Hello Newport!
Thank you for coming to my Mayor’s hours on Mondays from 9:00-11:00 AM and Wednesdays (by appointment) at the Council Room at City Hall. Hearing your ideas and suggestions, assisting with getting your needs addressed, and discussing economic development for our City is nothing shy of amazing. You are the City. Your voice is necessary and this is the venue to come to speak to me.
Thank you NEKTV for also taping “From the Desk of the Mayor” each week so I can give the Newport residents an update on what happened at council meetings and other venues.
A huge shout out to our Director of Parks and Recreation, Mike Brown. Here’s some updates from Mike:
– 4th of July was a huge success; we saw record breaking crowds to enjoy ETA and the fireworks. Thank you to PD and Public Works for their assistance in making sure everything went off smoothly. We also had our first renters for the peddle boats.
– VOREC: Some of the equipment has started arriving. We have 6 e-bikes to add to our bike fleet, as well as 4 peddle boats (in blue and white city colors), on order are the new t-dock and 4-person lake monster boat, they should arrive in the next few weeks.
– Sailing Program: The Newport Community Sailing Center started the summer long sailing class for the day campers. They began with the orientation and basic safety of the boat and will move to Gardner Park next week to start sailing.
– Specialty Camps: Week of July 15th and July 22nd we start our specialty camps. We host Track and Field Camp run by the Northern Borders running club, a tennis camp coached by Chris Hulse with USTA Net Generation, and a soccer camp run by Challenger Sports.
Mike goes on to remind us:
Memphremagog Festival, July 26th: in cooperation with NDD the parade will leave the municipal lot at 6pm and proceed down to Gardner Park. Once at the Park we will have a band, games, food trucks, and free 30-minute boat rentals; and
Prouty Beach: The campground continues to do well. Our occupancy has been up and anecdotally have seen an increase in Canadian traffic possible due to our add campaign, certainly revenue is up, and we will continue to develop plans to expand as much as we can in the coming years.
The City Council Meeting on July 15, 2024 brought the approval of an Audio/Visual recording policy for the city. Included in this policy are the directives as to when recording is not permitted. That includes privileged communications with the City Attorney or conversations concerning privileged advice provided by the City Attorney. The Mayor announced that taping the Mayor or other Council Members or Officers that included the discussion of attorney client privilege information and sharing it with residents, for their own personal benefit or otherwise, was to stop.
In addition, the Council members addressed the letters, concerns and demands received from the citizens of Newport regarding action taken by an Alderman, unilaterally, against another Alderman, with no City authorization. There was a motion to have Council Member Charbaneau censured for his actions against Council member Curtis. Before the vote by the Council, the Mayor made a statement regarding censure. “Moving to censure an alderman is a serious action that should not be taken lightly. A successful censure motion is an OFFICIAL PUBLIC DECLARATION OF THE COUNCIL THAT A MEMBER SHOULD BE SANCTIONED FOR INAPPROPRIATE CONDUCT. Another reason to act deliberately with respect to potential censure resolution is that the censure motion has limited practical impact. A censure resolution neither removes the privileges of the censured official, nor the ability of the official to act. Nonetheless, considering a public censure motion demands clear-minded meticulous judgment.” After careful deliberation, the Council voted to Censure Council member Charbaneau. Thank you to Council Member Curtis for your respect of the process; your dignity and professionalism as this situation was discussed over the past months. As your Mayor, I apologize that you had to go through this. But I thank you for being the professional Council Member that you have proved yourself to be.
The Mayor also issued EXECUTIVE ORDER No. 2024-01, on Civility and Professionalism. This proclamation outlines the procedure if there are issues that employees and council members should follow if they face confrontation. The President of the Council and I are here to assist. But most importantly, the Executive Order establishes the culture of respect for one another and dignity and responsibility for City Employees and how they work with the Council, as well as how the Council works with one another.
As always, as your Mayor, I am listening. The Council hears you and we are addressing the needs of the City. Yes, we are still having to deal with distractions at council meetings by those with personal agendas. But they are not stopping the Council from moving forward with business. Newport’s much needed business to benefit you!
Stop by the kiosk and look how wonderful our City is. Amazing job! Thank you to Council member Rick Ufford-Chase and to NDD. See you all at Wednesdays on the Waterfront! Let’s have a grand time in Newport, together!
Thank you for your Confidence—your Mayor, Linda Joy Sullivan
