Warwick’s three candidates for mayor faced off in a standing-room only debate at the Warwick Public Library this past Thursday.

The debate, hosted by the Warwick Beacon, featured Democratic candidate Leah Hazelwood and two independents — incumbent Mayor Frank Picozzi and Patrick Maloney, Jr. Moderating the debate was Gene Valicenti. John Howell, editor of the Beacon, and contributing Beacon reporter and former Providence Journal reporter Barbara Polichetti were the panelists. Questions were drafted by the Beacon staff as solicited on the paper’s website and Facebook page.

The winner of Nov. 5’s mayoral election will take the first four-year mayoral term in the city’s history.

Candidates were offered the opportunity to tell voters about themselves in opening and closing statements. Hazelwood said that throughout her work as a small business owner and in Warwick Public Schools, she has worked to build strong teams to tackle problems, which she said was the most important aspect of leadership.

“I believe that true leadership is not just about policies, opinions or stance, but about building connections, being approachable, fostering a sense of unity,” Hazelwood said. “I’m running for mayor because I care about Warwick’s future, and I’m dedicated to creating a city where every resident feels valued and heard.”

Affordability, transparency and the city’s business climate were Maloney’s top priorities. At one point during the debate, Maloney asked the panelists if there could be more questions about the city’s economy.

“As a small business owner in Warwick, I’m ready to close one of my businesses — my computer repair company — I know there’s a lot of other businesses that are leaving,” Maloney said. “I will tell you that in my family, I’m one of the last ones here.”

Picozzi defended his record, saying that the administration had made good use of federal money to help fix major issues in the city while not becoming reliant on it. 

“We’ve been able to use $65 million in federal money — grants, ARPA money, Senate and congressional earmarked grants, SAFER grants, CDBG funds, whatever else we can find,” Picozzi said. “We purchased trash trucks, four fire engines, four rescues, a tower ladder truck. We rebuilt our police fleet and bought much needed equipment. All of these were one-time expenses from one-time revenue. We didn’t use the ARPA funds to shore up our revenue.”

What if schools cost more than $350M?

Hazelwood, the School Committee’s current vice chair, and Picozzi and Maloney, who both served on the committee in the past, were also asked about what they would do if Warwick’s two new high schools, which are expected to both begin and complete construction during the 4-year term, could not be built for the $350 million allocated to them.

Maloney said that he believes building the schools will leave the city broke, and said he would have pressed the Rhode Island Department of Education more as to why the city couldn’t just built one new high school. Picozzi said that the city could go to the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank for loans, though he noted that whatever happened would be an act of the City Council and emphasized that that was not something he would want to do.

Hazelwood said she fully trusted the School Building Committee and LeftField Project Management to get the schools built within budget, but if they couldn’t, it would put the new schools in serious jeopardy.

“We said we’d come in at $350 million. If we’re not going to come in at 350, I wouldn’t expect us to go forward,” Hazelwood said. “That would not be fair representation of what we offered the public.”

Maloney also advocated for an expanded School Committee, with two nonvoting members appointed by the mayor and City Council, respectively. This, he said, was a compromise to improve communications between the administration while not leading to voters losing their voice on the committee.

Disagreement on speed cameras

The three candidates also disagreed on the installation of school zone speed cameras and red light cameras throughout the city. The proposal was debated during budget season, where Picozzi and the City Council debated over whether to include projected revenue from the cameras in this year’s fiscal budget.

Picozzi said he is fully in favor of the cameras, citing studies that the Warwick Police Department had done, while Maloney was against it, worrying that it could open the city up to lawsuits and hurt the local business climate.

“The City of Providence is being sued by the company that they hired to put in the speed cameras,” Maloney said. “Now the answer to that that you may be told is that we hired a different company [but] the company that we hired currently has the former CEO of the company [involved with Providence]. Before we go forward with speed cameras, I think we need to have these companies investigated and make sure it’s not going to open us up to additional lawsuits.”

Hazelwood approves use of the cameras for safety measures, but not as a means of supplemental income for the city.

Picozzi defends action over airport

With T.F. Green Airport in the news for multiple reasons, candidates were also asked about the cargo facility being built south of the terminal and how to mitigate impacts on the city.

Maloney said in a perfect world, the cargo operations would be in Quonset, and while he believed Picozzi fought hard to make sure cargo trucks stay off of city streets, he should have put a contract in place with RIAC that would have avoided the legal challenge that followed. Hazelwood agreed the process could’ve gone faster, by sitting down at the table and working with RIAC.

Picozzi said RIAC lied to him when they initially agreed to the city’s conditions to build the facility, and that there was no table to sit down at. Only after retaining an attorney specializing in aviation and FAA issues did the city and RIAC sign a memorandum of understanding requiring RIAC to provide a means for trailer trucks to access the cargo hub without using local roads.  Picozzi also said Rep. Joe McNamara (D-Warwick) would resubmit legislation enabling the mayor to name a member of the RIAC Board of Directors in the next General Assembly session.

“We submitted it this year,” Picozzi said. “Many bills don’t get through the first year, but Warwick needs to have a seat on that board.”

There were points of agreement, including that a new state law allowing accessory dwelling units (ADUs), also colloquially known as in-law apartments, would help ease the city’s affordable housing problem.

The candidates squawked when asked a question submitted to the paper asking if they favored permitting residents to keep chickens as a means of providing food and educating young people.

Picozzi and Hazelwood both opposed the proposal, with the former citing that it could lead to more abandoned animals for the city’s shelters to deal with. Picozzi said chickens would enhance the city’s rat problems. On the other hand, Maloney said if done properly, he would be in favor, adding that teaching children how to grow food would be a major benefit.

The full debate can be viewed on the Warwick Public Library’s Facebook page.