Town Manager Report for the week ending March 13, 2026
The 1st thing to mention is that the Town of Coventry will be taking part in the 65th Annual Friendly Sons of St. Patrick Parade that kicks off at the Coventry/ West Warwick line in front of Iannotti’s Funeral Home at 1:00pm on Sunday March 15 and ends at the West Warwick Town Hall. Please come by and line the roadway to help celebrate this great community event.
On Tuesday I attended the monthly RI League of Cities and Towns Executive Board meeting to discuss important legislation that affects all of our members in one way or another. One of the main bills that we are looking to get over the finish line this year and are strongly supporting is to have RIDOT maintain and be responsible for their own sidewalks along state roads. Currently, RIDOT maintains the state roads but each municipality is responsible to maintain the state sidewalks. This bill has passed in the Senate the last 2 years, but has failed in the House.
This week we began our budget meetings with our department directors in preparation for our two hearings next week on Monday March 16 and Tuesday March 17. Please see the Town website for which departments will be presenting on which night. The School Department will be doing their presentation on Tuesday.
We had our Council meeting on Tuesday in which we selected a new member of the Redevelopment Agency and appointed Co. Iannotti to the Finance Committee. We also had a very productive discussion led by Conservation Commission President Gerry Narkiewicz on the importance of funding the weed abatement again this year for Upper Dam Pond, Middle Dam Pond, Tiogue Lake, and Johnson Pond. There will be further discussion on that at Monday’s budget hearing.
On Wednesday night the Redevelopment Agency held its Second Community Workshop at the A.S.F. Middle School to keep the public informed and gather input as they develop the planning stages with their consultant GZA. They provided conceptual designs for public access at Francis Sherman Park and the Dam property in the rear of the DPW building near the bike path. There was a very good turnout and lots of community input.
On Thursday we had our monthly call with the Governor’s Office to discuss several initiatives he and his team are working on and in particular the importance of A.I., along with updates from RIDOT and the Pandemic Recovery Office.