This regular meeting of the Newport City Council convened at 6:30 p.m. in Council Chambers, 43 Broadway. The council addressed numerous agenda items including proclamations, licenses, permits, a public hearing on the FY2026–FY2027 biennial budget, and final votes on budget amendments, positions, and tax levies. The meeting included extensive debate on school funding, staffing, and revenue sources.
Mr. Carlin. Thank you very much. No need for a moment of silence, but I would like the council and our friends, the audience and the public, to recognize uh the passing recently mayor of our former vice principal at Rogers High School. Thompson too. Where's at uh Thompson as well? Where's where's Colleen? Where's Superintendent Jermaine? Mr. Jack Curran, great American, great New Porter, served under Dr. Jermaine's father, Harry Burns as Charlie, our vice principal, but in many other positions within the city of Newport. So let's remember Jack. Great American, served in our military, great New Porter, served our schools and more. You name it, he did it. Just a great person. And let's keep Grace Curran, Jack's widow in our minds, and in our prayers, which I will do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Carl. Hell of a tennis player as well. Sure. Madam Clerk, anyone sign up for the citizens forum? Uh yes, Pete Rice is here. Ms. Rice. Aloha. And uh I'm back again to uh uh talk about tolls. I haven't I haven't noticed an excess of money in the in the budget and uh suggest there's a source out there that we could tap that uh drives bias every day. And uh I have seen no movement to tap it. And I think I chatted a bit with one of our senators. She said she's just waiting uh for an input from the city council in order to advance it at uh the legislature. So I urge you to do that. Uh I uh I don't see if you can charge people for parking on your cement, why can't you charge them for driving on your cement? What's the difference? Why can't we do that? It's a lot of money, and Lord knows the roads could use them out. Thank you. What else? All right, uh so before we get into our agenda tonight. There's a couple uh there's a citation or proclamation I'd like to give out. Uh first we have a citation congratulating the friends of Newport Public Library to acknowledge the milestone of raising one million dollars in proceeds for the benefit of the Newport Library. So I'd come down and present a certificate to you. Um Mr. Chair, can I just uh make a mention that I have been the city liaison while I was a city liaison for quite some time to the library and um the volunteers with friends of the library are probably the most dedicated people to that organization, and they're like the busy little bees in the back, that's what we would used to call them, and then giving 25,000 every year to the um the library was always a great night to have that celebration. So thank you very much for everything you do, and and you have a lot of experts that come that having to do with books, and um you know how to you know how to sell them, so good for you. Thank you. And in an effort to shorten the meeting up tonight, they agreed to donate that one million dollars to the city so we don't have to worry about the budget tonight. So that's thank you very much for all your work, Mr. Chairman, Mr.