Parking Meter Season Starts May 1 VOL. 38, NO. 17
WHAT’S INSIDE
WEDNESDAY, April 28, 2010
Spencer Park and King Park eyed by Land Trust By Tom Shevlin
Cinco de Mayo recipes, see page 12.
TABLE OF CONTENTS THE ARTS CALENDAR CLASSIFIEDS COMMUNITY BRIEFS CROSSWORD DINING OUT EDITORIAL LETTERS MAINSHEET NATURE REALTY TRANSACTIONS WELLNESS
11 8 18 4 18 13 6 6 10 7 4 17
NEWPORT — The Aquidneck Land Trust, which over the past 20 years has ensured the conservation of more than 2,000 acres of open space on Aquidneck Island, has its eyes set on two of Newport’s most popular public parks. Working with the Newport Tree and Open Space Commission, ALT has been in discussion with neighbors of Spencer Park and King Park, on a plan to secure additional protections via perpetual Conservation Easements for the parks. ALT Executive Director Ted Clement
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City Manager proposes $108 million FY2011 budget INEWPORT — In the run up to a series of planned budget workshops slated to start later this month, City Manager Edward F. Lavallee has released a proposed $108 million municipal budget for the coming 2010-2011 fiscal year. The budget, which is sure to undergo a rigorous analysis by the City Council, calls for a 2.45 percent tax increase, achieved not through property taxes, but rather through a proposal to eliminate a roughly $1.5 million in motor vehicle tax exemptions – a move which Lavallee attributes directly to the anticipated loss of state motor vehicle tax payments. Otherwise, Lavallee said, the budget would effectively hold the line on “real” property tax rates, with general fund expenditures increasing by less than one percent, from $76.45 million to $77.14 million, or $694,228. In an April 7 letter to the City Council which accompanies this year’s budget, Lavallee wrote that central to his proposal is the city’s struggle between making necessary infrastructure improvements while accounting for a down economy, the loss of state aid, and mounting employee benefit liabilities. “The FY2011 budget proposal reflects a significant loss in revenues due to the continued economic downturn, the loss of state revenue sharing and motor vehicle phaseout revenue, loss in investment and housing revenues, loss in building permit revenues and a reduction in tourism revenues,” he wrote. “In FY2011, at the department level, directors have been challenged to reduce operating expenses in consecutive fiscal cycles. Health insurance premiums will increase by over 15
percent, and the City is faced with very expensive mandated water and sewer infrastructure and facility improvements. Every effort has been made to continue to provide quality services and comply with regulatory mandates with the least possible impact on the taxpayer.” Of the city’s ongoing liabilities, Lavallee wrote that “(t)he City continues to focus on the restoration and upgrade of publicly owned infrastructure. This commitment to rectify outdated and unimproved City assets, such as: roads, buildings, and utilities, is long-term and costly. City policy makers are also focused on another major City liability, that being the legacy debt of Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEB),” Lavallee wrote.“The OPEB debt largely consists of retiree health care insurance costs. The deterioration of physical assets and accrual of financial obligations have evolved over the past several decades. They did not develop quickly nor will they be solved quickly. To mitigate the OPEB debt the City Council initiated a plan to pay down the obligation over a 30-year period by creating and funding an OPEB Trust. It was the first such fund to be established in the State of Rhode Island. Annual contributions to the Trust will be used to pay the legacy costs of retiree health care insurance and narrow the delta between the OPEB Trust assets and the unfunded liability.” For property owners, the residential tax rate will remain at $9.52 and the commercial and personal property tangible tax rates will remain at $13.20. Meanwhile, Lavallee said, the annual appropriation of Motor Vehicle Phase-out revenue from the state will cease, reducing the city’s projected revenues by $1.8 mil-
Helms to step down at Redwood
wrote to City Council members earlier this month to relay his organization’s plan. “There was a time, a time of innocence, when we thought our municipal parks and conservation areas were out of harm’s way and would always be there for us to enjoy,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, nationally and locally, the pressures on these municipal open space areas have been growing and many such lands that lacked adequate conservation restrictions have been lost to development. Some of these municipal lands have been developed for other municipal purposes
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By Tom Shevlin
BORN FREE
lion. The proposed motor vehicle tax rate remains $23.45 per $1,000, which is the state law, fixed-rate for Newport. However, Lavallee has proposed that the first $6,000 of value (otherwise known as the motor vehicle phase-out) exemption will be removed. The budget proposal incorporates a three-year operational plan and five-year capital improvement plan (CIP). Under Rhode Island General Law, the city is limited by the amount it can raise property taxes. For the 2011 fiscal year, tax revenue growth is capped at 4.5 percent. The law also specifies that the cap will be based strictly on the combined prior year, real and personal property, tax levy. The maximum amount of increased tax revenue that the city can levy for FY2011 is $2,741,166. Lavallee’s proposed budget increases the levy through the removal of the motor vehicle tax exemptions by $1,494,385, or 2.45 percent – a full 2 percent less that the allowable limit under state law, Lavallee noted. But with tens of millions of dollars in mandated infrastructure improvements on a near horizon, there is no escaping increased fees. As Lavallee frankly states, “The major impacts in this budget come from the water and sewer rates.” Most severely, the city’s sewer rate is proposed to increase by 52.5 percent, with the combined sewer overflow (CSO) fixed-fee increasing by 218 percent. Both increases can be attributed to federally-mandated improvements which the city has agreed to make. But that’s not all; in its current form, the submitted budget does
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Cheryl Helms, above, Executive Director for the Redwood Library for 15 years, announced her retirement this week. (Photo by Kirby Varacalli) NEWPORT — After 15 years with the Redwood Library and Athenaeum, Cheryl Helms has announced her retirement as executive director. Helms, having led the organization through one of its most important eras, will continue to lead the library as the board searches for a new executive director. Helms joined the Redwood in 1995, and became its executive director in 1998. During her tenure, the Redwood completed a total restoration of the historic building, installed new circulation and cataloging systems for the library and special collections, and began the restoration of the grounds and Pope Alley, along with many other initiatives. “I can’t think of any place that I love more than the Redwood,” said Helms. “Every time I walk through the doors on Redwood Street and enter the Rovensky Room, I still feel
that same sense of awe and wonder that I felt the very first time I went into the Redwood in 1995. It has truly been a pleasure and honor to be the Executive Director of the Redwood, and I thank everyone for having allowed me that privilege. In particular, I am deeply grateful to our members and the devotion they have to the Redwood. Because of their support, we have been able to do good things together at this historic institution.” Ann Conner, President of the Board of Directors, said “We all look around with a sense of pride and accomplishment at how far Cheryl has brought this historic library. It will be hard to imagine the programs in the Harrison Room without Cheryl at the podium.” The board has already begun a search for a new Executive Director. “It will take a special person to replace Cheryl,” said Toby Field, a Redwood Library trustee.
ARCHI-TEXT
“Preservation is Local” By Ross Sinclair Cann, AIA NEWPORT — This past weekend two events occurred that remind us that the majority of preservation efforts start with small groups of people that are working to protect the buildings and neighborhoods that they love. The first event was the annual Rhode Island Historic Preservation conference, now in its 25th year. This is a gathering of preservation experts and citizens who come together for a key note address, and full day of seminars and tours. Each year the conference has a focus and this year the theme was “Preservation is Local”—an acknowledgement that the importance of small local groups in carrying out the work of preservation. The conference, which moves around the state each year, was held in Little Compton and Tiverton. Among the 12 seminars that attendees could choose among were panels entitled “Preservation as a Community Development Tool” and “Preserving Neighborhood Character” to name but two. The many tour offerings were equally varied and ranged from bicycle tour of the Sakonnet River landscape to a tour called “From Attic to Archive,” which showed how the Little Compton Historical society has documented the 13,000 items in their collection. The program included breakfast,
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lunch and a closing reception so that the participants could network, share ideas and exchange preservation strategies. The other event which proved the hypothesis that even major preservation projects begin as discussions between small groups of people was the installation and unveiling of the new fountain in Washington Square. The Washington Square project began more than a decade ago with the some local citizens who recognized the need to restore Washington Square. Soon thereafter Stephen Spielberg chose Washington Square as the setting to film certain scenes in his movie Amastaad. With some set creation tricks the Square was transformed back to the eighteenth century
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