The North Kingstown Town Council met at 7:00 PM on Monday, July 18, 2022, at the Beechwood Senior Center, 44 Beach Street, North Kingstown, Rhode Island. The agenda included presentations on Boom Local and a school-business investment fund, the consent calendar, the town manager's report, a Wickford Advisory Committee update, a CRMC application, Board of Canvassers appointments, and November 2022 ballot questions on adult-use cannabis licenses and several Town Charter amendments.
Thank you everybody. I know everyone's having a good conversation. I appreciate that. So but we have to call this meeting to order for Monday, July 18th, 2022. Pursuant to Rhode Island General Laws 42-46-6C. Notice of this meeting has been posted to the Secretary of State's website. Two members of our community that I know of, and I'm sure there are others, unfortunately, have passed away. So I'd ask that after we salute the flag, we stand for another moment in uh in their honor. So if you can join me with the flag, that'd be great. Thank you. Okay, we have a uh under item oh actually let's go to public comment. I apologize. Uh public comment, we have uh Mr. Richard Welch. Good evening. Richard Welch, eight Arrow Lane. Um couple of things. Uh one is that uh I want to thank the town manager publicly for uh paying attention to a problem over at the uh TJ Maxx parking lot where the collection bins were overflowing and uh creating quite an eyesore on Post Road, and that's been taken care of, and I thank the manager for seeing to get that straightened up. About three, three and a half years ago, while I was on the council, the water department came before us uh with a plan um for uh a ten-year, twenty million dollar infrastructure situation that would uh replace old infrastructure, etc. And at the time we had a lengthy discussion myself, uh councilwoman Bremer and Councilman uh Carrie McKay uh regarding the situation. And um you know, in the last three and a half years, quite frankly, I don't see anything being done. Now the the water department has and and been collecting money uh for the last maybe ten, twelve years from uh the the people on the water line, um, and has amassed almost nine million dollars to do this work, but yet uh has not spent any money uh to take care of this that I am aware of. Uh I asked that uh the water department uh look into where they have leaks and take care of the leaks before they change pipes just because they're old. And also work in coordination with the public works department, so we aren't repaving roads and then digging them up when we replace water lines. I see today that we had uh w another water break on uh Stony Lane. And you know, I've witnessed this uh numerous times over the last 10, 12 years. Matter of fact, neighbor of mine, he had a leak in the middle of the summer running down the the street for about eight weeks and wasn't taken care of. You know, there's there's something that attention, priority needs to be given to this water uh infrastructure situation. And you know, unfortunately, um it should have been taken along taken care of and started a long time ago. And I'm wondering what we can expect now that uh you know, some three, three and a half years has gone by. I guess I'm gonna get the same response when I ask if you're gonna put the recreation center on the ballot so the public can vote for it. I guess you don't know. Thank you. You're welcome. Um as it relates to the water, Ralph. I think that we had asked um Tim to put together a capital plan. We've been aggressively lobbying the state for water resources or for financial resources to um uh to improve our infrastructure. So what is the status of that? Sure. So a couple of things. Um first is that over the last couple of years we have spent some of that surplus to tackle some of the water infrastructure problems that you had mentioned that we discussed many years ago. Um we've also, as the president just mentioned, are trying to get some federal funds. But more importantly, just to go directly to your question and concern. About three or four months ago, the council authorized an expenditure for a leak detection survey. And in this particular, it's it's a brand new technology where and I don't understand it fully, um, where they fly over the community, and through infrared cameras and whatnot, there's only one company in the country that does this. They'll be able to look at our pipes and find those that are in need of repair due to there being leaks. Um we would have been done by now, except that after the council appropriated that up to a maximum maximum amount of dollars, a neighboring community saw that we did that, called and asked if we could do some cost saving and have them fly over their community as well. And so as a result, by having them fly over two communities, we're able to cut the cost in half. So it has delayed the project maybe 30 days. Um I would expect that we would have a report to the council either your August or September meeting, but it would be a re it's in a real efficient manner to find the leaks and then start spending that money where, as the as you had just mentioned, where we know there are leaks rather than search for them.