Environment & Efficiency
Protecting our water, air, and peace and quiet requires making decisions and holding everyone accountable.
Enforce playing by the same rules.
People want to know that the process is fair. That even though sometimes the vote does not go the way we would have liked, everyone is treated with dignity and respect, and everyone is held to the same standards. My research (and common sense) shows that if a business is ethical, responsible, and treats customers with respect, we reward them with more purchases now and in the future.
Yet, when you look around, I’m not sure you see that. The quarry. The junk yard. Some businesses get continuance after continuance after continuance. Even when a Council Member, at a Town Council meeting, admits to paying a company to chop down and destroy public property, our town refuses to investigate that company or seek compensation for removing public property.
Twenty years ago, our tax dollars paid for that tree to be planted. A company came in and, without a permit and without asking for permission, cut down twenty years of financial investment and care by the Department of Public Works. And our Council remains silent.
Not on my watch. I will pass ordinances to ensure that everyone plays by the same rules. That we enforce our town laws. That no one - not a company, not a Town Councilor, no one - is above the law. Our town wants to fight back. Our town is ready to fight back. It’s time to step in the ring or step aside.
PFAS Testing. Now.
The warning signs have been there. PFAS levels at the Primrose Fire Station were more than triple the state's safety threshold, our own middle and high school students have been drinking contaminated water for years, and a Town Administrator told the Council in plain language that our sewer and water infrastructure was vulnerable to catastrophic failure. The Council's response? Cut the emergency funding in half.
Right now, free PFAS testing only covers residents within a quarter-mile of the fire station. But most of North Smithfield runs on private wells, and the contamination doesn't stop at that boundary. I believe we should be fighting to expand that testing zone and treating this for what it is: a public health emergency. The filtration system our schools need should not be moving at the pace of state bureaucracy while kids are in those buildings every day. The long-term fix (connecting our most vulnerable areas to a reliable water system) requires real investment and a real plan, not half-measures and delayed studies. Clean, safe water has to be the minimum. Anything less is not acceptable.
Results, not resolutions.
If Town Council meets twice a month and we estimate two hours and thirty minutes per meeting, the amount of time any given Town Council has to improve the town is 120 hours, or five days, over their two-year appointment.
If you had only 120 hours to do your job, would you spend any amount of time on something that would have no impact on bringing in new business or producing more goods? Probably not.
Resolutions have their place. They can help us honor individuals no longer with us, for instance. But resolutions without clear plans are just political window-dressing. I would rather spend Town Council time by bringing our elected leaders to listen to us, answer questions, or instruct the library to help create a political engagement factbook to help people contact their state and federal representatives.