Retirement
North Smithfield Professional Firefighters Local 3984 congratulated Capt. Brian Gartland of B Platoon on his retirement this week. Gartland has served the town of North Smithfield for many decades, working his way through the ranks and retiring as a captain at Station 1. He also served as the department’s fire marshal for many years, and also held the position of fire training officer, where he oversaw the onboarding and training of probationary firefighters after their state academy graduation.
Gartland has also accepted the position of deputy chief of the Blackstone Fire Department.
“We absolutely wish him the best on his continued career,” noted the union in a post.
Sewer bills
Residents received sewer bills in the mail last week that showed a significant rate jump to $689.93 per EDU. The Sewer Department notes that several pump stations are in disrepair and costly improvements are currently needed.
“Neglecting to do these repairs will lead to a system breakdown and sewage backing up into users basements,” the department notes.
Anyone who should have received a use and assessment bill but did not should contact the department at (401) 767-2200 x305.
Coffee hour
Good working at 585 Smithfield Road will host their monthly coffee hour on Wednesday, July 24 from 8 to 9 a.m. All are invited to attend the networking event and enjoy complimentary coffee while they connect and collaborate.
Concert
The North Smithfield Parks & Recreation Department’s free summer concert series continues this week with a performance by local favorite Black Plain Road on Thursday, July 25 from 6-8 p.m. The concerts take place in the field by Town Hall at 83 Green St. and visitors are invited to bring lawn chairs and blankets.
Car show
The Rev. William J. Frehill Council #5702’s annual Show Off Your Ride car show will take place at the Beef Barn Restaurant at 200 Industrial Drive on Sunday, July 28, with entries starting at 8 a.m. and spectators invited from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event will feature awards and trophies, along with a 50/50 raffle.
For more information contact Paul Vadenais at [email protected].
Town meetings
The North Smithfield Town Council and the Municipal Buildings Review Task Force will hold a joint meeting on Wednesday, July 24 starting at 6:45 p.m. at Town Hall at 83 Green St. The agenda is here.
A note on town meetings: Meeting agendas published after our weekly “things to know,” articles may not be listed above. Check the Secretary of State’s website for the latest updates.
Why did the sewer dept. let these issues go for so long? What is all the money they get used for???????? I remember back in 1988 when we bought our former home on Saint Paul St. the sewer commission tried to charge me a sewer use fee. The only problem with that was I DID NOT HAVE SEWERS! What a way to run a town. Thank god they are not flying airplanes!
How is it remotely reasonable that 1 or 2-bedroom home occupied by a single senior citizen is paying the same yearly sewer usage fee as a 4 or 5-bedroom home with 3 or 4 bathrooms that a large family lives in?
Years ago, I asked the Sewer Department why North Smithfield doesn’t base it’s sewer usage fees based on the property’s actual water usage and I was given the ridiculous and unacceptable answer that was “too difficult to do” because the town has too many different water systems and it was too much to ask the Sewer Department to be able to get water usage data from multiple Water Departments.
Then I pointed out that the fact the town already uses the “number of bedrooms” metric when it does private septic system permits means the town recognizes that the number of bedrooms a house has is a good proxy for wastewater generation — and if that’s the case, why isn’t the Sewer Department at least also basing sewer use fees on the number of bedrooms a house has?? And all I got in reply was complete silence!
And that was YEARS AGO when our annual sewer fees were LESS THAN HALF this new ridiculous $690 rate.
When are we going finally going to do away with this nonsensical flat-rate sewer usage fee?? If we are now finally enforcing the town’s per-household trash disposal limits, why are we still allowing this flat-rate “sewer usage” wastewater disposal fee that is completely unfair and not actually remotely based on “usage”?
David, that is a really good point, I would love to hear a comment from one of our sewer commission members or even better the TA or TC members. I know they all review the comments regularly. But I bet we hear crickets instead……..
Here we go. The Mike and Paulette ventriloquial dialogue.
Short of utter laziness, I can think of no explanation for why the town would ever have implemented this incredibly lazy fee structure in which it was decided that every single family home in town would just be considered “1 EDU” and the town would therefore just mail identical “sewer use” bills out to every single home every year.
The town has easy access to the number of bedrooms each house has via its property and tax records — and it has had that data forever.
And even in the days of the abacus, it wouldn’t have been very difficult to total up the number of bedrooms in all the single family homes connected to the sewers and then divide the required revenue by the total number of bedrooms to come up with a per-bedroom sewer use rate that is then used to calculate each home’s individual sewer usage fee.
If the town could pull up each home’s property records to get each lot’s road frontage data in order to calculate a specific “sewer assessment” fee for each home, then why were they not also able to use the bedroom data in those very same property records to calculate a specific “sewer use” fee for each home?
The idea that the town should not be implementing a fee structure where a 400-sq-foot cottage is always paying the same “sewer use” fee as a 4,000-sq-foot McMansion should have always been obvious to anyone who has ever been on the Sewer Commission, Town Council, or anyone else involved in establishing the current system — and how an oversight like that could ever originally happen and then continue for decades seems inexplicable to me.
And remember to have empathy Mr Gartland, when an elderly person’s battle with dementia, and a L-Distance family’s request to please check on them when no ans at door or tel by Meals on Wheels…. does not result in you saying it is “getting to be a habit”. Once per month, x 3 months. That was all. Please learn about dementia and the elderly, how they fight losing their independence, and our family struggle to try and help, and get help. Parent made pies and cakes for you all, and made donations…..and then this …..
Person then found deceased shortly afterwards…..found, because the N.S. Police Dept. cared to do a well check. We all knew not to call upon N.S. Fire and Rescue any more.