I am responding to the insulting characterization received from a candidate for Newport City Council on Primary Day. At the Rogers High Polling Place I along with the senior members of our City Council were depicted as a Dinosaurs by a costumed character with the Paul Marshall campaign and I resent it. I firmly believe that our city would not be as well off if it was absent the senior members of our council, their overall lifetime of experience and knowledge is something that cannot be taken for granted. New fresh ideas are always welcome but should be vetted by all, because you think it will work is not enough, when you are spending tax dollars you must be sure it will and that comes from experience.Mr Marshall has been in Newport for approximately 2 years so his personal knowledge is very limited. He states in his bio that he was a part-time bartender at the Black Pearl from 2003 to 2018, this means he was 14 yrs old when he started, I don’t believe him do you. He says he is there for the Newporters but as a member of the Planning Board voted twice to approve the 2 monster hotels that now grace Americas Cup, he could have said NO or abstained but by voting to approve he told the Zoning Board he liked the idea, many Newporters do not. Mr Marshall does not have to worry about a tax increase because he pays none so when he votes it has no bearing on his quality of life, just yours.
He is a member of Ida Lewis Yacht Club, Baileys Beach and The Newport Country Club with his wife, while Kate is a member of the King Park Clean-up Club and every other group that needs help. Their is no comparison as to who knows what people need to survive in the good days and most important the bad. It was Kate who sent a friend with a truck and a check to the Home Depots in Ct to purchase electric heaters to give away to those who needed them during the gas outage, it was Kate who saw the need to repair the band stand at King Park and rather than asking for tax dollars she went out and raised the money privately, she also raised the needed dollars to build a walkway along the seawall at King Park. Kate saw the problem in the Point by the causeway and led the charge to approve the construction of the new seawall at Storer Park, raising it a full 2 feet and making the park ADA compatible. She is now working to replace the deteriorated sea wall at King Park through the Capital Improvement budget. Kate does all of this while working full time as a realtor and makes time to respond to our requests, she always returns phone calls even when she is on vacation, what Mr Marshall does is a mystery to me but I am sure that the people he would run into at his clubs would not be able to tell him what we, the people, need and why.
Maybe Kate is a Dinosaur but the taxpayers of Newport are very lucky that this species has not become extinct, she watches every penny that is proposed and approves only after a total vetting. She works for us and always has.
Dinosaur
Jack Milburn
Newport
Editor’s Note – The individual who wore the dinosaur costume addressed why they wore the costume in a September 21 Letter To The Editor – Letter To The Editor: The real Third Ward dinosaur