Ward 3 PVD News: August 16

Hello Friends & Neighbors,

I hope that you are enjoying your summer! It’s almost back to school time – and I know our school board and PPSD are hard at work prepping for our first year back under local control.

The Council is on our one-month recess in August – but while there are no official meetings at City Hall, the work continues as your Councilor & I wanted to share some recent updates and upcoming events! As always – there’s so much going on in Providence and in Ward 3!

As usual, this newsletter can be found under the newsletter tab at SueAnderBois.com (I apologize that for a few newsletters it was not posted – we had a small hiccup in our process switching email services!)

Upcoming Events

August 24th, 7p at Church of the Redeemer on Hope St: City Council Ward 3 Debate

Hosted by the Ward 3 Democratic Committee, the Mt. Hope Community Association, Observatory Neighborhood Association, and Summit Neighborhood Association! Come ask questions and interact with the candidates for Ward 3’s City Council seat! (*I am not running for re-election; I am running to be Lt. Governor.)

August 27th, 6pm at Rochambeau Library: Joint Wards 2 & 3 Community Meeting co-hosted with Councilwoman Jill Davidson!

We will be discussing two major items: First, we will have Director of Sustainability Priscilla De La Cruz with us to discuss stormwater initiatives. As you might remember, Priscilla has attended our meetings before, and I served on the Mayor’s stormwater task force to explore ways to address the flooding and impacts from increasingly intense storms we see in Providence (including the recent sink hole on Blackstone Blvd). We will also have the project manager for the updates to MLK School present on their current plans and timelines and be available for conversation, input, and questions. As always, I will stay after to answer any questions folks have outside of these topics!

Save the Date: September 14th at 6pm (location being confirmed): Ward 3 Meeting

Meeting to discuss a potential development on North Main Street at 5th St. We want to hear the community’s input before the project is heard by the City Plan Commission!

September 20th: Swell Folk Festival at Lippitt Park!

Learn more at this link!

Providence & Ward 3 Updates

New Sidewalks:

As previously shared, the City’s Capital Improvement Plan involves sidewalk replacement across all 15 Wards. This construction season, the sidewalks along Hope Street near Lippitt Park will be replaced – including the patch that has been in disrepair for some time on 9th at Hope near the apartment complex. These should be completed by mid-September.

Nathan Bishop Courts:

The new courts are officially OPEN at Nathan Bishop! Thank you to folks who provided feedback on an issue on the far west tennis court – the Department of Public Property is fixing it! I hope you enjoy this beautiful upgraded asset!

Updated Ordinances:

The Council had quite a flurry of activity in June and July, ensuring we were reviewing, vetting, and passing as much of our priority legislation as possible prior to our one-month annual recess.PERA: Strengthened the Providence External Review Authority’s enabling statute to ensure they are able to access the information they need to do their job, while protecting the data and information that protects victims and the investigations. I was a co-sponsor on this legislation!Juvenile Hearing Board updates: The Council updated the statute enabling the Juvenile Hearing Board to ensure that all youth who are eligible to participate in the Hearing Board and receive the services and support they need can do so – instead of just automatically being part of the criminal legal system. Youth who find themselves in trouble for minor offenses deserve a second chance and the support they need to stay out of trouble – and I was proud to co-sponsor this legislation.You can always review all of our Council meetings and committees through the Providence Open Meetings Portlal.Our next full Council meeting is currently scheduled for Thursday, September 17th at 6pm – though there will be committee meetings once we return at the start of September.

North Main Street:

We have been diligently making progress on North Main Street – and the next full meeting of the Task Force will be in September! (I tried to schedule it for August but was told by the clerks we cannot hold meetings during the recess!)Intersection at Doyle/Randall: In partnership with RIDOT and the Providence Streets Coalition, you will see some relining of this intersection, as well as the additional of flex posts and eventually planters – like we have at the intersection with Benefit. This has been a particularly dangerous and confusing intersection for a long time – and the site of many crashes – so these changes are designed to improve safety. As always, I am grateful to RIDOT and our community partners at the Streets Coalition for their creative and diligent partnership.I’ve shared for a while that the ultimate goal of our work is greater design/engineering changes along the whole corridor to ensure that we are making structural changes to improve safety. I am so proud to share that Toole Design Group will be kicking off this process, managed by the City’s Planning Department, in the coming weeks. We will ensure there is community input and feedback for such an important and impactful process –and I cannot wait for you all to be a part of this!And art! I can’t share specific details yet (!), but there is beautiful public art coming to the North Main/Rochambeau gate of the North Burial Ground! We just approved it on the Parks Commission (I am a Parks Commissioner), and the process is moving forward. It will bring some real beauty to North Main!

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Between newsletters, I post frequent updates on more time-sensitive matters and general updates on what’s going on in council. You can follow below to make sure you don’t miss a thing!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the honor of serving you on the Providence City Council. I take this responsibility incredibly seriously, and I am grateful every day for the chance to serve you & our City.

I am looking forward to returning back to the Chambers after our August recess! There’s a lot of good work to get done before we adjourn for the term at the end of December. In particular, I will be very focused on passing an ordinance I introduced to ensure we can enforce parking distances from intersections and reduce crashes across the City, introducing an ordinance with Councilor Davidson to address our flooding and stormwater issues; and so much more!

As always, it has been the honor of my life to serve as your City Councilor in Ward 3, and I will continue to overenthusiastically serve you until my term ends on December 31rst. Please reach out any time if you have any questions or concerns. The best way to reach me is email at AnderBois.Ward3@gmail.com.

With Gratitude,

Councilwoman Sue AnderBois