allows us to cover debt service." And, he added, having the authority to tax allows them access to lower-interest general obligation bonds.
It's painfully clear that parts of Portsmouth need sewers; three separate consulting studies and the DEM are unanimous. It's also clear that there is tremendous opportunity on the West Side which can be most effectively leveraged with more robust wastewater treatment options. What's also pretty clear is that a Town-sponsored bond to pay for this doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell. There's no political will and no other mechanism to fund and manage the project. The Town just doesn't have the money to execute, nor the administrative capacity, nor the share of mind, given the two-year terms of the Council.
Of course, I am partisan on this issue, as I've said before, since I live in Island Park. And I'm doubly suspect in my admiration for PWFD as a model since my uncle Buddy Kirkwood was one of the founding board members. But given the grim meathook realities of the current (and future) Town budgets, spinning this project out to such an entity seems to be the only way to make it feasible.
I think Portsmouth needs a second shadow government of water. What are your thoughts?
[Editor's Note: Because I remember with fondness the days of the Fairness Doctrine, I e-mailed Gail Greenwood this morning to let her know that Bill Clark had posted a reply to her letter. She politely asked for equal time, and here it is. -jm]
Hi John,
Thanks for alerting me to Bill Clark's response to my letter. I'm grateful
for the public forum you host. It's wonderful to be able to engage in a
public discussion about an issue that is so very important to all of us.
Let me start by saying I appreciate Mr. Clark's role as Director of
Business Development as I'm sure he can appreciate my role as Island
inhabitant
I'd like to counter Mr. Clark's points.
My letter clearly states that I believe the Portsmouth Design Review
guidelines are excellent. Yet, as he illustrates, it's the enforcement that
I mentioned as worrisome and which is actually posing a legal issue as we
speak.
Kudos to the hard working Design Review Committee. I know first hand that
creating and implementing regs like that is no small feat. Middletown First
proposed to extend the geographic area of our own excellent Town Center
overlay to encompass our entire commercial district back in 2002. 5 years
and many volunteer man hours later we finally have regs in place but
signage is still not concrete. The 1999 sign regs are actually being
softened in this former district. Where once only wooden, exterior lit signs
were allowed, plastic halo lit signs are being allowed once again.
The 16 acre Target site IS wooded. The majority of the parcel is covered in
pines. Whether it's shale, ledge or sand it's still undeveloped land where
wildlife presently resides and who know how many historic events took place.
It deserves respect no matter what takes place there.
As for the belief that the sprawl won't spread– zoning is political. Just
because something is not zoned commercial today does not mean it won't be
tomorrow. With enough money and clout, anybody can petition the town to
change zoning designations to suit their needs. And it happens frequently in
Middletown. I can provide specific examples if needed.
Have any of us ever seen a stand alone Target? Target brings Best Buy,
Circuit City, Kohl's TGIF. etc., etc. Companies such as CVS have been known
to regularly purchase lots across the street from these big developments for
1 million or more. As a homeowner facing the development and a loss of
quality of life- that's an offer that's hard to refuse.
Referring to beautiful, 2 lane Union Street as merely a "key crosstown
artery" does a disservice to the residents who call it home. And our
overworked RIDOT will make many promises. A Middletown Square stripmall
condition was to tie into the controlled signalized access system to be
synchronized by RIDOT. 5 years later we are still awaiting synchronization
of our traffic lights on West Main Road.
I never said Middletown Square was promised to "lower" taxes I said it was
proposed as a tax " boon". Trust me, that superlative is mild compared to
some the developer actually bandied about to trying to sell the project
during 8 months of hearings before the ZBR.
The "killer visual" sign photo I hold in an earlier McDaid post is NOT the
famous photo used in the NY Times article about visual blight and the Dunn
Foundation. That is ANOTHER equally heinous shot featuring the proliferation
of cable, cell, telecommunications, etc. wires. I have many more sign
pictures I took myself just last week- that are far worse. The picture I
hold was shot by Dave Hansen and is from 2001.
I love Middletown. I love this entire island. That is why I am so passionate
about what happens to Portsmouth. Residents need to consider the
intangibles-the loss of the starry night sky because of 24 hour security and
halogen parking lot lighting, the loss of the sound of crickets on a summer
night because of endlessly droning HVAC units, tractor trailers traveling
their roads and backing up and beeping at all hours of the night. Not to
mention the 4000 cars a day the store will bring. Just ask any of the
residents behind Middletown's Home Depot how life had changed for them since
the store moved in.
The developers have the ability to pay many, many dollars to present
"experts" and convince municipalities that their project is good for the
town. The only recourse most lowly citizens have is to try and rally the
troops via a letter to the editor in the local paper. Does anyone think
that's a fair match up?
Sincerely,
Gail Greenwood
Middletown
Update: Kennedy gets it, and uses e-mail effectively now.
When I get an e-mail newsletter from Rep. Patrick Kennedy, and the House is right in the middle of a very dramatic vote on holding the President to a timetable in Iraq, I think I can be forgiven for expecting some kind of timely update. Sadly, here's what our Representative sent out yesterday:
Dear fellow Rhode Islander,
Over the past few weeks, I have been proud to support several pieces of legislation to invest our national resources more selectively to remain at the cutting edge of global innovation.
Two of the bills that I was proud to support were the "10,000 Teachers, 10 Million Minds Science and Math Scholarship Act," and the "Sowing the Seeds Through Science and Engineering Research Act. "
— See for yourself; Read the newsletter
Good god, Mr. Kennedy, right now I don't give a flying fuck about global innovation. It's clear that neither you nor your staff has the slightest clue about the use of e-mail and the need for timely, relevant content.
In the last election, a Rhode Island politician with a well-respected family name and sterling credentials went down to defeat in order to destroy the Congressional rubberstamp on our President. The implications for those who fail to engage on the war are clear.
You voted for HR2237, Mr. Kennedy, and I thank you for your courage. Now pander to your base and get the news out. If you need advice, Robin has my number.
[Editor's note: Usually people just comment on postings here, but Bill Clark, Portsmouth's Director of Business Development sent me this response and gave me permission to post it. I take his critique seriously, and apologize to our Town officials for appearing to endorse an apparently unjustified slight of their oversight. I very much try to get things right, and I appreciate the correction. I believe that my coverage of the initial Design Review meeting illustrates my support for our officials, and I'll let that speak for itself. Bill and I will have agree to disagree on my assessment of the "killer visual," which I still think justified in light of Target's initial signage proposal. -jm]
From: WClark@portsmouthri.com
Subject: COMMENT
Date: May 10, 2007 2:24:03 PM EDT
To: jmcdaid@torvex.com
Cc: jgborden@rwu.edu, rdriscoll@portsmouthri.com, rgilstein@portsmouthri.com
John -
You recently posted and endorsed a couple of comments that are of some concern to me as I feel the items you referenced need some clarification as they are misleading.
"Excellent letter May 3" - The most erroneous comments concern the Design Review Committee. The tradesman center she referred to was approved and permitted before Design Review was in effect. We were still creating the design review guidelines and preparing to enact ordinance changes. The builder did agree to voluntarily meet with the Committee unofficially where he did agree to a few minor improvements. Notably additional landscaping and the feeble attempt at beautification with the "eyebrows" along the front roofline. It did not take the Building Dept. and other concerned officials (Medeiros, Gonsalves, Crosby, Driscoll, Clark, Gavin) long to confront Mr. Clukies with violations of his approvals. He did not respond adequately and legal action was pursued. Most recently, the court ordered him to rectify several noted problems and actions and to comply with what was approved as to appearance and activity. The Design Review Committee has been working very diligently on other commercial developments and are considered to be doing a very good job. The Planning and Zoning Boards have endorsed comments and recommendations and have included most of the stipulations into their decisions.
"Losing 16 acres of wooded land…" Has the author looked at the site? Another letter to the Daily news referred to the parcel as "farmland." It has been and will remain a shale/stone outcropping. It has been a difficult site for the property owner to develop and the soil conditions will add to the expense of any project located there. Also it should be noted that it does not adjoin other commercial parcels which can mitigate sprawl. It is located at an existing traffic light intersection for one of the key cross town arteries. There are only three ways to cross between West and East Main Rds. The proposal has initially indicated additional road and control improvements and will be required to satisfy the State DOT and DEM, as well as Town boards and departments.
For a long time the planning and building departments, as well as other staff, in Portsmouth have been very aware of "Middletown." I doubt that Middletown Square was proposed with a promise of lowering the Town taxes. Most towns value growth of the commercial/industrial tax base without believing it is the key solution to holding down taxes. A strong and growing commercial tax base is valued because the commercial tax dollars add positively to the Town cash flow, but no one here says growth at any cost nor are they resigned to whatever will be will be.
On another occasion, the "killer visual" you referred to is a photo that has been circuited nationally in many pubs as a "how not to." It is not something Middletown is proud of and most people can see that Middletown has taken actions to gain control of signage proliferation. Much of the retail activity depicted in the photo began when Middletown had little or no development control. The double edge sword of "grandfathering" can cut both ways.
Bill Clark
Director of Business Development
Town of Portsmouth
2200 East Main Road
Portsmouth, RI 02871
wclark@portsmouthri.com
401-643-0382
401-683-6804 fax Portsmouth is an "Every Company Counts" network partner.
At a meeting of the Portsmouth Water and Fire District Engineering Subcommittee this afternoon, board members discussed the challenges posed posed to aging water service criteria by several of the large new developments underway, but decided not to make any immediate changes to their regulations.
The standards for water service — things like frontage and distance from property line — were drawn up in 1988, very different times, and the subcommittee discussed the impact of higher-density Low-to-Moderate Income (LMI) housing plans like the Cory Acres development behind Sea Fare Inn, condo complexes like Mitchell's Lane, and, obviously, Carnegie Towers.
PWFD Manager Bill McGlinn expressed concern about whether existing regulations could cope. "We're starting to see parcels that were probably not buildable, or with less units than the LMI allows to occur," he said. Additionally, granting exceptions for factors like the setback of the rear Carnegie Towers apartments from the water main could risk "changing criteria by precedent."
The board's attorney, David Fox, seemed to feel the three current projects could be handled within the existing framework. Fox pointed out that the prior industrial use of the tower was water intensive. "That was a wire plant that used a tremendous amount of water — 13 million gallons per year." Compared to that, the PWFD estimated usage at the Towers is only 4 million gallons, or about double that of the Anthony House apartment complex on Middle Road. "You've allowed exceptions before," said Fox, "And prior usage is exceptionally reduced."
Fox's recommendation was to treat each of the three applications under current rules and work up a bill package for the full board's review at the June 5 meeting. In parallel, he suggested they raise the question of updating the rules and regs to the board. His suspicion was that they would "drop it in your laps and run away like little girls," allowing consideration of rule changes without the pressure of a pending application. There was general assent, and the meeting adjourned.
This was my first visit to the PWFD, other than to pay my bills, and aside from the usual suspicion I see with boards and committees unused to citizen-journalists (two jokes about transparency before the meeting even started) it seemed to be a highly focused, engaged, and knowledgeable group. I'm comfortable with engineer types, and these guys seemed to know what they were about.
While I was there, I did pick up a copy of the PWFD Budget, and I'm working through it to try to reconcile some puzzling things from the Town Budget about fire hydrants. More on this later.
This has been a long gap between posts, and for that I apologize; in my day job, I had to build out a new web site this week. But I used my fragmentary downtime productively, reading both Portsmouth School and Town budgets carefully, and here's the first bizarre tidbit: we spend 7 times more educating our Police than we do our teachers.
In the Town budget for the upcoming year, as tentatively approved by the Town Council, the Police have $37,200 for continuing education. For a force of about 39, that works out to $953 per person.
The Portsmouth School Department, with 214 FTEs, is budgeted for 26K in tuition reimbursement and 3K for conference travel, or $29,000. That's $135 per teacher.
Now this is not truly apples-to-apples, because there are teacher in-service days, which are difficult to tease out of the budget numbers. Although the Police get an additional $12,000 for similar training not counted in the above numbers. And yes, I admit that the personnel costs of teacher in-service are likely to dwarf the continuing ed number. I'm making a point here, okay?
[Update: Please see the first comment below for why the following analysis is suspect-jm] And there's also this interesting statistic — for both the Police and Fire departments, benefit expenses represent a higher percentage of wages than teachers. Benefits for the Portsmouth School District represent 37% of wages for all employees; the budget doesn't break it out for teachers, but since their salaries are two-thirds of the budget, the percentage has to be in that ballpark.
Both Police and Fire have benefits that are around 70% of salaries. You can check the numbers yourself: Proposed Town Budget, PSD Budget (no link yet) available at Admin Building.
I'm clearly not saying this to question what we pay our police and firefighters. These people put their lives on the line every day, and as far as I'm concerned, we couldn't possibly pay them enough.
But when we get to the presentation of the School Budget next week, I want us to keep this in mind to balance some of the wild rhetoric about runaway pensions and medical benfits. Teachers are on the front line too; they are nurturing and creating our future, and I find the idea that we expect them to stay current on $150 a year — while we also ask them to buy their own classroom supplies and work unpaid overtime — unfair and insulting.
Out in the world beyond Aquidneck Island, there are arbitrary markers for the seasons. Summer hits the beach on Memorial Day and scuffles back to work on Labor Day. But here — because, perhaps, we still have a deep connection to our agricultural heritage — Summer begins with the hayride at Touch-a-Truck and the season ends with a hayride at the Harvest Fair.
Yeah, this is a pastoral Saturday post. I'm taking a day off from snark.
Today was Jack's first Little League game, a just-for-fun coach-pitch outing with parents sitting on blankets and lawn chairs and cheering every play. Then we wandered over to Glen Farm to climb around on trucks, blast the siren on a police car, get brain freeze from Del's, and ride around the field pulled by Escobar's tractor. The most political I'll get is to say what a great idea this is for supporting the Library.
No, I take that back. I will say something political. I will thank, deeply, all the volunteers who make this community what it is. Whether it's the folks who take time off from work to coach Little League, or who keep the Library working, or the hundreds of people in the PTOs that do the things that nobody sees but everyone would miss, or the unsung heroes on the boards and commissions, councils and committees, who keep moving the flag forward, meeting by meeting. All the folks who say, yeah, I'll pitch in.
These people — us — are what make this the best place in the world to live. Give yourself a hand. And take a well-earned Saturday afternoon nap.
Every year, after the Portsmouth High School Prom, the parents of graduating seniors run a Post-Prom Party to continue a truly memorable evening in a safe environment. This year, the party will be June 6 at the Elks Lodge in Newport, and with the fiscal crunch the schools and Town are facing, they could use the community's support.
Last year the event was a huge success, with over 230 seniors attending, and most staying until 4 am. There are prizes raffled off, food, videos, karaoke, fortune telling, NASCAR racing, caricatures, all manner of funky and wonderful stuff to do.
If you run a local business, donations or gift certificates would be appreciated. For the rest of us, a few bucks will help send our Patriots off in style and safety.
Make your checks payable to:
PHS Post Prom Party
Attn. Linda Pendleton Post Prom
Portsmouth High School
120 Education Lane
Portsmouth, RI 02871
Have a gift or service to donate? Any questions? You can e-mail Maureen Moriarty or give her a call at XXX-6383. (I'm not going to put her phone number on a blog. If you live in Portsmouth, you know the exchange.)