Prudence residents talk roads, hunting

Above: Prudence Island residents gather inside the Union Church to discuss island-related issues with the Town Council Saturday.

PRUDENCE ISLAND — Last year Prudence Island residents had a strongly worded message for members of the Town Council during their annual meeting to the island: Please get Narragansett Avenue paved.

The bumpy 2.6-mile road, which runs along the island’s east shoreline, was once again the focal point of this year’s meeting on Saturday. This time, however, the council came armed with a plan.

“This is a project that will go forward,” Council President Keith Hamilton told about 40 islanders gathered inside the Union Church for the 1 p.m. meeting. “The council, this year in the budget, included $2.5 million. The goal would be us to go out and borrow that money this year when the interest rates are still low.”

The only question, said Mr. Hamilton, who inspected the island’s roads with other council members before the meeting, is whether the town can afford to properly repair the entire stretch of the road at once.

“Our goal is to do as much as we can the right way,” Mr. Hamilton said, noting that the town would prefer to do a “full-depth reclamation” of the road if the money’s available. “As with anything on Prudence Island, everything’s more expensive in getting it over there.”

It will also depend on the results of an engineering workup on both Narragansett Avenue and Broadway, which runs east to west through the center of Prudence and is also in poor condition. (Broadway, which is 1.4 miles in length, bisects Narragansett on the east side of the island.)

James Lathrop, the town’s director of finance and personnel, said the town received several bid proposals for engineering and design work by the deadline on Friday. Mr. Hamilton said the council hopes to select one of the engineering firms at its Aug. 11 meeting, then go out to bid for the paving job.

“The best-case timeline is six months of engineering work” with the paving work to start in the fall of 2016 at the latest, Mr. Hamilton said.

Sue Messina of Cliff Road urged the council to do something about Broadway, which she said is a safety hazard.

“I ride my bike up Broadway and it’s all loose and broken up” both below and above Narragansett. “There’s got to be a better way to pave that and fix the water problem in a more modern fashion. You can’t navigate it on a bicycle; it’s just a mess. The whole thing should be done right down to Beach Road. It’s very dangerous.”

Another resident agreed and told council members they had inspected the roads on a good day. “If you were here a week ago when we had those two rains, (Broadway) was terrible,” she said.

Good news on hunting

Another topic of discussion Saturday was the R.I. Department of Environmental Management’s (DEM) deer hunting schedule on Prudence Island.

At last year’s island meeting, the council voted unanimously to formally object to DEM’s proposal to extend the deer hunting season

by moving the start date from Nov. 1 to Sept. 15. During Saturday’s meeting, however, several residents informed the council that the Nov. 1 start date will remain for Prudence, with deer hunting starting on Sept. 15 in the rest of the state. (The season ends Jan. 31.)

Mr. Hamilton also said DEM’s plan to allow youth hunters on Labor Day weekend “is not going to happen,” news that was met with applause.

“That is the most ludicrous thing we’ve heard of — on the busiest weekend of the year to have inexperienced hunters with bows,” said Mr. Hamilton.

Despite the good news, several residents still raised concerns over bow hunting on Prudence. Herb Fuller of Raphael Avenue said it’s become apparent that DEM is no longer checking what hunters are bringing off the island. “There appears to be no official enforcement of hunting here anymore,” said Mr. Fuller.

He also noted that it’s difficult for Prudence residents to attend DEM meetings on hunting regulations, which are held in Warwick and necessitate getting a hotel room. He urged the council to request meetings closer to home.

Another resident objected to DEM’s decision to leave the gate at the bottom of Broadway open during hunting season.

Mr. Hamilton promised that the council will take up their concerns with DEM.

Transfer station

Islanders got a brief update on the Prudence transfer station. Some residents had expressed concern that the town wasn’t transferring used motor oil off the island.

“As of today, we don’t have an area to take used motor oil,” said Mr. Hamilton.

However, he said the town is coming up with a plan to take the oil off island a few times during the year. He urged islanders not to take any used oil to the transfer station until something “environmentally safe” is ready.

Saturday’s meeting took only 55 minutes, and town officials took the 2:30 p.m. ferry back to Bristol.