Ward 6 has been represented on the City Council by Donna Travis for 30 years. With Travis not running for reelection, Beth Lane Italiane hopes to take on the role herself.

“It’s never too late to start fresh,” Lane Italiane said. “It’s time to get old blood out of there and bring new blood in and get a fresh look on everything instead of continuing to do everything the old way.”

Lane Italiane, the treasurer of the Warwick Republican City Committee, aims to be the first Republican on the City Council since 2016.

On a national scale, she said she is in support of former president Donald Trump, saying that she believed there was a double standard applied to him and that “no one is happy” with his recent conviction on 34 charges of falsifying business records. She said, though, that partisanship is not something that should matter on the local level when it comes to getting results for communities.

“In the City Council, there shouldn’t be Democrats or Republicans, because you have to be there for all the people,” she said. “Your political party should not be a bearing in the City Council’s position.”

Lane Italiane and her husband, Jim Italiane, moved alongside Brush Neck Cove six years ago. She is 70 years old, and has worked as an accountant throughout her life.

Since the Italianes moved, though, they say they have seen a decline in the quality of the city. Beth decided upon running in order to try and turn that around.

“Things are just not as good as they were when we started looking here, whether it be the upkeep of properties or the maintenance of virtually everything,” Jim Italiane said. “Things just don’t seem to be getting done.”

Should she be elected, Lane Italiane said that her top priority would be holding department heads responsible for what she views as a lack of progress in certain aspects of the city.

“Let’s have our people work, you know, let’s start getting things done,” Lane Italiane said. “I would have to research all the departments and pay them all a visit- hear their side of the story so I can understand why they’re not getting things done the way we think they should get things done.”

Lane Italiane mentioned the city’s Parks and Recreation department and Streets and Highways department as ones that she would like to question about their work.

While she has not run for office before, she said that her being a relative newcomer would be a positive for her.

“I don’t know a lot of people, so therefore, I can’t do favoritism,” Lane Italiane said. “I can give a fresh outlook on everything, instead of doing it the way that it was.”

To meet the Ward 6 community, she has already held a trash pickup at Oakland Beach and plans to hold another one following the Fourth of July.

It is highly likely that Lane Italiane will face an opponent in the general election. While she said that she was not sure who she would face- and emphasized that she was not waiting for Travis’s decision to make her own- she said that she would provide a new voice and new perspective that the city and Ward 6 needed.

“I’m not saying that she does a bad job,” Lane Italiane said. “I just think she’s tired. I think it’s just a lot on her plate right now, and I just think it would be better for everybody in Ward 6 to get a fresh look on everything.”