Merolla resumes Council presidency, committee chairs named

By ETHAN HARTLEY
Posted 1/10/19

By ETHAN HARTLEY The Warwick City Council officially welcomed its two new members Tuesday night during the city's inauguration ceremony, in addition to electing its leadership and committee chairs and members. Ward 9 Councilman Steve Merolla - the most

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Merolla resumes Council presidency, committee chairs named

Posted

The Warwick City Council officially welcomed its two new members Tuesday night during the city’s inauguration ceremony, in addition to electing its leadership and committee chairs and members.

Ward 9 Councilman Steve Merolla – the most tenured member of the council with nearly 20 years’ experience – was unanimously elected as the Council President after being nominated by Ward 5 Councilman Ed Ladouceur, who was in turn nominated and unanimously approved as President pro tempore.

Merolla will resume the role of council president after being elevated to the post when Joseph Solomon became mayor following the departure of Scott Avedisian. Ladouceur said during his nomination that nobody could be more qualified for the role than Merolla, who has demonstrated a history of working collaboratively and for all constituents both inside and outside of his ward.

“I think that we're in good hands and we're also in good hands with our councilmembers,” Merolla said of Mayor Solomon and his colleagues. “I'm very optimistic that we can face the challenges of tomorrow while reflecting on the past.”

Merolla took a moment to reflect on that past personally which, in terms of his experience in Warwick, began 50 years ago in 1968 when his family first moved to Warwick on Love Lane in Cowesett. It was a time before Route 2 and large shopping malls and even a time before congested traffic was common.

“We would see horses travel back and forth in front of our house,” Merolla said, adding that I-95 had just been constructed, as had the three schools – Cedar Hill Elementary, Winman Junior High School and Toll Gate High School – that Merolla would attend. “It was a booming time in Warwick when we moved here.”

Merolla said the council’s focus must be on navigating rapidly changing times and working towards a better tomorrow.

“I can remember how Warwick has changed since I've been here, and I can only imagine what it will look like 50 years from now,” he said. “Those are the challenges that face this mayor and this council, to be able to adapt to changing times… and they're tough challenges, because as times change, so does government. Government needs to change.”

At the committee level, the powerful finance committee retained its same configuration, with Ladouceur as the chair and Ward 3 Councilman Timothy Howe and Ward 7 Councilman Stephen McAllister as the other two members. The local law-oriented ordinance committee will seat McAllister as its chair with Ward 1 Councilman Richard Corley and newly-elected Ward 8 Councilman Anthony Sinapi as fellow members.

Howe will chair the Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) Committee alongside Ladouceur and McAllister, Sinapi will chair the Public Safety Committee alongside Ward 2 Councilman Jeremy Rix and Ward 6 Councilwoman Donna Travis. Corley will continue to chair the Intergovernmental Committee alongside Howe and newly-elected Ward 4 Councilman (Solomon’s former seat) James McElroy who will also, in his first term, chair the Appointments Committee alongside Rix and McAllister. Rix will chair the Public Properties, Land Use and Community Affairs Committee alongside Corley and McElroy.

New to the council this year will be the Economic Development committee, scheduled to take place last before the general business meetings begin. This will be chaired by Travis, with Sinapi and Rix occupying the other seats.

Also sworn in during the inauguration were the three new members of the Warwick School Committee – Kyle Adams in District 1; Judith Cobden in District 2; and Nathan Cornell in District 3.

Comments

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  • richardcorrente

    This combination of new School Committee members, and the City Council and Mayor team is the best three-category government that Warwick has seen this century. Maybe the best Warwick has ever seen.

    Congratulations especially to the new members. You arrived at a great time in history.

    Much success to all.

    Happy Valentines everyone.

    Rick Corrente

    The Taxpayers Mayor

    Thursday, January 10, 2019 Report this

  • Jasjames

    Your a joke Corrente. Travis to chair new Economic Development Committee... lmfao.

    She can't even pay taxes she owes City, and has been using scam nonprofits to defraud City from tax money for years. She couldn't even complete the simple State Financial and Campaign finance reports properly. So she was found guilty just last year of both violations. Closed JONAH building, but kept nonprofit, because couldn't even run that properly.

    Council made up of other Democrats, for years, that are lawyers and even CPA'S, and some both, that couldn't find WFD Scams being run. It took a private Citizen with no legal or financial expertise to do it. These 3 scams are just the tip of the iceberg, which they will keep trying to cover up. They are dopes that got us approaching BANKRUPTCY. City is run like a criminal organization and should lead to RICO Convictions hopefully soon.

    OPEN YOUR EYES !

    Thursday, January 10, 2019 Report this

  • wwkvoter

    Economic Development is a complex subject...

    How is Donna Travis at mathematics? What is her degree in?

    Thursday, January 10, 2019 Report this

  • Jasjames

    BS In STUPID !

    Thursday, January 10, 2019 Report this

  • Crickee_Raven

    Honest, taxpaying readers will remember that, before and after the 2018 election, the two-time election reject was accusing Mayor Solomon of raising taxes to buy votes and calling city council members "political insiders."

    And now that he's been left out -- again -- he is making pathetic, pandering statements toward those same people.

    Whatever else voters may think of our elected officials [I share Mr. Simoneau's pessimism about their abilities to address the issues facing Warwick], they are at least smart enough to stay far, far away from the two-time election reject and his double-speak.

    Friday, January 11, 2019 Report this

  • wwkvoter

    For those with less comment reading time in their busy schedule I'll boil the same point down to three words... CORRENTE.IS.CRAZY. Or so it seems...

    Saturday, January 12, 2019 Report this

  • richardcorrente

    Dear readers,

    I stand by my statement of "accusing" Mayor Solomon of raising taxers to buy support from the political insiders. Avedisian did it for years and Solomon will probably continue this procedure.

    However I also stand by the statements in my comments above. Intelligent readers know that those are two different topics. CrickeeRaven obviously isn't one of those "intelligent readers".

    CrickeeRaven claims that he is NOT Mark Carroulo but stated that I hadn't spoken to Carroulo before I EVER acknowledged that information. Therefore, the two are either one in the same or very very associated with each other. You decide.

    Happy Valentines everyone.

    Rick Corrente

    The Taxpayers Mayor

    Monday, January 14, 2019 Report this

  • Crickee_Raven

    Further proving his absolute unfitness for office, as evidenced by two humiliating losses, the two-time election reject thinks it somehow helps him to both "stand behind" his lies about politicians buying votes with tax increases and his pandering and hollow compliments toward the same people he called "political insiders."

    As usual, he is wrong.

    His continued obsession with a former chief of staff and his attempts to twist the facts of being called out for never contacting him are further examples of his delusional and pathetic behavior.

    As was stated many times before he admitted to it, the proof that the two-time election reject had never contacted Mr. Carruolo was his repeated accusations of using this screen name.

    Simple logic dictates that, if he had contacted Mr. Carruolo, the two-time election reject would have learned that his accusation was false and would have stopped repeating it.

    But he did not stop repeating it; therefore, he never contacted Mr. Carruolo.

    It required no special knowledge or association with Mr. Carruolo to reach this conclusion; all it took was watching the two-time election reject make a complete fool of himself, again and again, despite the ease with which he could have contacted Mr. Carruolo and learned the truth.

    Honest, taxpaying, intelligent voters understand this simple truth. The fact that the two-time election reject doesn't further proves that they were 100% correct to reject his candidacy twice by increasingly wide margins.

    Monday, January 14, 2019 Report this