Narragansett Town Council Regular Meeting - May 1, 2026
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Narragansett Town Council Regular Meeting - May 1, 2026
The Narragansett Town Council held a regular meeting on May 1, 2026, at 7:04 PM in the Assembly Room. The meeting covered parking permits, beautification, dredging support, noise ordinance, affordable housing funding, short-term rentals, and administrative items. The meeting adjourned at 11:17 PM.
Consent Calendar
- Approved minutes of December 1, 2025 regular meeting (5-0).
- Approved 2026 renewal applications for 10 miscellaneous licenses (5-0).
Public Comments & Testimony
- Jackson Caito (Cranston) presented an Eagle Scout project for a beach toy lending library behind the South Pavilion.
- Frank Ascoli (14 Jake's Way) opposed expansion of pickleball courts at Clark Point, citing noise and density; noted 27-28 pickleball courts within a 3-mile radius.
- Matthew Landry, Esq. (on behalf of Brett Williams) submitted a letter opposing pickleball expansion, citing lack of transparency, traffic, noise, cost escalation, and environmental concerns.
- Brett Williams (110 Clark Road) opposed pickleball expansion as a waste of taxpayer money, urged resurfacing as-is; raised safety concerns.
- Elizabeth DelGizzo (102 Riverdale Drive) criticized the council for favoring rentals over year-round residents, called for moratorium on new sewer/water hookups, urged joining Portsmouth against state zoning overreach.
- John Hanley (10 Ruelin's Drive) criticized the town for selling out to investors and failing to enforce ordinances; expressed concern about water quality notices.
- Gail Scowcroft (19 Prospect Drive) opposed zoning changes, citing ADUs built by investors that will be rentals, stressing infrastructure impacts.
- Catherine Celeberto (48 Earl's Court) objected to the purchase of a property for affordable housing, suggested using town-owned lots for scattered-site housing.
- Charlene Reilly Paskoski (16 Cove Road) asked council members about their impressions of an ADU on Pleasant Ave; deferred to follow-up.
- Tom Warren (26 Jake's Way) opposed pickleball expansion, citing cost, loss of green space, parking, traffic, noise, and future needs.
- Jill Lawler (Sarasota Avenue) urged the council to fight state overreach on zoning, noted a pending bill, criticized lack of protection for residents.
- Joe Volpe (21 Harbor Island Road) supported affordable housing and ADUs, argued for intentional building to address housing crisis.
- Additional public comments were made on items D7, D8, D9, and D10 (see relevant sections).
Discussion Items
- D1-D3: Fishing Parking Permits and Residential Parking Program – Second reading and adoption of ordinances establishing a Fishing Vehicle Parking Permit (allows fishing parking 9 PM-5 AM with permit, $60 for out-of-state) and a Residential Parking Program. Both passed 5-0.
- D4: Executive Session – Scheduled for July 6, 2026 for performance evaluation of Town Manager. Passed 5-0.
- D5: CRMC Right-of-Way Signage – Directed Town Manager to place signage at CRMC-recognized ROW C12 Foddering Farm Road Extension. Passed 5-0.
- D6: Beautification Committee – Discussed creating a committee to review Adopt-A-Spot and beautification projects. No vote taken.
- D7: Narrow River Dredging Resolution – Approved resolution reaffirming support for dredging project and commitment to seek funding. Passed 5-0. Public comment included support from Catherine Celeberto, Tony Columbo, Dr. Alba, Veronica Barotsky (NRPA).
- D8: Noise Ordinance First Reading – Introduced amended noise ordinance. Amendments removed "at a distance of 100 feet from its source" from Section 22-49(5) and added Section 22-57(C)(6) to investigate noise complaints and cite accordingly. Both amendments and the amended ordinance passed 5-0.
- D9: Affordable Housing Trust Funding – First reading of amendments to establish funding sources: annual $50,000, 38% of real estate conveyance tax, and originally 50% of RI hotel tax. After debate, hotel tax percentage amended to 25% (motion passed 3-2, Colonies and Torrealday opposed). The amended ordinance passed 3-2. The item was continued for second reading.
- D10: Short-Term Rental Ordinance – Discussed status and next steps; Councilor Menzies and Vignali volunteered to lead revision efforts. No vote.
Parks & Recreation
- E1: Approved assignment agreement for paddle sports concession at 94 Middlebridge Road from Narrow River Kayaks to The Kayak Centre at Wickford Cove, with two-year extension through 2028. Passed 5-0.
- E2 & E3: Approved two-year contracts for 401 Oyster Company and Hot Potato Food Truck to operate at town beach on Monday and Wednesday nights from third Monday of June 2026 through Labor Day 2027, 6-10 PM. Both passed 5-0.
Public Works
- F1: Approved Change Order No. 5 ($38,374.04) with Martone Service Company and Change Order No. 1 ($19,050) with Keough Construction Management for Town Hall front entrance refurbishment. Passed 5-0.
- F2: Approved purchase of one 2025 Western Star 47X Vactor truck with sewer cleaner for $520,000 via Sourcewell contract. Passed 5-0.
Community Development
- G1 & G2: Scheduled public hearings for July 6, 2026 on proposed zoning amendments to Section 4.8.1 (Breakwater Village Special District) and Section 6.5 (Modified Dimensional Regulations). Both passed 5-0.
Engineering
- H1: Referred sewer policy waiver request for 140 South Pier Road to Sewer Policy Committee. Passed 5-0.
- H2: Introduced first reading of ordinance amending Chapter 78, Section 73-48 on restricted use of potable water supply. Passed 5-0.
Town Clerk
- I1: Reappointed Lawrence Vranka and Patricia Federico to Conservation Commission/Tree Board until April 30, 2029. Passed 5-0.
- I2: Appointed Paul Selwyn to Library Board of Trustees until October 1, 2026. Passed 5-0.
- I3 & I4: Approved victualler licenses for Drift Cafe and Country Chowder Shack. Both passed 5-0.
- I5: Approved Sunday Parking License for Towne Park LLC. Passed 5-0.
- I6: Reconsidered and approved renewal of hotel license for Summer House Inn, subject to reinstatement of LLC. Passed 4-0 (Councilor Durkin recused).
Key Outcomes
- All consent items and most discussion items passed unanimously (5-0).
- D9 (Affordable Housing Trust funding) passed with amendments (3-2, Colonies and Torrealday opposed) and will proceed to second reading.
- I6 (Summer House Inn license) approved 4-0 with recusal.
- Executive session scheduled for July 6, 2026.
- Two public hearings scheduled for July 6, 2026.
- Town Manager to schedule additional budget work session prior to May 18 first reading.
Meeting Transcript
All right, good evening, everyone. Time is now 7 04 PM. And today's the date is May 4th, 2026, and we are here for our regularly scheduled town council meeting. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. And to the Republic for which it stands one nation under guideline, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. And we will kick it off to the town managers update. Jim. Good evening, members of the council, those of you who are here this evening and those who are watching from home. So a few updates for the week. It is now underway to Quant. Um under control. On Friday, we had the Narragansett Fire Station 2 grand reopening. We had a ceremony to reopen the newly renovated Narragansett Fire Department station. And uh the event was attended by residents, members of our fire department, which is the best fire department in the state, the town council, uh state and federal delegations, and again we thank all those who supported this project with funds from the American Rescue Plan Act and the public safety infrastructure grant program. Uh providing uninterrupted emergency services to the town, and as always, we thank them for that. And also I'd like to thank Chief Partington and our town engineers and the construction crew that stayed on top of this through the whole uh time period. And significance is also that the event took place just before the start of National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend that honors firefighters who died in the line of duty. And if you had noticed around town, American flags were flown at half staff in honor of the solemn day, recognizing these first responders. An update on the Scarborough wastewater treatment facility. We'll be meeting at the wastewater treatment plant uh tomorrow for a meeting. Uh new belt was purchased for the gravity belt thickener, uh, which will be installed uh this week. Staff began baseline sampling uh in addition to ammonia to monitor plant conditions and measure process efficiency efficiency per wastewater consultants recommendations. We'll begin seeding the oxidation ditch in May with enhancement products per the consultants' recommendations to promote desired uh desired results. Staff has implemented additional process control modifications, and they continue to do so. We continue to review and analyze historical plant operating data and information to identify methods to correct improper uh process control decisions, perhaps. Uh for the summer, we have also we also plan to have available to us additional uh services to remove uh some of the stagnant waste that may develop there so we can get it off site sooner to to uh speed up the processing and to reduce any odor, which we hope we don't have. Uh regarding the regional wastewater treatment facility, they've taken many of the same updates, uh many of the same measures that we have. Uh the odor cannons, like we had at Scarborough, uh new uh procedures, uh basic common sense type procedures that we all follow anyway, but remind people about um uh dumpster lids and uh paying attention to the uh to the odors at all times and trying to address it. Uh Narragansett news and information events. Donna had come up with this idea a while back, and we recently pushed it out through the web page where anyone that goes on there and clicks on the notify me and they check off the boxes of the things that they would like to be notified of. Once that's done, as those that new information comes out, it'll be automatically sent to uh to your phone or to your email. We also recently rolled out like the newsletter, we call it the Narragansett news and information and events notice. And if people sign up for it, it'll come out probably every two weeks. And Dan, if you could just show folks what it what it looks like now, the most recent one that we just did. Absolutely. Um just when you go onto the website, there's an option here to uh register for that newsletter. And um, if you want to see the existing ones, just click on the notify me button there. Scroll down a bit. And when you registered for it, the uh right in this area where the phone number is will be a quick button to uh sign into your account with the website. And then just over here to the right where it says Narrow Gansett newsletter, you can actually um preview the previous newsletter just by selecting that. And that's the uh current newsletter that went out last week. And just uh I think to uh register for that we'll go away for the next one. Uh next meetings. This link right here is a link to where you can actually go to the um the video of the previous meeting. You can actually search for things in there. The entire agenda is there broken up um individually for the video. YouTube uh links, uh brief thing on the town renovation as various other news and events going on in town for the next month or two, depending on which way you're looking. Um so that's how you get to it. Thank you, Dan. It's a little bit of one one stop shopping.
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