City of East Providence Year in Review:

•Stability to government via department communication (executive staff meetings)
•Attracting new development to the city (South Quay / Live Nation
•Working with the School Department to continue to be sure the new high school is built on time and on budget
•Creating the most transparent budget process in the history of the City of East Providence with OpenGov that has enabled the city to realize savings – something it hasn’t been able to do in the past.
•Introduced increasing the homestead exemption by ½ percent to be able to return it to the full 15 percent. The measure was declined by the City Council.
•Putting new emphasis on employee training and customer service at City Hall to improve the experience of each resident and business owner that walks through the doors to the building.
•Creating a mayoral council on veterans affairs to improve services for veterans within the city and to work with existing organizations devoted to serving veterans so the city may maximize its potential to service verterans in need.
•Infrastructure improvement –working with RIDTOT, Odd Fellows, Watchemocket Square
•Public Safety recruiting efforts
•Youth Fire/Police Academy
•Safe Stations
•Arts - $50,000

Fund for document archives expenses instead and cancelled unnecessary subscriptions. Over the next three years this will save the city over $200,000.
DPW Accomplishments:

1.Completion of Phase I City-Wide Roadway Improvements.
This past year 57 roadways were improved totaling 10.7 miles at a cost of $3.2 million.

2. Completion of the Runnins River Culvert Project
Following (3) years of planning and permitting, the Runnins River Culver Project which included the installation of (2) 7-foot wide by 3-foot concrete box culverts and designed to reduce the extent of flooding in the State Street Neighborhood was completed within 30 days.

3.Pierce Stadium Improvements
The City’s Highway Division made extensive improvements to the sidewalks at the Pierce Stadium Complex to improve handicap accessibility. In total, over 1200 square yards of new concrete was installed to meet handicap accessibility standards. Additionally, 500 feet of new 7-foot high fencing and gates was installed around the front entrance to the Stadium.

FIRE DEPT Accomplishments:


1.Becoming the Fire Chief
Keeping FD Budget cuts to a minimum
Implemented new Fire reporting system
Hiring mental health consultants to train members to reduce stressors.

2.Apparatus purchases
1 New Ladder Truck $983,000
2 New Rescues with a loaner Rescue until delivery of new rescues $790,000
1 Used Fire Truck Pumper $10,000

3.Federal and State Grants
Safer Grant 807K: New Portable Radios and accountability system.
State HazMat Grant 60K: Training and Equipment


Work in Progress:
1.Fire Academy
2.New Grants
3.EMS recertification
4.HazMat Billing for auto accidents
5.New Fire CAD
6.Dispatcher Training, manning, and policies
Fire – 2019 Year in Numbers:
•Mutual Aid Fire (given/received): 89
•Mutual Aid Rescue (given/received): 808
•Total Structure Fires: 57
•Total Other Fires: 50
•Total Structure and other fires: 107
•Total Rescue, Emergency Medical Responses: 7,251
•False Alarm Responses: 1,125
•Mutual Aid: 312
•Hazmat Responses: 92
•Other Hazardous Conditions: 53
•All Other Responses: 3,008
•Total for all incidents: 11,948

Police Department
•In 2019, the East Providence Police Department made its nationwide television debut on LivePD, where we quickly rose to one of the favorite departments portrayed on the show.
•The department completed its land acquisition from Providence Country Day which doubled the size of our parking lot.
•We automated our detail and overtime system freeing up valuable time that shift commanders used to spend filling shifts and details.
•The City held a recruitment drive for police and dispatchers.
•In 2019 we hired three dispatchers, two lateral police officers, and prepared nine recruits for the January 2020 police academy.
Police – 2019 Year in Numbers:
•Total Calls for Service 48505 (36554 Police/ 11951 Fire)
•Total Arrests 1282
•Total Accident Reports 1989
•Total Incident Reports 4523
•Municipal Citations 2399
•Civil Citations 1258
•Notice and Demands 257

Planning Accomplishments:
1.Riverside Square, Commerce Rhode Island Main Street Improvement Grant

East Providence received a $70,000 grant to be used for the installation of flags, banners, wayfinding signs, landscaping, and public art and design elements in Riverside Square. The City will also be utilizing $30,000 in matching funds to be applied to the development of the design work and the completion of the improvements.

2.EDA funding for the Watchemoket Square Improvement Study and Commerce Rhode Island Main Street Improvement Grant
The City received a $144,000 grant from the US Economic Development Administration (EDA) for the completion of a study to develop recommendations for streetscape and placemaking improvements in the Watchemoket Square area. The project also includes $22,000 in matching City funds and a $75,000 Commerce Rhode Island Main Street improvement grant to be used for the installation of flags, banners, wayfinding signs, landscaping, public art and other design elements in Watchemoket Square.

3.Opportunity Zone District
The City of East Providence received an Opportunity Zone designation designation for Tract 104 in the City of East Providence. Opportunity Zones are low income census tracts nominated by the Governor and certified by the U.S. Department of the Treasury where investors can invest earned capital gains to finance new projects and enterprises in exchange for certain federal capital gains tax advantages. The City established an Opportunity Zone Committee to develop tools and policies to effectively promote the City's Opportunity Zone including the creation of an Opportunity Zone Prospectus.
https://www.eastprovidencebusiness.com/sites/eastprovidenceedc/files/pages/city_of_east_providence_opportunity_zone_prospectus.pptx.pdf

Library accomplishments:
1.Established the East Providence Library Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)3 to support the Library's educational services
2.Won $50,384 in competitive grant funds to support library services and infrastructure improvements
3.Performed the first needs assessment and strategic plan in approximately 10 years, positioning the library in the next decade

In 2019, the Library had:
•Total circulation: 323,184
•Visits: 213,790
•Annual hours open: 213,790
•Total library programs: 999
•Total program attendance: 16,390
•Computer usages: 39,667
•Wireless sessions: 19,926


IT Accomplishments: The IT Department accomplished goals supporting and improving department functions across all departments.

1.At the beginning of the year, we worked with the Central Garage, Fire and Police Departments to deploy the first online fleet management system. The new system tracks inventory, repairs, maintenance, fuel consumption, insurance costs, inspections, photographs and houses history of our vehicles and the cost to operate each vehicle. The system is cloud-based and has a mobile app for inspections and inventory.

2.We worked with the Fire Department to move from the legacy IMC Fire Record system to Emergency Reporting which is a cloud based system. We worked to integrate our legacy CAD with the new reporting system. Training was conducted with member of Fire personnel who can access CAD and reporting in the stations as well as in our engines, ladders and rescue units.

3.We migrated successfully to Office 365.

4.Training for Viewpoint, QAlert, QContent, ADP, ERS and Fleet Management was conducted.

5.Workforce management applications were introduced for both Police and Fire eliminating administrative paperwork and manual scheduling.

6.The IT Department reduced major telecommunication networks including legacy DSO and BANA lines saving over $100qK annually.

7. We migrated our cellular service to AT& First Net. We decommissioned services at the Emergency Operation center saving server, telecommunications, and licensing costs.

8.We completed server and workstation upgrades to Windows 2019 and Windows 10 .

9.We upgraded computer monitoring with Absolute Endpoint, Symantec Encryption and Solarwinds increasing our cybersecurity protection.

10.We initiated an online training program for City employees for cybersecurity.

11.City Hall was updated with a rolling laptop lab, digital signage and a touchboard.

12.We lead multiple presentations for Police and Fire to replace legacy CAD and mobile software.

Recreation:

1.It has been a busy year for Recreation as the department and Carousel division relocated its offices to the main building of the East Providence Senior Center. The task of moving the Recreation and Activities Center to the Waterman Avenue facility and reestablishing programs has been accomplished with program offerings for preschoolers, youth and adults up and running by mid-September.

2.The 2019 WinterFest celebration continues to grow with more than 270 illuminated trees in the WinterFest landscape. Working with the High School Career and Technical Center, a long-term goal of building wooden sign holders and creating the memorial message signs in house has been actualized. It’s a mile stone achievement that should save the event thousands in productions costs going forward.

3.The Crescent Park Carousel office held its first road race in June. The route of the “Coyote 5K” went along the scenic area of the Terrace neighborhood in Riverside. Over 100 runners participated in the fundraiser for Carousel restoration.

Recreation - 2019 Year in Numbers:
•329 Park and Field permits were issued.
•6,117 facility reservations were booked
•Recreation summer camp had 200 attendees
•7,200 summer meals were served
•2019 Fireworks attendance approximately 8,700
•Summer concert series, (8 weeks), 2,000

Clerk’s Office Accomplishments:

1. Updated Technology and User Systems:
a) Implemented the city’s first electronic filing system for land recording transactions. (We were the 4th municipality in Rhode Island to accomplish this milestone.)
b) Implemented the City’s first Municipal Court online payment processing system.

2. Fair Business Practices:
Enforced a fair and equitable business licensing and renewal process, by ensuring every business is operating compliantly, including building and safety codes.

3. Enhanced Probate Court Processes:
Increased advocacy and accountability for minors, seniors and the disabled through the Guardianship process, as required by the State of Rhode Island. Each Guardian and Guardian ad Litem is now required to annually obtain both a state and nationwide BCI. We are now auditing all files to ensure annual accountings are also up to date. These efforts help prevent our vulnerable population from fraud, misuse and abuse.

4. Budget Reformation:
Through analysis of our resources, I concluded the department was able to save $67,000 spending of unnecessary city budget operating revenue. We are now allocating the Preservation
Clerks: Year in review – by the numbers
•251 Marriage Licenses
•673 Dog Licenses
•84 Liquor licenses
a)CLASS A- 10
b)B VF- 46
c)B VL- 11
d)CLUB- 13
e)C SALOON- 4
•460 Business licenses
a.VICUTALLING- 185
b.HOLIDAY SALES- 101
c.ADDITTONAL HOURS- 10
d.POOL TABLE- 23
e.TATTOO PARLOR- 1
f.PEDDLERS- 18
g.SOLICTORS- 1
h.AUTO REPAIR- 1
i.BOWLING- 1
j.MOVIE THEATER- 1
k.DANCE\ENT- 26
l.DETECTIVE- 6
m.DRIVER PEDDLER- 8
n.GATHERER- 2
o.GUN DEALER- 1
p.KENNEL- 3
q.LAUNDRY- 15
r.MOTEL- 1
s.NIGHT SOIL- 3
t.PINBALL- 1
u.ROLLERSKATING- 1
v.ROOMING HOUSE- 1
w.SEC\ANTIQUES- 2
x.SEC AUTO\TRUCKS- 26
y.SEC GOLD\SILVER- 1
z.SEC\MISC- 2
aa.TRAP SHOOTING- 1
bb.VIEDO- 3
cc.WRECKER\TOWER- 10
dd.HAWKER- 5

Human Resources Accomplishments:

• Successful recruiting effort for the Fire Department where over 150 candidates were interviewed and 82 made the eligibility list
• Revamped and enhanced the new employee Onboarding and Orientation process;
• Had the EEO Officer as a constant panelist on oral interview panels in order to promote diversity in the hiring decision making;
• Increased the annual United Way Campaign from 1.3% participation to 15% participation rate and increased contributions from $1,350 in 2018 to $7,690 in 2019;
• Put mechanisms in place in the HR Department to regulate and monitor Department's Budget
• Responsible for recruitment and hiring of 44 positions
• Set up a process for recognizing employees during their birthdays and service anniversaries;
• Recognized employees that served the City for twenty plus years with an Employee Wall of Fame at City Hall;
• Recognized Police and Fire personnel that died at line of duty with a permanent Memorial at City Hall;
• Established a City Wide Safety Committee;
• Brought in another 457 Savings Plan Vendor as another option for employees;
• Started a process for employees to become much more aware of their 457 Savings Plan options by promoting more employee meetings with vendors;
• Established monthly meetings with the Steelworkers and EPPMTEA Union Representatives in order to keep dialogue over employee relations matters;
• Initiated Portuguese Language Classes for City employees in order for them to better to assist Portuguese speaking constituents;
•Organized a city wide customer service training for over 120 staff
• In the process of completing a total review of the policies of the Employee Handbook;