Sorry. Oh, let's see. Chairman Pedro Eskimo, absent. Vice chairwoman Shelly Peterson? Here.
Councilwoman Mary Kay Harris is absent. Councilman Oscar Vargas? Here. And councilor Justin Royes? Present.
We have three present, two absent. Have a call. Thank you very much. We'll get
started right away. Thank you, everybody, for being here.
If you could read a to if you could read start by the call. Thank you. Item number one, resolution encouraging the general assembly to pass legislation, establish an appropriate bridge authority. Thank you for being here, chief. Take it away.
So the resolution before you is consistent with other resolutions we've provided to the council that provides support for state legislation. Part of the mayor's agenda this year was to create this Croke Point Bridge Authority. All the state legislation does is enable us to create the authority. The idea behind this is that we would then contemplate taking the the Crook Point Bridge from which is currently owned by write up to city possession. We didn't wanna do that direct to the city, so this enables us to create an authority so that should we decide to take the bridge, it would be taken by the authority, kind of similar to the how the building authority works.
So this is just the first step. The process of taking the bridge and the discussion about that would come to the council also for approval. This is just getting us started on that process. We do need to move quickly because the bridge is scheduled for demolition in 2026, 2027. There's $6,000,000 in the Department of Transportation STIP that's allocated to that.
If if this building isn't if this bridge is not demolished, that money would then be invested in the cruise site that we've been working on by India Point, and so DOT is committed to repurposing that money for the development of that cruise terminal, which would be great. But if we don't move quickly, they're just gonna use the money to take the bridge down. Okay. Thank you. I wanna acknowledge councilwoman Ryan is here.
Thank you very much for being here today. Thank you, chair.
Yes. Can I? Yeah. Go ahead. The $6,000,000 you're talking about Who has the money?
The State Department of Transportation. If we don't get
the bridge, what happens to that money? You're saying that we'll go reallocate it to somewhere?
If we don't take the bridge, that money will be used to tear down the bridge. So we're trying to do a safety bridge? We're gonna we would like to take the bridge into the city position. And what we wanna do with the bridge? To be determined.
There's been a in 2021, they did a design competition. You know, nothing has to be done to the bridge today. It would be for the city to work to work on in the future if we decided to take the bridge. Again, this just enable creates an authority enables us to create an authority to then contemplate the taking of the bridge.
But once we have the can I sorry? Once we have the authority to on this bridge, we own the bridge. Right? No.
This creates a separate group that would manage the bridge if we took the bridge, but it just enables us to create the separate group. It doesn't actually take the bridge. That would have to come back for further actions.
Yeah. Please go ahead. If we do we have any idea how much will cost us to demolish this bridge if we if the whoever owns the bridge now will say, it's a matter. Yeah. Like
We wouldn't intend if we took it, we wouldn't intend to demolish it. The idea would be that we would leave it as it is and potentially do something with it in the future.
I don't see any potential use of this bridge. Like,
it's an important landmark in the city. A lot of people, you know, find it to be an iconic landmark associated with Providence. And for lots of folks, they believe it should be preserved. So, you know, whether or not it is just preserved as it is or if it be or it becomes something else, I think it's to be determined. But our whole department of transportation.
put an American flag at the top or to make it look beautiful?
I mean, we could do a lot of things. I have a quick question. Mhmm. Have you established who's gonna be a part of the authority yet? It provides for three members appointed by the mayor, approved by the council.
Those have not been identified. Three members? Yes.
have to be residence permits.
Councilor McMahon. Please go ahead. Thank you, madam chair. So just for clarification, what's before us is creating the authority. Doesn't cost us anything.
It's just creating an authority. What's before you
is just a letter of support for the state legislation which creates the authority. Okay. And which doesn't cost us any money.
And the money, the $6,000,000 referenced by my colleague, will be repurposed
In Providence. So that's a win Correct. For the cruise line area, the port area. So that's $6,000,000 into our port area, which would be certainly welcome.
So no commitment of expenditure of funds if we pass this. Correct. But it's all it's $6,000,000 to the port, and it's an opportunity for us to decide what we wanna do to a historic landmark. I think it's a good thing. I like the 6,000,000.
If I could just make a point of observation, I think I certainly appreciate having the opportunity to continue engaging on this. However, I do think that we should have some sort of formal representation on that particular authority. And so I would be supportive of this if we had at least one council
meeting council approval. So all of
the positions are what are approved? Through all? Through counsel. All three positions have to be approved by counsel. By appointed by the mayor.
Correct. But, you know, as with other appointments, like, we'd have to work together because you don't you're not gonna approve it if you know you know? Yeah. I like the idea of just speaking on the topic. I just like the idea of having a little bit of bipartisan opportunity while the authority is kind of presenting itself.
that it is an opportunity
for council and to have a little bit of a preference to how it looks. And, obviously, because it comes to the council, it's a different it's still an opportunity for councilors to be able to engage that way and have some say. But I just think in that initiation of the of of the conversation, it's just that's just my personal opinion.
Chief, so carbon legislation in the GA, it's it's has already been introduced, and the the the current language says that it's all mayor appointed? Correct.
Approved by the council. Yeah. I I I do understand that dynamic. Yeah. Can
is there any way that that the council can appoint to more people? One from the council and one from another neighborhood? Or it's only these three members would be only three members from the neighborhood area or or the whole city? I mean, it's
just three members from province. I I will say, having sat through a lot of meetings where we try to find people who want to be in service on city boards, it's not always easy. And so when we were thinking about this, the, you know, the in the the work of this board is gonna be very limited, and so it might be challenging to find folks that want to do this given the like, it's not a board that's gonna have tremendous impact. I think I think that the questions about changing the legislation, you know, I guess it would require us to submit a survey at the state house, which is, you know, a different conversation. And let me just ask you and talk about the timeline.
