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As a resident of the City of Warwick for 45 years, I feel it is necessary to make clear of my complete contempt for everyone in a leadership position. I have lived in Warwick most of my life, I am a graduate of Toll Gate High School, purchased a home in Warwick after college, have two children in the school system and used to recommended Warwick to anybody I knew looking for a new home. No city is perfect and surely, Warwick has many of the same problems that plague most cities and towns, but in the past the many benefits Warwick had to offer far outweighed the negatives. However, in recent years the tides have turned, I view Warwick in a far more negative light, to the point I would never encourage anyone to move here, and have begun my own exit strategy. Moreover, the sole source of this change is a complete and total failure of our elected “leadership”, leadership is in quotes because they, yourself included have shown none of it. When you first ran for office, you stood on my front porch and told my wife and me that you were going to change the way things in the City are done. We listened to you that day and thought you were what the City needs.

Which brings me to the reason I felt the need to write you.

I will start by stating that I have two children in the schools and my wife is a substitute teacher. Therefore, it will surprise you to know that I supported the efforts to reign in the reckless nature of the school departments spending. I acknowledged the need for consolidations due to declining enrollment, and controlling the bloated spending by the administration. I have defended level funding of the schools as means to force them to make the hard decisions. And I feel they have. However, I believe you have gone too far. It has been eight years. Nobody can be expected to maintain level expenditures for that long, lord knows the City has not.

So now, it is your turn.

I have watched as the schools have been level funded for years, but the Council continues to raise taxes near the maximum allowed by law. I am left to assume that all additional tax revenues over the last several years have gone to city spending. So please explain to me the need for all these tax increases to fund only the city spending. Are there new neighborhoods for the police to patrol, new fire stations to be maned, new streets to be plowed and garbage collected? You know as well as I do the answer to all of these questions is NO. There have been no new services instituted over the last eight years. Was it used to fix infrastructure, public parks, library upgrades, senior services, beach cleanup? Anybody who has spent ten minutes driving thru Warwick knows the answer to all of these is NO. In fact, all public spaces have deteriorated over the last eight years.

To recap your accomplishments over the last eight years, maximum tax increases without improvements to infrastructure and no new services. So, where is all the money going, and why do you feel deserving of additional tax increases.

As a resident of this City for 45 years, I can unequivocally say that everything about this city is worse today than when all of our elected officials took office. A truly damming indictment of each and every one of you.

So please explain to me how you can sit there and lecture the schools on spending when you are a bigger contributor the downfall of the city financially, than the school department ever was. For eight years, the amount I pay in taxes to the schools has not changed. I would not be writing this letter if you could say the same for the city. Financial mismanagement and all, at least the schools can point to the thousands of students they educate each year. What do you have to show for the extra money I pay you?

I await your defense of the actions you have taken.