Evening, I'm calling to order the very first Providence City Council meeting of twenty twenty-six on Thursday, January eighth.

Council President Miller.

Present.

Councilwoman Graves is absent.

Councilwoman Peterson.

Present.

Councillor Royus is absent.

Majority Whip Sanchez.

Councilman Taylor.

She was a poet among, I am sure many other things.

And I'd like to start tonight by sharing her words on learning to dissect fetal pigs by Renee Nicole Macklin.

Good.

I want back my rocking chairs.

That are tursets from the cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of cockroaches.

I've donated Bibles to thrift stores, mash them in plastic trash bags with an acidic Himalayan salt lamp, the post-baptism Bibles, the ones plucked from street corners, from the meaty hands of zeelots, the dumbed down, easy to read, parasitic kind.

Remember more the slick rubber smell of high glass biology textbook pictures.

They burn the hairs inside my nostrils and salt and ink that rubbed off on my palms.

Under clippings of the moon at 2 45 a.m.

I study and repeat.

Ribosome, endoplasmic, lactic acid, stamen.

At the IHOP on the corner of Powers and Stetson Hills, I repeated and scribbled until it picked its way and stagnated somewhere.

I can't point to anymore.

Maybe my gut, maybe there in between my pancreas and large intestine is the piddly brook of my soul.

It's the ruler by which I reduce all things now, hard-edged and splintering, from knowledge that used to sit, a cloth against fevered forehead.

Can I let them be both?

This fickle faith and this college science that heckles from the back of the classroom.

Now I can't believe that the Bible and Koran and Vagaga Vita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom used to, and exhaling from their mouths, make room for wonder.

All my understanding dribbles down the chin onto the chest and is summarized as life is merely to ovum and sperm and where those two meet and how often and how well and what dies there.

Sisters and brothers, we're uh convening for the first time this year, but for the second time in a row in the shadow of a tragedy that could and should have been avoided.

Um and I just want to speak to my colleagues tonight and say we're each of us called to this work to stand together before our city under the guidance of a higher authority, and I'm gonna start us just with an adapted invocation from the writer Eric Worrell.

I know the norm is to ask you to bow your head in reverence to the higher power you pray to, and you're welcome to do that, but I'd also invite you to open your eyes and be in this moment with me and with each other.

We are surrounded by people with enormous talent, kindness, empathy, and impact.

And we have come to attain these things by some combination of natural ability, hard work, positive influences, education, and even some luck.

Our lives might be drastically different if even one of the things went just a little bit differently.

So to begin, let's take a moment to be grateful for the simple fact that we are here, that we are fortunate or lucky or special enough to be among people we respect and admire, doing work on behalf of our city.

Let's take a moment today to express gratitude for the opportunities we have been given and the mistakes for which we have been forgiven.

Let's be grateful, whether for a greater plan or for a random sequence of events that has led us here to this moment today.

However, you got here, I am glad you are here, and I am grateful for you.

Thank you.

Let's be grateful in advance for our time together tonight and at every meeting this year.

Let's be grateful for all of the humans who touch every part of making our meetings possible from the agendas to the people from the public who join us here, um, and all of the efforts that go into the work that we do.

Let's thank each other as for the honesty, candor, and grace that we will bring to our important deliberations in this chamber in 2026 to each of you.

Thank you.

Let's be grateful that today, at least for this moment, we are safe, we are secure, we are surrounded by colleagues, we are loved, and we live in a community that welcomes us, regardless of who we are, who our parents are, where we went to school, how much money is in our bank account, where we are from, who we love or to whom we pray.

Let's remember that there are many places, some closer than we might think, where any one of us might not be welcome for any one of those things.

Thank you for being exactly who you are and bringing all of that to our work together.

And finally, let's remember that gratitude is only one part of the equation as we begin 2026.

Let's remember that our purpose here is to do the good work our neighbors count on and to ensure that in our gratitude we have more to give others, so we can spread opportunity and gratitude out into our world, whether through our collective efforts here or individual actions, whether through a grand gesture or offer a small kindness, let's remember that we, each of us, uh can put more good into this world as the day arises, and let's allow this gratitude to guide us to stay in each moment as it arises, to approach our work with humility and mutual respect, and to at all costs fight for our truths and what we love.

Thank you.

The Pledge of Allegiance tonight will be led by Councilwoman Andrew Bau.

I pledge allegiance to the flag, states of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Madam Clerk, item three.

Madam President.

I'm sorry, hold on one second.

Uh Madam Clerk, please note Council Royce has joined us.

Welcome, Counselor.

And item three.

Madam President.

Majority Leader.

Why should the way the reader of item three and move approval?