The Portsmouth Town Council will be doing their final pass at the budget tonight, beginning at 5:30 at Town Hall. While everything went smoothly at last week's public hearing, there are still a few burrs to sand down (PI school, trash stickers, school warrants, Hog Island waste) so it would be a Good Thing to show up if you can. I know 5:30 is a tough time, and with the regular Council meeting at 7, it could be a long night.

Tomorrow night, the RI Department of Transportation will be holding an open session at 7pm in the Portsmouth High School auditorium to gather community input on the redesign of East Main Road in the the Quaker Hill/Clements area. As Carol Dietz, Chair of the Town Center committee wrote in a letter to local media, there is a plan for redesigning that stretch of state highway to reduce speed and afford pedestrians greater safety by using traffic calming design and roundabouts. We need this to get fast-tracked before any more of our citizens — our friends, our neighbors, our family — get hurt.

Let's all show up and give them an earful, shall we?

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Hope you all enjoyed the great weather this weekend! The St. Barnabas Fair was wonderful, and Jack & I ran into a lot of old friends, then we all spent the rest of the time weeding (it's amazing how fast the ubiquitous RI vines will take over with a week of warm weather!)

If you're looking for summer events, my favorite local calendar is at the OnAquidneck.com web site. They rock.