Council OKs New Vehicles, Renews Flock Camera Deal

WARWICK, RI — The Warwick City Council approved new DPW and police vehicles Monday night and renewed Warwick’s expiring 2-year Flock camera deal to operate 11 license plate cameras in the city for the Warwick Police Department.

The council voted to approve the bid package 8-1, including purchases for several city vehicles and the Flock Security contract renewal.

Flock Camera Deal reviewed, renewed

While reviewing the $68,000 Flock camera deal, paid for from the department’s capital asset forfeiture fund. During the last two years, with the Council, WPD Maj. Robert Hart said the system has aided the WPD 56 times, helping them on investigating hit & runs, missing persons and locating people associated with various crimes including robberies and assaults.

“These cameras have become an integral part of the majority of our investigations,” Hart said.

When questioned about the system’s record keeping by Councilman Ed Ladouceur, Hart said the information recorded by the camera system is not available to the department after 30 days, which is their primary means of determining the information has been deleted.

“So the police department does not receive any proof that this information has been deleted,” said Ladouceur.

Pulled vehicle purchase bid items voted on separately

Some items were pulled from the bid package and voted on separately, including:

Purchase three trucks with plow packages for meter service, awarded to Liberty Chevrolet of Wakefield, MA, for $277,816.78. The motion was moved to the floor without recommendation due to a tie vote by the Finance Committee. Councilman Bryan Nappa said the purchae would come from enterprise funds, not directly from the recent tax increase. Councilman Ladouceur said all city expenditures burden the taxpayer, and that he thought the purchases were unnecessary.  Council President Anthony Sinapi reminded the Council the DPW’s position was that the purchases will save money in the long run.

The Council voted to award the bid after an initial failed motion for unfavorable action that would have prevented it from being considered. Unfavorable action failed with only Nappa and Ladouceur voting for it. A motion for favorable action was made by Councilman Foley, seconded by Councilman Gebhart. A second vote for favorable action passed, with Muto, Ladouceur and Nappa voting against.

The next bid pulled from the consent calendar was item 094, to purchase four Chevy 3500HD Pickups with plow packages, for $246,230.04. Ladoceur also made a motion for unfavorable action, but that wasn’t seconded and the bid passed with Muto and Ladocuer voting against.

The final bid pulled from the consent calendar was item 064, awarding a $55,000 vehicle body repair contract to Gentiles Auto Body of East Providence and West Warwick Auto Body of West Warwick. That passed 7-1 with Nappa recused.

Unfinished business: OPEB, Council rules

The Council also voted second passage on a resolution that would reduce the city’s required OPEB trust contributions by the amount of employee contributions. Effectively, the language states the city will:

Subtract the total employer pension contribution appropriations and projected OPEB claim payments for the new year from the total employer pension contributions and OPEB claim payments in the prior year, adding that to the OPEB trust.

The resolution passed with 8 yes votes.

The Council also approved changes to City Council rules, with two minor changes to the proposed new rules: That the time for the meetings be set to 6:30 p.m., reflecting the recent change to meeting times, and that the rule 30, l on page 12 be deleted. The resolution passed with 8 votes.

Public Comment: Solicitor Opinion on Buttonwoods Avenue status held

Richard Langseth protested Mayor Frank Picozzi’s holding the City Solicitor’s opinion on whether Buttonwoods Avenue is a public or private road, urging the Council to ask him to release it.

“It creates hardship for me,” Langseth said of the city’s failure to product the opinion.

Langseth said Warwick’s Comprehensive Plan states there are 41 CRMC-designated rights of way to the shore in Warwick, with another 36 rights of way to the shore, mostly in the form of beach ways or passage ways. and more than 100 access ways to shore from dedicated highway access, he continued to quote from the plan, which he said was likely an exaggeration of the available access, but nonetheless still significant.

“New people moving into town really want good public service,” Langseth said, “and they expect to be able to access the shore.” Picozzi’s hold on the report about whether Buttonwoods Avenue is public or not impacts whether people want to move to the city or not, he said. “I don’t know of any other city or town in Rhode Island where the government is blocking the ability to even review whether a street is public or not.”

Langseth said Buttonwoods Avenue has been a public highway since the 1700s, and was dedicated to the public by the Buttonwood Beach Association, which asked the City Council to recognize the street as a public highway in 1976. “Which the City Council did,” he said. He urged the Council to ask Picozzi to release the report.