Editor,
Diversifying Newport’s economy beyond tourism is a recurring theme. As part of the city’s update to its Comprehensive Land Use Plan, the city’s economic development consultant recently enumerated options for mitigating tourism’s negative impacts, yet inexplicable ignored published council strategic priorities and offers no recommendations for even trying to diversify Newport’s economy.
The Newport council’s 2024 strategic plan explicitly identifies both a thriving economy and outstanding educational outcomes as top priorities. The City’s Comprehensive Plan should be where these two vital initiatives stop being treated as separate strategies, written in separate rooms, by people who rarely sit at the same table.
Residents just made the single largest capital investment in our history – a new high school costing over $125 Million. We can’t afford to let this educational asset be ignored in our long-term economic planning.
When reviewing the draft economic development chapter of Newport 2037–the blueprint that will govern our city for the next decade – the consultant’s baseline analysis raises serious concerns. It highlights that 35 percent of Newport’s jobs are in tourism, yet only 20 percent of local residents work in those hospitality industries. It also reports a median home price exceeding $1.3 million, putting housing out of reach for 85 percent of Newport households.
Yet, the plan relies almost exclusively on zoning as its primary remedy. Astonishingly, it fails to even identify Newport Public Schools as an economic development partner. Nowhere does the draft count the Newport Area Career and Technical Center (NACTC), our regional asset serving local communities. Nowhere does it mention the P-TECH program at Rogers High School, where students earn a high school diploma alongside a CCRI associate degree in cybersecurity.
We possess a proven cyber talent pipeline, a hospital mentorship program, and a state-of-the-art career & technical center, yet city planning continues to overlook them.
This is not an argument against tourism. It is a practical reality. A city cannot import a workforce it cannot house, leaving us with one viable long-term workforce channel: our own young people. With federal expansions bringing roughly 180 NOAA positions and 500 Coast Guard personnel to Aquidneck Island in 2027, more high-value jobs are arriving. The critical question is whether local students will be prepared to fill them.
Attend the City’s August 27th evening open house and ask planners one question: Why doesn’t this plan formally recognize our local public schools as indispensable economic development assets?
We built the school – now let’s ensure it powers our economic future.
Mike Cullen
Newport
