hard deadlines

Portsmouth Town Clerk Cerk Kathy Viera-Beaudoin swears in new patrolmen Justin B. Andreozzi and Matthew P. D’Aguanno as Council President Dennis Canario and (back to camera) Chief Lance Hebert look on.

About 35 residents were on hand tonight to deliver a standing ovation as two new members of the Portsmouth Police Department were sworn in. Welcome to Patrolmen Andreozzi and D'Aguanno. It was a wonderful, warm moment. But that was pretty much it for the evening. The rest of the night — and this was a record, I think, at about three-and-a-quarter hours for a regular Council meeting — was a very long and unhappy grind.

And the issue, surprisingly, wasn't over group homes — that came later — but rather what seemed a relatively straightforward request to rezone a couple of parcels on East Main Road from residential to commercial to conform with their current use. The lots in question (Map 41, Lots 29A, 48, and the Southerly end of Lot 51) are occupied by businesses who are grandfathered in, and were looking for the Council to change the zoning so they could, for example, build a showroom for their products.

There were half-a-dozen abuttors and neighbors from nearby Crossing Court, and they were not pleased with the requested change or the zoning process. They cited issues of noise, traffic, and lack of screening from the businesses, and pushed back strenuously against the change.

Resident Karen Pinkham was eloquent in her opposition. "I was born and raised on Middle Road," she said, "And I was the first person to buy a property on Crossings Court. It's completely different now — there's a lot of traffic on that road. How does a piece of property get treated as commercial when it's really residential all these years?"

Attorney Vern Gorton, who was representing one of the property owners, indicated that the were willing to be reasonable, and put up fencing, or work within whatever restrictions the Council might attach to the zoning change. "Rezoning gives him latitude in financing," he said, while still offering protection to abuttors wary of any change, "He still has to go to the Zoning Board."

In the end, the Council continued the hearing until the next meeting and urged all parties involved to go out in the hall and talk things over. Which they did, and hopefully we'll see some meeting of the minds, because it was a pretty hairy time tonight. This is the 1040EZ version; you want the gory details, be prepared to spend two full hours watching Channel 18.

Then there was a delightful palate-cleanser of an agenda item, as Councilor Bill West wanted to know why Larry Fitzmorris (wearing his hat as the leader of the videotaping team) hadn't been able to deliver any DVDs of meetings to the Town Council yet.

"This is a very complex issue," Fitzmorris began. "I have a technical description of the various problems. As soon as we decided to buy a DVD recorder, the instrument went off the market. We have purchased one. It is the only one available in America, and we located it thanks to Paul Kesson's eagle eye." Yeah. They found it in Wal-Mart. But there is still one issue. It was so complicated, Larry said, that "only I can operate it." He suggested that they needed to buy a $5,000 DVD recorder.

Larry went to the trouble to point out that he has an electrical engineer working on this ("with the PCC," he said, referring to this as something other than a Town Committee, but I digress) so it must be awfully complicated. He fended off questions about pure digital solutions saying that no camera had sufficient memory. He's been working on this for what — six months now? This is a little outside my speciality, but it seems to me you could put together a prosumer Canon or Sony with a low-end edit workstation and a DVD duplicator and bring the whole thing in for under $5K.

By this point, we were two and a half hours in, and the agenda item on group homes was decidedly anticlimactic. Councilor Peter McIntyre reiterated his request to have the Council consider an ordinance modeled on Middletown's. But tonight, the mood of the Council seemed more cautious.

"You and I agree on the issue behind this," said President Canario, who had spoken in the last meeting about his encounters with the group home on Bristol Ferry Road during his time on the Portsmouth PD. "I've put a lot of thought into this. Rhode Island General Law 45-24-37 states that community and group homes are permitted uses. My concern is that state law says that it's a permitted use. While I agree that Child & Family Services group homes put strain on our services, I don't see what we can do to supersede it. I think we need to engage our state reps to review our existing laws and address our concerns related to notification so that the state beccomes more responsible rather than cities and towns. I'm concerned that by passing a town ordinance, we're in direct vioaltion of state law."

McIntyre tried to argue that Middletown had pursued this approach but the Lege hadn't acted. Kathy Melvin got up to attack the Council for their "lack of leadership." Resident Phil Driscoll argued against expecting any change from the Lege. "We all know how laws get passed in the state of RI." Nonetheless, the Council moved to get an advisory opinion from the planning board and request the state legislative delegation appear at an upcoming meeting to hear directly the concerns of the Council and Portsmouth residents. The discussion on this wasn't as protracted as I feared; much of the audience had dribbled out during the two-hour zoning debate.

Then a couple of college kids wanted the Council to pass a resolution in support federal legislation to freeze foreclosures endorsed by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee. They didn't.

In a hilarious bit of new business, Karen Gleason's husband was on the agenda (but not there in person) seeking approval for the by-laws of the Lower Glen Farm Preservation Committee. I thought that would sail through, but I was wrong. One of the Councilors wasn't happy with the language in several spots. Guess who. Yep. Tailgunner Gleason started wordsmithing. "This should be AND, not or," she said, pointing out a line to the Council.

Canario asked her, "You didn't have a discussion about this?" Apparently not. They ended up sending it back for rework.

In one final agenda item of note, the Council was considering a resolution of support for a state house bill removing references to specific health care providers in collective bargaining agreements. Tailgunner Gleason recused herself "because it references state employees." It's a shame Gleason missed the presentation last year by the RI Ethics Commission attorney Jason Gramitt, because he noted that best practice would have been to leave the Council dais at that point. I wonder if she's going to file a recusal form? (Personally, I think this is covered under the class exception, but she recused herself, so she should follow procedure.)