WARWICK, RI — In the Warwick Year review 2024: Potential cuts to the new high schools project, overwhelming Democratic victory, and a city councilor admitting to illegally taking property led WarwickPost’s list of highest-read stories this year.
Warwick Year Review: 2024 top stories
Here are the top five government stories of 2024:
Warwick Year Review: Committee Reviews 200 New High Schools Cuts
In the latest chapter of the new high schools construction story, Left Field Project Management in December presented a list of 200 items to the Warwick School Committee that could be removed from the new Toll Gate and Pilgrim High Schools’ designs to bring costs down. School Committee Chairman Shaun Galligan announced in October that “this project is going to surpass the $350 million bond” approved by voters in 2022. City councilors previously estimated that the final cost of the new schools could exceed the bond amount by some $22 million.
Warwick Year Review: Election 2024: Warwick Voting Goes Deeper Blue
Incumbent Mayor Frank Picozzi (I) secured a third term as well as a third consecutive finish as the top vote-getter in Warwick on Nov. 5, while the rest of the local ballot took on a deeper shade of Democratic blue, leaving the Republican party with only one seat in the state General Assembly. Picozzi will now serve a four-year term and be eligible to serve a second under term limits approved by voters in 2022.
Warwick Year Review: Warwick Sexual Harassment Case Points to Larger Issue with Picozzi’s Leadership
The city’s response to a lawsuit filed in June by former Warwick Water Division employee Bree Boulais raised serious questions about Mayor Frank Picozzi’s ability to handle such matters, including the decision to admit to some of the sexually inappropriate messages sent by Water Division staffers while denying at least one other, and delays in releasing public information about the city’s sexual harassment policies and records of employees’ attendance at sexual harassment trainings. As we opined in August: “What this entire situation proves is that city officials, at the very least, didn’t handle Boulais’s reports with anything approaching the seriousness she deserved.”
Warwick Year Review: Gebhart: Travis False Document Plea Requires Ouster as Pro Tempore
Following Donna Travis’s no contest plea to charges of filing false documents that she used to illegally take possession of a property next door to her home, Councilman Vinny Gebhart in July called for her ouster as President Pro Tempore of the city council. Under terms of her plea, Travis admitted that she and Beverlee Sturdahl, a past secretary of the Oakland Beach Real Estate Owners Association, filed a fraudulent quit claim deed in 2021 that transferred ownership of the land at 735 Oakland Beach Avenue to Travis and her husband.
Neither Travis nor Sturdahl were listed as officers of the association at the time, and a WarwickPost.com investigation found that there was no official record of the Association membership on file with the Secretary of State at the time, leaving the actual membership of that group in question. Travis declined to run for another term in 2024, ending her 30-year tenure on the city council.
Warwick Year Review: Apponaug Winter Festival Returns With Fun, Food, Parade
The City of Warwick hosted its second annual Apponaug Winter Festival on Dec. 7, featuring food trucks, carriage rides, balloon art, face painting, and a parade. Attendees were also able to get photos with Santa and Mrs. Claus, who arrived by Warwick Fire Department ladder. Other family-friendly activities included a scavenger hunt,
displays by marketplace vendors/community partners, and touch-a-trucks. As Lauren Slocum, president of the Central RI Chamber, said, “It’s nice to see the community come out.” | Read: Apponaug Winter Festival recap
Author: Joe Hutnak - [email protected]
Co-Founder and Editor-at-Large of Warwick Post. For Warwick Post-related inquiries or communications, email [email protected]
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