Current Issues

School Safety NOW

(April 12, 2023) Introducing School Safety NOW- a non-partisan group of Rhode Island parents, educators, and community members, advocating for school safety. Their mission is to ensure the presence of an armed law enforcement officer at our elementary and secondary schools so our staff can teach and our children can learn without fear for their safety.

This grassroots organization formed recently in the wake of yet another school shooting tragedy. East Greenwich and Warwick parents met to plan how they could work together to protect our children while spreading this message statewide.

Please check out their website (https://schoolsafetynow.com/) and consider signing the petition. (Please do not donate via the petition platform at this time.) Even more importantly, if you agree with this initiative, please write a brief, but heartfelt, email to your representative and senator so that they will be urged to renew state funding for this purpose. Instructions are listed on their "Take Action" page. We have heard from a member of the General Assembly that boilerplate letters are deleted, so please personalize your message in order to communicate your support.

Also, please subscribe to School Safety Now on their website to receive updates via email about upcoming meetings and how you can get involved.

Even if you don't have children in our schools, we know that you care about East Greenwich families and teachers. Together we can make our schools a safer place in which to teach and learn now, because tomorrow may be too late.

Division Road 410-Unit Development

The Problems

(March 16, 2023) The 410-unit residential development proposed for Division Road between Westfield Drive and Moosehorn Road by Developer Ned Capozzi is progressing to the next stage in the approval process. The EGRTC is extremely concerned about this development for the following reasons:

Because of our state affordable housing laws, our local control will be circumvented by the State Housing Appeals Board. According to EG News, "Capozzi has applied for what’s known as a 'comprehensive permit,' where in exchange for offering at least 25 percent of the plan as deed-restricted affordable housing units, the developer gets a density bonus. The General Assembly made this law to promote more affordable housing, removing some local regulatory oversight in the process."
It would add hundreds of new students to our schools, but RIDE won't allow us to project our population needs beyond the next five years. This means that our brand new schools will soon be overcrowded.
Our town must bear the financial burden of the increased need for fire and police services.
Hundreds of cars will be added to the area's daily traffic patterns which are already becoming congested, especially at the intersection of Division and Rte. 2.
No accommodation is being made regarding the impact on wildlife or loss of green space.

Here are some recent articles which explain more about this development:

https://eastgreenwichnews.com/division-road-project-back-on-track/

https://eastgreenwichnews.com/410-unit-division-road-project-secures-water-sewer/

Proposed Solutions

(March 16, 2023) Senator Gordon Rogers, of District 21 which includes Coventry, Foster, Scituate, West Greenwich, has formed a coalition of rural RI communities which are working together to fight state overreach and developer abuse of our affordable housing laws (https://www.valleybreeze.com/news/rogers-to-form-coalition-of-rural-communities-to-combat-overreaching-state-zoning/article_c2cf4e0c-95fc-11ed-9c08-3b86eb68b20b.html).

Our Republican candidates for Town Council in 2022 offered other creative solutions to help ameliorate this problem. https://eastgreenwichnews.com/affordable-housing-egs-town-council-hands-are-not-tied/ Although none of our candidates were elected, it is still important to stay engaged and ask your local leaders what they are doing to solve this problem.

What can you do?

Attend the Planning Board Meeting scheduled for April 19th at 7:00 PM. Location will likely be in Swift Gym, but check back for updates.
Write to the EG Town Council to ask them to join Senator Rogers' coalition to push back against the state and regain local control of our town planning.
Write to members of the EG Planning Board to ask them to deny approval for this development.
Write to our State Representative and State Senator to persuade them to amend affordable housing laws that remove local control.
Join us for our April 17 EGRTC meeting at Safehouse Restaurant at 6:30 PM to hear from Senator Rogers, who will be our guest speaker.

East Greenwich Town Council

Mark Schwager
Council President, Democrat
mschwager@eastgreenwichri.com

Michael Donegan
Council Vice President, Democrat
mdonegan@eastgreenwichri.com

Caryn Corenthal
Council Member, Democrat
ccorenthal@eastgreenwichri.com

Renu Englehart
Council Member, Democrat
renglehart@eastgreenwichri.com

Michael Zarrella
Council Member, Democrat
mzarrella@eastgreenwichri.com

East Greenwich Planning Board
alindo@eastgreenwichri.com

State Senator Bridget Valverde, Democrat
sen-valverde@rilegislature.gov

State Representative Justine Caldwell, Democrat
rep-caldwell@rilegislature.gov

East Greenwich School Building Bond Referendum

Reason #1 to Attend Building Subcommittee Forums: Their Math is Wrong

(March 4, 2023) Option C*, which the subcommittee seems to be favoring, has a price tag of $130M, not the $120M they have been advertising since last year. Apparently their math is wrong, and none of our elected officials, town employees, or even the builder noticed it until we brought it to their attention. This means that the tax impact for this option, which was shared with the Town Council in February, cannot be accurate either. Taxpayers are not being given accurate information about the cost of this project and the impact it will have on family budgets.

*Please note that the subcommittee has since modified their options and corrected their error, in addition to raising the prices of all options on the table. See Reason #5 for more information.

Reason #2 to Attend Building Subcommittee Community Forums: Does "Newer and Fewer" Mean Better?

(March 7, 2023)- RIDE's vision for schools is "Newer and Fewer," and it is incentivizing districts to close older school buildings and consolidate students into fewer buildings. The School Building Oversight Subcommittee has planned two community forums on March 21 & March 30, at 5:30 PM, at Cole Middle School (in addition to PTG meetings) in which they will share the three options they are considering for the construction and renovation of our schools. Please consider these concerns and make your voice known:

There has not been an option associated with any proposal to keep Eldredge as a school. Our Building Subcommittee simply says it would be “too expensive." The community should be given an opportunity to assess an OPTION #4 that incorporates Eldredge in the bond. Let’s hear the cost of that, the logistics, see a rendering, and let the voters decide if this option is too expensive.
The closing of Eldredge would mean the end of walkability to this neighborhood school. Instead, students would be bussed to the other side of town.
The construction of a new K-5 Frenchtown Elementary would bring an excessive amount of traffic to the west side of town. Has a traffic study been done post-COVID?
Our superintendent claims that students cannot be properly educated for the "21st century" in Eldredge. Where is the research to support this?
No matter which option our School Committee chooses, our schools will be overcrowded in a few short years since RIDE won't allow us to project our spacing needs beyond the next five years. The 410+ unit development that is being fast-tracked on Division Street will add hundreds of new students to our district, and they are not accounted for in any of these options.

By June, the School Committee will be voting to approve one of those options, and a bond referendum will be voted on by taxpayers in the fall. NOW IS THE TIME to share your concerns and ask your questions before the impact on your family is irreversible.

Reason #3 to Attend Building Subcommittee Community Forums: The Choice of Colliers Engineering & Design

(March 8, 2023) Did you know that the School Building Oversight Subcommittee chose Colliers Engineering & Design to handle our district's proposed school construction and renovations? Let's take a closer look at this decision:

Colliers (formerly Strategic Building Solutions) also managed the Cole Middle School project which resulted in a five year lawsuit for the town by homeowners in the adjacent Sarah's Trace development who suffered damage to their homes costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars in repair.
Colliers handled the design of the brand new $49 million Henry J. Winters Elementary School in Pawtucket which recently suffered so much damage due to burst pipes on two separate occasions that the school had to be shut down, and students had to move to distance learning. https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/education/2023/02/26/another-burst-pipe-closes-pawtuckets-winters-elementary-school-monday/69946035007/
Watch this interview with the Pawtucket School Committee Chair in which he explains the effect of this damage on this school community: Preview YouTube video Pawtucket School Committee Chair Jim Challel & Facilities Chair Joanne Bonollo Take Media Questions!Pawtucket School Committee Chair Jim Challel & Facilities Chair Joanne Bonollo Take Media Questions!
Colliers is not the only build/design firm operating in Rhode Island. Others include DBVW, Pare, DiPrete, and Odeh.
Although our School Committee often speaks about transparency and community buy-in, the decision by the Building Subcommittee to choose Colliers does not appear in any meeting minutes. A meeting by several members of the subcommittee on January 3rd was not open to the public and excluded its two community members. It avoided an Open Meetings Act violation by meeting just one member shy of a quorum.

The School Building Oversight Subcommittee has planned two community forums on March 21 & March 30, at 5:30 PM, at Cole Middle School (in addition to PTG meetings) in which they will share the options they are considering for the construction and renovation of our schools. By June, the School Committee will be voting to approve one of those options, and a bond referendum will be voted on by taxpayers in the fall. NOW IS THE TIME to share your concerns and ask your questions before the impact on your family is irreversible.

Reason #4 to Attend Building Subcommittee Meetings: Timing

(March 11, 2023) Did you know that our School Committee plans to vote on which building/renovation option our district will use by June? That is so RIDE can approve our plans, and the state can prepare the bond referendum that EG residents will vote on this November. Let's look at the issue of timing and how that has affected your ability to have a say in these decisions:

Despite multiple requests to make their meetings more accessible, the Building Subcommittee meets on weekday mornings, making it difficult for students and working people, including teachers, to attend.
The decision to decommission Eldredge Elementary was made before holding any community forums to elicit feedback from taxpayers.
No subcommittee meetings were held between mid-September to mid-January, much of which coincided with campaign season. *Please note that we have corrected our error regarding meeting dates. We had previously stated that no meetings were held in August or September. This is not accurate. However, those meeting minutes cannot be found on the webpage for the Building Subcommittee, where one would expect to locate them, and can only be found on the Secretary of State website.
Now the Building Subcommittee is strapped for time and must quickly seek community buy-in.
For an explanation of all options being considered by our subcommittee, including costs, go to https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1d3TN4o6swhlJ1ne-s6I-C6P2eoQNFY2K

The School Building Oversight Subcommittee has planned two community forums on March 21 & March 30, at 5:30 PM, at Cole Middle School. NOW IS THE TIME to share your concerns and ask your questions before the impact on your family is irreversible.

Reason #5 to Attend Building Subcommittee Community Forums: Cost

(March 14, 2023) There's no question that our schools need work. But how much will the school bond cost your family? Since our message dated March 4, the School Building Subcommittee has already increased its estimates for school construction/renovations, and added some options.

On February 27, the Town Council shared real estate tax models that projected annual increases for the town’s needs plus projected annual increases associated with an $80M, a $100M, and a $120M school building project.
On March 7, the building subcommittee updated the costs of the building proposals to no less than $130M. So the highest tax implication per EG taxpayer presented in February became the lowest likely scenario just eight days later.
According to our town finance manager's presentation, these are the tax implications at a $120M project:
Residents owning a $500K (assessed value) home would see their real estate tax bill rise from an estimated $11,022 in 2024 to an estimated $14,331 in 2035.
That is an increase of more than $22,000 in total real estate tax payments between 2025 and 2035.
Residents owning a $750K (assessed value) home would see their real estate tax bill rise from an estimated $16,510 in 2024 to an estimated $21,466 in 2035.
That is an increase of more than $33,000 in total real estate tax payments between 2025 and 2035.
If the School Committee votes to put forward a $150 million bond, those numbers will be substantially higher. We await updated tax impact figures from the town finance manager.

Don't miss your opportunity to have a say about the impact this decision will have on your family budget. The School Building Oversight Subcommittee has planned two community forums on March 21 & March 30, at 5:30 PM, at Cole Middle School. NOW IS THE TIME to share your concerns and ask your questions before the impact on your family is irreversible.