Town Manager Report for the week ending August 21, 2026
We had a quiet week with no Town meetings scheduled and are preparing for a large Council agenda on Tuesday and a significant Planning Commission meeting next Wednesday.
On Wednesday we had our kickoff meeting with our contractor the TRC Companies on the Johnson’s Pond Lake Management Plan. Joining the call was myself, the Town Engineer Joe Levesque, Asst. Town Manager Maria Broadbent, and Marc Lemoi President of the Johnsons Pond Association. We discussed the scope and schedule for the Plan along with stakeholder engagement and action items moving forward. Johnsons Pond is currently considered “Impaired” by RIDEM and this Plan will help address those impairments including, nonnative aquatic plants, with a holistic and sustainable approach of management. The timeline is to have the Final Revised Plan complete and sent to the Council by March 2027.
On Thursday I began negotiations with members of the Council 94 Executive Board and their business agent. Council 94 represents employees throughout our municipal government including Town Hall, DPW, Parks and Recreation, Animal Control Officers, Human Services staff, Police Civilians and Dispatchers, Planning, and Building. We are looking to come to an agreement on a 6-month extension to their current contract that ends on 12/31/26 and then propose a 3-year contract from July 1 to June 30 to follow the fiscal years like the IBPO contract currently does.
Town Staff also met on Thursday morning with our contractor MAS Building and Bridge on the Tiogue Lake project. We are pleased to say we received our approval letter from the R.I. Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission and the only thing pending is a letter of approval from the Army Corps which we expect in the next 2 weeks. MAS will begin mobilizing the week of August 31 and have begun contacting those agencies they need to coordinate with like KCWA and Engineering to get this project moving.
On Thursday we had our monthly Safety Committee meeting with our insurer The Trust and about 8 employees who make up the committee. We identified the areas in which most of our injuries have occurred over the past 5 years with overexertion and trips and falls being the largest two categories. The Committee will be looking for recommendations from all Town staff how best to prevent these types of injuries from occurring and reducing our lost hours of work and our OJI costs as well.