Providence City Council Meeting | April 25th 2024

Good evening. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for attending our public hearing this this evening. My name is Helen Anthony. I'm the chair of the committee on finance and I'm calling to order our public hearing on Tuesday, 05/07/2024 at 05:35 p.

M. So I just wanna make sure that everyone who would like to speak has signed one of our sheets on this table up front. Has everyone done that? Wonderful. Okay.

So I am going to waive the readings of items one through four. And this is I'm waiving the readings there. I'm sorry, one through five. These are all our budget ordinances and I'm just waiving the reading because it's a lot of words and these are all budget related. And so I am gonna weigh up the reading and open the public hearing.

I would ask that everyone try to keep their remarks brief. I appreciate the fact we've received a lot of written testimony which we will all be looking at and it will be distributed to all the council so that they also can look at it. So with that, I would like to have the clerk bring up the list. Okay, thank to that we have all our committee members are here. We have Counselor Taylor, Counselor Graves, Counselor Sanchez, Counselor Anderbaugh.

We also have with us this evening the Council President Miller. We have Councilor Royas is here, Councilor Peterson, and also Councilor Vargas. So I wanna thank my fellow councilors for attending our committee meeting. So with that, I would like to start with Ronald Coia. If you would be so kind as to state your name and address, I'd appreciate it for the record, and then please proceed.

Absolutely. My name is Ronald Coia. My address is 410 South Main Street, Providence, Rhode Island. Good evening, madam president and madam chairwoman and members of the city council. I will be brief in my comments.

My name is Ronald Coia and I am the business manager and secretary treasurer of Local Union ten thirty three. I am proud to represent about 1,600 members who work for the city of Providence in the Providence School Department. We represent the men and women who perform

such speak right a little more slowly and into the, speaker so people can hear you.

Sure. We represent the workers who perform such services as cleaning and maintaining our parks and roads, providing safe and clean drinking water to our citizens, issuing marriage certificates and other licenses, ensuring that our children make it safely to school, and a wide range of other workers who provide critical services that our citizens rely upon every day. We make sure that our city works as it should day in and day out. I stand before you this evening to indicate our support for the mayor's proposed budget. The budget is funded to make certain that the good work that our members do and our citizens expect and deserve will continue through the next fiscal year.

It provides for the full funding of our wages and benefits, including the previously negotiated contractual cost of living adjustment that is due on July 1. Importantly, it also provides for the full annual required contribution to the employee's retirement system, something that will help ensure that our pensions are there when we retire. Furthermore, the budget provides for no reduction in ten thirty three positions, which helps to make sure that all city services will continue to be provided at a high level. In fact, one enhancement to the staffing levels is the addition of another crew within the sewer division of the Department of Public Works to help deal with the many unprecedented weather events that we have experienced as of late. In short, the members of local ten thirty three stand in support of the mayor's proposed budget as it provides security and stability for the people who work hard every day to make sure that the city services that are provided are provided safely with quality and efficiency.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you very much. Next, I'd like to call Cheryl Space. Welcome.

Thank you. Sorry.

That's alright. We'd like to hear you loud and clear. If you just would state your name and address.

Yes. My name is Cheryl Space. I'm 708 Hope Street. So good afternoon to the honorable members of the Finance Committee. I'm Cheryl Space, I am the library director of the Community Libraries of Providence.

Thank you for your time and for hearing my testimony and I would like to thank all members of the City Council who are here for your support of our libraries. I am here tonight specifically to express my gratitude and to communicate the importance of the $255,000 increase for the library in mayor Smiley's proposed f y twenty five budget. This increase in city funding is the first we've received in seven years since fiscal year eighteen. Our primary source of funding is the aid from the City of Providence, which provides 67% of our operating support. CLPVD receives 26 payments from the city annually, which corresponds to our biweekly payroll.

And because so much of our funding is from the city, it pays for essential services like the staff who provide the programs, maintain our collections, and keep the libraries open in our nine neighborhood libraries. This funding also pays for essential repairs, maintenance, and upgrades to the library buildings, eight of which we lease from the city but maintain on our own. The 255,000 will allow the community libraries to first, retain the staffing levels to keep Mount Pleasant, Rochambeau, and Knight Memorial Libraries open the additional hours the ARPA funding allowed, which includes four evenings a week and full hours on Saturdays. Second, we can retain the new positions added with the ARPA funding, the community support specialist at the Knight Memorial Library who helps people apply for benefits, access mental health and other wellness services, locate a safe place to spend the night, and identify after school and other programs for their children, as well as our makerspace coordinator and program clerks who bring the power of makerspace innovation and exploration to older teens and adults, building on the firm foundation of the city's investment in PVD young makers over many years. Third, this will support small salary increases to make CLPBD's wages more competitive with other Rhode Island libraries and to create greater economic security for our staff.

As we head into the summer, our libraries will be buzzing non nonstop, filled with youth participating in over 400 summer learning programs in addition to serving nearly 800 youth each week through our mobile library, which will operate in parks partnering with the summer meals program and serving youth in the recreation camps. I ask you for your support in passing this increase in municipal aid for the community libraries. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Jordan Day.

I thought I was gonna have to introduce myself but I don't think I really have to. Good evening honorable members of the Finance Committee for those who don't know me my name is Jordan Day and I currently serve as the board president to the Community Libraries of Providence. First I want to thank everyone who was actually able to join us at our giving and sharing breakfast this morning it was a hoot and a half and I gave welcoming remarks there, second round of remarks for tonight. Second, I'm here to testify in support of the FY twenty five budget proposal that would increase funding for the Community Libraries of Providence by 255,000 for a total of 4,250,000 in aid. The city of Providence and the state of Rhode Island play an important role in funding the services that we provide in addition to all of our donors.

CLBVD has been a victor in Providence since our establishment about fifteen years ago. We are thankful for every ounce of support we get to keep the library system running and the people who keep us going. You may not know this but we operate the state's largest library system and the city's second largest public education institution. In the past fifteen years we have experienced organizational growth and leadership changes while navigating a global pandemic and national attacks on access to literature. We collaborate with the city in various ways, we supported residents in getting tested and vaccinated for COVID nineteen during the height of the global pandemic, we provide free meeting room space to help community groups thrive like the planning department as it goes through its comprehensive planning process, We also serve as official heating and cooling centers for the city and this list doesn't include any of our work with other city departments and our continued makerspace programming.

Lastly, want to be sure to share a few statistics about what CLPVD did in 2023 alone. We welcomed 423,543 Providence residents to our nine libraries. We increased programming on average to about a 100 events per week which is 11 to 12 events per library which with the number of family programming tripling and the attendance doubling in that category in totals over previous years. We held more outreach programming off-site in places such as parks, schools, and community centers accounting for 5% of our total events but a full 11% of our attendance and we continue to expand our Spanish and bilingual programming. These events now account for 16% of our events and 12% of our attendance.

I could honestly go on. There's I have three more facts. I'm gonna pause there but I have one thing I want to highlight is that we do act as a third space where everyone can and feels welcome. Statewide, the Community Libraries of Providence ranked third for the total number of book checkouts and second for the children and teen checkouts. I was honored to be elected as board president this past October and I am excited to continue working with the City Council, Mayor Smiley, and the city's finance team to figure out how to sustain our operations to come.

I strongly urge you to support this increased municipal aid to CLPBD so that we can continue all this work and then some. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Okay we'll have John Wilner.

My name is John Wilner. Address, 17 Priscilla Avenue. Here to speak on behalf of the Providence Noise Project in support of Mayor Smiley's budget, specifically the allocation for what he calls acoustic cameras, what we refer to as noise cameras. We run a community noise survey, and 93% of the residents who have participated in it have told us that they are exposed to vehicle noise, which makes it the single most prevalent source of noise in the city. Noise cameras are similar in most aspects to both red light cameras and speed cameras, which the city already has.

And they are far less intrusive, noise cameras are, than the flock cameras that the city council approved under mayor Jorge El Orsa. Light speed cameras and red light cameras, noise cameras are only triggered in the presence of excessive and illegal behavior. In other words, they're dormant until they... The sensors pick up an illegal level of sound and that's what triggers them. So in the absence of excessive sound, they don't do anything.

And in the absence of noise cameras, we'll have the status quo continue, which is that a relatively small number of individuals will manage to disrupt the community every day, night and day, disrupt people's sleep, their health and well-being throughout the city. The one other advantage of noise cameras is they don't require the hiring of additional police officers or diverting police officers from their current enforcement duties. And so in this way, they're a very cost effective way to address excessive vehicle noise, and they will actually save the city money. And there have been concerns that there would be biased enforcement of the noise ordinance having to do with vehicle noise, and noise cameras actually alleviate that problem because, again, they... Like red light cameras and speed cameras, they are only triggered by the decibel level of the vehicle, so you don't get the potential for bias having to do with the driver's appearance, the type of vehicle that he or she may be driving, the type of noise that's being made, sound, music, whatever it is, it's purely based on what the sensors pick up in terms of decibels.

So we urge you to pass the budget including the allocation for acoustic or noise cameras. Thank you very much.

Mr. Wilner, may I just ask you one quick question and follow-up? Did you say you did a noise survey? How many people did you have participating in that?

As of right now, it's an ongoing survey. People can fill it out any time and over 600 at this point.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And of course if anyone has any questions, please feel free to give me

a little

signal. Yes. Yes. Pro Tem. Thank

you madam chair. Just can I ask a question?

Yes.

You said 600. What organization?

It's the Providence Noise Project.

Providence Noise Project?

Yeah.

Alright. Have you issued a report already?

A report on the community survey?

Yeah.

We are in the process of turning the data into graphs and other visualizations, but I'm happy to send you any information you ought to know about the community noise survey.

Great. Thank you very much. Sure. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Next we have Anthony Santuri. And while Anthony is coming up, I'd just like to recommend that we are joined by Pro Tem Pichardo and Counselor Gonsalves. Thank you so much.

So noted. Thank you.

Good evening, Anthony Santuri, 180 Pine Street in Providence. I'd like to also thank everyone for their commitment to our city and for always allowing your constituents and business owners to express theirs. I am here in support of the budget spending. As a business owner, I look at our capital city. We want it to be a destination city.