Community Meeting Feb 6th + Updates

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

I hope that this note finds you well. As the first month of the year draws to a close, I wanted to share information about things happening in the City and our Ward.

Community Meeting:

I want to invite to you to our first Ward 3 Community Meeting of 2023! Thank you to the Ward 3 Democratic Committee for providing snacks. Details below.

City-Wide Ways to Engage:

New Police Chief: Mayor Smiley is hiring a new Chief of Police and has asked residents to share their thoughts on the qualities we want to see in the next chief. Please spend a few minutes to take his survey in either English or Spanish.

The Mayor will be hosting a Community Meeting where residents can ask questions of the final candidates for Chief of Police on February 8th at 5:30pm. See more details here. I plan to attend.

Upcoming City Council Meetings: The City Council meets as a whole at 6pm the first and third Thursdays of each month. The next two meetings are on February 2nd and 16th. Agendas are posted on the City's Portal and include a Zoom link for remote viewing.

The Finance Committee meets every Tuesday at 5:30. The agenda for our meeting on January 31rst can be found here.

Ward 3 News:

James Beard Nominee: Big congratulations to Milena Pagán of Little Sister on Hope Street for being a 2023 James Beard Award Semifinalist for Best Chef: Northeast!

Composting in Ward 3:

Keeping food scraps out of our trash stream is incredibly important. Rhode Island’s central landfill is near capacity - and more than 30% of what is sent there is compostable. When compostable material breaks down in a landfill, it also creates methane -- a very potent greenhouse gas. The City also spends a good deal of money each year in 'tipping fees' to send trash to the landfill -- not diverting compostable materials increases that budget liability for the City.

Ward 3 Leading: Nathan Bishop Middle School & the RI Recycling Club were recently celebrated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for their stellar work to compost in the school cafeteria. To date, they have kept more than 4 tons of food waste from the landfill! EPA officials, Senator Whitehouse, Superintendant Montanez, RI Dept of Environmental Management Director Gray, state Rep. Rebecca Kislak, and others celebrated Nathan Bishop at an event on January 20th.

What you can do: Zero Waste Providence (ZWP) has been a big supporter of expanding composting opportunities across the City. Learn more about composting in Providence and the work of ZWP here.

Ward 3 has a Compost Facility at Rochambeau Library operated by Harvest Cycle that is accepting new members. Please reach out to Currie from Zero Waste Providence if you have any questions at ctouloumtzis@gmail.com.

Stay In Touch!

I've been keeping busy in the first month serving you as City Councilor. I've been active on the Finance Committee reviewing the Mayor's early appointed positions, toured ProvPort and worked to make improvements on the Ordinance extending our agreement with them, helped neighbors navigate questions with city departments; became a parks commissioner, toured North Burial Ground, and got updated on parks projects happening in our backyards; recognized neighbors for their work with Council Citations; met with so many of you in the community, and so much more -- and we're just getting started!

Please check out our social media channels on Facebook and Instagram for regular updates. And please reach out any time at AnderBois.Ward3@gmail.com if you have questions or if I can be helpful in any way.

With Deep Gratitude,

Sue AnderBois

Councilor, Ward 3, Providence City Council