Good evening.

Thank you for joining us.

Today is Wednesday, June 3rd, 2026.

This is the special committee on state legislative affairs upon the rise.

The time is 549.

Madam Third, please call the roll.

Chairman Gonsalves.

Present.

Vice Chairman Reyes is absent.

Councilwoman Peterson.

Present.

Councilwoman Vegas.

Councilwoman Graves.

Present.

For president, I absolutely have a forum.

Thank you all for being here.

And I'd like to acknowledge our uh policy analyst Brandon.

Thank you for joining us.

If you have any questions, we'll certainly mock you.

Thank you for all your expertise and thanks for the Kurt Supports for all we can do.

So I'm thinking what would be helpful here is if we I know some of us have had an opportunity to read through some of this legislation and we have our memo on.

So many of these items, item number one, item number two, item number uh uh three, um, item number four, item number five, item number six, and so those items one through six are all related to child care in education.

Um, so I think we could we could probably pass all of those items together.

There's a motion for that.

Um, I think we can go through it very quickly.

But the number one is early education, child care access and affordability legislation.

So I think uh that would some of you know here.

Uh if you have a chance to read through it would expand child care access, child care workforce development, compensation improved kindergarten program access.

Item number two would um support legislation directing the management of existing workforce development, um, and that's supported um through uh DHS and Department of Elementary to Secondary Education.

Item number three would be uh provision of child care funding for early child educators and modify these the eligibility requirements to 85 percent of state median income um and expanding funding to at least 20 hours per week and so on and so forth.

So there's increase in child care worker retention bonuses, um legislation to specify that pre-kindergarten programs can be added um to programs to increase access to voluntary high quality pre-kindergarten programs and then um House Bill 2026, H 8163 would uh establish guidelines, rules, and regulations for the implementation expansion of pre-K education programs for uh kids ages three to four.

So I think a lot of this stuff is pretty self-explanatory.

So if we could certainly have questions from committee members, but I think most of us would be in agreement with these items.

So if there's a motion to approve one through six, we can do that, but I can certainly open it up to questions from committee members first.

Questions from committee members about these items number one through six.

Okay, great.

So moving to approve uh councillor Graves, and then second by councillor Peterson.

We're gonna pass items number one through six.

These are all pieces of legislation related to pre-K and child care.

All those in favor, all those opposed the ayes have it.

So we pass item six.

Uh item number seven is a house bill and set bill related to uh rank choice voting.

This is an interesting.

Oh, madam, apologies.

Do you agree to item number seven record?

Item number seven resolution endorsing and urging passage by the general assembly of House Bill 2026, H 8163, an act relating to education, Rhode Island pre kindergarten education act.

So this resolution would support state legislation enabling the establishment of a system of rank choice voting.

Um, whenever a municipality's charter amendment is approved by its voters, so we could still have to go through the charter uh amendment process.

I believe this is uh introduced with the state house by might be Rev Kislack on the house side, and maybe Senator Zurier on the on the Senate side.

If I have that wrong, um apologies, but it's essentially legislation that would support needle and legislation should have been municipality want to implement or in choice voting.

Uh so there are other municipalities in the country that do this, New York being one of them.

Uh so very simple piece of legislation in terms of choice voting.

Any questions from committee members about this?

Okay, seeing that there's no quickly chair.

On item number one, I should state that item number one the early education and child care access resolution is from the twenty twenty-five legislative session, separate and apart from the other items here.

Oh, I see.

Okay.

Okay.

So okay.

Um since we already passed it, we have to kind of move on.

So it is it is what it is, but we can I guess if that goes to the floor, even if it passes, it'll get transmitted to the to the General Assembly, but I think there might be similar bill this this year.

We'll just transmit those over to the General Assembly.

So but thank you for for lagging that.

Sorry, we should continue that indefinitely.

Uh so uh any additional questions about item number seven.

Uh since we have a motion to motion to approve, Councillor Peterson.

Seconded by Councillor Vargas, all those in favor, all those opposed, the eyes have it.

Item number seven is passed, and then uh we can move on to item number eight.

Item number eight resolution urging support and passes of the 2026 Rhode Island House of Representatives housing legislative agenda.

Okay, so this is a pretty expansive legislative package introduced by the former speaker.

This is housing package.

So age eight thousand amends the homeless bill of rights to require a minimum fifteen-day dose of encampment.

This establishment to resident individuals and families subject to emergency and safety exceptions.

Uh H 8001 enables municipalities to temporarily allow pallet shelter like units during a declared emergency with specified requirements and replacement of state fire building and housing maintenance codes and so on and so forth.

I don't think I need to go through all of them.

Maybe we should just should we take a moment to just read through this and then we can we can have a discussion about it.

So uh we're ready to have a discussion.

Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm not gonna be a little bit more.

So I I have a proposal here.

Um so eight thousand as well as um so eight thousand as the first vote there.

I would see that and then H eight thousand five um which would bar zoning ordinance requirements of more than two off-street spaces for any dwelling unit.

Those two I would presume are more like controversial for the like the entire body, and people might have disagreement on those those two.

We did remove the there was uh each eight thousand six uh which was going to amend the law and we don't support that, so that was removed.

We could potentially remove eight thousand in eight thousand and five, and the others are pretty self-explanatory.

So eight thousand one would be allowing for college shelters, eight thousand and two would allow for the construction of single stair, four-story buildings.

Um eight thousand three would exempt adaptive reuse on state owned land from municipal comprehensive planning.

Um eight thousand four would be technical and procedural amendments to the comprehensive planning act at state level eight thousand and seven would amend the minor subdivision definition in state law to allow single family infill, so allow allow for single family uh infill subdivisions essentially by right, and then eight thousand eight would form a special legislative commission to study current condo law.

So those are I would presume not particularly controversial.

I could see eight thousand, eight thousand five.

There could be some disagreement on those.

So what if we pass this without those exacting those two I'm trying to debate on resolutions?

Um I have more questions like what district, like what residents are three, is it commercial, is it all around, is it general?

Is it general um because if it's a general allowance of building four story buildings and um multi-family residential areas?

I would need some more community input on that one for me particularly because I know that it becomes um it could just be a lot more questionable for my particular neighbors.

Um so I would not want to support 8,000 two without further understanding of it.

So that's just me.

Yeah, I could see that like being challenging for like ADA accessibility disability requirements.

So what if we what if we added that to what we would uh what we would remove?

So we would remove 8,000, 8,000 two, 8,000 five.

Are there any others that we'd want to remove before too many of these?

Um that one um by the way, 8,000.

I propose removing that because I don't know.

I mean the minimum notice requirements.

I I think that probably uh I don't know how comfortable I feel with that.

They do, but I don't it's I'm not sure what the what the difference in the timelines I am not exactly precisely sure of the minimum you're referring to.

It could be that that is the standard operating procedure, but it's not necessarily codified.

8,000 would specifically codify a minimum of 15 days.

So even if they're the typical protocol is a 30-day, then in this case they'll provide a specific statutory requirement for a minimum of 15 days notice of uh encampment got it.

Yeah, an encampment closure or clearing out.

Yeah, I don't know if that's like good or bad.

Well if pardon me also if I may it's it's subject to additional exception.

So if there are health and safety concerns associated with the encampment, that 15-day minimum can be waived.

Well, what's the recurrent minimum?

Is it under or is it shorter?

I again I'm not exactly sure.

It could be that these the one that's currently in use is merely a rule of thumb, but is not codified in state law.

So there may be municipalities that have encampments that are not abiding by say a 30-day notice.

So this would provide a blanket minimum across the state.

Yeah, because it's 45 days when we have everything.

So maybe it's 15 days five.

I agree with them.

I think it's what they have 25 days where they have to have everything going once it gets.

I don't know if that happened, 1590 million or if 25 days is the whole period of time.

I'm I'm really not comfortable in the numbers, but I don't really know what the what's the amount.

Yeah, likewise.

So if we what if we remove that one too, so we get further clarity.

Because I I mean I don't I would hope that the minimum is maybe I don't know of this, so I wouldn't want to reduce the minimum.

And to your point, I don't know if this is just codifying that minimum to make it better for our house people, or I I feel like we should look into this like those people need time.

Yeah, like I said, it it depends on what it is, because I don't know if they have a certain amount of minimum they do go pick how many well not 450.

So we don't know if it's 15 days or any days or whatever, I'll have to get the notice.

Yeah, yeah.

So I was trying to find that.

So once we get the yes, I I could excuse me if I may.

I can certainly determine what might be standard operating procedure, but from a very cursory understanding the encampment notifications or other the clearance notifications are done municipally.

Again, this would codify the minimum at the state level.

So again, so if they are being codified variably from municipality municipality, this provides a minimum standard.

Okay.

Well, this this seems like it's a good thing, but maybe we should just get more clarity.

Yeah.

What do you think?

Just get more clarity.

Yeah, because I would vote for it, but I still kind of do my home line.

I would like to have all the cleanings.

Yeah, and we don't have to like do this now.

I think we could just remove it and then come back.

We can always come back to it during a future meeting.

So if we what if we remove 8,000, 8002, 8005, and the other ones are pretty straightforward, just pass those.

So we'd amend it and put so motion to amend item number eight removing h8000, h 8002, and h eight thousand five.

So moved by counselor Graves.

Seconded by Councillor Vargas, all those in favor, aye.

All those opposed.

And then can I have a motion to approve as amended item number eight?

So motion to approve item number eight as amended by counselor Peterson.

Seconded by Councillor Graves.

All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed.

The ayes have it.

And if so, we'll yeah.

Um, and if we want to revisit the other ones, I guess we could reintroduce and figure out what we'll do with those in the future.

Uh item number nine.

Uh that's being introduced in the current docket.

Uh, I think it was just a timing issue, but it's the same resolution.

So we just need a motion to continue this item definitely because we're gonna be voting for it on the floor this upcoming Thursday tomorrow.

Okay, seconded by councillor uh motion made by counselor grace, seconded by councillor Peterson, Sir I might ahead of myself.

All those in favor, uh all those opposed, the ayes have it for it number time, and then that paragraph number 10.

Item number 10 resolution endorsing and urging passage by the general assembly of House Bill 2026, H 7997 and Senate Bill 2026 S 2507, an act relating to state affairs and government recognition of Native American tribes.

So this would bring limited state recognition to the Month and OA try constituting or uh uh yes, uh a subset of the Off and Noah in this is a resolution providing um recognition to those um Native American folks seconded by counselor grace, seconded by councillor Vargas.

That's what the motion report uh all those in favor, all those opposed the eyes have it.

All right, and seeing that there is no further business, uh can we have a motion to adjourn?

So moved by counselor Peterson, seconded by counselor bardi is all those in favor.

All those opposed the ayes have it, the meetings adjourned.

Thank you, everybody.