12 October 2006

Dear Town Council Candidate:

We are requesting you, as a candidate for the NK Town Council, to respond to this questionnaire by Sunday, October 22, 2006 for inclusion in our report that will be widely distributed within the NK community.

Upon completion, the answers of all candidates will be collated into a single document, and posted on the internet. It will also be circulated in bound form around town. We will also be submitting press releases about this effort to the local papers, the North Kingstown magazine, and the Providence Journal, as well as passing it around on the discussion boards and email lists.

Please answer all questions below. Responses will be limited to 250 words or less. There are eleven candidates, and a lot of questions. Keeping it terse will benefit all the readers.

Please choose a password, and send it under separate cover, by email or telephone, to a member of the questionnaire team, to guarantee that the answers received are from you.

We will be accepting submissions via this form until midnight, October 22. If you want to revise a question, feel free to submit the form a second time. Use the same password, which will identify you. If you want to revise a question, there is no need to resubmit answers to all the other questions. Completed questionnaires arriving after this deadline will not be included in the report. Questions without a response will be labeled "No Response." We will not do any editing of your responses, and will present the text just as you send it.

As you no doubt know, this effort is modeled after our similar questionnaire for School Committee candidates (though it is much shorter, in deference to the short time before the election). That effort has been extraordinarily successful, and over 1200 copies of the report have been downloaded from the official site, dozens of hard copies have been placed at diners, bars, day care centers, hair salons and other gathering places around town. Our experience shows that we have every expectation that your replies to these questions will be seen by two to three thousand town residents. We hope that you are as pleased as we are that internet and desktop publishing technology can be an aid to discussions of the important issues of the day, and look forward to reading your responses.

Thank you very much for your time and effort.

Respectfully submitted,

NK Candidate Questionnaire Team

Tricia Armstrong
Marion Holland
Tom Sgouros
Dave Wrenn



Contents



Candidate name:

Purpose

Why are you running for Town Council? (Team question)

Land Use

How do you feel about the preservation of farm land and protection of farming in NK and South County? What do you think about the rate of development in town, both residential and commercial? (Richard L. Pastore)
What does the Post Road corridor rehabilitation project involve and do you support it? Would you support undergrounding the electric utilities as part of that project? (Richard L. Pastore)
Would you be willing to back a bike path running through major sections of town? (Pete Fournier)

Quonset

Regarding Quonset Point and the development of additional commercial, industrial, and recreational venues: What specific types of development do you approve and disapprove of, what level of environmental impact on the bay do you consider acceptable, and how exactly will the Town of NK and its residents benefit from your plans? (Diane Hunter, 2 others)
In June, the QDC blocked the road running from Camp Ave. to Circuit Drive. For 80 years, residents have used that road and its predecessor roads for access to the rest of the community. It is a vital hurricane evacuation route for 700 people in Shore Acres, Cedarhurst, Wickford Point, and Asqah, since the only other access to our communities is through Camp Ave., which could easily be completely blocked by an accident or fallen tree, and which was blocked in the 1938 hurricane.

On a daily basis, blocking this road means any accident on Camp Ave would trap our communities for hours until the town unlocks the gate, leading to people being unable to get to work, to handle emergency runs, etc. The closure adds twenty minutes each day to work commutes for residents.

Please discuss this closure having taken place with no advance consultation with residents, and what is your position on returning this road to full public use, and when would you expect that to happen? (Karen Anne Kolling, 1 other)

Government

Some local and state governments have adopted sustainable or "high performance" building standards for major public building projects in an effort to lower energy consumption, reduce the number of employee sick days, increase children's test scores, as well as be environmentally friendly. Though the benefits of sustainable public buildings have been documented, neither the state of Rhode Island nor the Town of North Kingstown has enacted legislation requiring public building projects to utilize high performance building practices.

This November, and in the spring of 2007, North Kingstown will ask voters to approve bond funding for several major public building projects. The total cost of these projects will likely exceed 35 million dollars. Assuming funding is approved, these buildings will serve the residents of North Kingstown for decades to come, their benefits and liabilities running the course of their life cycle.

What action, if any, would you take as a member of the Town Council to ensure that all of the Town's major public building projects, currently proposed and future, deliver maximum public benefit through the use of sustainable building practices? (Team question)

This year, 1000 citizens signed a petition asking for the ability to recall school committe members. The version that passed requires a high number of signatures to get it going, and further requires an astonishing 40% turnout in any recall election to be valid. Many people consider it unusable. If elected, would you vote to change it to be like all other NK elections where a simple majority decides the issue? Would you also lower the number of signatures required to start the recall process? (Chris Prata)
Right now, the council only video tapes and broadcasts "Regular Meetings" on Cox channel 18. The other half of their meetings, the "Worksessions" are not videotaped. The recent presentation by Auditor General Almonte was not taped or broadcast by the town. Would you vote to broadcast both types of Town Council meetings? And make them available online? (Chris Prata)
As a Town Council member how will you exercise the authority given to the Council in the Town Charter over all departments of the Town (including the School Department)? Specifically, if evidence of fraud within a Department is brought to the Town Council, what action will you take to protect the students, employees, townspeople and their tax dollars? (Lynda Avanzato)

Schools

The per-pupil expenditure for the North Kingstown Schools is below the state average and the lowest in Washington County. South Kingstown's per-pupil expenditure is more than $700 more than North Kingstown. Lack of spending support for the schools has led to the closing of a school and reconfiguration of the elementary schools. If elected, what do you propose to do to insure that North Kingstown support for our students is at a financial level equal to surrounding communities? (James M. Halley, Superintendent of Schools)
As town council members, what do you feel your responsibilities are towards the school system? How will you commit to their success? (Doug Roth, School Committee candidate, 1 other)

Low Income/Affordable Housing

Although North Kingstown is an affluent community, it still has large pockets of low income and at-risk families. In budgets past, the town manager has looked at cutting funding to non-profit agencies that help these families (South County Community Action, Women's Resource Center, etc). We have also seen a position cut that works directly with these families (the welfare director). How will you as a town council work to make sure that the low income and at-risk population gets the services that they need? How will you work with funding sources to make sure that the agencies that serve North Kingstown residents get the funding that they need? (Korinne Barnes)
What is the Town doing about affordable housing and is it enough? (Team question, 1 other)

Fire Station

How do you stand on re-opening the Fire Station in Slocum? (John Batzinger, NK Firefighter)

Do you feel the Station in Saunderstown (on Boston Neck Rd.) should be closed and relocated to Route 1 and 138 in order to cover both Slocum and Saunderstown? (John Batzinger, NK Firefighter)

The Slocum area of town does not have adequate fire and rescue services. The present council is considering closing the Saunderstown station and building a new station on Rt.1. Please comment on this plan. (Megan Spitler)

Taxes

Each year the Town Council uses over $1 million from the fund balance to underwrite town expenditures at the same time that the Town Council caps school expenditures. The fund balance has been created by excess tax collections that theoretically are designated in part for the school. If elected, do you propose to change this? (James M. Halley, Superintendent of Schools)
What actions would you take to implement a fairer basis for determining Real Estate Taxes for individual as well as commercial properties in North Kingstown? (Ed Rawlings, 2 others)
What actions would you take to further reduce Real Estate Taxes for long time senior residents, who normally do not have children in the North Kingstown school system, but have paid taxes for a long period of time? (Ed Rawlings)
During the last revaluation, members of the Town Council who are still in office rejected the concept of dividing the tax rolls so that businesses are taxed at the greater rate than homeowners. This decision resulted in a windfall of millions of dollars in tax reductions for businesses such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Stop and Shop, etc. What is you position on dividing the tax rolls in the future? (James M. Halley, Superintendent of Schools, 1 other)
In order to balance the town budget over the past few years, several town services have been cut back or eliminated. Summer swimming and recreation programs, library hours, community service organizations and more have all felt the knife. Do you feel the town has achieved the right balance between cutting funding and preserving the quality of services—and quality of life—in North Kingstown? (Team question, 1 other)

Miscellaneous

As we are all aware, half of our town has had to chlorinate the drinking water due to recurrent contamination. The water underground is not the problem. The problem is getting the water to our homes. How should this issue be addressed? (Megan Spitler)
Are there any positions that the Town Council has reached in the past two years with which you disagree? What is your position on them? (Harvey Waxman)

Open Question

A place to expand upon your answers or say why voters should vote for you. (No word limit.)
Secret password:
Note: You may find a text version of these questions useful for editing offline. You can find one here. You can edit your answers into that document and forward it to us if you like, or cut and paste from it into the form. It is more convenient for us to receive the answers via the form above. Thank you.