NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — For the first time since March 16, 2020, the members of the North Kingstown Town Council met at the Beechwood Senior Center with citizens in attendance Monday night as they discussed the future building needs for the town, made appointments and reappointments to numerous town boards and took the time to recognize the services of Town Clerk Jeannette Alyward during an over three hour meeting.
“It’s great to have this return again to some normalcy,” Town Manager Ralph Mollis said.
The meeting was the first at the Beechwood Senior Center for Councilors Katie Anderson and Kim Page, who in her role as president pro tempore, presided over the meeting while Town Council President Greg Mancini joined in virtually after coming down with a case of pneumonia. Members of the public were able to attend in person or over Zoom as well per state rules.
With a vision set on the future, Mollis opened a discussion with council members regarding the future of town properties and asked what their vision is for the old Town Hall at 80 Boston Neck Road when it reopens, saying from previous discussions he’s imagined the building not returning to being the home of all town offices but rather the Town Council, other committees and several departments, creating a potential need for more municipal office space if the town decided to move on from the current offices at 100 Fairway Drive, offices which could potentially be part of a new town structure down the road.
Mollis himself called for the creation of a recreation center and a new public safety complex for the North Kingstown Police and Fire Departments, announcing that Fire Chief Scott Kettelle would be presenting a list of architects who the town and departments have spoken with about drafting a potential design, something he said was of utmost importance to the future of public safety in town, noting that the current public safety complex is pushing half a century and is beginning to show its age, pointing to such issues as leaks and structural issues to a lack of a women’s changing room and sleeping quarters for female officers and firefighters alike, and that expanding the current building would be impossible.
“The buildings we are in today are completely built out,” Kettelle said.
Mancini said that he felt a rec center would be a “luxury” for the town rather than a need, feeling a bigger need for the town would be to fulfill the North Kingstown School Department’s desire for a new middle school to replace the nearly 90-year-old Wickford Middle School, as well as a permanent town office,
“I think at some point we need a municipal office,” Mancini said, adding later he was open to exploring adding municipal office space at a potential public safety complex.
For Councilor Kerry McKay, a few minutes towards the end of a meeting was not enough time to focus on such an issue as the future of major town buildings and construction projects.
“There are no easy answers to this discussion,” McKay said.
Councilor Mary Brimer said that the town would need to involve the North Kingstown School Committee in the discussion, as well as other town bodies to make the decisions that best help the town, while acknowledging she felt there are definite needs to address.
“We absolutely do need a new public safety complex,” Brimer said.
Page agreed with Brimer’s sentiments regarding collaboration.
“If we are going to address these problems, we need to do it all together,” Page said.
Page also said she was concerned with what she heard from Kettelle, including the lack of proper facilities for female officers and firefighters, and was invited along with Anderson to tour the facility with Kettelle, something which he said was given to the new members in past election cycles, including Mancini and Brimer in 2018.
McKay wondered if perhaps the town could seek private funding opportunities for a rec center, noting the popularity and success of the recent playground updates at the Town Beach and Wilson Park. Mollis said he was interested in exploring options, as he felt the excitement a rec center could generate would make the reactions to the playgrounds “pale in comparison.”
Mollis also delivered his update on the Homestead Exemption, saying that he had spoken with local members of the General Assembly who said they can propose out, but don’t believe it’ll be able to go through until February 2022. Mollis said raising residential property values and constant or decreasing commercial property value will result in significantly higher taxes for residents without some way to remedy the situation.
“If this valuation is going to go the way I think it is, we need to help the homeowner,” Mollis said.
McKay made a motion enabling Mollis and the town to pursue legislation with the condition that an update on the progress will be given at the next meeting on June 28, which was adopted and passed unanimously.
In other business, numerous committee approvals were made to fill positions on multiple boards including Asset Management, Audit Committee, Building Code Board of Appeals, Conservation Commission, Groundwater Committee, Historic District Commission, Information Technology Advisory Committee, Leisure Services Advisory Committee and Planning Commission, with several other positions being readvertised and continued to a later meeting.
Mollis and the Town Council also took the chance to honor Alyward’s 10 years of service as Town Clerk for North Kingstown, an anniversary which came last July 25.
Mollis praised her for her handling of last year’s elections, especially the general election,
“Her experience was instrumental in handling the record number of voters we had,” Mollis said, noting that town hall received more walk-in voters alone than most voting districts do in town in previous elections.
Alywayrd, who recently celebrated her 23rd anniversary of being a town employee and will soon be coming up on the 11th anniversary of her hiring as Town Clerk, was presented with an official citation from the Town Council honoring her decade of service in the role and declared June 14, 2021 to be Jeannette Alyward Day in North Kingstown. Alyward was then embraced by family in attendance to celebrate the occasion.
The next meeting is scheduled for June 28 at 7 p.m. at the Beechwood Senior Center.
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