Providence Committee on Ordinances-Thursday, July 17, 2025-5:30 PM

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to. Today's Thursday, June 17, and live kind at 05:40PM. Thank you all, madam clerk.

Sherman Espino? Present. Peterson? Present. Housewoman Mary Kay Harris?

Present. Oscar Vargas? Present. Councilor Justin Royes? Present.

You have five present. You have a quorum.

Thank you. Let's go welcome our student solicitor, and each of the council members that are here. Great to be with to well as and our finance chair, as well as Thank you, clerks. Thanks to everyone that is listening to us. Thank you.

Now chief of staff, June Rose. Madam clerk, first item on the agenda, please.

Item number one, an ordinance amending chapter two administration section two dash 13 entitled personal use of city vehicles of the court of ordinances of the city of Providence.

Thank you. So this I haven't had him present there a number of months ago. I really strive there to address certain concerns that

he spent much gasoline and the serum. Plus, we we noticed a lot of customers have have a serum at nighttime, and there's been some concern that they might be using them for personal use, and we're trying to avoid the tax first moment to go out of the city and and and and have people lose this because of the tax

payers. You'll be good to ask them. Any question from the committee members? Council Harris?

Yeah. I have you experienced that, the stuff like vehicles that have been parked someplace where they're not supposed to be or whatever. I I'm just trying to adapt to the gist of why you go to see really.

And it is very important because if you see the employees you see, seven employees take the car tomorrow. How many? Don't know. Several. We don't know how many, but it's not fair.

When you get a job, you have to drive your own car, wherever you go, and you don't get a a car. And we are catering to these employees where they have a good salary job. Instead, we give them a marshal. It's we're trying to save money, and the city is trying to do more than this. Okay.

It's for a better patient. We can save any dollar, any penny, anywhere we can have. Can do that. That's what we have to protect the.

No. And the reason I'm asking, I'm I'm just trying to figure out because I I I mean, I don't see any scars in my neighborhood being. But that's not feeling it doesn't happen. You know, I'm sure it does. Is this allowed by your employer to take the car home, or is that something that just been historically a

part of Providence business? This is what we're trying to find out why these employees are taking this problem and what is the reason for. It's a mutual, but it wasn't me. K. Like, the police department.

That's great. You.

Councilor Boise. Thank you, chair. Councilor, do you know without, like, obviously disclosing names, are there specific departments that are city owned vehicles more than others? You mentioned the police department. Could you name other departments such as emergency personnel that you use take take around the city owned vehicles?

They're several departments in the city of Portland that they they take home. They they don't even take a car. Yeah. You know, if I just I don't like to display names of all the departments. Okay.

Fair. Alright. Because I want to by doing this, I'm brain analyst, but I'm here to protect the tax rate. If they're here to protect the tax rate just to spend the tax rate money,

Thank you, chairperson. Just to confirm, so you're amending an existing ordinance. Is that a new ordinance? Correct?

That's right. We amend an existing form. We want to enforce

So just to follow-up on that quickly, do you think there is enough enforcement mechanisms in the new amendment?

That's what we're here. So look for our enforcement and look for new ideas how we can compose it and to find out how we can save. Okay. Well, thank you.

That's my. Thank you, chairman. And there's no specific provision to account for police vehicles. So that because, it just says in my trial, it wasn't authorization for such use is gonna be by the mayor's designee or by the director of the department. So if you're theoretically, the chief could say, you know, those tenants or whoever has their vehicles that they use at at home, they would be able to receive that authorization through that clause.

Although the police department, the detective and the the other person, they allow the department to talk.

They don't want. They they don't report. So they need to come back right away for the next. Sure. And when something happen in the city, they can come back.

But the other departments, I would like to impose where every smoke has to be sealed Why this company don't don't have a CO? They don't succeed. Mhmm. By doing this is, like, the country will be anywhere. People, they don't get on the plate.

But if you have a CO, this country wants to grow.

As well as. Sounds good. Thank

you. Thank you for for the importance and understanding what you're saying. One of the questions that I have, though, is and I guess the public property that they're able to kind of give us the lay of the land of how the current origins operate and how the vehicles are dispersed. But I'm not mistaken. The state requires you to go to your building, grab your car off, and then you're gonna and then you put up the the vehicle, like, city vehicle that you're use, and then they're trying to get that.

They're saying that we give the opportunity for vehicles to be used to for city employees to go home, and that's the reason why we're doing good times to make sure that we enforce be able to request stringent on our house. Okay?

That's what it is. Thank you.

That's a good point of clarification.

Anybody else? So second by customer right, I'll say aye. Aye. Both. Yes.

Have it. And I also have a packet survey for two, three, and four. I'll let you know what you do. If there is the right survey for two, three, and four.

They're letters of testimony.

They are letters of testimony for.

Yes. Not a not a.

Okay. It's maybe a. Second. And second by. Goodbye.

Have a. Both. Yes. Thank you. That's a long view to study.

Sure.

No. That's not dedicated. And well, thank you, everybody, for hearing me today. I do want us to practice to follow this conversation by saying this suggests they're hearing me. We're going to be doing public hearing on the student housing ordinances in September.

So this is just an opportunity because that's what it is that everything is here. And I'll start with a pretty. Counseling is here and who is the influencer on us, but I do think we need one. So I make sure that I give a little bit of an explanation as to what we're proposing here. So the first one is please impact me.

And, essentially, what it is is a sorry. I'm glad that you're just trying to get. What this is is a a 300 staff $300, and they have to pay first duties annually designated to the owner of the property that exclusively rents to students. The way that we do this, we work the closing we work the closing place that any student who lives on campus, which in my particular neighborhood is only seniors and very few juniors that the the property owners in that area, that's, you know, $300 student impact fee to be able to support the municipal services that are required sometimes additional requirement in terms of being able to provide essential municipal citizens. This has come that the my particular ward has had for over a year and a half a student class task force, which everybody has been invited to come and join.

We've offered the opportunity to all travelers, colleges, students, and neighbors. And one of the things that has come in conversation about how how much student housing has impacted the neighborhoods is just the the extra reliability and the necessary services that comes in. In my particular neighborhood, there are developers that actually come in and and and take care of the quality of life issue that do come with the consistent party and things that happen, but that's not exactly every other part of the ward. So we have to streets we've been in other places a little bit more. We have to the the sewer areas a little bit more.

And these are just these are opportunities for extra for extra support when it comes to the municipal services that we have, police, fire, etcetera. One of the things that I think is important about this is that there has been we are asking in this particular ordinance for the universities to assist us with very basic information. It's not identifying information, But all we're asking for is the total number of students enrolled at the school, total number of students enrolled that reside on campus, total number of students that don't reside on campus, and then a normalized breakdown of the number of students enrolled, which includes just address and unit number, and then the type of file and that is it. So in order for us to be able to enforce and make sure that we have that, we are asking the schools to be supportive of the initiatives that we're trying to do in

the city to be able to start

creating some sort of a balance with what we have as the. Councilman Johnson, if you wanna add any change to that?

Glad to. Thank you, councilor Peterson, for your leadership and your tireless work on this issue. I think this was also born out of the critical need that generates more revenue for the city. Obviously, we had a really tough budget year, and this is a way, again, for us to generate more revenue. I wanna be clear about the fact that this ordinance is not designed to punish students or landlords.